Josef Deckert

Who was Josef Deckert?

Josef Deckert, also known as Francis, was an Austrian Catholic priest and anti-Semitic agitator. Deckert was a propagandist of the blood libel against the Jews.

From the 1870s Deckert was identified with the Austrian anti-Semitic movement. He did not become prominent until the liberal press exposed some of his questionable business transactions. In retaliation he published a pamphlet on Simon of Trent, in an effort to confirm the truth of the blood accusation. Actuated by the same motive, he induced the convert Paulus Meyer to write an account of a ritual murder which he pretended to have seen in 1875 in Ostrow, Russia. The story was published in the Vienna Vaterland, and the parties named as perpetrators in the crime brought a libel suit against Meyer and Deckert, the latter being sentenced to a fine of 400 florins.

Deckert continued to preach anti-Jewish sermons, which he published in his magazine, Der Sendbote des Heiligen Joseph. To one of these sermons he appended a "prayer for the distress caused by the Jews", a travesty of the "Lord's prayer" in the most infamous language. The government confiscated it.