Brunner, Sebastian°

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BRUNNER, SEBASTIAN°

BRUNNER, SEBASTIAN ° (1814–1893), Viennese Catholic priest and antisemitic journalist and writer. Ordained in 1838, Brunner was employed in *Metternich's police bureau from 1843 to 1848. He subsequently founded the conservative daily Wiener katholische Kirchenzeitung which he edited until 1860. In its pages Brunner claimed, among other allegations, that the Old Testament spirit was vindictive and that Jewish influence endangered Christian morals. In 1860 the Jewish communal leader Ignaz *Kuranda forced Brunner to sue him for libel, claiming that Brunner had merely resurrected the old charges made by Johan Andreas *Eisenmenger and Johannes *Pfefferkorn, and that he was motivated by business interest. Kuranda was acquitted. The proceedings aroused great interest among Eastern European Jewry and were published in Hebrew by David Gordon (Milḥemet ha-Ḥoshekh ve-ha-Or, (1861).

bibliography:

P.G.J. Pulzer, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria (1964), index; F. Heer, Gottes erste Liebe (1967), 232, 303, 354; O. Rommel (ed.), Der oesterreichische Vormaerz (1816–47) (1931), 251–79; Oesterreichisches Biographisches Lexikon.