Yiddish and Indonesian: antisemitism and a path not taken

What was the best candidate for a single common language of all Central Europe? Which language indigenous to this region could become such a Centraleuropean?, and potentially an Alleuropean? At present, the conclusion appears to be foregone, for better or worse, after the fall of communism, English became the lingua franca of the European Union, even though Britain left the Union in 2020. The situation was not clear at all in the early 20th century. Yes, Europe’s nobles-turned-the continent’s intellectual, economic and political elite continued the early modern tradition of speaking and writing in the supposedly ‘universal language’ of French. But the peasant masses across Central and Eastern Europe were overwhelmingly German(ic)- and Slavic-speaking. Their social betters did not consider any measures to spread the knowledge of French among the population at large. Such a move would have deprived the elite of their exclusive sociolect that distinguished them from the hoi polloi.