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• Flirting With the Unsayable? A Discours Social Perspective of Del- FallJenninger
By Jean Déraps
Department of Comparative Literature McGi11 University, Montréal July, 1997 •
Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts.
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Canada • li
il la ,néfnoÎre de
InOIJ père. Gabriel Déraps
• et
mOIJ anri. Claude Rot/x
• ID • Thanks l would like to thank the following people and organizations for their contributions to this project: Marc Angenot, my thesis supervisor, for his wisdom, patience and words ofencouragement during his supervision of my project. Robert Holub, who accorded me the privilege of attending the Interdisciplinary Seminar in German Studies entitled Recent Controver sies in German PoUtics and Culture, at the University of Califomia, Berkeley (co-sponsored by the OAAD). l acquired there many insights that have proven to be invaluable for my analysis. Douwe Fokkema, Oirector of the Onderzoeksinstituut Voor Geschiedenis En Cultuur at the Rijksuniversiteit Te Utrecht, for his warm welcome during my year as guest of his institute. Jürgen Scheipers, for his unswerving support in the archives of the FAZ, where he helped me obtain piles of material chat would have otherwise remained beyond my reach. Barbara Elsberger, who provided me with important documentation on numerous occasions, and whose letters of encouragement helped me to remain steadfast in the face ofadversity. Friso Wielenga, Professor of History at the Rijksuniversiteit Te Utrecht, • and the Jakob Kaiser Stiftung for providing my class, "Das Nachkriegs deutschland und das 'Dritte Reich' ", with the opportunity to experience first hand the past and the present in Kônigswinter, Berlin and Buchenwald. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung (Germany), Der Spiegel, Norddeutscher Rundfunk, and Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich) for their help in providing me with source material. Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et l'Aide à la Recherche (FCAR) for a scholarship that not ooly helped me get a stan on my thesis, but allowed me to pursue my research in the Netherlands and in Germany. The Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) twice over; once, for the scholarship that allowed me to spend a year (1987-88) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat-München, thus allowing me to he a 'witness' of Der Fal!Jenninger, and a second time for a scholarship that allowed me ta attend the aforementioned summer seminar directed by Robert Holub at the University ofCalifomia, Berkeley (Summer 1993). Finally, l would Iike to thank my mother, Monique Déraps, without whose support-through thick and thin-I would have hardly been able • ta get this whole project offthe ground. iv • Abstract On November 10, 1988, Philipp ]enninger, President of the German
Bundestag (FRG), held a speech in commemoration of the fiftieth
anniversary of Reichskristallnacht, or 'night of broken glass', a pogrom
which was orchestrated by the National Socialist govemment against
Germany's ]ewish citizens. The speech proved to be extremely
controversial and provoked heated reactions in Gennany and around the
world.
The following is an analysis of the discourse generated by the
speech in Gennany. The goal of my project is to elucidate the discursive
structures that subtended the state of the German discours social in • arder to show the way in which the 'text' of Der FaU jenninger was formed and informed by it.
The first part of the thesis shaH serve as an introduction ta the
incident of Der FailJe1lninger. Part two will outline the precepts upon
which l will be basing my analysis. Part three will consist of my analysis
ofDer Fal!]enninger.
• v
• Résumé Le 10 novembre, 1988, Philipp ]enninger, Président du Bundestag
Allemand (RFA), a tenu un discours lors d'une commémoration du
cinquantième anniversaire du Reichskristallnacht, ou la 'nuit de cristal',
un pogrome orchestré par le gouvernement National Socialiste contre les
citoyens juifs du Reich Allemand. Le discours a été extrêmement
controversé et a déclenché de vives réactions, autant en Allemagne
qu'ailleurs.
Le présent ouvrage est une analyse du discours produit par
l'événement en Allemagne. Le but de mon projet est d'élucider les
structures discursives sous-jacentes à l'état du discours social allemand • afin de pouvoir indiquer la façon dont le 'texte' de Der Fall jenninger a été formé et informé par celui-ci.
La première section de cet ouvrage servira d'introduction au cas Der
Fal! jenninger. La section suivante résumera le cadre théorique de mon
analyse. L'analyse de Der Fal! jenninger sera entreprise dans la troisième
section.
• vi • Table of Contents
Thanks III
Abstract IV
Résumé v
Table of Contents VI
Chapter One: An Introduction to Der Fall jenninger 1 Der Falllenninger: The Event 2 Why study Der Fall Jenninger? 8 übject and Method of study 10
Chapter Two: Basic Concepts of the Discours Social 14 On the Origins of Meaning 15 The Discours Social 16 Hegemony and the Discours Social 20
Chapter Three: A Discours Social Perspective of Der Falllenninger 24 Historia Magistra VitêE and die Vergangenheit 25 • The Historikerstreit and die Vergangenheit 26 Der Fall Jenninger and die Vergangenheit 32 History in the Making: The Story of Der Falllenninger 46 A Chronology of Der Fa If Jenninger 50 Oer Fall Jenninger. The Media Event 54 Stories about Der Fall Jenninger 70 Jenninger: The Failure 71 Jenninger: The Hero 75 Jenninger: A Victim of the Media 80
Chapter Four: Closing Remarks 87 Appendix A The Jenninger Speech 90
Works Consulted 113 Theoretical Considerations 113 German Historical Diseourse 114 Sources Specifie to Der Falljenninger 119 • • vii
J/e11 make Iheir OWII history, but Ihey do /lot make ifjust as they p/etlse; tlrey do /lot moke if tll,der circull/stonces chosen by themselves. but ullder circumstonces direct/y fOlll/d, givef/ al/d traflsmilfedfrom the post. The traditio/l ofail the deadgellerafions weighs like a Ilightmare 011 the broill ofthe living.
Karl wlarx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte •
• • Chapter One: An Introduction to Der Fall jenninger U1Voœ' fUr/lier. .. proeeeded AlIfonÏtIS, "whot c1ass ofora/or, O!ld how great 0 moster oflanguage is qllalified, ÙI .vour opinion. fo wri/e history?" "Jfhe is 10 write os the Greeks have wnltell, " answered Catll/IIS, ua maIl ofsllpreme obi/i'Y is reqllired: ifthe standardis fo be that ofollr OWII fellow-eolIl1trymell, no oratorot
011 is 1/eeded; it is enotJgh that the man sholl/d flot be 0 fiar. ft Cicero. De Oratore
~VOVOIJ mail niehf spreehen kOJlIl. donïber mujJ man schiJJ.'eigel/. ~Vitfgenslein. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
• CHAPTER ONE: AN INTRODUcnON TO DER FAUJENNINGER 2
• Der Fall Jenninger:. The Event During the night of November 9/10, 1938 an incontrovertible
tragedy took place in Germany, for on that night a pogrom swept
through the Greater German Reich. By the time it was ail over sorne
8 000 shops, 29 warehouses and 171 homes had been destroyed; 191
synagogues razed by tire and another 76 demolished; 14 ]ewish
community centers, cemetery chapels and similar buildings were torched
or gutted; at least 30 000 jewish men were arrested and dragged off to
concentration camps, many of whom were only to finally escape their
torment through the flues of Auschwitz. Around 230 people were killed
and another 600 permanently maimed. 1 As astounding as these numbers
are they hardly begin to describe the human suffering and humiliation to
which German ]ews were subjected on that fateful night in German
history.
One haif century after this gruesome show of man's inhumanity ta
man, a series of special events were slated in the Federal Republic of
Germany ta 'commemorate' the Fiftieth anniversary of what has been
euphemistically labelled as Reichskristallnacht, or 'Night of Broken
Glass'. One of these events was a speech held by Philipp ]enninger,
Speaker of the German parliament, which took place in the Bundestag
on November 10, 1988.2 The ill-fated speech was making waves even
before it properly got off the ground, and the controversy which resulted • from it was so great that ]enninger could see no alternative but ta CHAP'fER ONE: AN INTRODUCTION TO DER F.4LLfENNINGER 3 • submit-under immense pressure from all parties including his own-his 'voluntary' resignation the very next day.3
Rumours that a Neo-Nazi had held an anti-Semitic speech in German
parliament proved to be difficult to contain and the event made headlines
in Germany and around the world:
• "Jenninger Defends Hitier-Era" (Maariv, Israel}l
• "Hitler Gave Us a Fantastic Time: Antisemitism Explodes Again in
German Parliament" (Corriere della Sera, Italy)5
• "Trampling Through History with Army Boots On" (Spiegel,
Gennany)6
• "Speaker praises Hitler era" (Times, London)ï
Critics of the speech abounded-not the least among those who had
apparently neither heard nor read itB-and the incident saon took on
such exaggerated proportions, that one is tempted ta label the whole
affair a farce. "W'hen the wrong man in the wrong place holds the wrong
speech at the wrong time, n writes Ulrich Greiner, "it is normally an
occasion for uproarious laughter."9 For most Germans, as Greiner
subsequently points out, it was far from being a laughing matter. It would
be wise, however, to take Greiner's anaphoric emphasis on the
wrongness of the event with a grain of salt: Why was Jenninger the
wrong nIan? Why was this particular speech the wrong one? And why • was this the lvrong place and time? Who gets to decide? CHAPTER ONE: AN INTRODUcnON TO DER FAUJENNINGER 4 • The initial reaction was unanimous in its condemnation of ]enninger's speech. Many commentators felt that ]enninger had not
distanced himself sufficiently from thoughts and vocabulary attributable
to the Nazis of the Third Reich. "Selbst für den Wohlmeinenden,"
remarked Olaf Feldman (FDP), "kIang das alles wie eine Rechtfertigungs
rede." 10 Sorne summarily dismissed the event as the consequence of an
incompetent orator who simply misunderstood what was expected of
him on this solemn occasion. Others sought to demonstrate that the
speech's failure lay in ]enninger's flawed elocution: he tumed out ta be
an inept Brutus when the situation called for a brilliant Marc Antony. The
blame thus fell almost entirely on}ennmger.
The exaggerated negative reaction seems paradoxical, considering
the actual content ofthe speech. As Richard Evans notes:
Reading the text of ]enninger's speech in cold print after the event,
however, it is difficult to understand what all the fuss was about. Much
of the criticism seemed either exaggerated or beside the point.
]enninger described the events of the pogrom accurate1y and made clear
his condemnation of them. He went on to outline the anti-Semitic
policies that preceded and followed it, culminating in the extermination
at Auschwitz, Treblinka, and elsewhere. More than this, Jenninger
located these events in German history, traced back the course of
Gennan anti-Semitism into the nineteenth century, and criticized the
suppression of consciousness and memory in West Germany after 1945.
And he explicitly rejected what he called the .. senseless" demand ta • draw a line after f'lfty years and start afresh. "'Our past," he said, in a CHAPTER ONE: AN INTRODUcnON TO DER FALLfENNINGER 5
direct reference to Nolte's article that had started off the debate on the
• place of Nazism in West German political culture in 1986, "will not rest,
neither will it pass away." Il
Curiously enough, not a single one of the 519 members of the
Bundestag stood behind ]enninger and his speech, at least publicly.
"There was no one," remarked CSU-member Ursula Mannle, "who would
have defended the speech.'Q2 "50 schnell stand selten einer nahezu
allein," writes Günter Hofmann, "wie Philipp ]enninger an diesem
merkwürdigen Parlamentstag." 13 This reaetion is made even more
puzzling by the fact that the great majority of those demanding his
resignation, acknowledged him as a "friend of Israel" and stated that
neither his integrity nor his intentions were ever in doubt. "Es war wic im
wilden Westen," wrote Schlomo Schamgar, journalist for the Israëli
newspaper jediot Acharonot, "zuerst hat man ihn erschossen. Dann
murmelte man, daB der Genosse Philipp eigentlich eio anstandiger und
ehrenwerter Menseh gewesen sei. Er war, und dariiber bestehen keine
Zweifel, ein ansÜt1diger Mann, der sich falsch ausgedriickt hat. Er ist der
Letzte, der ein solehes Ende verdient hat." 14 The much respected, 'true
democrat', was thus shown the way to the political gallows.
A subsequent wave of commentaries was much more supportive of
the speech. 15 Many lauded ]enninger for having finally addressèd die
Vergangenheit at an official political function. 16 Several commentators
even went as far as saying that]enninger's speech had made a significant • contribution to the understanding of the events that took place in 1938.17 CHAPTER ONE: AN INTRODUcnON TO DER FAUJENNINGER 6 • This 'counter-reaction' is remarkably at odds with the opinion of those who claimed that Jenninger sought to 'justify' or even 'exculpate' the
actions of the Germans during the Third Reich.
The public reaction to his speech was also considerable, considering
the usual political apathy shown by the populace at large regarding these
commemorative events in Germany.18 German newspapers and
magazines received countless letters and Jenninger personaUy received
over 10000 letters from Germany and the world over, representing
people of aIl political and religious persuasions as weIl as sorne of the
victims of Nazi Germany. The overwhelming majority of these leuers
came out in defense of his speech.19 "Ich wi.i.Bte in Ihrer Rede nicht einen
einzigen Satz zu bezeichnen," wrote a German college professor and
eyewitness of the 'Heydays' of the Third Reich, 44dessen Peinlichkeit eine
andere ware ais die Peinlichkeit der Wahrheit."20 A Jewish survivor of the
Holocaust wrote the following:
Darf ich mich vorstellen? Ich bin deutscher Jude, israeLitischer Bürger,
1921 in Berlin geboren und habe in Auschwitz ·promoviert'. Die
deutsche Botschaft in Israel hat mir freundlicherweise einen Abdruck
Ihrer Gedenkrede im Bundestag zur Verfügung gestellt, die ich trotz
ihrer \Vichtigkeit fur uns Juden nicht in einer israelitischen Zeitung fand
.. , Diese Rede (wurde) am rlchtigen Platz und in der richtigen Zeit
gehalten. Leider kann ich nicht verstehen, warum unser Auswartiges
Amt diese Rede kritisierte [...]21 • CHAPTER ONE: AN INTRODUcnONTO DER FAUJENNINGER 7 • Another supporter wrote ]enninger the following in defence of his speech:
Ais gebürtiger Berliner, Jude, der die Kristailnacht aIs 21jahriger miter
lebt hat, halte ich es für meine maralische Pflicht, Ihnen zu schreiben.
Es ist mir v6Llig unklar, warum ein solcher Sturm der Entrustung über Sie
hergefallen ist. Alles, was Sie sagteo, war nach meinen Erfahruogen
hundertprozentig korrekt. 22
ClearIy, the fact that even ]ewish survivors of the Holocaust-precisely
those people who wouid be expected to be the most sensitive to any
attempt to relativize the misdeeds of the Third Reich-could agree with
what ]enninger said let alone praise him for his courage, while others
condemned it as a "dark day in Gennan post-war history"25 raises more
than just a few questions.
Diversity of opinion about an event, to suggestively paraphrase
Oscar Wilde, shows that it is new, complex and vital. The magnitude of
the reaction to ]enninger's speech-even the New York Times printed
excerpts of the speech-and the extent to which it was interpreted in
such diametrically opposed ways, indeed seem to suggest that there was
sornething more complex at work here than oratorical ineptitude. The
event appeared as the latest manifestation of a malaise that has haunted
Germans since 'Liberation Day': how to deal with die Vergangenheit,
their Nazi pasto • CHAPTER ONE: AN INTRODUcnON TO DER FALLfENNINGER 8 • Why study Der FaU Jenninger? My study of Der FaU jenninger evolved from an interest in
exploring silence as a discursive space, as part of a project to elucidate
and analyse the discursive mechanisms that regulate the production and
the circulation of the unsayable. Despite the fact that not all utterances
belong to the realm of the 'acceptable'-one is not 'allowed' to say
anything, to anyone, at any time, in aH circumstances-this does not
mean, however, that the unsayable is part of sorne inaccessible nether
world existing outside of the way in which we conceive of the world
around us. The unsayable is rather an inextricable part of the way a given
society generates meaning and produces 'truths' about the world. ft
should therefore he possible to come up with a discursive map of 'ideas'
that are less acceptable than athers and to describe the ways in which
these are systematically excluded from discourse. 24 One should therefore
be able to rnap the unsayable in discourse just as weIl as one can rnap
the sayable. Indeed, they can both he seen as essentially the same thing.
since, as Barthes says his in Leçon, "censorship is not interdiction but
rather cornpulsion, being constrained to speak according to the doxa. "25
Der Fal! ]enninger presented itself, therefore, as a privileged
opponunity to study the discursive mechanisms regulating the sayable as
part of a concrete occurrence. On the surface. Der Fal! jenninger
appears to be the result of ]enninger having transgressed sorne
elementary 'limit' of the sayable, of not having respected the doxa. As 1 • attempted to demonstrate above, however, this Iimit seemed 'self- CHAPTER ONE: AN INTRODUCTION TO DER FALLfENNINGER 9 • evident' to sorne, while cornpietely absent to others. How can we account for these differences? Can they be attributed simply to a
rnisunderstanding that resulted from misappropriated literary techniques,
"missing" quotation marks, or bad intonation? What is at stake for all
sides?
"Le discours, en apparence, a beau être bien peu de chose," writes
Michel Foucault, "les interdits qui le frappent révèlent très tôt, très vite,
son lien avec le désir et avec le pouvoir. "26 One of the goals of the
present project is to explore what has hitherto been 'overlooked' in the
analysis of Der Fal! ]enninger, i.e. the relationship between the pro
scriptions concerning the representation of history and the power
structure of the West Germany in the late 1980s.
Der FaU jenninger is also interesting because it deals with history
and has itself been transformed into a (hi)story. This allows us ta explore
severa! aspects of the way in which meaning is produced via historical
discourse.
Another interesting aspect of Der Fal! jenninger is the fact that the
debate took place in the public sphere ta a much greater extent than, for
instance, the Historikerstreit, and thus provides us with material more
representative of the state of discourse in the West Germany of the late
80s. The Historikerstreit did generally take place in the mainstream
media accessible ta the public, but was more of a battie fought out by
academics at an 'Olympian' intellectual level rather than a discussion • accessible to the general public. ]enninger's speech, on the other hand, CHAPTER ONE: AN INrRODUcnON TO DER FAUJENNINGER 10 • as weIl as most of the debate surrounding it, was accessible to almost everyane, chus providing for a 'richer' corpus to study.
l have found that aU of the few other academic studies dealing with
Der Fal! jenninger fail to discuss the state of discourse that informed the
speech (Le. revisionist tendencies, implications of Alltagsgeschichte,
reverberations of the Historikerstreit, uses of history, etc.) and the
reactions to it and more often than not cancentrated on the speech's
'technicaf aspects (Le. misuse of ErIebte Rede, flawed rhetoric [in the
oratorical, not argumentative, sense], purely linguistic analyses based on
speech-act theory, lack of aratorical tradition in Germany, etc...) in arder
to explain what was 'wrong' with ]enninger's speech. Severa! attempt a
'close reading' of the speech and profoundly conclude that ]enninger
should not have said what he did. Other studies even go as far as to
'bracket off' the speech from the social reality of which it is an
inseparable part, in a mave akin ta killing a person in arder to better
study the circulation of blood. li. 28
abject and Method of study
The object of my study is the entire text of the discourse generated
by the speech in Germany.29 1 take as corpus as much of the reaction to
the speech that was accessible to the German population as possible.
This includes books, articles and letters published in German newspapers
and magazines, letters personally addressed to ] enninger (insofar as they
were publicly available via other publications) and radio scripts. This is • what 1 will be referring to as Der FallJenninger. 1 will submit this corpus CHAPTER ONE: AN INTRODUcnON TO DER FAUfENNINGER 11 • ta an analysis espoused by the analyse de discours school of thought. My study, in contrast to other academic studies, will not try to show what
was wrong about ]enninger's speech, nor be limited ta an analysis of the
speech itself (although the speech is an integral part of the text of Der
FaU jenninger), but will atternpt ta reveal sorne of the discursive
structures that subtended the state of the discours social at the time of
the speech, in arder to show in which way the ·text' of Der FaU
jenninger was formed and informed by it.
1 shaH first undertake a general discussion on the production of
meaning in society using, as theoretical framework, the concept of
discours social. This outline (in Chapter 2) will serve ta define my
theoretical and methodological approach for the purpose of this study
and should not be construed as an in-depth description and/or analysis of
the discours social. The second part of my study shaH consist of an
analysis of certain aspects Der FailJenninger according to the principles
outlined in Chapter 2. It goes without saying that within the confines of
this project 1 will only be able to scratch the surface.
NOTES
1 The figures included here are taken from: David Fisher and Anthony Read. Kristallnacht. The Unleash/ng ofthe Holocaust (New York: Peter Bedrick Books, (989) 68-69. 2 For the fun text of this speech, both in the original German and in English translation, see Appendix A. The fenninger Speech starting on page 14. 3 The resignation was voluntary in the sense that German law precludes the 'dismissaI' ofthe Bundestagspriisident. 4 Jenninger verteidigte Hitler-Ara": Maariv. As cited in Eckart Hachmann, Letter. "Sogartig und ohne Abwagen," Frankfurter Allge11'zeine Zeitung 26 Nov. 1988: n. pag. 5 ""Hitler brachte uns phantastische Zeiten": Der Antisemitismus explodiert erneut • im deutschen Parlament." Corrlere della Sera [Milano], Il Nov. 1988: N. page CHAPTER ONE: AN INTRODUcnON TG DER FALL]ENNINGER 12
• 6 "Mit Knobelbechern durch die Geschichte," Spiegel 46 (14 Nov. 1988) 22-28. 7 John England, "Kohl in crisis talks after the Speaker praises Hitler era." Tilnes Il Nov. 1988: Il. 8 Many articles commenting the speech appeared in newpapers araund the world the next day. this despite the fact that the text of the speech had not yet been circulated. As a former Italian ambassador ta Gennany put it: .. Die Presse im Ausland hatte den Text noch nicht vollstandig gelesen. ais sie bereits entdeck~e, daB der Antisemitismus in Deutschland noch immer priisent sei." Luigi Vittorio Ferraris, "FleiBig auch in der Reue. ]enningers Rede hat die Kritik nicht verdient," Die Zelt 25 Nov. 1988: N. pag. 9 Ulrich Greiner, "Das Ende der Dialektik," Die Zeit 18 Nov 1988: 5. LO Badiscbe Zeitung, 262 (lI Nov. 1988): 3. Cited in Heiko Girnth, Ebzstellung und einstellungsbekundung in der politischen Rede: elne sprachwissenschaftliche Untersuchung der Rede Philipp jenningers vom /0. Novernber 1988. Europaische Hochschulschriften. (Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 1993) 8. Il Richard J. Evans, ln Hitler's Shadow. West German Historielns and the Attempt ta Escape fram the Nazi Past (New York: Pantheon, 1989) 131. 12 "Mit Knobelbechem durch die Geschichte," Spiegel46 (14 Nov. 1988): 25. 13 Günter Hofmann, "Der Alleingang ins Abseits. Bonn und die deutsche Geschichte: Wie Philipp Jenningers Absichten im Eklat untergingen," Die Zeit 18 Nov. 1988: N. pag. 14 Armin Laschet, and Heinz Malangré, Eds. Philipp]enn/nger. Rede und Reaktion, (Aachen/Koblenz: Einhard/Rheinischer Merk'Ur, 1989) 56. 15 "Was fur Jenninger eine Art von Genugtuung sein mag, ist dn Umschwung in der Publizistik von Amerika bis Israel. nicht zuletzt in Italien und den Niederlanden; selbst die linbgrüne .. taz" auBert sich differenziert." Helmut Herles, .. Zuspruch," Frankfurler Allgemeine Zeitung 26 Nov. 1988. on Politik: N. pag. 16 The term die Vergangenbelt is used euphemistically when referring to the thirteen years of the Third Reich. [ williater discuss die Vergangellf:Jeit in greater detail when 1 deal with it as an ideologeme. 17 "Nicht nur der liberale Bonner Historiker Hans-Adolf Jacobsen meinte, die Gerechtigkeit gebiete es. darauf hinzuweisen, daB Jenningers Rede .. bei nüchterner, unvoreingenommener Analyse als ein beachtlicher Beitrag zum Verstandnis des Schicksalsjahres 1938 betrachtet werden kann"." Günter Hofmann, "Der Alleingang ins Abseits. Bonn und die deutsche Geschichte: Wie Philipp Jenningers Absichten im Eklat untergingen," Die Zeit 18 Nov. 1988: N. pag. 18 One persan even made the following comment directly reflecting this attitude: "Aus profundem Desinteresse an dem ganzen immer gleichen Politikergeklüngel (sagen Sie doch selbst, wer kann die denn noch ernst nehmen?) hat natürlich keiner ""on uns die Rede live gehôrt." C.W.• Letter ta Philipp Jenninger, 18 Nov 1988. Reprinted in LaschetlMalangré. 106. 19 Only sorne forty letters could be judged to be 'anti-Jenninger', as they were eïther critical of his speech or deemed to come from from the wrong end of the ideological spectrum. A selection of these letters can be found in: Laschet/Malangré, Philipp]enninger. Relie und Reaktion. 20 Laschet/Malangré. 104. 21 D/e Affare jennfnger. W'as efne Rede an den Tag brachte. By Werner Hill. Dir. Klaus Stieringer. Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR 3), Hannover. 29 Mar. 1989, 54. • [Rebroadcast: NDR 4, 17June. 1989]. Myemphasis. CHAPTER ONE: AN INTRODUcnON TO DER FALLfENNINGER 13
22 Joachim Schucht, .. Aus aller Welt Lob für Jenninger," Frank/urter Neue Presse • 30 Nov. 1988: N. pag. 23 Willy Brandt cited in: .. Mit Knobelbechem durch die Geschichte," Spiegel 46 (14 Nov. 1988): 23. 24 In German discourse the use of the expression "the Past" as a cuphemism for "the Nazi Past" is an example ofhow a specifie utterance is systematically avoided. 25 Roland Barthes. Leçon (paris: Seuil. 1978) 14. 26 Michel Foucault, L'ordre du discours (paris: Gallimard, 19ï1) 12. 27 "Meiner anschlieBenden Analyse liegt nur der Redetext zugrunde. auch um zu zeigen. daB ]enningers Vortragsweise dort angelegte Mangel bIoS versta.rkt. genau wie andere auBere Faktoren die unmittelbar negative Aufnahme der Rede zwar begünstigten, aber nicht erklaren." Birgit·Nicole Krebs. Spracbbandlung und Spracbwirkung. Untersuchutlgen zur Rbetorik, Sprachkritik und zum FaUfenninger (Berlin, Bielefeld, and München: Erich Schmidt Verlag. 1993) 117. 28 Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory. An Introduction (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983) 109. 29 Ta be more prcceise. 1 will be dealing with as much of the material 1 could obtain.
• 14 • Chapter Two: Basic Concepts of the Discours Social BlIt ofcourse tlris snarp polarity between 'tlreory' and 'lift' is stlre~v misleading. Ali social life is in some sense theoretical: evell sflch apparently concrete. 1I11ùnpeachable statemellts as 'pass the salt' or '['ve JUS! put tire cat out' engage tlreoretical propositions of(/ 1..illt!. controvertible statelJlellts abOlit the llatllre of the world. This is. admitfedly, theory ofa pretty low leve/, hardly of aIl EÙlsfeùriall grandeur; bllt propositions such as 'this is a beer ml/g' depeJ/d 011 the asslunptioll that the object in question will smash ifdroppedfrolll t/ certaill height ratner thall pllt Ollt a small dt/il/tily coloured parachute, and if it did the latter ralher than the fonller then fJ!:e wOllld have to revise the proposition. AndJI/st as ail social life is t/reoreffcal. so ail theory is a realsocialpractice. Terry Eagletoll, The Significance ofTheory
lV/rat Inost people think ofas Iristory is ifs endprodllct. my!h. E. L. Doc!orow
• CHAPTER TWo: BASlC CONCEPTS OF THE DISCOURS SOCIAL 15
• On the Origins of Meaning There is a scene in the movie The Gods Must be Crazy in which a
bush pilot, flying samewhere aver Africa, tosses an empty bottle of
Coca-Cola™ out the window of his airplane. On the ground, an
unsuspecting native sees the bottle tumble down from the heavens and
rushes over to pick it up. This particular tribe has apparently never been
in contact with modern capitalist 'civilization' and thus has no idea of this
bottle's 'real' significance. Accordingly, it proceeds ta interpret it
according to the rules of signification that exist within the tribe. The
coke bottle, eisewhere perceived as the ubiquitous marque of a
manufacturer of fizzy caffeinated sugar water, is thus promptly
transformed inta a talisman of divine origin.
The above anecdote serves to illustrate the point that meaning is not
immanent to a sign, but rather is the result of the way in which it is
deployed within a given 'discursive economy'. It is the tribesmen's way
of seeing the world, their Weltanschauung, that 'guides' them in the
attribution of meaning ta the coke bottle. It is not a matter that these
tribesmen mistook the bottle's 'true' meaning; meaning was attributed
according ta the rules of meaning production that obtained in that
society at that point in time. Similarly, most North Americans would Îmd
it quite impossible ta entertain the notion of the genie in the bottle,
unless, perhaps, they were major shareholders of Coca Cola. • CHAPTER Two: BASIC CONCEPTS OF THE DISCOURS SOCIAL 16 • Human life is 'significant' existence. Our ability to produce meaning allows us to transcend our mere biological existence and imbue our
environment with significance. The fact that we U inhabit a world, rather
than just a physical space" 1 is what differentiates homo sapiens from
other animal species. Our capacity to deploy signs allows us to break out
of the limits of our 'here and now' and produce history, thus immersing
ourselves in a world of meaning inseparable from our mere biological
existence. "AlI human action, aU human mental life, and indeed the
universe as a whole, insofar as it relates to things human, are a matter of
the production, interpretation, and interrelating of signs,!1 writes Timothy
Reiss in summarizing the ideas of C.S. Peirce and M.M. Bakhtin.2 The way
in which signs are organized to produce meaning is referred to as
discourse.
Where does meaning originate? What processes regulate the
production and circulation of meaning? How cao we go about
characterizing this? One way of conceptualizing the ways in which
meaning is produced and circulated is called the discours social.3
The Discours Social4
The discours social seeks to account for the totality of what is said
and written in a given state of society, including everything that is spoken
publicly or represented in one way or another, aIl that is narrated or
argued, if we pose that narration and argumentation are two important
modes of putting ideas into discourse. It seeks to account for the • production and circulation of meaning by extrapolating from this CHAPTER TwO: BASIC CONCEPTS OF THE DISCOURS SOCIAL 17 • cacaphonic mass the themes, roles and systems that generate the sayable ofthe society being studied.
The basic tenet of the discours social is that the sayable is generated
according ta a certain systematicity, the characteristics of which one
should be able ta describe. For Marc Angenot, this implies that
beyond the fragment, the diversity of languages and thernes, the
cacaphony and the chaos, the researcher can succeed in reconstituting
the mies of the sayable and the sCriptible, the ordered division of the
discursive tasks, the interdiscursive networks, the rules of the formation
of specifie discourses as well as a topos, the ways of saying things which
belong to a state of society and determine according to a certain
systematicity the acceptable and legitimate discourse of an em.S
An analysis of the discours social, therefore, seeks ta render explicit the
patterns that emerge as "narrative and argumentional constructs, topical
ma-xims, pragmatic markings, semantic paradigms, sociolectal markers
and rhetorical figures that organize themselves into 'social objects·."6
These patterns are inseparable from the conditions of production and
reception from which they arise. The sayable within a given state of
discourse consists of facts which, through usage, become powerful social
forces which are neither strictly linguistic nor gnoseological, and uwhich
function independently of particular usages and applications. "7 What gets
said in a given state ofdiscourse invariably betrays the strategies whereby • a statement 'recognizes' its positioning within the discursive economy CHAPTER TwO: BASIC CONCEPTS Of THE DISCOURS SOCIAL 18
and operates accordingly. The discours social is the resultant of these
• 8 multiple but non-aleatory strategies.
The discours social does not therefore consist of a spontaneously
generated brouhaha of aleatory elements of rneaning but is rather a
system of semantic production that can be described in terms of its
intertextuality, Le. the circulation and transformation of ideologemes
(the smallest units of acceptable signification in a given doxa, sites upon
which opposing discourses struggle for position9), and interdiscursivity,
i.e. the interaction and influence of various modes of discourse upon
each other. lO
The organization of signs into discourse does not take place in an
arbitrary fashion but rather proceeds according ta certain rules-tacit or
explicit-that regulate the production and circulation of meaning. Signs
do not exist independently of the social context that produces them; they
are social products and hence intrinsically ideological. The term ideology
does not mean the dogmatism usually ascribed to persans of different
political persuasions from our own, but rather the way in which the
things we say and believe are related ta the power structure of the
society we live in. "The domain of ideology,~' according to Bakhtin,
"coincides with the domain of signs. They equate with one another.
Wherever a sign is present, ideology is present~ too." Il To say that the
production of meaning is ideological means that
tout ce qui peut s'y repérer, comme types d'énoncés, verbalisation de • thèmes, modes de structuration ou de composition des énoncés, CHAPTER TwO: BASIC CONCEPTS OF THE DISCOURS SOCIAL 19
gnoséologie sous-jacente à une forme signifiante, tout cela porte la
• marque de manières de connaître et de re-présenter le connu qui ne vont pas de soi, qui ne sont pas nécessaires ni universelles, qui
comportent des enjeux sociaux, expriment des intérêts sociaux,
occupent une position (dominante ou dominée, dit-on, mais la topologie
à décrire est plus complexe) dans l'économie des discours sociaux. Tout
ce qui se dit dans une société réalise et altère des modèles, des
préconstruits-tout un déjà4à qui est un produit social cumulé. Tout
paradoxe s'inscrit dans la mouvance d'une doxa. 12
Certain ways of saying certain things, therefore, are complicit with
certain ways of re-presenting reality that are far from being 'innocent',
and which support the interests of certain groups to the detriment of
others. Producing and circulating meaning is thus oat just a matter of
tossing ideas inta the ring of the discours social since these ideas will faH
on deaf ears unless they 'resonate' in sorne way with the existing ways of
representing the world, sorne more endowed with authority and
legitimacy than others. Galileo's scientific evidence supparting the
Copernican theory of the solar system. for instance, "spoke the truth, but
was not within the truth"13 conceming the 'celestial matters' of his em.
This resulted in a clash between the dominant theocratico-theological
(religious) model of discourse and the emerging analytico-referential
(scientific) model, since the 'scientific method'-part of modern sociery's
doxa-had not yer become an accepted way of producing meaning.14 • CHAPTER TwO: BASIC CONCEPTS OF THE DISCOURS SOCIAL 20 • Certain discourses, therefore, are endowed with greater persuasive force than others because they are more in [ine with more 'acceptable'
ways of attributing meaning. For any given concept, however, there can
exist a spectrum of meanings, from those that mirror the universally
accepted 'it goes without saying' of the doxa, ta those that are the
expression of more peripheral, alternative representations. Whether the
explanation of the origin of man expounded in the Origin ofSpecies or
Genesis has a 'truer ring' ta it and possesses greater legitirnacy in any
given society will depend on the state of the discours social in which
these texts are circulated and is not, therefore. an epistemalogical
constant. The framework within the discours social that seeks to account
for the dynamics of this 'truer ring' is the concept of hegelnony.
Hegemony and the Discours Social
As we saw earlier, meaning is not an immutable characteristic
intrinsic ta a sign, but rather the result of its discursive deployment. To
borraw from Nietzsche, we can say that there are no 'facts' as such;
meaning has ta be introduced in arder for there ta be a fact. Facts are
discursive canstructs. The way in which meaning is introduced, however,
is, ta a great extent, independent of individual will, since various
discursive mechanisms work together to impose specifie ways of
addressing specific themes, thereby "entropically flXating the limits of the
thinkable, the argumentable, the narratable, the scriptible." IS Ir would
not, for instance, be impossible for me ta proclaim my cat an incarnation • of one of the gods; such a proclamation, however, in view of the state of CHAPTER TWo: BASIC CONCEPTS OF THE DISCOURS SOCIAL 21 • discourse where 1 live, wouid most likely lead to ridicule rather than reverence, since the limits of the acceptable within the discours social of
which l am a part would generally preclude the possibility ofentertaining
the notion of cat worship. Thar this exclusion is historically determined
and not an epistemological constant cau be ascertained by the fact that
the inhabitants of the ancient Egyptian city of Bubastis may have in all
likelihood found nothing particularly frivolous about my claim, since they
held in reverence many sacred cats. tG
Hegemony is the discursive concept that determines the way in
which the realm of the sayable is defined and carved up. It can be
understood as the "synergic resultant of a set of unifying and regulatory
mechanisms that perform the division of the discursive labour and the
homogenization of the rhetoric, the topics and the doxai." 17 Thus
hegemony not only defines the boundaries of the sayable, it imposes a
repertory of themes to be discussed as weil as ways of discussing them,
thus bestowing upon these ideas in circulation varying degrees of
acceptability and legitimacy. In other words, the hegemony of any given
social conjuncture determines who gets to say tvhat and how and what
kind of influence it can have on which groups. Hegemony should not be
thought of as a static, immutable and monolithic entity that corresponds
to a 'dominant ideology', but should rather been seen as a dynamic
process expressing a dominance in the play of ideologies continually
undergoing graduaI change.18 The hegemony of any given state of • discourse attempts to take in and homogenize ail of what gets said, trying CHAPTER TWo: BASIC CONCEPTS OF THE DISCOURS SOCIAL 22 • to impose discursive stability. There is a limit, however, in the extent ta which any given hegemony can 'phagocytose' quite disparate discourses
without being displaced by these very sarne discourses. In this respect,
the dynamics of hegemony are analogous to the laws of inertia;
hegemony tends to remain at rest unless acted upon by discourses at its
periphery. There are, of course, almost always discursive forces acting at
the margins, thereby ensuring that any hegernony will rarely find astate
of rest. Hegemony can therefore be seen as an etemal 'work-in-progress·.
One of the angles from which the workings of the hegemonic
process can be approached is via the Topoi upon which debate takes
place. In the case of Der Fal!Jenninger, as [ shall attempt to show, how
the debate over the signification of the past, based on the 'occluded'
topos Historia Magistra Vitœ, produced a polarized doxa that informed
the discourse surrounding Der FaU jenninger.
A second section will look at the way in which the discourse of Der
Falljenninger was 'formed' by its 'orchestrated' insertion-regulated by
the hegemony-into the sayable of the discours social.
NOTES 1 Terry Eagleton, The S/gnificance of1beory. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990) 25. 2 Timothy Reiss, D/scourse ofModernism (Ithaca: ComeU UP. 1982) 10. 3 1 use the French term discours social because of the discrepancy between the French School ofAnalyse de discours, Ca macro, society-based approach) and the Anglo American School of Discourse Analys/s (micro, interpersonal approach). 4 1 will be summarizing the basic concepts of discours social from the following source: Marc Angenot, 1889. Un état du discours social, (Montréal: Le Préambule. • 1989). CHAPTER TWO: BASIC CONCEPTS Of THE DISCOURS SOCIAL 23
S Marc Angenot et Régine Robin, "L'inscription du discours social dans le texte
• littéraire, ft Sodocrlticism 1 (1985): 54. 6 Marc Angenot, Antonio Gomez·Moriana and Régine Robin. Constitution d'un "Centre lnteruniversitaire d'Analyse du Discours et de 50ciocritique des Textes" (CIADES7J, (Montréal: CIADEST, 1991) 3. 7 Angenot et al., Constitution 3-4. 8 Angenot, 1889 17.
9 "Ideologeme, ft Encyc/opedia of Contemporary Literary Tbeory. ApproacfJes. Schofars, Terms. Ed. Irena R. Makaryk (Toronto: U ofToronto P, 1993) 556-7. 10 Angenot, /889 17. Il V.N. Voloshinov (Mikhail Bakhtin) l.11arxism and tbe Philosopby of language. Trans. Ladislav Matejka and 1. R. Titunik. (New York: Seminar Press, 1973) 10. 12 Angenot /889 19. 13 Michel Foucault, L'ordre du discours (paris: Gallimard, 1971) 37. 14 Reiss, Chapter 1. 1S Marc Angenot, "Hégémonie, dissidence et contre.discours. Réflexions sur les périphéries du discours social en 1889," Études Littéraires 22/2 (FaU 1989): Il. 16 Early predynastic tribes in Egypt venerated many deitic:s who were embodied in animais. The sacred cat of Bubastis was but one of these deities. Summarized from The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, New York: Columbia UP, 1991. 17 Angenot, "Hégémonie" 12.
18 Angenot, /88925.
• 24
• Chapter Three: A Discours Social Perspective of Der Fall Jenninger How comfonùlg it is, once or/Wice a year, To get togetlier andforget tire oldrimes. lis 011 those special days, ladies andgentlemen, ~Vlren the boiledshins gatlrer at Ihe groveside Anda leerùlg waistcoat approaches Ihe rostnt1ll. Il;s fike a SOlellll1 pact betweell Ihe survivors. Tire mayorhas signed it 011 behalfofthefreemasOIlry. Tire priesl has seoled il on behalfofailthe resl. l.Vothùlg more need be said, andif is better Ihal way- James Fenlon, HA German Requiem"
How is one to tella tale thal callnot be-but ml/sI be-told.P Elie {Viesel
La parole humaine esl comme lin chaudrol/ fêlé oii IJO"S baltons des mélodies à faire danser les ours, quand on voudrait attelldrirles éloiles. ClIslave Flallben, Nfadame Savary
How do fj}:e seize the pasl? COll we ever do so? ~VheJJ 1 wos a medicol stllde1lf some pronksters at 011 elld-of-tenn dance released il/to Ihe hall a piglet fJ1'hich had been smeored with grease. [t squirmed belweell legs, evoded capture, sqllealed 0 lo!. People fell over tlJ'ing to grasp it, and were made 10 look ridic"lo/ls Îli the process. The pas! seems fo behave like Ihat piglet. flliiol/ Banres. Flaubert's Parrot
• CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE OF DER FALLfENNINGER 25
• Historia Magistra Vitce and die Vergangenheit "To leam from the past for the sake of the future is the demand of
many, n spoke ]enninger in citing Leo Baeck. "Ta recognize what was, ta
understand what is and ta comprehend what will be, that after aIl
appears to be the task that is assigned ta historical know
ledge."l[Rede, 66] ]enninger thus stated the age old topos upon which
his speech would rest, that ofHistoria Magistra Vitœ in which history is
the great teacher of life. Although he could count on the fact that most
would share this topos and believe that one can actually leam from
history, he appeared oblivious of the fact that what one could learn from
which history had become such contentious issue. He failed ta realize
that there was a turf·battle raging in Germany-whose flames had been
fanned a few years earlier by the Historikerstreit-over who had the
right ta say what about die Vergangenheit and for what ends. In other
words, ]enninger failed to fathom the extent to which there was a
struggle of social interests at the level of die Vergangenheit, the
ideologeme that had become a locus of fervent ideological contention.2
In the case of die Vergangenheit different interest groups sought to
appropriate the right to either flil or liquidate the concept, according to
their ideological predilections.
This struggle over the meaning and possible uses of die
Vergangenheit hardly originated with Der Fal! Jenninger; it has been
going since the end of the Second World War. The ideological clash that • was the Historikerstreit, however, played a substantial role in the way CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECflVE Of DER FAUjENNINGER 26 • die Vergangenbeit would be signified within the discourse of Der FaU jenninger since it served to polarize the discursive space within which
]enninger would later choose to move. UHad]ürgen Habermas not seized
upon the Hillgruber book and then upon Ernst Nolte's essay," writes
Charles S. Maier about eruption of the Historikerstreit, uGermany's
'polarized historical consciousness' might not have exploded into warfare
on the cultural pages."3 In order, therefore, ta better understand the
polarized doxa that informed Der Fall jenninger it is essential to have a
brief look at the Historikerstreit.
The Historikerstreit and die Vergangenheit'
The Historikerstreit-often mistranslated as the 'historians'
debate'-was a full-blown battle between historians that erupted in
German newspapers in 1986, purportedly over the "singularity of the
Nazi extermination of the ]ews".s 1 say purportedly because what started
out as a questioning of the dubious, politically motivated uses which neo
conservative historians were making of history in the public sphere, was
fifSt transfonned into a squabble over the singularity of Auschwitz, before
later degenerating into an aIl out attack on the instigator of the "debate',
the well-known West-German philosopher Jürgen Habermas. In the
article that set fire ta the conservative powder keg, "Eine Art Schadens
abwicklung" CA Kind of Settlement of Damages), Habermas took ta task
the emerging neo-eonservative 'program' of attempting to recuperate an • acceptable past that could be used to instill a positive sense of belonging CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURS SOCIAL PERSPECfIVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 27 • and patriotism in the German people. His was a direct rejoinder ta the aIarming and alarmist tendencies demonstrated by a laose constellation of
right-wing/conservative historians who seemed intent on reshaping die
Vergangenheit into a form more useful to its political masters. The
(sometimes not so) tacit goal of the nea-conservatives was that the
"Federal Republic should reacquire its self-confidence as a member of the
Western alliance by salvaging an acceptable pasto Making the past
acceptable entails a leveling of those elements that hinder identification
(for example Auschwitz), and the assertion of a continuity in face of the
common enemy of freedom: Soviet BoIshevism."6
The most outspoken and eccentric of these revisionist writers, Ernst
Nolte, using the well-known conservative Frankfurter Allgerneine
Zeitung as one of his platforms, was disseminating specious arguments in
his attempts to put the uniqueness of Auschwitz into 'perspective'.
According to Nolte, die Vergangenheit had haunted Gennany more than
long enough and should now be 'historicized', Le. relegated to the
history books, in the sense that it should itself become a part of the past
and stop being a major preoccupation of modern day Germany. Only
then could Germans rmally be able ta get off their knees and learn to
"walk tali again" (Franz Josef StrauB). A cure for this prolonged terro of
genuflection, therefore, would appear to be the levelling of the history of
the Third Reich so that it would take up much Iess space within a
conventionaI historical identity that could be used to instilI a sense of • patriotism and national pride in the German populace. CHAPTER THREE: A. DISCOURS SOCIAL PERSPECIlVE Of DER FAUJENNINGER 28 • Another contributor to the neo-conservative camp, Michael Stürmer, was refreshingly candid in his admission that 'power' can be usurped or
consolidated by those who manage to instill in their 'subjects' their
version of how things came to be. As Terry EagIeton notes, "no dominant
political arder is Likely ta survive very long if it does not intensively
colonize the space of subjectivity itself."7 Stürmer recognizes that one of
the ways of colonizing the life-world of the subject is via history, one that
he and his neo-conservative counterparts are more than willing to
provide. Stürmer thus acknowledges, in the most direct way, that
discourse is power. Ta come up with 'a usable past', one that provides
for a positive identity-i.e. a history without the stigma of Auschwitz-is
an urgent necessity, wams Stürmer, since
In a country without memory anything is possible. [...1 A loss of
orientation and a search for identity are closely related. But anyone who
believes that this trend will have no effect on politics and the future is
ignoring the fact that in a land without history 1 the future is controlled
by those who detennine the content of memory, who coin concepts
and interpret the pasto [...l But it is becoming evident that each
generation living in Germany today has differing, even opposing, views
of the past and the future. [...l The search for a lost past is not an
abstract striving for culture and education. It is morally legitimate and
politically necessary. We are dealing with the inner continuity of the
German republic and its predictability in foreign policy terms. In a • country without memory anything is possible.8 CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE Of DER FAUJENNINGER 29 • This admonition of the German people against a pluralist Vergangenheit appeals to the pathos by exhorting the urgent need of providing
everyone with a unified German history in order to forestall another
'Betriebsunfall'. One should, however, be wary of Stürmer's alarmist
statements, since bis claim that "in a country without memory anything is
possible," is just that, a claim. Firstly, what he is in fact lamenting about
this 'country without history' is that it is one without his version of
history, since it is hard to imagine any subject to be 'history-free' to the
point of not possessing his or her own 'understanding of the past',
regardless of whether someone like Stürmer is standing around ready to
provide them with one. Secondly, a unified nationalist history cao hardly
be unequivocally considered a guarantee against the 'unpredictability' of
a people towards their neighbours; Nazi Germany certainly had been
provided with a clear and unequivocal Teuto-centric history by such
'respected' historians as Heinrich von Treitschke, one which claimed that
the apogee of civilization was to be found in the 'Thousand Year Reich',
and where it was clear to ail that the Aryans were not only superior
beings but that Jews were "vermin" at the root of aIl HIs. One needs not
be reminded of the consequences of this unified, nationalist and patriotic
version of history.
The neo-conservatives, nevertheless, still cling to a historicist notion
of history in which a country deprived of a positive history with which it
can rally the population is problematic to the point of making it • inherently unstable, prone ta be unreliable vis-à-vis one's neighbours and CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 30 • alliance partners. A uniform German history, purged of all the stigma of 'those terrible ytars', of which Germans could be proud. would allow
them to regain their national patriotism and thus serve as a defense
against the negative effects of an anemic historical consciousness. In
other words, the best way of dealing with die Vergangenheit wouid be
to not deal with it, or at least ignore it as much as possible. This is what
the neo-eonservatives mean when they talk of historicizing the pasto
Neo-conservative discourse, ever encroaching upon the doxa, thus
preached a 'let bygones be bygones' message-most evident during the
Bitburg scandaI9 -obviously intent on fmally getting over this etemal Ver
gangenheitsbewiiltigung, which was claimed ta be a source of collective
trauma that was preventing Germany from acceding to a state of
normality. This even raised the fear that to continue harping on the guilt
of die Vergangenheit could jeopardize Germany's political and econornic
interests. Their relativistic discourse encouraged the notion that Nazi
Germany had been run by a small minority of criminals whose reign of
terror had made victims of everyone, including the German populace.
Jürgen Habermas' intervention in the debate served to draw
attention ta the increasing 'Salonfahigkeit' of the neo-conservative
position in the public media and denounce their agenda of relativizing
and down-playing die Vergangenheit for politicaI purposes. W1lereas the
neo-conservatives claiffi that the lack of unity in German historical
consciousness presents immanent danger, the liberals maintain that the • pluralist view of German history-a direct consequence of the break up CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 31 • of the monopoly of a national historicist representation due ta the 'Fall of Germany'-represents one of the most important pillars of democracy in
the foundling Republic. They argue that what made Auschwitz possible
in the first place was a lopsided anti-pluralist political system that
promoted a single, extreme nationalist identity bereft of any critical
impulses. Only a pluralist democracy in which its citizens develop a
critical eye and who turn to the constitution for guidance (Verfassungs
patrt"otismus) rather than to subject itself ta the vagaries of its politicians
cau serve as a bulwark against another 'Betriebsunfall'. "The task of
promoting social integration and self-awareness is no longer, today, the
responsibility of the political system,» writes Habermas. "For good
reasons we no longer have a Kaiser or a Hindenburg. The public sphere
should therefore refuse ta tolerate such claims ta spiritual-moral
leadership among top elected officiais. n 10
One must note that the liberal side in the Historikerstreit is not
advocating the status quo concerning the ways in which die
Vergangenheit is dealt with. They do support an historicization of die
Vergangenheit, but not using the same means nor for the same ends as
the neo-conservatives. Martin Broszat, a liberal German historian,
advocates a historicization in which gaining emotional and moral distance
would allow Germans to 'de-taboo-ize' their past and allow them to better
examine it and gain a better historical understanding.ll This contrasts
sharply with the neo-conservatives' desire literally 'write off' that dark • chapter in German history in arder ta "cast off the burdens of a past CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE Of DER FALLfENNINGER 32 • happily no longer morally constraining." 12 Habermas proposes the following litmus test so sort out the two sides:
l do not want to ascribe evil intentions to anyone. But there is a simple
criterion that sorts out the two attitudes. Sorne of us assume that the
work of gaining distance and understanding liberates the power of
reflective memory, thus enlarging our capacity to work out ambivalent
legacies on our own. But others want to use a revisionist narrative ta
equip a conventional identity with a national history.13 [47]
The Historikerstreit was an aggressive, often vituperative, discursive
war over who had the right to defme die Vergangenheit and for which
political ends. The 'debate', far from leading ta a consensus, served to
create an insurmountable rift between the two sides. It signalled the
arrivai of a reactionary, right-wing discourse that had migrated from the
periphery of the doxa into the arena of the public sphere.
Although both sides based their argumentation on the topos
Historia Magistra Vitœ, the lessons to be leamed, as we have seen, were
quite different indeed. Now it is time to see how the discourse of Der
FaIl jenninger refracted the charged discursive space of die
Vergangenheit.
Der Fall Jenninger and die Vergangenheit
"Uns kann die Vergangenheit nicht au.fhôren, gegenwartig zu sein,"
writes Günter Grass, "wir fragen uns immer noch: Wie kam es dazu?" I·f • While it may be true that many Germans have been asking themselves CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE Of DER FALLfENNINGER 33 • this question, few-if any-politicians have ever publicly ventured any answers ta this thorny question. Most have used die Vergangenheit as an
empty signifier, as evacuated of any signified as possible, in order to avoid
having to deal with this issue. ""Das vergangene Unheil," "jene
schreckliche Zeit," "die schlimmen jahre": These expressions," wntes
Johann Schmidt, "still rather common in Germany today, reveal
themselves as blatant euphemisms chat save the speaker from speaking
out what is for him unspeakable."15 Jenninger's speech, instead of merely
euphemistically referring to the empty shell of die Vergangenheit,
actually followed Bundesprasident Richard von Weizsacker's advice
literally-to recaII the past as truthfully as possible16-and attempted ta
fill die Vergangenheit with a plausible, redemptive narrative. Whereas
other politicians and public figures had been content ta merely pay Lip
service ta the past by referring ta an empty simulacrum of die
Vergangenheit, Jenninger actually provided the goods. Although
Jenninger may have been aware that he was treading on thin ice, he
seemed to believe that by wielding l'the Truth", he would be freed of the
discursive constraints of acceptability and legitimacy within the discours
social.
Jenninger's discourse included nothing new in the way of content,
no earth-shattering revelations, no ideas that had not previously heen
articulated in other fonns. Jenninger had culled aU of his ideas from
historical sources, none of which were deemed ta be completely • unacceptable nor representing extreme right-wing views. Indeed, CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURS SOCIAL PERSPECITVE Of DER FAUJENNINGER 34 • surprisingly few objections were made conceming the tmth value of the speech. Of the few points made by ]enninger that stood on shakier
ground, few criticisms were made. li What could be perceived as the
novum of bis speech was the fact that he, as a political representative in
high office, had actually addressed the question "Wie kam es dazu?" in a
speech of such high public visibility. "Phillip ]enninger." wrote Jeffrey
Herf, .. [...] delivered the most truthful, bluntest, most direct, and to the
point speech about the Nazi era ever given by a major West German
political leader since 1949, inside or outside the Parliament. [...l
]enninger offered (...l history with the politics, ideas, and events brought
back in."18 Sïnce the discourse promoted by the conservatives was intent
on offering a version of die Vergangenheit with the politics, ideas and
events left out, this was bound to ruffle a few feathers.
The discursive stance ]enninger took on die Vergangenheit was not
only diametrically opposed ta that of the neo-conservatives but his
speech was a direct assault on the neo-conservative position. In rebuttal
to Nolte's article Vergangenheit, die nicht vergehen llJill, ]enninger
maintained that the past will not fade away19:
Denn was immer in der Zukunft geschehen oder von dem Geschehenen
in Vergessenheit geraten mag: An Auschwitz werden sich die Menschen
bis an das Ende der Zeiten ais eines Tells unserer deutschen Geschichte
erinnern. [...] Deshalb ist auch die Forderung sinnlos, mit der
Vergangenheit nendlich Schlug" zu machen. Unsere Vergangenheit • wird nicht rohen, sie wird auch nicht vergehen. [...l [0]ie CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECl1VE OF DER FALLfENNINGER 35
Erinnel"ung wachzuhaiten und die VCl"gangenheit aIs Teil unsel"er • Identitiit ais Deutsche anzunehmen-dies allein verheiBt uns Âltel"en wie den ]üngel"en Befreiung von der Last der Geschichte. [Rede, 64-65, 67.
Myemphasis}
]enninger's attempt to fill the void of die Vergangenheit went against the
'Rutsch nach Rechts' (swing to the right) of both the doxa and the
political alignments that had been going on since the late 70s in
Germany-often referred to as the Tendenzwende or simply Wende-a
shift in ideology that seemed intent on liquidating the concept altogether.
This put him on the wrong side of the fence for aIl those-including
many in his own party-who would have liked to finally jettison die
Vergangenheit. The history lesson that ]enninger had presented simpLy
proved to be unpalatable for the conservatives.
Much of the criticism seemed suspiciously directed at the lvay in
which his speech was presented. "Es ist bezeichnend, daB sich die Kritik
fast gar nicht auf den Inhalt, sondern auf die Form der Rede richtet,"
wrote a German Professor. "Tonlage und Sprache werden beanstandet,
die mangelhafte Beherrschung rhetorischer Kunstfiguren. Das klingt
manchmal wie eine Theaterkritik, die moniert, eine Aufführung sei dem
Werk eines Klassikers nicht gerecht geworden. Sind das angemessene
BeurteilungsmaBstlibe?"20 Despite the fact that he was labelled a
"rhetorisches VntaIent" by many commentators, it seems hardly plausible
that his 'presentation' was rhetorically deficient to the point of making • him sound like he was "praising the Hitler era" when in fact his speech CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 36
was ueine einzige Anklage der verbrecherischen Politik der Nazis.'~l This
• misunderstanding serves perhaps to conceal a deeper uneasiness with the
content rather than with the [orm. Prœceptor Germaniœ Walter Jens,
Germany's resident expert in ars rhetorica, paradoxically enough, in
submitting the speech to his disceming rhetorical ear, seemed unduly
preoccupied with the content of ]enninger's speech rather than the
fonn. 22 The title of his article, "Indignant Words On a Speech. How
Philipp ]enninger Should Have Spoken," as weIl as the way in which he
portrays ]enninger as a particularly slow 'special education' pupil,
scarcely able to understand the concept of 'Distanzierung', betrays Jens'
contempt for Jenninger and the teoor of his speech. Jens submits the
speech to a 'thorough' revision (read: almost complete rewrite), along
neo-conservative lines, that serves once again ta challenge the liberal
concept ofdie Vergangenheit:
Ach, hatte man doch an diesem Gedenktag statt sich, in Verfolg der
]enninger offenbar ermutigenden-konservativen Verlautbarungen im
Historikerstreit, wieder und wieder in die Gedanken der Eichmanns und
Himmlers und Goebbels zu versenken, mit viel Einfiihlungsgabe und
Exkulpationslust [...] hatte man doch Situationsbeschreibungen aus den
jüdischen Zeitungen, die Anno'38 erschienen, zitiert [...] 23
Jens seeks to cultivate a skewed historical picture intent on minimizing
the visibility of the "thoughts of the Eichmanns and Himmlers and
Goebbels" and maximizing the presence of]ewish culture and the myth • of the resistance. Much of this is beside the point and serves to confuse CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURS SOCIAL PERSPECIlVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 37
explanations of cause and effect. There is no doubt that there was a
• vibrant Jewish community in Germany before the accession to power of
the Nazis, nor is there doubt cast upon the courage of the small minority
of 'Germans' who offered resistance during the Nazi reign. A rich ]ewish
culture and the presence of a resistance movement in Germany,
however, can hardly be invoked to explain such acts of barbarity as
Reichskristallnacht or Auschwitz, which was the crux of Jenninger's
speech. What Jens in fact bemoans about the speech, and cleverly
presents under the guise of rhetorical advice, is the fact that the
Jenninger, instead of once again insisting on 'bringing up the past', ought
to have spoken about almast anything else but die Vergangenheit. Ad
usum Delphini. In other words, he ought to have spoken like a
conservative Walter Jens. Ifonly he had heId a speech along the lines of
the neo-conservative doxa, or so Jens implies, it "would have ended up in
schoolbooks alongside Richard von Weizsackers' famous '8th of May'
address. "24
l have discussed the Jens example at length because it is
representative of a category of discourse within Der FaU jenninger that
sought to exclude ]enninger's discourse by authority. In what is
characteristic of this discourse, Jens presents no 'objective' arguments
that attempt to explain in a convincing manner why ]enninger's sp~ech
had 'failed'. He merely proceeds to impose his version of the speech by
saying that a and b in ]enninger's speech should have been eliminated, • while y and z should have been added. His power to wield judgement CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURS SOCIAL PERSPECfIVE Of DER FALLJENNINGER 38 • over this speech lies only in the claim implicit in his discourse that he. as a "dependable, wise, person of moral integrity, knowledgeable in
history"25-in other words as institutionally enthroned Besserwisser
knows how to better separate the rhetorical chaff from the wheat than
the rest of us, including the 'intellectually challenged' Philipp ]enninger.
This is a sign of this discourse's blindness ta its own power, since it fails
to see the authority which permeates the very language it tries to peddle
as being free of ideology. "To be on the inside of discourse itself,"
according to Terry Eagleton, "is to be blind to this power, for what is
more natural and non-dominative than to speak one's own tongue?"26
Not aIl participants in the debate were utter dupes of this display of
'authority' paraded as 'rhetorical sensitivity'. The following excerpt,
taken from a letter to ]enninger, mirrors the feelings that were expressed
in many letters and several articles, in which it was felt that the claims of
'misunderstanding', ostensibly caused by ]enninger's rhetorical
ineptitude, were deceitful and served as a divergence from the
problematic task of dealing with die Vergangenheit:
Nicht alle, die behaupten, nicht wa~ ]enninger in jener Feierstunde
gesagt hat, sondern wie er es zum Ausdruck brachte, sei ein Skandal,
meinen es damit ehrlich; denn es start sie, daB jene Fakten genannt und
damit verstarkt in die ôffentliche Diskussion und Meinungsbildung
eingeführt wurden. Doch endlich einmal und auch bei einem solchen
AnlaS muS ja wie Sie es nennen-deutlich auf Ursachen des National • sozialismus eingegangen werden.27 CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECIlVE OF DER F.4LLfENNINGER 39 • Indeed, the simple fact that his party dropped him like a hot patata seems ta be an indication that they were uncomfortable with somewhat
more than just his inadequate oratorical skills. As someone jacularly put
it: "Wenn allerdings aile Politiker mit scWechten rednerischen Qualitaten
den Hut nehmen mMten, waren Regierungsamter wie Bundestag schnell
verwaist."28 ]enninger may have hardly been exemplary as an oratar, but
there is a world of difference between a monotone speech and a neo..Nazi
justification of die Vergangenheit.
One may have thought that by adopting a liberal angle on die
Vergangenheit and by refusing ta 'cover up' or relativize what had taken
place in Nazi Germany, ]enninger would have at least gained sorne
support from the more liberal members of the Bundestag. In attempting
to historicize die Vergangenheit, however, in attempting to explain how
it aU came to be, he chose ta use a narrative that sounded perhaps too
much like a neo-conservative attempt to justify the wrongdoings of the
German populace during the Third Reich. The perspective he used ta
explain how the 'person in the street' could come to asscciate with Hitler
and his aspirations, smacked of the Alltagsgeschichte, the 'mode' of
historical discourse that had been gaining in papularity in 1980s
Germany. Although initially used by both liberal and conservative
historians, Alltagsgeschichte, the history of the everyday life, was
becoming more and more associated with conservative revisionists intent
on revealing the grass-roots 'other side' of Nazi Germany. It is a version of • die Vergangenheit in which most ordinary people had merely gone on CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECIlVE OF DER FALLJENNINGER 40 • with their apolitical 'every day life', allegedly aIoof of the man with the mustache and aIl of the brown shirts running around in the distance. An
attentive listeninglreading of the speech, however, would reveal that
]enninger sought not to relieve Germans of their burden of responsibility,
but racher quite the opposite: to insist chat everyone was quite aware of
the "descent into barbarity" concerning the oppression of their fellow
jewish citizens and that all chose who stood by and did nothing shared jn
the responsibility (but not the blame) for these crimes.
Still, for maoy, any effort to explain how the inhuman reign of the
Third Reich came about is tantamount to exculpation. Jenninger's
attempts ta provide a credible explanation for the origins and spread of
antisemitism and why the Germans went along with it, also conflicted
with the discourse of chose who preferred ta see the thirteen year
misadventure of the Third Reich as essentially inexplicable. Josef
Kopperschmidt, in dismissing the claims chat the Iinguistic clumsiness of
the speech could lead ta such a gross misunderstanding, points chis out
in tl'le following way:
Weit plausibler erscheint mir, daB ]enningers Versuch, den 9. November
1938 psychologisch, ôkonomisch und politisch für prinzipiell
erklarbar zn halten, eine ungeheure Bedrohung für jeden darstellen
muB, der sich auch nur ansatzweise auf diesen ErkHirungsversuch
einlaBt, statt sich dem gar nicht so gratiflkationsarmen Grundsatz zu
verschreiben, was damaIs geschah, müsse a priori unerklarbar bleiben. 29 • CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE OF DER FALLfENNINGER 41 • Many people, including historian Dan Diner, absolutely refuse to conceive of the possibility of gaining an 'historic' understanding of the
atrocities of the Third Reich, one that could provide an explanation for it,
since they see historicization as inextricably linked to a dubious
apologetics. Diner maintains that
Auschwitz is a no-man's-land of the mind, a black box of explanation it
sucks in aU historiographie attempts at interpretation, is a vacuunl taking
meaning from outside history. Only ex negativo, only through the
constant attempt to understand why it cannot be understood, can we
Ineasure what sort of occurrence this breach of civilization really was.
As the most extreme of extreme cases, and thus as the absolute measure
of history, this event is harclly historicizable. Seriously meant efforts at
historicization have so far ended in a prions of histoncal theory. Efforts
at historicization undertaken with other intentions, which relativize or
level out the event, necessarily end in an apology. This tao is a lesson of
the Historikerstreit.3°
Although Diner's motivation for this stance cornes from the Ieft in an
effort to prevent the 'levelling' of die Vergangenheit sa coveted by the
right, putting explanation off limits plays inta the very hands of those
allied with the right who, at all casts, would like to keep the wraps on
what really took place during the Third Reich. Claiming that an event is
inexplicable can prove to be a quite useful discursive alibi for those with
skeletons in their closets, since it holds at bay any attempt ta inquire into • the responsibility and guilt anyone may have had. It is one way of CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE Of DER FALLfENNINGER 42 • transforming the topic into a taboo and pushing it inta a realm beyond debate. It is in the greatest interests of many in the political, fmancial and
industrial communities of Germany to do just that, in arder ta keep the
talk on die Vergangenheit to a minimum. The impetus to hush up the
'embarrassing' details, as Richard J. Evans points out in the following
example, cannat be underestimated:
[Mlany of the great industrial and financiaI enterprises which flourished
under the Third Reich continue ta do sa taday: companies, for instance,
such as Daimler-Benz, the makers of the Mercedes car, which did very
well under Nazism, thanks not least ta the employment, under
barbarous, inhuman, and often deadly conditions. of many thousands of
slave laborers ta whom effective individual compensation is still denied.
In celebrating the centenary of its foundation in 1986, the company
chose to ignore its role in Hitler's Germany almost completely. Only the
intervention of a group of radical historians working outside the
university system managed to remind the world of the true facts.3l
Although }enninger can hardly be described as a 'radical historian',
he, too, just wanted to "remind the world of the true facts" conceming
antisemitism in the Third Reich. Jenninger's speech, however, found
itself pinned between severa! discursive rocks and a hard place. Günter
Hofmann fittingly summarizes the rocks in the following way:
Nicht ohne Grund loste die Rede ein verwirrendes Echo aus. Wenig war
ganz faIsch, aber vides auch nicht ganz richtig, was er vorlas. K1arer, aIs • man das aus der Regierungsrhetorik gewôhnt ist, widersprach er jenen CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECI1VE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 43
Wissenschaftlem, die im Historikerstreit versucht hatten, die deutsche
• Geschichte auf ihre Weise zu relativieren und zu historisieren. Jenninger
widersprach Vergleichen. Er verkleinerte Auschwitz nicht. Er erklarte
den V61kermord nicht mit dem Bolschewismus, sondern nannte
deutsche Ursachen. Aber weil er staU einer Gedenkrede den Versuch
einer historischen Seminararbeit vortrug, geriet er objektiv in die Spur
derjenigen, die historisierend heraustreten mochten aus dem Schatten
der Vergangenheit, was immer er subjektiv wollte. Auf Applaus von
jenen, die der Bundesrepublik eine neue, geschonte Identitat aus ihrer
Geschichte verordnen wollen, konnte er kaum hoffen. Aber es war auch
kein Beifall von denjenigen zu erwarten, die eigene FehIer wieder
gutmachen mochten und über das Echo erschracken, das Jenninger
ausgelost hatte. Zustimmung konnte auch nicht von denen kommen, die
Auschwitz am Ende für unverstehbar halten. Und schon gaI' nicht
zufrieden konnten jene sein, die»Trauerarbeit« erwartet hatten, aber (in
der Sprache) den Gleichschritt von Knobelbechern heraush6rten.32
]enninger's attempt to hold a speech based on the topos Historia
Magistra Vitœ served to alienate his conservative allies by not letting weil
enough alone, made it appear he wanted to explain his way out of the
shadow of die Vergangenheit. seemed like an attempt to explain the
'inexplicable' and ostensibly omitted the expected 'grief ceremony' that
such an occasion 'demanded'. His discourse thus collided or colluded
with pre-existing views of what one could do with die Vergangenheit
and resonated in ways that were deemed to be unacceptable, at least by • certain groups ofpeople. CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE Of DER FAUjENNINGER 44 • NOTES 1 Direct references to Philipp Jenninger's speech will henccforth be indicated using the designation [Rede, #], where # refers to the cOlTesponding paragraph number of the speech found in Appendix A: Thejenninger Speech. 2 Eagleton, [deology 195. 3 Maier, 34. .{ This section will outline only chose aspects of the Historikerstreit that are essential to this paper. For a more detailed discussion of the debate sec Maicr, Unmasterable Past and Evans, ln Hitler's Shadow. 5 Taken from the title of an anthology of the major contributions ta this debate: Piper, Ernst Reinhard, Historikerstreft. Die Dokumentation der Kontroverse um die Einzigartigkeit der llationalsozial/st/schen judenvernichtung. Munich: Piper. 198ï. 6 Holub, Habennas 165. ï EagIeton {deology 36. 8 Michael Stürmer, "Geschichte in geschichtslosem Land," FrankJllrter Allgemeine Zeitung 25 April 1986: N. pag. Reprinted in Piper, Historlkerstreit 3(i.38. 9 Bitburg refers ta the scandaI created by a visit by the U.S. President Ronald Reagan to a German cemetery where forty-nine Waffen Schutzstaffel (SS) troops, responsible for appalling atrocities, were buried. 10 Jürgen Habermas. "Defusing the Past: A Politico-Cultural Tract," Bitbw-g in ""[oral and Politlcal Perspective. Ed. Geoffrey H. Hartrnan (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1986) 49. [Translation of "Die Entsorgung der Vergangenheit: En k'Uiturpolitisches Pamphlet," Die Zeft 21,24 May, 1985] 11 Martin Broszat, "PIadoyer fur eine Historisierung des Nationalsozialismus," Nacb Hitler: Der schwierige Umgang Init unserer Gescbichte. Eds. Hermann Graml and Klaus-Dietmar Henke. (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1987). 12 Jürgen Habermas, .. Eine Art Schadensabwicklung. Die apologetischen Tendenzen in der deutschen Zeitgeschichtsschreibung," Die Zeft Il July, 1986: N. pag. Reprinted in Piper, Historlkerstreit 73. 13 Habermas, "Eine Art," in Historikerstreit ï3 [Translation taken from Maicr, 47] 14 Günter Grass, "Wie sagen wir es den Kindcrn," Günter Grass. Aufsiitze zur Literatur (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1980) 150. 1S Johann N. Schmidt, orThose UnJortunate Years": Nazism in t/Je Public Debate of Post-War Gennany, (Bloomington: Indiana UniversityJewish Studies Program, 1987) 1. 16 Richard von Weizsacker, "40. Jahrestag der Beendigung des Zweiten Weltkrieges" Bulletin 9 May 1985: N. pag. 17 Eckhard Jesse, and Rainer Zitelmann, "Die Tabus der Tabubrecher," RbeinisclJen Merkur/Cbr/st und Welt 18 Nov 1988: N. pag. 18 Jeffrey Herf, "Philipp Jenninger and the Dangers of Speaking Clearly," Ptlrtisan Review 56 (1989): 228. 19 Ernst NoIte, "Vergangenheit, die nicht vergehen will." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 6 June 1986: N. pag. Reprinted in Piper, H/storlkerstreit, 39-47. 20 Professor from K, Letter. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 21 Nov 1988: N. pag. • 21 Luxemburger Wort 14 Nov 1988. Reprinted in Laschet/Malangré, 59. CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPEcnvE Of DER FALLfENNINGER 45
22 Walter Jens, "Ungehaltene Worte über eine gehaltene Rede. Wie Philipp • jenninger hatte reden müssen, n Die Zeit 18 Nov. 1988: N. pag. 23 Jens, N. pag. 24 Jens, N. pag. 25 Jens, N. pag. 26 EagIeton, Literary Theory 203. 27 Dr. Georg Poschinger, Letter. "Versuch der Erklarung," Frank/urter AlIgemeine Zeitung 1 Dec. 1988: N. pag. 28 Ehepaar from E., Letter to Philipp Jenninger, 12 Nov 1988. Reprinted in Laschet/Malangré, 106. 29 Kopperschmidt, ()/fentlicbe Rede 227. [Myemphasisl 30 Dan Diner, "Zwischen Aporie und Apologie. Über Grenzen der Historïsierbarkeit
des Nationalsozialismus, n [st der Nationalsozialismus Geschichte? Zur Historisierung und Historikerstreit. Ed. Dan Dîner. (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 1985) 73. English translation taken from: Maier, 92. 31 Richard J. Evans, ln Hitler's Shadow. West German Historlans and the Attempt to Escape from the Nazi Past (New York: Pantheon, 1989) 132-33. 32 Hofmann, Alleingang N. pag.
• 46
• History in the Making: The Story of Der Fall }enninger Clrildren, ollly animais live efltirely in lire Here alld J.VOlJ}J. Ollly !lature kllows nei/lrer memory flOr Irislory. Bllt matI-leI me of/erYOII a definitioll-is the story telling animal. Wherever Ire goes he waflls 10 leave belrind not a chootic wake, flot 011 empty space, but the comforlùlg marker-blloys and trail-sigl1s ofstones. He Iras to go 011 te/Jing stones. He Iras to keep on makil/g Ihem up. As long as there's a story, it's ail right. Even Ïtl his last moments, it's said, ill tire split second offi fatalfall-or whefl !re's abOlit 10 droœm-ne sees, pOSSÙlg rapid~y before /rim, the story ofIris whole life. Graham Swift, Waterland
It is not known whether Philipp ]enninger, in his last moments as
Bundestagspriisident, saw the story of his whole pass before him. What is
known, however, is that even his life was incorporated into the 'chaotic
wake' of Der FaU jenninger ta create a sto11'. That Der FaU jenninger
was made into a story seems to go without saying; the ways in which
staries are created, transformed and circulated, however, bear the marks
of re-presenting the wodd that hardly go without saying and are far from
being innocent and value-free 'reproductions' of reality. This section will
attempt ta shed sorne Hght on sorne of the ways in which the 'chaotic
wake' of Der FaU jenninger was organized into the 'comfoning marker-
buoys and trail-signs' of staries that produced the 'Truths' about this
event.
Meaning is not immanent ta an event, but is the result of the way in
which it is inserted into the discours social. How then does an event like • Der Falljenninger get inserted into the discours social? In other words, CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 47 • how did Der Fall jenninger get 'talked about' in 1988 Germany? If we presuppose, as does Fredric jameson, that we never reaUy confront a
'text' directIy, as a "thing-in-itself" but rather "through the sedimented
reading habits and categories developed by those inherited interpretative
traditions" we can posit that the principal means by which an
'understanding' of Der FaU jenninger was gained is via the "all
informing" process of narrative. "1 Der FaU jenninger was disseminated
by 'stories' that were recounted in the media to produce narrative
truth(s) about the event. In order for these stories to be 'readable' by the
intended audience, however, they had to be narrated in certain ways that
were deemed 'acceptable' and 'probable' within the context of the given
discours social. As we saw earlier, hegemony determines the repertory of
rules and themes as weil as their differential acceptability and legitimacy.
Those ideas that are most successfu11y narrated, in other words, will have
the greatest persuasive force within a given discursive economy, and
consequently will have a greater probability of being perceived as being
'true' regardless of whether they are 'in actual fact' true. As Jean Pierre
Faye points out:
Le statut dangereux du récit est déjà sous nos yeux. Il est cette simple
forme, sans poids ni matérialité, de la narration-mais il est en même
temps ce qu'il rapporte: le réel même, dans sa matérialité. Il est simple
langage,-et il est la «première signification» du Vrai et du Faux à son
origine, qui se rapporte, hors du texte, à la matérialité du fait, ou à la
cohérence des règles de pensée. Le récit de da chère descendance • troyenne», depuis Grégoire de Tours jusqu'aux Chroniques de Saint- CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE Of DER FALLfENNINGER 48
Denis, est fiction.-mais il est. pour des siècles de croyance commune,
• L'histoire même. de la réalité.2
Similarly, despite journalism's clairn of 'investigative equity', the truth(s)
produced by the media depend much more on the way in which what
gets said corresponds ta our accepted ways of schematizing the world
Faye's "règles de pensée"--than the acrual truth value inherent in their
discourse. Maldidier and Robin's account of the reporting of the media on
a specifie event. for instance, exposes the supposedly 'neutral' discourse
of journalistic reporting as a "pastiche of persuasive and judgmental
initiatives. "3 The act of 'writing'. of producing narratives. is simply
another mode of generating 'truths' about the world in which we live.
Indeed, it can be said that there is no necessary correlation between the
'truths' generated by such a discourse, and any objective truth that
existed 'out there'. Certainly, any 'concrete' means of arguing or
demonstrating the existence of a certain fact or event cau play a role in
ifs being accepted as true although there is no guarantee that this will he
the case. Even the seerningly incontrovertible 'proof provided by a
photograph. as we shall later see, bears the stamp of our ways of
schematizing reality, and may distort what 'really happened'. 'Objectively
demonstrable truths' may be rejected because they are perceived to be
implausible or unacceptable within a given state of discourse. Galileo, for
example, in providing 'concrete evidence' that objects of unequal mass
faH at the same velocity. ran up against of wall of resistance since his • demonstration chaHenged the received wisdom, or doxa of the age. CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE Of DER FALLfENNINGER 49 • Conversely, 'objectively demonstrable falsehoods' have been known to be accepted as 'universal truths' since these also reflected the daxa ofthe
period. That witches were thought to exist and needed ta be hunted
down and bumed is an example of this 'delusion'. As Roland Barthes
points out: "«Mieux vaut un vraisemblable impossible qu'un possible
invraisemblable»: mieux vaut raconter ce que le public croit possible,
même si c'est impossible scientifiquement, que de raconter ce qui est
possible réellement, si ce possible-là est rejeté par la censure collective de
l'opinion courante."4
The story of an event, therefore, is less a faithful account, or
representation, than a re-presentation of that event, as filtered through
the discours social according to the ways of signifying the knawable that
are specifie ta the society in question. "History," write Caroline Désy and
Jocelyn Létourneau, "is the coherent narrative of what we are able to
reconstitute as part of a systematic enquiry and plausible deduction, or
what one authorizes himlherself ta say because of the power one has and
wishes ta continue ta exercise."S Although here they are referring ta
history, if we take the term history in its extended meaning ta include
story, we can say that the same applies ta the narratives and fragments of
narratives in circulation within Der Falljenninger.
And here l transpose from Jean-Pierre Faye: because stories exist
only in the telling, a narrative critique can only be performed by
describing the way in which these staries are produced via their • narration.6 Der FaU jenninger is not just an incident that took place, but CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE Of DER FAUJENNINGER 50 • also the story (or staries) woven into the great narrative fabric of the discours social. What follows is a look at certain aspects conceming the
ways in which staries of Der FaU Jenninger were narrated, consequently
producing the In order to provide the reader with a of Der FaU Jenninger, which l take to include the period from the beginning of the commemorative ceremony to the end of the presentation of the 'official' statements immediately following ]enninger's resignation the day after the speech. l will then proceed to describe severa! elements that served to determine the way in which information based on the at sorne of the varying staries that resulted from these elements being circulated. A Chronology of Der Fall }enninger l shall begin by providing a chronology, a surrounding the ]enninger speech, which will be used as a starting point ta describe the process whereby it was turned into a story. On November 10, 1988 the mernbers of the Bundestag, along with special guests, including severaI important representatives from the ]ewish community in Germany, gathered in the Assembly Room of the Bundestag to take part in the commemoration of the Ïtftieth anniversary • of the infamous Reichskristallnacht. After the Banner Bachgemeinschaft CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURS SOCIAL PERSPECfIVE Of DER FAUJENNINGER 51 • had sung "s brennt, Bruder, es brennt" and Ida Ehre, director of the Hamburger Kammerspiele, had read Paul Celan's poem Todesfuge, Bundestagspriisident Philipp ]enninger stepped up to the lectern to address the assembly. Scarcely two minutes into the speech, a member of die Grünen began to heckle ]enninger before fmally leaving the hall.; After asking the member to be quiet and allow the "dignified moment" to go on as planned, ]enninger continued with his speech. During the course of his speech, sorne futy members of the SPO, FDP and the Grünen also left in protest. Once the speech was over, the people who had been present were quick to make their judgement of both the speech and the speaker known to the press. Although the speech did have its rare supporters, their voices were buried by the tidal wave of condemnation that resulted, thus the negative interpretation carried the day and was 'broadcast' across aIl ofGermany: Beschamend.8 (Klaus Beckmann, Grune) Diese Rede war dem AnlaS in keiner Weise angemessen. Sie hat die Gefühle vieier Menschen verletzt, nicht weil es an der Gesinnung ]enningers Zweifel gabe, sondern weil er sicn mit dieser Rede übernommen hat.9 (Renate Schmidt, SPD) Der Philipp hat Hitlers Tenninologie zu lang, zu breit, zu oft benutzt, ohne seine und unsere Oistanz zu den damaligen Schrecken zu verdeutlichen. IO (Heinz Schwarz, COU) • CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECITVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER • Die Rede sei "peinlieh bis zur Geschmacklosigkeit."11 (Hubert Kleinen, Grune) Der Jenninger kaon doch nicht die Sprachbilder der Nazis benutzen. 12 (HansJoehen Vogel, SPD) Er trug emotionslos N5-Argumente vor, ohoe sich sofon und oft genug davon zu distanzieren und er verwendete dabei Worte aus dem Sprachgebrauch der NationaIsozialisten. 13 Wie konnte dieser intelligente und erfahrene Mann nur soIch eine gefühllose, falsehe Rede halten? 14 Immediately following the speech, aIl political parties (except for die Grünen, who were excluded) were involved in 'damage control' meetings. Firstly, chey had to figure out a way of containing rumours that were circulating, mostly in the foreign press, to the effect that a "neo- Nazi had spoken in the Bundestag". Secondly, they were working on a contingency plan in case ]enninger should fail to 'make the appropriate decision' of resigning his office without making a fuss. 15 ]enninger, the Uaufrcchter Demokrat" that he is, decides to not put up a fight and quite graciously obliges them by doing the 'right thing': Die Reaktionen auf meine gestrige Ansprache vor dem Deutschen Bundestag haben mich erschrocken, und sie bedfÜcken mich auch. Meine Rede ist von viden Zuhôrern nicht 50 verstanden worden, wie ich sie gemeint hatte. Ich bedaure das zutiefst, und es tut mir sehr leid, • wenn ich andere in ihren Gefüh1en verletzt habe. CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECI1VE OF DER FALLfENNINGER 53 Wahrend meiner ganzen politischen Laufuahn-zuletzt ais Pcisident des • Deutschen Bundestages-habe ich mich in besonderer Weise rur die Aussohnung mit den ]uden und für die Lebensinteressen des Staates Israel engagiert. Ich war stets ein kompromiBIoser Gegner jeder Form totalitârer Herrschaft, nicht zuletzt wegen der ErfahnLflgen meiner Eitern unter dem NS-Regime, die gegen die Diktatur eingestellt waren und dafür Nachteile in Kauf nehmen muBten. Es ist wichtig, daB das Amt des Bundestagsprasidenten keinen Schaden leidet. Ich muS davon ausgehen, daB viele KoUeginnen und KoUegen mir das für meine Amtsführong notwendige Vertrauen nicht mehr entgegenbringen. Aus diesem Gronde erklare ich meinen Rücktritt vom Amt des Bundestagspriisidenten. 16 This caused a collective sigh of relief in the Bundestag and many gushed with praise for the man they had just so harshly criticized: Theo Waigel, Cbairman, CDU: Philipp ]enninger hat eine freie, eigenstandige, souveriine Entscheidung getroffen, zu der ibn aufgrond der Gesetzes- und Rechtslage niemand hatte zwingen konnen. [...] Die personliche und politische [ntegritat von Philipp ]enninger ist bei politischen Freunden. bei uns, aber auch bei parteipolitischen Gegnem unbestritten. 17 Bundeskanzler Dr. Helmut Kohl, CDU Ich habe den Rücktritt Philipp ] enningers mit groBem Respekt zur Kenntnis genommen. Diese Entscheidung ehrt ihn. Sie sagt alles über • seine politische Integritat und seine demokratische Überzeugung. [...] CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURS SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE Of DER FAUJENNINGER 54 Seine Haltung verdient Anerkennung und Achtung. Sie setzt MaBstabe. • Sie ist vorbildlich fur den verantwortungsvollen Umgang mit einem anvertrauten Amt. IB Dr. Otto GrafLambsdorffand WOlfgang Mischnick, Chairpersons~ FDP Bundestagsprasident Dr. Philipp jenninger hat eine schwere, aber richtige Entscheidung getroffen. Dies verdient unseren Respekt. Er hat 50 der Gefahr vorgebeugt, daB das Amt des Bundestagspcisidenten in eine strittige Auseinandersetzung gerat. Damit dient er uoserer parlamentarischen Demokratie. Die personliche Integritat von Dr. j enninger kaon von niemandem in Zweifel gezogen werden, der ihn kennt. 19 To summarize the event, we can say that the speech held by] enninger in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Reichskristallnacht caused a great commotion and was harshly criticized by those members of parliament who were present. Despite fears that he would do otherwise, ]enninger chose ta resign from his office as Bundestagspriisident and was lauded for this decision that confinned his status as 'aufrechter Demokrat'. We can now proceed ta have a look at how this 'event' was picked up by the media. Der Fall Jenninger: The Media Event This present section will describe various elements of the way in which the media re-presented the event Der FaU jenninger. The • elements are taken up in different combinations with varying CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURS SOCIAL PERSPECI1VE Of DER FAUJENNINGER 55 • implications to produce the different stories that constitute Der Fail Jenninger. Jenninger's Past In order to counter the rumours that a neo-Nazi had spoken in the Bundestag, ]enninger's past was swiftly put into circulation. ]enninger himself even brings it up when he announces his resignation. We are presented with the picture of a man of integrity and with a Christian sense of duty; even his father, as Christian socialist, was a strong opponent of National Socialism. In short he was described as the quintessentiaI "untadeliger Mann": Philipp ]enninger hat in vielen Reden ais Abgeordneter, Minister und ais Priisident des Deutschen Bundestages die christliche Motivation seines politischen Handelns betont. Sein Vater hatte ais Buchdruckermeister eines von den Nazis geschlossenen katholischen Verlages schwere Nachteile zu erleiden, die auch seine Familie mit acht Kindern deutlich zu spüren bekam. Auf diesem Hintergrund hat sich Jenninger immer wieder darum bemüht, jeglicher Form von Gewaltherrschaft entgegenzutreten, und sein Anliegen, gerade die jüngere Generation, die die Schrecken des Nationalsozialismus nicht aus eigener Erfahrung kennt, vor der Verführbarkeit menschlichen Geistes zu warnen, wird immer deutlicher.2o This Vorgeschichte would serve to Iay to rest any rumours of his being a closet Nazi, but it would aiso raise the eyebrows of those who wondered • firstly, why, if he were 50 clean, why he wasn't given the benefit of the CHAPTER THREE.: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE Of DER FAUJENNINGER 56 • doubt for the 'less clear' parts of his speech, and secondly, why he obtained absolutely no support from his party when the scandai erupted. leading up ta Der Fall }enninger: The Speech's Vorgeschichte There was friction between the various parties even before the speech took place, during the organization of the event. Die Grünen proposed that Heinz Galinski, the Chainnan of the Zentralrat derJuden in DeutscWand, should be asked to hold a speech. This motion was ttlmed down by the cnv, FDP and SPD; it was decided that only]enninger should speak. Die Grünen hadn't given up and wondered if it were at least possible ta let Galinski speak a word of greeting. Still the others were against this. ]enninger, however, insisted that he be the only one allowed ta speak on this occasion, and threatened with his resignation, should die Grünen make this conflict public, lest the headlines read: "Galinski not Allowed to Speak in Bundestag." This conflict with die Grünen made for speculation ta the effect that he may have been a victim of a settling of accounts on the part of the die Grünen when Jutta Oesterle-Schwerin as weIl as others stormed out of the assembly. His 'downfall' was also depicted as a kind of nemesis for his having sa forcefully insisted on holding the speech. Am merkwürdigsten aber, daB diese undurchdachte Rede von jemandem gehalten wurde, der darum gekampft hatte, dies tun zu dürfen. 21 • CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURS SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE Of DER FAUJENNINGER 57 The Heckler Narreme • Narrative logie presupposes the that 'reader' will make the links between the different narremes aeeording to a 'natura!' [ogic that derives meaning from what is plausible. The relationship between cause and effect are given, 'obvious', go without saying, and are generally not subject to mueh in the way of serutiny. It reflects a kind of 'where there's smoke, there's fire' attitude that prevails when reading any narrative. An effect is thus presented as the logical outeome of the cause that engendered it. The following is an example of this understanding of the logie of a sequence ofevents. Two minutes and seventeen seconds into Jenninger's speech, Jutta Oesterle-Schwerin, one of the Members of Parliament for die Grünen, got up and shouted "Das ist doeh alles gelogen!" before storming out of the Bundestag. According to the narrative lagie that obtains we get the following scenario: a] Jenninger holding speech b] A member of parliament gets up and yells "Das ist doch alles gelogen" before she storms out of the hall. Since it is plausible for someone to be offended by what someone else says in a speech, it was logical to conclude that, whatever it was that Jenninger was saying, it was the cause ofthe heckling. The interjection, however, came at a point in the speech where it • was hardly logical for anyone raise any objections [Rede, 4]. It occurred CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 58 • at a point where none of the soon-to-be-famous "missing quotation marks" had not yet gone missing, where "Nazi-jargon" had not yet been used, and where Jenninger had not yet had the opportunity to use the wrong tone of voice while describing murderous acts carried out by the Nazis. The illogicality of the interruption by Oesterle-Schwerin was later picked up by less 'hasty' joumalistic contributions to Der Fal! jenninger, but this was long after the 'incident' had played the role of cataIyst in the Jenninger scandai, bath in the Bundestag as weIl as the media. The social democratic paper "Vorwans", for instance, placed her comment, "Das ist doch alles gelogen~", above ]enninger's speech in such a way as to make it appear as if her statement was commenting on the entire speech.22 Many saw Oesterle-Schwerin's protest as being the spark that set off the explosion: "Sein Rücktritt stand von dem Augenblick an fest," wrote Eduard Neumaier, "aIs sich im Auditorium der Abgeordneten erster Protest auBerte. Bemerkenswertervleise begann er bereits beim nun wahrhaftig nicht miBzuverstehenden Praludium zu Jenningers nachfoIgender historisierender Darstellung."23 As it turns out, Oesterle-Schwerin's storming out of the Bundestag had nothing to do withJenninger's speech. ln a communiqué distributed the day be/ore Jenninger's speech, Oesterle-Schwerin's dissatisfaction with the CUITent government were expressed in quite clear terms."24 In the communiqué entitled, "WARUM • ICH DIE GEDENKSTUNDE ZUM NOVEMBER-POGROM lM BUNDESTAG CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 59 • Für Unertriiglich HALTE", Oesrerle-Schwerin states that it is unacceptable that such a commemoration take place in a Bundestag where, during the current rerrn of parliarnent, the proper compensation of the 'other victims' (socialists, communists, homosexuals, mentally and physically handicapped, sinti and rama) was voted down, and where a motion to rescind eugenic laws enacted by the Nazis for the "prevention of geneticaUy diseased offspring" was also voted down. "Solange in der Bundesrepublik ganz bewuBt immer nur einem Teil der Opfer gedacht wird," she states, "solange wird ganz bewuBt auch nur ein Teil der Verbrechen aIs solche anerkannt. Eine gemeinsame Gedenkstunde mit Politikem, die diese Politik betreiben, ist für mich unvorstellbar." 25 Much later, during an interview with a journalist, Jutta Oesterle Schwerin admits that her heckling was a reaction ta a completely different incident-unrelated to Jenninger's address-in which Tamil refugee children, on their way ta Germany, were intercepted in Sofia and sent back to Colombo, where their lives would be in danger. Und in dem Moment fiel mir dann auch der]enninger ein, und da dachte ich, jetzt wird der wieder 50 eine ~nderschoneEntlastungsrede halten, et" wird das Pogrom verurteilen und wird sich selber aIs den guten Menschen darstellen, und gleichzeitig gehort er einer Partei an, die Menschen, Angeh6rige anderer Volker, Kinder anderer Volker Pogromen ausliefert. Und das fand ich einfach ungeheuerlich, und daon dachte ich: und jetzt gehst du in den Bundestag und sagst das. Insofem • CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURS SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE Of DER FALLfENNINGER 60 war mein Zwischenruf ein vorbereiteter Zwischenruf, der sich • eigentlich nicht aufdie Rede bezogen hat.26 As the above 'insider' information shows, Oesterle-Schwerin's demon stration of anger may have had something to do with Jenninger's politics, but it had nothing ta do with his speech. "Aus der Position der Griinen Jutta Oesterle-Schwerin betrachtet," reports Werner Hill, "hatte Philipp Jenninger mit Engelszungen oder doch jedenfalls sa reden kônnen, daB selbst der Rhetorik-Professor Walter Jens Beifall geklatscht hatte-sie hatte ihm seine Worte nicht abgenommen."27 Thus, despite the fact that the actual relationship between al and b] above was 'coincidentaI' (in the sense that it wasn't a reaction to the speech itselt), it was established by the narrative logie as representing the reality of the situation. Thus the Bundestagspriisident's "mangelnde SensibiIitat" appeared as the cause of Oesterle-Schwerin's impetuous reaction and was disserninated as such. • CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURS SOCIAL PERSPECIlVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 61 The Distraught Victim Narreme • A photograph taken of Philipp ]enninger and Ms. Ida Ehre was to play an even more 'fateful' role in convincing people that ]enninger had indeed spoken "without a trace of feeling for the sensitivity of the Victims."28 Figure 1 Philipp Jenninger and Ms. Ehre29 The above photagraph (Figure 1) was circulated in most German dailies as weIl as in the foreign press. When placed alangside articles ftlled with harsh criticism aimed at both ]enninger's speech and his person, the photo seemed ta provide the naysayers with incontrovertible evidence that they were justified in having raised their voices in pratest. Indeed, as • a narrative sequence, it operates almost automatically: CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECITVE Of DER FAUJENNINGER 62 • 1] Jenninger holding speech 2] Ms. Ida Ehre, shawn beside him, completely distraught. The cause of her distress was most obviously the result of ]enninger's "sensationally inappropriate" speech. It hardly needs to be said that the commentators had a field day with this 'juicy' narreme. Ida Ehre stützt den Kopf in die Hande, verdeckt mit den feingliedrigen Fingern ihre Augen. Spater, wahrend ]enningers ungefüger Rede über die Vorgeschichte und die Folgen jener Pogrome vom 9. und 10.11.38 sieht man sie mit einem Tüchlein in der Rechten immer wieder hinter diesen Augenschirm greifen. Sie weïnt.30 The implied relationship between the speech and this woman's distress is so 'obvious' that the cornmentator doesn't even see it fit to explicitly make the connection. The Frankfurter Rundschau used this caption for the photo: Entsetzen über die Rede von Bundestagspriisident Philipp ]enninger. Ida Ehre Crechts), Direktorin der Hamburger Kammerspiele, schlagt die Hande vor das Gesicht. Sie ist eine der wenigen ]üdinnen die den Nazi-Terror in Deutschland überlebten.31 The last remark almost makes it sound like she had just survived another attack of Nazi-Terror at the hands of]enninger! The previously mentioned Vorwarts included the following comments: Angewidert über die ]enninger-Rede verIieB auch die jüdische Schau • spielerin Ida Ehre den Bundestag. Sie hatte den eindruckvollsten Part der CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 63 Gedenkstunde übernommen die Rezitation: der 'Todesfuge' von Paul • 32 Celan. As true as this implied relationship between 'scandalous' speech and horrified 'victim' appeared to be, it would nonetheless eventually be exposed as a faIse one. Ida Ehre was apparendy sa moved by her reading of the Celan's poem that she was not in astate to pay much attention to Jenninger's speech: Ein oft miBgedeutetes Bild-Philipp ]enninger und Ida Ehre. Die 88jâhrige Schauspielerin, die Mutter und Schwester im KZ verlor, hielt wâhrend der ganzen Gedenkfeier ihr Gesicht mit den Hânden bedeckt. "Ich tmg das Grauen in mir", sagte sie spater und bekundete, aufgrund ihrer Ergriffenheit nach der "Todesfuge" bei ]enningers Rede nicht zugeh6rt zu haben. Nahezu aBe in- und auslândischen Zeitungen ver 6ffentlichten jedoch das Bild in miBverstândlichem Zusammenhang.33 The following comment points out the how the photo and ]enninger's 'cruel' words were closely associated: Es war infam, wie die grcise jüdische Schauspielerin Ida Ehre gegen ]enninger ins Feld geführt wurde. Wâhrend er seL'1e Rede im Bundestag hielt, kauerte sie wie versteinert da, die Hand vors Gesicht geschlagen, den Kopf gebeugt. Hier saS das personifizierte jüdische Leid zweier ]ahrtausende. Das Bild ging ebenso um die Weit wie das Wort von der seelischen Grausamkeit Philipp ]enningers. Die Erklârung • foigte viel spater: Ida Ehre sagte, sie habe von der Skandal-Rede kein CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE Of DER FAUJENNINGER 64 Wort mitbekommen. Zu sehr habe sie die von fur rezitierte "Todesfuge" • 4 Paul Celans aufgewühlt.3 First impressions make lasting impressions. The false/mistaken attribution of Ms. Ehre's distress ta Jenninger's tactlessness circulated as the first 'version 1 that was disseminated by the media, and thus would continue to be perceived by many as the 'truth', despite token attempts ta retract this rnistake: Ida Ehre war weder entsetzt noch angewidert. Sie war ersch6pft und muBte nach der Veranstaltung von dem Abgeordneten Freimut Ouve aus dem Saal geleitet werden. Von der Rede]enningers hat sie nach eigenem Bekunden nichts mitbekommen. Ais die Zeitungen dies spater meldeten, keineswegs in angemessener Weise und etwa mit einer Entschuldigung wegen der vorherigen Falschmeldung versehen, da hatte Ida Ehre ihren "Part" in der Affare ]enninger, ohne es zu ahnen, Hingst gespielt. Die Zeitungsleute unterstellten ibr Empfindungen, die sie selbst hatten. Wenn eine ]üdin entsetzt und angewidert war, dann durften sie es mit Fug und Recht auch sein.35 The journalists were probably nat the only people who were having feelings by proxy. Although it is difficult to evaluate the influence the juxtaposition of a 'distraught' Ms. Ehre and Philipp Jenninger may have had during the speech, and which may have been one of the reasons why sorne of the other members walked out, one cau imagine that it had • an effect that was hardly negligible. CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURS SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE Of DER FAUjEIVNINGER 65 • What makes this narreme even more 'fictional' is the fact that the picture in question was taken be/ore ]enninger even started to speak. A closer look at the photograph reveals thatJenninger is still seated and has not yer started his speech. This is substantiated by the caption provided on the back of the photograph, as provided by the Bundesbildstelle: lm Bild: Der Prasident des Deutschen Bundestages, Dr. Philipp ]enninger, der die Gedenkansprache hielt, und die Hamburger Schau spielerin Ida Ehre aufder Bundesratsbank zn Beginn. der Feierstunde.36 The Creative Editing of Der Fall Jenninger It is fitting that Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, would serve here as an example of how history is literally 'made' since editing also played an important raIe in the production of the story of Der Fal! jenninger. Bismarck was the 'author' of the infamous Emser Depesche. The Emser Depesche refers ta a telegram, conceming the candidature for the Spanish Throne sent by Kaiser Wilhelm 1 to the Chancellor, that was subsequently edited by him and published. The publication of this edited version was deemed to be an affront, and the incident set off the Franco-Prussian war. Es ist so leicht, ohne FaJschung, nur durch Weglassungen und Striche den Sinn einer Rede vollkommen zu andern. [ch habe rnich selbst einmal in diesem Fache versucht, aIs Redakteur der Emser Depesche, mit der die Socialdemokraten seit Z'Ç\ranzig]ahren kreb~~~'1 gehn. Der Konig schickte sie mir mit der Weisung, sie ganz oder nur theilweise zu veroffentlichen, und aIs ich sie nun dureh Striche und • CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 66 • Zusammenziehungen reduzirt (sic) hatte, rief Moltke, der bei mir war, aus: Vorhin war'seine Chamade, jetzt ist'seine Fanfare.";7 Bismarck had removed parts of the original message in such a way as ta transform it from a conciliatory message ta a provocative one. Wilhelm Liebknecht, summarized the impact of the editing in this way: .. Die echte Emser Depesche meldete den friedlichen Verlauf der letzten Verhandlungen in Ems. Sie war der Friede. Die gefalschte Emser Depesche stellte den Verlauf sa dar, daB ein kriegerischer Ausgang unvermeidlich war. Sie war der Krieg."38 The }enninger speech was also subjected to "Weglassungen und Striche" that nad the impact of changing what he had said in significant ways. The transcript of the speech that was circulated in the media, for instance, was not the speech that}enninger had held. Although it was, in fact, a copy of the speech he had prepared, during the course of the presentation he had added severa1 elements that would serve to 'distance' him from the remarks that were to be attributed to the Nazis of the 19305 and had removed other severaI others. The most glaring omission is the one in which U so hieS es damaIs" is missing from a highly controversial statement: Und was die ]uden anging: Hatten sie sich nicht in der Vergangenheit doch eine Rolle angemaBt-so hieS es damals-, die ihnen nicht zukam? MuBten sie nicht endlich einmal Einschrankungen in Kauf • nehmen? [Rede,30] CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURS SOCIAL PERSPECfIVE Of DER FALLJENNINGER 67 • ]oumalists repeated this 'quote' like parrots-without the so biefi es damais of course-and used it to justify the 'fact' that ]enninger had spoken highly compromising statements without sufficiently distancing himself. In addition, many newspapers published just sorne excerpts rather than the entire speech which they probably justified as an attempt to save a few column-inches of space. The most provocative excerpts, of course, were used once again distorting what]enninger had actually said. The effect of this creative editing is certainly non trivial, as this following testimonial points out: Aufgrund dessen, was ich von [hrer Rede durch die Fernsehbericht erstattung am Donnerstagabend und die im "Bonner Generalanzeiger" abgedruckten Auszüge kannte, war mein Urteii über Sie, daB lhre Kapazitat rur das von Ihnen bekIeidete Amt nicht hinreiche, lbr Rücktritt aiso notwendig war und richtig ist. Nun habe ich lhre Rede im ganzen gelesen und sehe, daB Sie zuruckgetreten sind unter dem Druck der jenigen, die die Wahrheit nicht horen wollen oder zu dumm sind, sie zu verstehen.39 Read Ali About It: The Jenninger Headlines One of the discursive effects that should not be overlooked is what l have termed to be the 'Headline Effect'. The discursive weight of infor mation appearing on the headline of a major newspaper rnakes it such that it more or less de facto 'praduces' the tmth, whether or nat it was • actually true in the first place. CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE Of DER FAUJENNINGER 68 Auch Schlagzeilen erzeugen Stimmungen. Die deutschen Tages • zeitungen boten am Tag nach der Gedenkstunde ein ablehnendes Meinungsbild 'Über die Rede Philipp ]enningers. ScWagzeilen und Über• schriften der Leitartikel beeinfluBten durch ihre starke optische Wirkung die offentliche Diskussion.-Îo Although staternents that prove to be untrue are sometimes later retracted, the retraction often only has a slight compensatory effect, since it usuaIly appears in srnall peint somewhere on page 17, and often goes unnoticed. Sorneone accused of being a seriai rapist in the headlines of a major newspaper will remain a seriai rapist in the minds of its readers. even if he is subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing. The following are examples ofsorne of the headlines that appeared in German newspapers: "Oas ist ja eine Blamage, hôren Sie auf."41 "Bestürzender Mangel an Sensibilitat."-i2 "Mit Knobelbechern durch die Geschichte."43 In many cases Jenninger was grossly misquoted even in the headlines. The following headline was used to accompany excerpts from his speech in the Süddeutsche Zeitung: "Hatten sich die ]uden nicht doch eine Rolle angemaBt, die ihnen nicht zukam?"44 WhatJenninger really said was the following: "Hatten sie sich nicht in der Vergangenheit doch eine Rolle angemaBt • sa hieS es damais -, die ihncn nicht zukam? [Rede, 30] CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 69 • Although it is 'understandable' that the so biefi es damais ]enninger added on the spot be missing, the fact that the editors chose ta remove the "in der Vergangenheit" is cenainly quite questionable. A second example ofa misquoted headIine: "Hitlers Triumphzug muBte den Deutschen ais Wunder erscheinen"."·{'; should read: Für die Deutschen, die die Weimarer Republik überwiegend aIs eine Abfolge auBenpolitischer Demütigungen empfunden hatten, muBte dies alles wie ein Wunder erscheinen. [Rede, 26) It was Chomsky who pointed out how convenient it was that the structure of the media doesn't allow for the discussion of anything of substance due ta time and space constraints. It is hard ta undertake an in depth critique of society squeezed into the 4 1/2 minutes between commercials. Similarly, in the case of Der Fal! jenninger, certain newspapers published only 'excerpts', parts of]enninger's speech had been 'edited' out of recognition to fit into a headline-there are only sa many letters that can fit in a headline-and the 30 second spots on the television and radio must have produced an extremely skewed picture of the ] enninger speech. As one of person remarked in a letter addressed to ]enninger: Dann die ersten Meldungen im Radio, wo von "Eklat" gesprochen • wurde. Dann die Abendnachrichten im Femsehen, mit 30sekündigem CHAPTER. THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 70 Zitat yom Vormittag, daB einem die Haare zu Berge stehen muBten. • uWie kann der Mann nur?'" war die einhellige Meinung.46 One last example of creative editing once again: The Deutscher Bundestag-Chronik, part of the information service of the German Bundestag, has the following meager entry concerning Der FaU jenninger: Il.11.1988 Bundestagsprâsident Philipp ]enninger stellt sein Amt zur Verfügung.47 With absolutely no mention of the 'Eklat', this gross understatement is proof once again that Bismarck was right. and that one can fully change the meaning of a text by merely resorting to creative editing. Stories about Der Fal1 Jenninger One of the interesting aspects of Der FaU jenninger is the fact that the event came to be seen from several very different and even incompatible points of view. The stories which make up Der FaU jenninger portray him at once as ignominious failure, courageous hero and unwitting victim. This demonstrates the flexibility with which the discours social cao accornmodate multiple narratives based on the same event. Sorne ofthese narratives will be now be examined more closely. • CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 71 • Jenninger: The Failure The first and most widely disseminated version of Der Fal! Jenninger is the one in which ]enninger is described as having failed miserably in his attempt ta hold a speech worthy of such an important event. The first reactions collected and recounted through the media were unequivocal: his speech was a complete disaster. His failure appeared ta be sa complete that Volker Rühe, a member of]enninger's own party, stated that "now his head must roll". 48 This negative reaction was, for the most part, attributed to the fact that ]enninger had "overestimated bis intellectual capacities".f9 and had not been, at any rate, intellectually up ta the task: Ein biBchen Vergangenheitsbewaltigung aus gegebenem AnlaB-das konnte doch so schwierig nicht sein. Sie ging dann aber doch über die Krii.fte des Pclsidenten des Deutschen Bundestags, obwohl er doch brav alles gesagt hat, was man bei solchen Gelegenheiten sage DaB die Geschichte nicht in Frage gestellt, die Vergangenheit nicht vergessen werden dürfe. 5o "Es ist eine Schande," commented Detlef Kleinert of the FDP, "vor einer sa graBen Aufgabe zu versagen."51 His comment mirrored the general opinion of those parliamentarians present during the ceremony, that ]enninger, the second highest politicaI representative in Germany, hac! failed at his task of contributing in sorne positive way to the 'Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit.' In this version of Der FaU Jenninger, • fault was sought exclusively in ]enninger's shortcomings bath as CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE OF DER FALLfENNINGER 72 • Bundestagspriisident and as a persan. AlI of a sudden, everyone was a critic, 'noticing' how]enninger, who, just a few days ago was a much respected parliamentarian, was in fact quite a bumbling fool. Descriptions of the "Iess than brilliant" ]enninger abounded: Der Prasident des Deutschen Bundestages sprach wie ein M6chtegem Politiker aus der tiefsten Provinz, der im Hinterzimmer eines Dorfgasthauses über irgendeine Belanglosigkeit referiert. ';2 'Good oid ]enninger' was aise portrayed as 'honourable' yer 'simple minded': ]enninger, eio ehrenwerter, aber intelIektuell nicht gerade heraus ragender Mann, friedlich, ehrgeizig und etwas unbedarft.';.; Even though he had been much respected as Bundestagspriisident, his competence was cast in doubt by several commentators: Die Frage drangt sich schou auf, wie mittelmaBig man eigentlich sein darf, um in dieser Republik jahrelang unangefochten das zweithochste Amt bekleiden zu dürfen.54 ]enninger's ambition to hold a 'great' speech, despite his intellectual deficiencies is also frequently brought up: Doch ]enninger wollte anderes, woilte, das ist nicht übertrieben, einmal in seinem Politikerleben eben eine wirklich groBe Rede halten-und übernahm sich.55 • CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE Of DER FAUJENNINGER 73 • The idea of ]enninger's ambition in regards to his speech are often imputed to his desire to outdo the speech held by Richard von Weizsacker on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the capitulation of the Germans. Richard von Weizsackers Rede vom 8. Mai 1985: Sie ist zum MaBstab rur alles geworden, was danach zur deutschen Vergangenheit und unserem Verhaltnis zu ihr gesagt worden ist. (...] Er Uenninger] wollte, sa muB man vennuten, den Versuch machen, den Helmut Kohl stillschweigend aufgegeben hat: aus dem Schatten der alles vereinnahmenden Rede Richard von Weizsackers herauszutreten. (...] Die Verführung dazll muB besonders groB gewesen sein, weil sich die Chance bot, endlich einmaI das vergessene Amt des "zweiten Mannes im Staat" ins rechte Licht zu riicken. Der Wunsch ist 50 groB, wei! die Kompetenzen sa klein sind. 56 Thus the not-so-quick Jenninger was treated as a fool for not having recognized the fact that it was quite impossible to surpass von Weizsacker's great omtorical achievement. 'Proof' that ]enninger's ineptitude was at fault abounded. That he had 'hurt people's feelings' was evident in the fact that severa! members of the Bundestag stonned out in protest (cf. The Heckler Narreme). The photograph of Ms. Ehre and Jenninger (cf. The Distraught Victim Narreme) added insult to injury. The carefully selected excerpts presented in the media (cf. The Creative Editing of Der Fal! jenninger) only helped confirm 'Che accusations that were levelled at him: that he • had spoken out certain things that could easily be misconstrued as CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECIlVE OF DER FALLJENNINGER 74 • coming from the 'wrong corner', Le. the extreme right-wing, and was to he vehemently castigated. As was previously mentioned, ]enninger's unblemished past was invoked to curb any doubts conceming his relationship ta Germany's 'braune Vergangenheit'. This was instrumentalized to substantiate claims that he was a man of great integrity. "SchlieBlich entstammt der Gestrauchelte einer Familie," wrote one commentator, "die da christlich-human gesonnen, unter dem Hitler-Regime Unbill editt. Dieser Tradition getreu hat er sich in der Aussohnung mit den loden hervorgetan. "57 "Philipp ]enninger," wrote another commentator, "ist ein ehrenwerter Politiker und eine Personlichkeit yon beachtlicher Integritac. "58 The event of the ]enninger's speech was thus weaved into a narrative chat unfolded as follows: ]enninger holds a speech in the Bundestag chat provokes reactions from the audience and even causes severa! dozen of them to walk out in proteste The photo of Ms. Ehre is circulated as proof of how ]enninger-albeit unintentionally-hurt people's feelings. ]enninger's past is quickly invoked to show that the 'misunderstanding' was not a result of his having the 'wrong convictions' (faIsche Gesinnung) but racher due to his general ineptitude, particularly in respect to his rhetorical skills. ]enninger is blamed for letting his ego goad him into trying co outdo von Weizsacker's "speech to end aIl speeches". ]enninger, in this version of the narrative, was the one who • was solely responsible for the scandai chat took place. CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 75 • The whole event took on such great proportions that saon this story was the ta1k of the entire country, and literally took on the traits of a bad play: Der Redner wie auch jene Zuh6rer, die den Plenarsaal verlieBen, sowie unzâhlige hitzige Kommentatoren bildeten den Teil eines deutschen Trauerstücks, das rational kaum mehr erfaBbar erscheint.59 The next section will examine the way in which this damning version of the Der Fallfenninger was countered by a second narrative. Jenninger: The Hero While the initial version of Der FaU jenninger that circulated contained almost exclusively harsh criticism aimed at ]enninger, a second narrative saon appeared in which ]enninger was praised for rus brazen speech, one that dared to look at die Vergangenheit 'straight in the eye'. A FrenchJew living in Germany, for example, wrote the foUowing thank you letter ta Philipp ]enninger: [hre Bundestagsrede habe ich sorgraItig gelesen [...] Ihre Rede ist damit gekennzeichnet, mit der Courage und der Tapferkeit, eines, der sich schonungslos mit der Wahrheit auseinandersetzen m6chte. lntellektueli und moralisch ist es viel schwieriger, die Einsicht und Verstândnis des Wesens der Geschichte zu schaffen, aIs sich immer in aageblicher "Kollektivschuld" zu verstecken. Dafür, und für den Dienst, den Sie den Deutschen sowie den ]uden geleistet haben, haben Sie unsere Dank • barkeit verdient. Die meinige haben Sie.60 CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfNE Of DER FAUJENNINGER 76 • In contrast to the many negative critics, who dwelled on his inadequate intelligence, jenninger was often described as a politician who had one up on the others: "Philipp jenninger übemahm hier aIs ausgewiesen liberaier Politiker kritisch schuld- und seIbstbewuBt einen schwierigen Balanceakt rur aIle Deutschen," wrote Christian Blumrath, "und das genaue Studium seiner Rede laBt diese aus meiner Sicht. allen Kritikem jenningers zum Trotz, ais gelungen erscheinen. "61 For many, the speech represented the eminently laudable act of finally discussing and anaIyzing in public how such an event as Reichskristallnacht came to be: Mit Ihrer Rede haben Sie das groBe Verdienst erworben, eine Diskussion in Gang gebracht zu haben, die unbedingt notwendig war. Würde man bei der bisher üblichen Phrasendrescherei bleiben, 50 wiirde bei unserer jungen Generation ein Antisemitismus genahrt werden, den wir alle zu Recht fürchten und verabscheuen. Auf jeden FaU konnen Sie davon aus gehen-das sind meine Beobachtungen-, daB Sie die Sympathie von sehr vielen Menschen haben. deren Meinung ich auch sonst hoch schatze.62 Michael Fürst, deputy chairman of the Central Committee ofjews in Germany, who was present during the commemorative ceremony, found himself in the unique position of being one of the only voices that spoke out in support of]enninger immediately after the speech: Ich habe nicht erwartet, daB im Bundestag eine Trauerrede gehalten • wird. Ich begriiBe es, daB der Bundestagspriisident mit aller Deutlichkeit CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 77 angesprochen hat, was zwischen 1933 und 1938 und daruber hinaus in • 63 Deutschland an der Tagesordnung war. Jenninger also received much praise for being the first politician to have fmally spoken the 'Truth' about die Vergangenheit in public. Jenningers Rede aIs Bundestagspriisident hat in erschreckender \Veise aufgezeigt, daB ein guter Politiker mit vielen Worten nNichtssagen" kônnen muB. In meinen Augen hat der Politiker Jenninger das geschichtliche Verdienst, aIs erster maBgeblicher deutscher Reprasentant den Versuch der Analyse gewagt zu haben.6l AJewish victim of Nazi Germany wrote the following: Ich war Zeitzeuge. Sie haben die Wahrheit gesagt. DaB sie keiner hôren will, beschamt die anderen, nicht Sie. (...l Damit niemand glaubt, Sie bekamen Beifall von der faischen Seite: Ich bin ein "Opfer des National sozialismus". Meine ganze Familie, also Eltem, GroBeltern, Tanten und Cousins, endeten in den Gaskammem von Auschwitz und Treblinka. Nur meine GroBeltern nicht. Die lieB man in Theresienstadt verhungern. (...] Es ist Ihncn bestimmt aufgefallen, daB die Betroffenen, also über• lebendenJuden, kein Won des MiBfallens auBenen.6S • CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURS SOCIAL PERSPECfIVE Of DER FALLfENNINGER 78 • Schlomo Schamgar, a joumalist for a Tel Aviv newspaper, aise emphasized that what was important about Jenninger's speech was that he had told the troth: Die Wahrheit ist aber, daB ]enninger die \Vahrheit gesagt hat. (...) Er stellte den Deutschen einen Spiegel vors Gesicht, in dem sie sich aber nicht wiedererkennen woLIten. Deswegen ist er gefallen (...)66 Many comments were made with respect to the cornparisons with von Weizsacker's speech. Sorne, like the following comment, give Jenninger's speech the same high marks as von Weizsacker's speech: ]enninger ist Unrecht geschehen. Er hat eine groBartige Rede gehalten! [ ... J ]enninger hat sich in seiner Rede ein hohes Ziel gesteckt, das würdig oeben der Intention der ffÜheren, so hoch gepriesenen Rede unseres Bundespriisidenten steht.67 }enninger's critics are often accused of hypocrisy in their cornments on the affair. If there are no daubts as ta his moral and political stance, they claim, then it is simply hypocritical to blame him for this 'misunderstanding': Es ist ein Akt politischer Heuchelei, von ]enninger wegen der miB deutbaren AuBerungen den Rücktritt zu verlangen und ihm gleichzeitig "personliche Integritat" zu bescheinigen: Wenn an seiner "inneren Einstellung gegenüber den Vetbrechenn der Nationalsozialisten (so zum Beispiel die SPD-Erklarung) kein Zweifel besteht, dann geht es nicht an, • ibm MiBdeutbarkeiten vorzuhalten.68 CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURS SOCIAL PERSPECI1VE OF DER FALLfENNINGER 79 Ein gestandener Demokrat, aus politisch einwandfreiem Elternhaus • stammend und, was ihm wohl niemand abstreitet, hochverdient um die so schwierige Versohnung mit den Juden und um das Verhaltnis zum Staate Israel, wurde zum AbschuB freigegeben mit allem, was dazu gehort, wie SpieBrutenlaufen und den anschlieBenden Krokodilstriinen u seiner politischen Gegner und "Freunde , die ibm nach getaner Tat ihrer Wertschatzung versichern. Warum? Was war falsch?69 This led ta the suspicion that perhaps the claim that the misunder standing was due to }enninger's deficient rhetorical skills served to divert attention from other possible reasons: Die Entschuldigung für das peinliche MiBverstandnis war schnell gefunden: nicht die eigene Unaufmerksamkeit, sondem die "schlechte Rhetorik" des Redners, was sonst.ïO This version of the Jenninger speech emerged as a reaction to counter the initial narrative in which Jenninger was disgraced for having proved to be so stupid. ]enninger is thus praised for his audacity to take a look at the "ungeschminkte Wahrheit" of the rise of anti-Semitism in Gerntany, whiIe sa many other representatives of the people insist on repeating the "Liturgie des Trauems" ta avoid taking political risks. ]enninger was also thanked for bringing the discussion into the public sphere 50 that the younger generation may have a chance to leam [corn the pasto • CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 80 • Jenninger: A Victim of the Media Many appear ta be convinced that much of the uproar and most of the misunderstanding was caused by the way in which the media intentionally and otherwise-distorted what had actually taken place. One commentator even went as far as saying the following: "Bestürzt bin ich über die Gleichschaltung der Presse im In- und Ausland. Das gleiche hatten wir schon unter Hitler."71 Many commentators related their own experience of 'disinformation' by the media and how their opinion of the event changed dramatically once they had read the full text of the speech: Ich will geme gestehen, daB ich pers6nlich, nachdem ich im Rundfunk und Videotext einzelne aus dem Kontext herausgegriffene Auszüge Ihrer Ansprache erfahren hatte, zuerst schockiert über [hre Worte war und es nicht unterlieB, rnich gewaItig über den nicht zur Ruhe kommenden Antisemitismus in Ihrem Lande zu argern. AIs ich dann jedoch gegen 22 Uhr die Wiederholung Ihrer Ansprache im ZDF selbst erleben konnte, merkte ich nach wenigen Augenblicken, wie sehr ich einer geradezu un ertriiglichen allgemeinen Desinfonnation auf den Leim gegangen '\var. il Others noted the differences in opinion between those who had had the opportunity ta read the speech and those who based their 'judgement' exclusively on reports from the media: Am Abend des 10. November traf ich mich mit ein paar Freunden, eben faIls Studenten, ebenfaIls in den frühen 60er ]ahren geboren, ebenfalls • nichts am Hut mit der COUt und natürlich sprach man auch über [hre CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 81 Rede und die eventuell zu ziehenden Konsequenzen. Auffàllig war eines: • AlI' diejenigen, die den Originaltext irgendwann im Laufe des Tages mal gelesen hatten, verstanden die ganze Aufregung nicht-und der Rest, der Kommentare gelesen, Fernsehen oder Radio aIs Quelle benutzt hatte, verstand Sie nicht, hielt Sie bestenfalls fiir einen Dummkopf und schlimmstenfalls für einen unverbesserlichen Altnazi. Herr ]enninger: Das Problem ist nicht Ihre Rede. Das Problem ist das Bild, das sensations lüsterne, bëswillige oder ganz einfach dumme]ournalisten von ihr ge zeichnet haben.73 The media are thus blamed for having disseminated a skewed picture of what took place in the Bundestag. Sorne even go as far as claiming that the information presented was falsified in arder ta better incriminate ]enninger: Die beanstandeten Passagen Ihrer Rede wurden verfalscht, da man sie ohne Beriicksichtigung des Zusammenhangs zitierte; begrundete Zu stimmung-wie seitens des Herm Fürst-bLieb unbeachtet oder wurde totgeschwiegen.74 As has already been pointed out, the meaning of key aspects of the 'event' were indeed attributed to false motives. Jutta Oesterle-Schwerin stormed out because of her frustrations with the government, not because of ]enninger's speech. ]enninger was falsely and unjustly implicated in the pain that Ms Ehre was feeling. The deliberate and unintentional misquoting of]enninger's speech aIso serve to convey the • false impression that he said sensationally inappropriate things. "Ist es CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE OF DER FALLfENNINGER 82 • zuHissig," wrote Werner Hill in commenting on the dubious practices of his fellow colleagues, UBegriffe und Satze zu isolieren und zu sagen: Aha, Nazi-Sprachgut~?"75 One person, in addressing Jenninger, expressed his view of this in the following way: U Ais Politiker wissen Sie auch, daB Journalisten überhaupt nur die Teile aufnehmen, die "nützlich"?! sind für Nachrichten also Sensation bringen."76 This 'creative joumalism' raised many concems with regards to the power with which the media is entrusted in 'molding' public opinion: Der Vorfall hat in bislang kaum geahnter Deutlichkeit gezeigt, wer in unserem Land die eigentliche Macht hat: die Massenmedien.Ti Philipp ]enninger wurde das Opfer jener Meute von linken Fernseh- und H6rfunk-Berichterstattern, die seine Rede zerpflückten und zerhackten und so versuchten, ihm einen Strick zu drehen, um von eigenen Skandalen [...] abzulenken.78 Die andere Seite ist die n Fernsehdemokratie", die Diktatur des Fernsehens, unter der wir leben. Ohne die Mechanismen des Mediums Fernsehen, seine Hektik, seine vorschnellen Urteile, ware die Rede nüchtem analysiert worden-so wie es in der Tat geschah. Aber da war es zu spat, da war der Fall jenninger bereits zu den Akten gelegt. Heute llrteilt die Weit schon ganz anders.79 Criticism abounded concerning the 'irresponsibility' of the media and the way in which aIl journalists hastily reached such tenuous • verdicts. Hill points out an example of this lack of rigour in one of his CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE OF DER FALLfENNINGER 83 • colleagues, Marion Dônhoff.80 In her article, Ms. Dônhoff criticized Jenninger for having spoken Uin bewunderndem Ton" about the Hitler years and claimed that "Jenninger wirkte aIs Redner ganzIich unbeteiligt und ohne jede Warme. Er vermittelte keinerlei Empfmdung."81 \Vhen one of her readers pointed out that she had rnisquoted ]enninger. by leavmg out the aforementioned sa biefl es damaIs she explained that it was 'missing' in the document that was distributed ta the press. This. however, begs the question of how she was able to evaluate the "warmth" and "feelings" of]enninger's voice from a written press release. Ostensibly, as Hill concludes, because she already had formed an opinion of the 'EkIat' before bothering ta undertake a perfunctory 'analysis' of what had actually taken place. Another commentator also attributes the distortion of the incident ta the carelessness of those who 'entrusted' themseives with its interpretation: Eine Rechtfertigung der NS-Zeit wurde nun Jenninger vorgeworfen Auschnitte aus der Rede wurden isoliert wiedergegeben. Die Reaktion verlor die Rede selbst aus dem Auge, sie verselbstandigte sich. [...1 Es gibt weniger das Problem der Jenninger-Rede, es gibt eher das Problem der Interpreten, überzogen zu haben und schief zu gewichten. Die mangeInde Nüchternheit und Besonnenheit mancher Kritiker bereitet Sorge.82 This 'twist' to Der Fall jenninger emphasizes the powerful role the media play in determining the 'outcome' of such an event. Meaning is • seen to be carelessly attributed in dubious ways by the media. Sorne even CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURSSOCIAL PERSPECfIVE Of DER FAUJENNINGER 84 • accuse the media of leading an intentional campaign of disinformation in order to tum attention away from the real issues at hand. The media are thus portrayed as having played a pivotai role in the sullying of the reputation ofJenninger's unblemished reputation. NOTES l FredrieJameson, The Polit/cal Unconscious. Narrative as a Socia/ly Symbolic Act (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981) 9, 13. 2 Jean-Pierre Faye, Théorie du récit. Introduction au..;r; "langages totalitaires» (paris: Hennann, 1972) 15-16. 3 Nancy S. Struever, "Historical Discourse, ft Handbook of Discourse Analysis Ed. Teun van Dijk. 4 vols. London: Academie Press, 1985. 1: 266. "' Roland Barthes, "L'ancienne rhétorique. Aide-mémoire, ft L'aventure sémiologique (paris: Seuil, 1985) 96. (Originally published in: Communications 16 (1970): 172-229] 5 Caroline Désy and Jocelyn Létourneau, "Les Discours de l'histoire et le passé enveloppé, ft Appel de collaboration au numéro VIII. {-2 (hiver-printemps 1996) de Discours social/Social Discourse, 1. 6 Faye, 9. 7 "Zwei Minuten und siebzehn Sekunden hatte der Pr.isident des Deutschen Bundestages, Dr. Philipp]enninger, die Chance, ungestort zu sprechen. ft Hill, Die Affiire jenninger. Was eine Rede an den Tag brachte, 2. 8 Lübecker Nachrlcbten, Il Nov 1988: 3. Cited in Girnth, 7. 9 Nürnberger Nachricbten, 262 (lI. November 1988): 3. Cited in Gimth, 9. 10 ilfüncbner l11erkur, 261 (lI. November 1988): 2, and athers. Cited in Girnth, 9. li Hamburger Morgenpost, 265 (lI Nov 1988): 3. Cited in Girnth, 9. 12 Augsburger Allgemeine, 261 (lI. November 1988): 3. Cited in Girnth, 10. 13 Gimth, 19. H Express, 263 (11 Nov 1988): 2. Cited in Girnth, 14. 15 As was previously mentioned, German law precludes the 'dismissal' of the Bundestagspriisident. 16 Laschet/Malangré, 35-36. 17 Laschet/Malangré, 37. 18 Laschet/Malangré, 3&37. 19 Laschet/Malangré, 38. 20 Laschet/Malangré, 7. 21 M. Gratin Dônhoff, "En verfehltes Kolleg, ft Die Zeit 18 Nov. 1988: 3. 22 Werner Hill, jenninger. Was eine Rede an den TClg b rachte. Television programme. Dir. Horst Konigstein. Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NOR 3), Hannover (Special project). Il Nov. 1989, 26 (Rebroadcast: WDR,Cologne. Il Nov.1989l. 23 Eduard Neumaier, "Der Sturz ]enningers-ein deutscher FaU. Vom Zwangs konformismus und dem ôffentlichen Umgang mit der Wahrheit," Rbeinischer Merkur • 18 Nov. 1988: N. pag. CHAPTER THREE: A DISCOURS SOCIAL PERSPECITVE OF DER FAUJENNINGER 85 24 Jutta Oesterle-Schwerin, Press Release# 1096/88, 9 Nov. 1988: 1. Reprinted in • Laschet/MaIangré,34. 25 Oestede-Schwerin, 1. Reprinted in Laschet/MaIangré, 34. 26 Hill,jenninger. Was eine Rede an den Tag Bracbte 27. 27 Hill,jenninger. Was eine Rede an den Tag Bracbte 27. 28 "Mit Knobe1bechem durch die Geschichte," Spiegel 46 (14 Nov. 1988): 23. 29 Copyright 1988, Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, Bundesbild stelle der Bundesrepublik DeutscWand. Used with permission. u 30 Horst Stein, .. "Das ist ja eine Blamage, horen Sie auf ." Die Welt 265 (lI Nov. 1988): 3. 31 Hill,jenninger. Was eine Rede an den Tag Bracbte 35. 32 Hill,fenninger. Was eine Rede an den Tag Bracbte 35 [cited [rom Vonviirts). 33 Laschet/Malangré, 3 1. 34 Tempo (Nov 1988). E:xcerpt reprinted in LaschetlMalangré, 62. [My emphasis] 35 Hill,fenninger. Was eine Rede an den Tag Bracbte 36. 36 Taken from inscription on the back of the photograph provided by the Bundcsbildstelle. [Myemphasis] 37 Wilhelm Liebknecht, Die Emser Depescbe, oder wle Kriege gemacbt werden (Nürnberg: Worlein, 1892) HI. [Myemphasis] 38 Uebknecht, 43. 39 Hochschullehrer aus Bonn, Lettcr to Philipp Jenninger. 12 Nov. 1988. Cited in Laschet/MaIangré, 104. 40 Laschet/MaIangré, 43. 41 Stein, 3. 42 "Bestürzender Mange! an Sensibilitiit," Die Welt 265 (lI Nov. 1988): 5. 43 "Mit Knobelbechem durch die Geschichte," Spfegel 46 (14 Nov 1988): 22-28. 44 .. "Hatten sich die Juden nicht doch cine Rolle angemaBt, die ihnen nicht zukam?" Die umstrittene Rede des Bundestagsprasidenten Philipp )enninger (Excerpts)," Siiddeutsche Zeitung 261 (lI Nov. 1988): 13. 45 AP, "Hitlers Triumphzug muBte den Deutschen aIs Wunder erscheinen." Eine Rede, die zum Eklat führte: Philipp Jenninger in der Gedenkstunde des Bundestages zum 50.]ahrestag der Novemberpogrome.;< Frankfurter Rundschau II Nov.1988: N. pag. 46 C.W., Letter to Philipp )enninger, 18 Nov 1988. Reprinted in Laschet/Malangré. 107. 47 Il. Wahlperiode (1987-1990) Deutscber Bundestag-Cbronik, • 55 Gimth, 12. 56 Hofmann, N. page 57 Girnth, 13. SB Gimth, 12. 59 Neue Zürcber Zeitung 12 Nov. 1988. Cited in LaschetlMalangré, 56. 60 En in der Bundesrepublik lebenderJude franz6sischer Staatsangeh6rigkeit, Letter to Philipp Jenninger, 13 Nov. 1988. Cited in Laschet/MaIangré, 132. 61 Dr. med. Christian Blurnrath, Letter. "Mut zur Analyse," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 19 Nov. 1988: N. page 62 'Prominenter Sozialdemokrat', Letter ta Philipp Jenninger, 28 Nov. 1988. Cited in Laschet/MaIangré, 124. 63 Gimth, 8. 64 Roland Bender, Letter. "Jenningers Vcrdienst," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitllrzg 6 Dec. 1988: N. page 65 "SPD-Anhanger" aus H., Letter to Philipp ]enninger, Il Nov. 1988. Cited in Laschet/MaIangré, 101. 66 Schlomo Schamgar, jed/ot Acbaronot (rel Aviv) 13 Nov. 1988: N. page Cited in L'lSchet/Malangré, 57. 67 Mechtild Lange, Lener. "Wollte den Blick scharfen," Frankfurter A/lgemeine Zeftung 25 Nov. 1988: N. page 68 Langhans, N. page 69 Dr. Joachim Lindner, Letter. "Vom bloB demonstrativen Trauerritual abge wichen," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 25 Nov. 1988: N. page 70 Norbert Geis, Letter. "Entzog sich dem Schema," FrankJurter Allgelneitze Zeitung 25 Nov. 198B: N. page 71 Hill,jenninger. Was eine Rede an den Tag Brachte 71. 72 Ooctor, who descI"ibes himself as deserter and former 'Forced recruitment' officer, Letter ta Philipp]enninger, Il Nov. 1988. Cited in Laschet/Malangré, 134. 73 C.W., Letter ta Philipp]enninger. 18 Nov. 1988. Cited in Laschet/Malangré, 107. 74 Ehepaar aus E., Letter to Philipp ]enninger, 12 Nov. 1988. Cited in Laschet/Malangré, 106. 75 Hill,jennfnger. Was eine Rede an den Tag Brachte 34. 76 P.B., Letter ta Philipp ]enninger, 18 Nov. 1988. Cited in Laschet/Malangré, 136. 77 Daniel Langhans, Letter. "Feigheit und Heuchelei beim "FaU Jenninger"," Frankfurter Al/gemeine Zeitung 22 Dec. 1988: N. pag. 78 Luxemburger Wort, Cited in laschetlMaIangré, 59. 79 Rudolf Heizler, "Hypothek zum Jahresbeginn," K6/nische Rutldschau 2 Jan. 1989. Cited in Laschet/MaIangré, 94. BQ Hill,jenninger. Was eille Rede an den Tag Brachte 30-31. 81 D6OOoff, 3. 82 Eckart Haclunann, Letter. "Sogartig und ohne Abwagen," FrankJurter Allgel'neine Zeitung 26 Nov. 1988: N. page • 87 • Chapter Four: Closing Remarks Beloted moral condemnotion ond humone regret are Ilot elJollgh. The historicol facts Illust be mode k,IOW11, the social cOtises that made Ihelll possible must be IIl1derstood, and we Intlst become owore of our OWll respollsibi/ity for whot goes 011 oround liS. ~Ve do IlOt escape the post by thrustillg if to the bock ofOllr minds. Gilly ifwe conie ta tenns with if and IIllderstand the lessons ofthose years, con we free ourselves ofthe legac)' of Hitlerite barbaris1ll. Policies are IlOt pre-ordailled by fate. They are made by people andpeople can change them. GerhardSchoenberner, The Holocaust. The Nazi Destruction of Europe's Jews. Even the ellqtlirer is charmed. He forgets to purslle the point. lt is 1/ot what he wants ta knofJl'. 1t is whal he wallis flot ta know. ft is nol what they say. It is fU/hot the] do 110t say. James Fellioll, HA German Requien1" Eitl reiner Reim wird wohlbegehrt; Doch den Gedankell rein Zli haben. Die ede/ste VOl1 al/e!l Gobe/l, Dos ist miral/e Reime fU/ert. Goethe rVas wir trl1l, ist nie vaIIko1llmen, aber den gutell ~Ville1/ solltell wir IIIIS gegellseitig allzeif /lIltersiel/en. Philipp Jelllli1/ger, Inaugural speech 1984 • CHAPTER FOUR: CLOSING REMARKs 88 • If it was ]enninger's intention to hold a mirror up to the German populace in order to force them to examine more closely their relationship with die Vergangenheit, then one would have to conclude that he succeeded famously, precisely because it didn't go as smoothly as planned: Aber am Ende war dies-bei aller UnbehoLfenheit und gerade wegen des Eklats-ein würdiges Gedenken an den schlimmen Tag vor 50 ]ahren. Der Dom im Fleisch der Deutschen, die mit ihrer Geschichte leben müssen wurde nicht herausgezogen, sondern tiefer hineingetrieben. Wie denn kann der Vergangenheit besser gedacht werden: mit Buchs baumen, Bachchor und Betroffenheit-oder mit Aufwühlen, Aufregung und ungelenker Ehrlichkeit? 1 As was discussed in the section UHistoria Magistra Vit~ and die Vergangenheit", the "Dom im Fleisch", the fight over how to derme the past and how one can better leam from it, is seeded with political agendas that make it hard to undertake constructive debate on the subject. The fact that ]enninger got caught in the cross-fire and was 'mortally wounded' is a sign of the vehemence with which this ideological struggie is carried out. The way in which the speech was radically transformed by its circulation in the discours social was aIso a source of consternation. What was perceived as honesty, courage and determination by sorne was perceived as temerity, stupidity and faise bravado by others. One is • dumfounded by the fact that a person such as ]enninger, a recognized CHAPTER. FOUR: CLOSING REMARKs 89 • friend of Israel, one whose clear condemnation of the criminaI regime of National Socialism was known to ail, could actually be construed as someone who sought to justify the Nazi pasto This aspect of Der FaU jenninger is, unfortunately, what may have the most detrimental effect on the way public figures will address die Vergangenheit in the future, since it will be perceived-and perhaps rightly so-that there will never be a 'right time' to speak ofthe pasto The initial story of Der Fall jenninger that circulated sought ta show that it was Jenninger who was somehow deficient in the way he chose ta commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Reichskristallnacht. As it tums out, however, the incident ends up telling us much more about the way die Vergangenheit reverberates in the German discours social than about the man who caused such an uproar. NOTES 1 Christoph Bertram, "Ein wü1'"diges Gedenken," Die Zeft 18 Nov. 88: 3. • 90 • Appendix A The Jenninger Speech The following is a stenographie transeript of the speech held by Philipp ]enninger in the Bundestag on November la, 1988. I have also included an English translation, adapted from a news service translation of the speech, as it was reproduced in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. As was noted in my thesis, there were several diserepaneies between the speech, as presented by Philipp ]enninger, and the versions of his speech, usually based on the written manuscript provided by ]enninger, that were reprinted in the media. Although the German transeript provided below is faithful to ]enninger's speech, the version printed in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung contained sorne inaceuraeies. These discrepancies, Le. those statements that appear in the transeript but not in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung are indieated in bold print in both versions included below. • APPEt'\lDIXA THEJENNINGER SPEECH 91 Rede des Priisidenten des Deutschen Address of Bundestag President Philipp • Bundestags, Dr. Philipp Jenninger, wahrend ]enninger during the Commemoration der Gedenkveranstaltung aus AnlaB der Ceremony on the Occasion of the Pogroms Pogrome des nationalsozialistischen Regimes Carried out by the Nationalsocialist Regime gegen die jüdische Bevolkerung vor 50 Jahren Against the Jewish Population Fifty Years Ago Meine Damen und Herren! Die Juden in Ladies and Gentlemen! The Jews in Germany and Deutschland und in aller Welt gedenken heute ail over the world taday commemorate the events der Ereignisse vor 50 Jahren. Auch wir Deutschen of 50 years aga. We Germans, tao, recall what erinnem uns an das, was sich vor einem halben occurred half a century aga in our country, and it Jahrhundert in unserem Land zutrug, und es ist is a good thing that we can do sa in bath states on gut, daB wir dies in beiden Staaten auf deutschem German soil. For our history cannat be divided Boden tun; denn unsere Geschichte laBt sich into good and bad, and the responsibility for the nicht aufspalten in Gutes und Bases, und die past cannot be divided up according ta the Verantwortung für das Vergangene kann nicht geographical arbitrariness of the postwar order. verteilt werden nach den geographischen Willkürlichkeiten der Nachkriegsordnung. 2 Ich begfÜSe zu dieser Gedenkveranstaltung im [welcome to this commemorative event in the Deutschen Bundestag den Herm German Bundestag the Federal President, the Bundesprasidenten und den Herm 130tschafter des Ambassador of the State of Israel, my special Staates Israel. Mein besonderer GrufS gilt an greeting on this day goes out to aIl Jewish fellow diesem Tag allen jüdischen Mitbürgerinnen und citizens in Germany, above aIl ta those who are Mitbürgem in Deutschland, var allem denen, die participating as our guests in this hour of aIs unsere Ehrengaste an dieser Gedenkstunde commemoration, headed by the chairman of the teilnehmen, dem Vorsitzenden und den Central Councii of]e\vs in Germany. My greetings Mitgliedem des Direktoriums des Zentrairates der and thanks also apply to you, dear Mrs. Ehre. Juden in Deutschland und den Vertretem der christlichen Kirchen. Mein herzlicher GruLS und mein Dank gelten auch lhnen, sehr verehrte Frau Professor Ehre. 3 Viele von uns haben gestem auf Einladung des At the invitation of the Central Council of Je\v"S in Zentralrates derJuden in Deutschland an der Germany, many of us participated yesterday in the Gedenkveranstaltung in der Synagoge in commemorative event in the synagogue in Frankfurt am Main teilgenommen. Heute nun Frankfurt am Main. Today we are meeting in the haben wir uns im Deutsehen Bundestag German Bundestag to commemorate here in this zusammengefunden, um hier im Parlament der parliament the pogroms of 9and 10 November Pogrome vom 9. und 10. Novemher 1938 zu 1938-because not only the victims, but also we, gedenken, weil nicht die Opfer, sondem wir, in in whose midst the crimes occurred must deren Mitte die Verbrechen geschahen, erinnem remember and render account because we und Rechenschaft ablegen müssen, weil wir Germans want to get clear in Our minds about the Deutsche uns klarwerden wollen über das understanding of our history and about lessons for Verstiindnis unserer Geschichte und über Lehren the political shaping of our present and future. für die politische GestaItung unserer Gegenwart undZukunft • 4 (Zurut) (shouting) APPENDIXA THEJENNINGER SPEECH 92 5 -Bilte lassen Sie diese \Vürdige Stunde in der -Please allow this dignified meeting ta proceed • vargesehenen Fonn ablaufen! as pIanned! 6 (Fortsetzung des Zurufs) (continued shauting) 7 -Haben Sie Verstfuldnis dafür, daB ich Sie -1 beg l"ou to please keep quiet! herzlich bitte, sich jetzt ruhig zu verhalten! 8 Die Opfer-dieJuden überall auf der Welt- The victims, the Jews ail aver the warld, know only wissen nur zu genau, was der November 1938 rur too weIl, what November 1938 had meanl for their ihren künftigen Leidensweg zu bedeulen halte.- future ordeal. -Do we know it, too? Wissen auch wir es? 9 Was sich heute vor 50 Jahren mitten in The event that occurred 50 years ago within Deutschland abspielte, das hatte es seit dem Germany was unlike anything that had happened Mittelalter in keinem zivilisierten Land mehr in anl" civilized country since the Middle Ages. And gegeben. Und, schlim..rner noch: Bei den what is worse, the outrages were not the Ausschreitungen handelte es sich nicht etwa um expressions of a popular rage, as always die AuBerungen eines \Vie immer motivierten spontaneausly mativated, but an action devised. spantanen Valkszarns, sondern um eine von der instigated, and prornoted bl" the state leadership. damaligen Staatsführung erdachte, angestiftete und geforderte Aktion. LO Die herrschende Partei hatte in Gestalt ihrer The ruling party, by its highest representatives, had h6chsten Repriisentanten Recht und Gesetz suspended justice and law, the slate itself turned suspendiert; der Staat selbst machte sich zum into the organizer of the crime. Carefully selected Organisator des Verbrechens. An die Stelle von laws and decrees bl" which the creeping deprivation gezielten Gesetzen und Verordnungen, mit deren of the rights of theJews had been pursued were Hitfe über Jahre hinweg die schIeichende now replacOO bl" open terror. Open season had Entrechtung derJuden betrieben worden war, trat been declared on a minoritl", after all still jetzt der offene Terrûr. Eine noch immer nach numbering into the hundreds of thousands, its Hunderttausenden zahlende Minderheit war zum possessions were left ta the destructive frenzy of an Frei\Vild erkHirt worden, ihr Hab und Gut der organized mob. Zerst6rungswut eines organisierten Mobs anheimgegeben. 11 Weit über 200 Sl"nagogen wurden niedergebrannt Weil over 200 synagogues were bumOO down or oder demoliert, jüdische friedhofe verwi.istet, demolished, Jewish cemeteries desecrated, Tausende von Geschaften und Wohnungen thousands of businesses and dwellings destroyed zerst6rt und geplündert Rund hundert Juden and 100tOO. About 1O0 Jews were killed, about fanden den Tod, etwa 30 000 wurden in 30,000 carried off to concentration camps; manl" Konzentrations[ager verschleppt; viele von ihnen of them never retumed. The human agony, the kehrten nicht mehr zurück. Nicht in Zahlen zu torment, the humiliations, the maltreatment, the fassen waren die menschlichen QuaIen, die degradations cannat be expressed in numbers. Drangsalierungen, Demütigungen, • MiBhandlungen und Erniedrigungen. APPENOIXA THEJENNINGER SPEECH 93 12 Goebbels, der eigentliche Regisseur der ganzen Goebbels, the actual stage manager of the entire • Aktion, hatte sich insofern in seiner Kalkulaticn action, had miscalculated when no one at home geirrt, ais niemand im In- oder Ausland an die and abroad believed the fiction of "spontaneous Fiktion des "spontanen Volkszorns" glaubte. popular rage." Policemen and firemen passively Dafür sorgten schon die untatig herumstehenden standing around who let the synagogues bum Polizisten und Feuerwehrleute, die die Synagogen down and only intervened when "Aryan" property niederbrennen lieBen und nur eingriffen, wenn was endangered, dispelled the fiction. "arisches" Eigentum in Gefahr geriet. 13 Die spateren Parteigerichtsverfahren besllitigten The subsequent party court proceedings then denn auch mit zynischer Offenheit, daB die confirmed with cynical frankness that the uniformierten SA-Trupps und die anderen uniformed Storm Trooper units and the other Brandstifter und Morder nur den "Willen der arsonists and murderers hOO only put the "will of Führung" in die Tat umgesetzt hatten; bestraft the leadership" into practice; only those were wurden am Ende nur diejenigen, die sich der finally punished who hOO been guilty of "Rassenschande" schuldig gemacht hatten. "Rassenschande" [racial disgrace-sexual relations \Vith non-Aryans]. 14 Kein Zweifel, die in der BevOlkerung alsbald mit Without a doubt, the events saon referred to by the dem Begriff "Reichskristallnacht" belegten people with tlle term "Reichskristallnacht" (Reich Ereignisse markierten einen entseheidenden Crystal Night) marked a decisive tuming point in Wendepunkt in derJudenpolitik der the policy towards Jev..'S of the Nazi rulers. The NS-Herrscher. Die Zeit der scheinlegalen period of the pseudolegaI camouflage of injustice Verbramungen des Unrechts ging zu Ende; nun carne to an end; and now the road to the begann der Weg in die systematische Vemichtung systematic extermination of the Jews in Germany derJuden in Deutschland und in weiten Teilen and in large pans of Europe began. Europas. IS Die BevOlkerung verhielt sich weitgehend passiv; The population was largely passive; that das entsprach der Haltung gegenüber corresponded to the attitude toward anti-Jewish antijüdischen Aktionen und MaBnahmen in actions and measures in the preceding years. Dnly vorangegangenenJahren. Nurwenige machten few participated in the outrages--but there was bei den Ausschreitungen mit-aber es gab auch aIso no opposition no resistance worth keine Auflehnung, keinen nennenswerten mentioning. The reports speak of consternation Widerstand. Die Berichte sprechen von and shame, of compassion. even of revulsion and Betroffenheit und Beschamung, von Mitleid, ja, dismay. But there were only isolated instances of von Ekel und Entsetzen. Aber nur ganz vereinzelt sympathy and practical solidarity, support, and gab es Teilnahme und praktische Solidaritat, assistance. Everybody saw what was happening Beistand und Hilfeleistung.-Alle sahen, was and the majority tumed a blind eye to it and kept geschah, aber die allermeisten schauten weg und silent. The churches, too, were sHent. schwiegen. Auch die Kirchen schwiegen. • APPENDIX A THEJENNINGER SPEECH 16 Der Begriff "Reichskristallnacht" wird heute zu The term "Reichskristallnacht" is now rightly • Recht als unangemessen betrachtet. Doch gab er regarded as inappropriate. But it reflected the die damals herrschende Stimmungs- und mood and the emotional state prevailing at that GeruhIslage ziemlich zutreffend wieder: eine time rather accurately: a mixture of Mischung aus Verlegenheit, Ironie und embarrassment, irony, and playing down, but Verharmlosung; vor allem war er Ausdruck above aU it was an expression of embarrassed peinlichen Berührtseins und der Ambivaienz des emotion and the ambivalence of one's own eigenen Empfindens angesichts der offen zutage feelings in the face of the obvious responsibility of iiegenden Veran twortung der Partei- und the party and state leadership. Staatsführung. 17 Am 30. Januar 1933 hatten die The National Socialists had assurned power in the Natianalsozialisten die Macht im Deutschen German Reich on 30 January 1933. The 5 and 1/2 Reich übemommen Die fünfeinhaib Jahre bis years up ta November 1938 was sufficient time ta zum November 1938 reichten aus, um die in wipe out the status of the equality of the ]ew'S anderthalb Jahrhunderten errungene achieved over a century and a half. [t started with Gleichstellung derJuden auszulOschen. Es the boycott ofJewish businesses in April 1933, soon begann mit dem Boykott jüdischer Geschafte im thereafter followed by the compulsory retirement April 1933, dem alsbald die Zwangspensionierung ofJewish public servants and, in the same year, the jüdischer Staatsbediensteter und noch im selben first prohibitions to pursue their professions for Jahr erste Berufsverbote für jüdische Künstler und Jewish artists and joumalists. The "Nuremberg Joumalisten folgten. Die "Nümberger Gesetze" Laws" made theJews secand-class human beings von 1935 machien dieJuden zu Menschen zweiter without civil rights; with the "Law for the Klasse ohne staatsbürgerliche Rechte, mit dern Protection of German Blood and German Honor," "Gesetz zum Schutz des deutschen Blutes und der the unspeakable offense of "Rassenschande" deutschen Ehre" hielt das unsagliche Delikt der entered the language. "Rassenschande" seinen Einzug. 18 Mit der Ausschaltung aus dem staatlichen und The exclusion from state and culturallife \Vas kuiturellen Leben gingen immer sllirkere increasingly accompanied by stronger restrictions Einengungen der beruflichen on professional activities, which ended up in Betatigungsmoglichkeiten einher, die in exclusions ofJewish physicians and lawyers, Berufsverbote rur jüdische Arzte und actors, brokers, and marriage brokers from RechtsanwaIte, Schauspieler, Makler und pursuing their professions. From the spring of Heiratsvermittler mündeten. Ab dem Frühjahr 1938 the Nazi rulers concentrated more strongly 1938 konzentrierten sich die NS-Herrscher on the "aryanization" of the German econorny in verstarkt auf die "Arisierung" der deutschen other words on the expropriation and looting of Wirtsehaft-sprich: auf die Enteignung und the Jews. Ausplünderung derJuden. • APPENDIXA THEJENNINGER SPEECH 95 19 Garing war ais Beauftragter für den Goering as commissioner for the 4-year plan was • Vierjahresplan unzufrieden mit den Resultaten dissatisfied with the results of the November der Novemberpogrome. lm Gesprach mit pogroms. In a conversation with Goebbels and Goebbels und Heydrich entfuhr ihm der Satz: Heydrich the sentence escaped him: "1 would have "Mir wace lieber gewesen, ihr hattet 200 Juden preferred it if you murdered 200 Jews and not erschlagen und hattet nicht solche Werte destroyed such assets." But just like mocking the vemichtet."-Doch wie um die Juden auch noch Jews on top of it, an "atonement payment" zu verhohnen, wurde ihnen eine amounting to 1billion Reich marks was imposed "Sühneleistung" in H6he von einer Milliarde on them; they had to remove the damage of the Reichsmark auferlegt; die Schaden des Pogroms pogroms at their own expense \vithout delay; the hatten sie auf eigene Kosten unverzüglich zu insurance daims were paid to the state. At the beseitigen die Versicherungsansprüche fielen an same time decrees were published excluding the den Staal. Gleichzeitig wurden Verordnungen zur Jews from economic life effective 1January 1939. valligen Ausschaltung derJuden aus dem Wirtschaftsleben ab dem 1. Januar 1939 bekanntgegeben. 20 \Vas dann nachfolgte, waren MaBnahmen zum What then followed were measures for the vollstandigen AusschluB derJuden aus der complete exclusion ofJews from society. The aiffi Gesellschaft. Ziel war ihre totale lsolierung und was their total isolation and complete banishment vallige Verbannung aus allen Bereichen des from aIl areas of public life. For all those for whom affentlichen Lebens. -Für aile, denen die the possibility of escape was blocked from the M6glichkeit versperrt blieb, durch Auswanderung regime by emigration, the rest of the way was dem Regime zu entkommen, war der Rest des marked out: Star of David, ghetto, deportation, Weges vorgezeichnet: Judenstem, Ghetto, forced labor, extermination. Deportation, Zwangsarbeit-und dann Vernichtung. 21 lm Rückblick wird deutlich, meine Damen und [n retrospect it becomes evident tllat in fact a Herren, daE zwischen 1933 und 1938 tatsachlich revolution took place in Germany between 1933 eine Revolution in Deutschland stattfand---eine and 1938--a revolution in which the Revolution, in der sich der Rechtsstaat in einen constitutional state was transformed into a state of Unrechts- und Verbrechensstaat verwandelte, in crime and injustice, into an instnlment for the ein Instrument zur Zerst6rung genau der destruction precisely of the legal and ethical rechtlichen und ethischen Normen und standards and foundations the maintenance and Fundamente, um deren Erhaltung und defense of which ought to he important to the state Verteidigung es dem Staat-seinem Begriffe by its definition. nach---eigentlich gehen solite. 22 Am Ende dieser Revolution war die NS-Herrschaft At the end of this revolution the Nazi rule had been entscheidend gefestigt und war im decisively strengthened and a great deal more had RechtsbewuBtsein der Menschen weit mehr been destroyed in the legaI awareness of tlle people vernichtet worden, ais es nach auBen hin than might be evident outwardly. erkennbar sein mochte. • APPENDLXA THEJENNINGER SPEECH 96 23 Deutschland hatte Abschied genommen von allen Germany had bid farewell ta ail humanitartan • humanitaren Ideen, die die geistige Identitat ideas that constituted Europe's intellectual Europas ausmachten; der Abstieg in die Barbarei identity; the descent into barbarism was deliberate war gewoIIt und vorsatzlich. Zu denen, die dafür and premeditated. Those who provided the das theoretische Rüstzeug lieferten, zahlte Roland theoretical tools for that included Roland Freisler. Freisler, damals Staatssekretar im then state secretary in the ReichJustice Ministry. Reichsjustizrninisterium. "Grundlage des neuen "The basis of the new German law," according to deutschen Rechtes" war laut Freisler "die durch Freisler was "the German ideology transformed by die nationaIsozialistische Revolution gewandelte the National Socialist revolution...The legal deutsche Lebensanschauung ... Das aspirations of the people are authoritatively Rechtswollen des Volkes auBert sich autoritativ in expressed in the rallies of the representative of the den Kundgebungen des Willenstragers des will of people," sa he said, ·'the Fuehrer. When Vo lkes",sa sagte er, "des Führers". Wenn der the Fuehrer expresses principles of legal content Führer auBerhalb der Gesetze Grundsatze outside of the law with the intention for validity rechtlichen Inhalts mit dem Willen nach Geltung and the demand for observation, it is just as much und der Forderung nach Beachtung auBert, 50 ist a source for legaI findings as the law. That das eine ebenso unmittelbare includes above all the party program of the NSDAP Rechtserkenntnisquelle wie das Gesetz. Hierher (National SociaIist German Workers Partv)." This geh6rt vor allem das Parteiprogramm der according ta Freisler. NSDAP.·· SA weil Freisler. Das hieS schlicht: Die Rechtsprechung hatte der That means simply: The administration of justice NS-Ideologie zu folgen, denn das Wort des had to follow the Nazi ideology, for the Fuehrer's Führers war Gesetz. word was law. 24 Für das Schicksal der deutschen und Even more disastrous for the fate of the German europaischen Juden noch verhangnisvoller als die and European Jews than Hitler's atrocities and Untaten und Verbrechen Hitlers waren vielleicht crimes were perhaps his successes. Even from the seine Erfolge. DieJahre von 1933 bis 1938 sind detached look back and in the knowledge of what selbst aus der distanzierten Rückschau und in followed, the years from 1933 to 1938 even now Kenntnis des Foigenden noch heute ein are a matter of fascination inasmuch as there is Faszinosum insofem, ais es in der Geschichte hardly any parallel in history to Hitler's political kaum eine Parallele zu dem politischen trtumphs during those first years. Triumphzug Hitlers wmrend jener ersten Jahre gibt. 25 Wiedereingliederung der Saar, Einführung der Reintegration of the Saar, introduction of allgemeinen Wehrpflicht, massive Aufrüstung, universal military service, massive rearmament, AbschluB des deutsch-britischen conclusion of the German-British naval Flottenabkommens, Besetzung des Rheinlandes, agreement, occupation of the Rhineland, summer Olympische Sommerspiele in Berlin, "AnschluB" Olympiad in Berlin, "Anschluss" of Austria, and Osterreichs und "GroBdeutsches Reich" und "Greater German Reich," and finally, only a few schlieBlich, nur wenige Wochen vor den weeks prior to the November pogroms, the Munich Novemberpogromen, Münchener Abkommen, Pact, dismemberment of Czechoslovakia the Zerstückelung der Tschechoslowakei - der Treaty of Versailles was now really nothing more Versailler Vertrag war wirklich nur noch ein than a scrap of paper and the German Reich aH of Fetzen Papier und das Deutsche Reich mit einem a sudden the dominant power of the old continent. • Mai die Hegemonialmacht des alten Kontinents. APPENDlX A THEJENNINGER SPEECH 97 • 26 Für die Deutschen, die die Weimarer Republik For the Gennans who predominantly had felt the übeIWiegend ais eine Abfolge auBenpolitischer Weimar Republic as a succession of foreign policy Demütigungen empfunden hatten, muSte dies humiliations, ail this must have seemed like a alles wie ein Wunder erscheinen. Und nicht miracle. And not enough witll that: mass genug damit aus Massenarbeitslosigkeit war unemployment had become full employment, Voilbeschaftigung, aus Massenelend so etwas wie mass misery somewhat like prosperity for the Wohlstand für breiteste Schichten geworden. Statt broadest strata of the population. Optimism and Verzweiflung und Hoffnungslosigkeit herrschten self-confidence prevailed in place of despair and Optirnisrnus und Selbstvertrauen. Machte nicht hopelessness. Oidn r t Hi tler rnake come true what Hitler wahr, was Wilhelm II. nur versprochen Wilhelm II had only promised, namely to lead hatte, namlich die Deutschen herrlichen Zeiten them towards glorious limes? Wasn't he really entgegenzuführen? \Var er nicht wirklich von der chosen by Providence, a leader given to a people Vorsehung auserwahlt, ein Führer, wie er einem only once in a 1000 years? Volk nur einmal in tausendJahren geschenkt wird? 27 Sicher, rneine Damen und Herren, in freien Of course, in free elections Hitler wou Id never have Wahlen hatte Hitler niemais eine Mehrheit der had a majority of the Germans behind him. But Deutschen hinter sich gebracht. Aber wer woIlte who wanted ta doubt that in 1938 a large majority bezweifeln, daB 1938 eine groBe Mehrheitder of the Germans stoOO behind him, identified Deutschen hinter ihm stand, sich mit ihm und themselves with him and his policies? Sure, sorne seiner Politik identifizierte? GewiB, einige "griping grumblers" (Haffner) did not want to stay "querulantische Norgler" wollten keine Ruhe silent and were persecuted by the SO [Security geben und wurden von Sicherheitsdienst und Service] and the Gestapo but most Germans-and Gestapo verfolgt, aber die rneisten Oeutschen that applies to aIl strata-the bourgeoisie as und zwar aus allen Schichten: aus dem weil as the working classes-had probably been Bürgertum \vie aus der Arbeiterschaft convinced in 1938 that they should perceive in dürften 1938 überzeugt gewesen sein, in Hitler Hitler the greatest statesman of our history. den gr5Bten Staatsmann unserer Geschichte erblicken zu sollen. 28 Und noch eines darf nicht übersehen werden: Alle And one more thing must not be overlooked, aIl of die staunenerregenden Erfolge Hitlers waren Hitler's amazing successes taken together and insgesamt und jeder rur sich eine nachtriigliche individually were a belated slap in the face for the Ohrfeige rur das Weimarer System. Und Weimar Weimar system. And Weimar was not only war ja nicht nur gleichbedeutend mit synonymous with foreign policy weakness, with auBenpolitischer Schwache. mit Parteiengezfu1k quarreling of the parties and changes of und Regierungswechsel, mit wirtschaftlichem govemment, with economic misery7 with chaos, Elend, mit Chaos, StraBenschlachten und street battles, and political disorder in the broadest politischer Unordnung im weitesten Sinne, sense7but Weimar was aIso a synonym for sondem Weimar war ja auch ein Synonym für democracy and parliamentarianism, for Demokratie und Parlamentarismus, rur separation of powers and for civil rights, for Gewaltenteilung und Bürgerrechte, für Presse freedom of press and assembly, and finaIly also a und Versammlungsfreiheit und schlieBlich auch maximum of]ewish emancipation and rur ein H&hstmaB jüdischer Emanzipation und assimilation. • Assimilation. APPENDIX A THEJENNINGER SPEECH 98 29 Das heiBt. Hitlers Erfolge diskreditierten That is ta say, Hitler's successes retroactively • nachtraglich var allem das parlamentarisch discredited especially the parliamentaty system verfaBte, freiheitliche System, die Demokratie von based on the constitutional principle of freedom, Weimar selbst. Da stellte sich fur sehr viele the democracy of \Veimar itself. For many Deutsche nicht einmal mehr die Frage, welches Germans the question did not even arise any System vorzuziehen sei. Man genofS vielleicht in longer which system was to be preferred. In einzelnen Lebensbereichen weniger individuelle individual spheres of life fewer individual freedoms Freiheiten; aber es ging einem pers6nlich doch may perhaps have been enjoyed, but people besser als zuvor, und das Reich war doch personally were better off than before and the unbezweifelbar wieder groB, ja, grofSer und Reich, after ail, was undeniably great again. machtiger als je zuvor.-Hatten nicht eben erst bigger and more powerful than ever. Didn't the die Führer GroBbritanniens, Frankreichs und leaders of Great Britain, France, and Haly paya Italiens Hitler in München ihre Aufwartung visit to Hitler in Munich and help him achieve gemacht und ihm zu einem weiteren dieser nicht another of those successes that had not been für moglich gehaltenen Erfolge verholfen? considered possible? 30 Und was die Juden anging: Hatten sie sich nicht And as far as the Jews were concerned, hadn't they in der Vergangenheit doch eine Rolle assumed a role in the past-so il was thought al angemaBt-so hieS es damaIs -, die ihnen the tirne-to which they had no right? At long nicht zukam? MuEten sie nicht endlich einmal last didn't they have ta accept restrictions? Hadn 't Einschrfulkungen in Kauf nehmen? Hatten sie es they perhaps even deserved being put in their nicht vielleicht sogar verdient, in ihre Schranken place? And above all didn't the propaganda- gewiesen zu werden? Und var allem: Entsprach apart From wild exaggerations that were not ta be die Propaganda-abgesehen von wilden, nicht Laken seriously in essential points match emstzunehmenden Übertreibungen-nicht doch conjectures and convictions of one's own? And in wesentlichen Punkten eigenen MutmaBungen when it just got too bad, as it did in November und Üherzeugungen? Und wenn es gar zu 1938, in the words of a contemporary it was always schlimm wurde, wie im November 1938, sa possible to say: "What's that got to do \Vith us! konnte man sich mit den Worten eines Look the other way if it gives you the creeps. IL is Zeitgenossen ja immer noch sagen: "Was geht es not our fate." (Rauschning) uns an! Seht weg, wenn euch graust. Es ist nicht unser Schicksal." 31 Meine Damen und Herren, Antisemitismus Ladies and Gentlemen, Anti-Semitism had hatte es in Deutschland-wie in vielen anderen existed in Germany-just as in many other Uindem auch-lange var Hitler gegeben. Seit countries-Iong before Hitler. For centuries Jews Jahrhunderten waren die Juden Gegenstand had been the abject of church and state kirchlicher und staatlicher Verfolgung gewesen; persecution; the anti-Judaism of the churches der von theologischen Vorurteilen gepragte shaped by theological prejudices cou Id look back Antijudaismus der Kirchen konnte auf eine lange on a long tradition. Tradition zurückhlicken. 32 Um 50 dankbarer sind wir heute, daS die We are all the more thankful for the fact that the christlichen Konfessionen und die Juden seit dem Christian denominations and the Jews have since Ende des Krieges zurn Dialog gefunden haben the end of the war achieved a dialogue and are und ihn offen und freundschaftlich miteinander carrying it on openly with one another in a • führen. friend.ly manner. APPENDIXA THE]ENNINGER SPEECH 99 • 33 Es gab auch andere Beispiele in der Geschichte: There were also other e.xamples in history: Prussia, PreuBen etwa, das nicht nur rur franz5sische for example, which became the new home not Hugenotten, salzburgische Protestanten und only for French Huguenots. Salzburg Protestants schottische Katholiken, sondem eben auch rur and Scottish Catholics, but also for many viele verfolgte Juden zur neuen Heimstatt wurde. persecutedJews. Practically up to Hitler's seizure of Praktisch bis zu Hitlers Machrubernahme zeigte power, German anti-Semitism showed itself to be sich der deutsche Antisemitismus eher verhalten rather restrained compared with the militant gegenüber der in Ost- und Südosteuropa hostility to Jews prevailing in Eastern and herrschenden militanten Judenfeindschaft. Wohl Southeastem Europe. It was probably not an nicht zufâllig erschien zehn Jahre var der accident that 10 years before the French franz6sischen Revolution Lessings "Nathan der Revolution Lessing's "Nathan the Wise" was Weise", und über Kaiserreich und Republik published and throughout the Empire and the hinweg hielten die staatlichen Institutionen Republic, state institutions-true to the ideas of getreu den Ideen des aufgeklarten enlightened absolutism-adhered to the eman Absalutismus-an der Emanzipation und cipation and the assimilation of the Jews. Assimilation derJuden fest. 34 Ein anderer Aspekt ist noch, daB sich der deutsche Another aspect is the fact that German nationalism Nationalismus in spezifischer Weise von dem in a specifie way differed from the nationalism of Nationalismus anderer Lander unterschied. Aus other countries. For reasons which are not to be Gründen, die hier nicht zu untersuehen sind, war examined here, the parliamentary, liberal, and die parlamentarische, liberale und demokratisehe democratic eomponent was rather underdeveloped. Komponente eher unterentwiekelt, wahrend auf while there was special emphasis placed on the der gemeinsamen HerJ.amft und Abstammung, common origin and extraction, on the common auf der gemeinsamen Geschichte, auf dem history, on "being German." This was evident after "Deutsch-Sein" besondere Betonung lag. Dies the Napoleonic wars as weil as in 1848-9 and zeigte sich nach den napoleonisehen Kriegen especially in the Empire. ebenso \Vie 1848/49 und erst reeht im Kaiserreieh. 35 Die Folge war-nach auSen-ein zunehmend The consequence was-toward the outside-an aggressives NationalbewuBtsein bei gleichzeitiger increasingly aggressive national consciousness Hinnahme obrigkeitsstaatlicher Strukturen im with simultaneous acceptance of structures of the Innern, wo sieh die Aggressivitat gegen damalige authoritarian state intemally, where the Minderheiten \Vie Katholiken, Sozialisten und aggressiveness was directed against minorities al Juden richtete.-Manehe Historiker haben that time, such as Catholics, Socialists, and jews. deshalb auch beklagt, daS es in der deutschen -Therefore many historians have also deplored Geschichte an einer Revolution oder wenigstens the fact that in German history there is no an einer allgemeinen evolutionaren Hinwendung revolution or at least a general turning toward zur Demokratie und zu den individuellen democracy, toward individual human rights. Menschenrechten gefehlt habe. Thomas Mann Thomas Mann once spoke sarcastically of the sprach einmal bissig yom "militanten "militant subservience" of the Germans in whieh Knechtssinn" der Deutschen, in clenen sich "arrogance" is paired "with remorse." "Hochmut mit Zerknirschung" paare. • APPENDIX A THEJENNINGER SPEECH 100 • 36 Andere Dinge traten hinzu. Die rasante Other things came aIong. The rapid [ndustrialisierung und Verstadterung industrialization and urbanization especially aftel' insbesondere nach 1871 führte zu einem 1871100 to a widespread vague uneasiness about weitverbreiteten, diffusen Unbehagen an der the Modern Age in general. And especially in this Moderne überhaupt. Gerade in diesem process of radical change, which was felt as a UmwillzungsprazeB, der von vielen Menschen ais threat by many people, the Jev.'S played a quite bedrohlich empfunden wurde, spielten die Juden prominent, frequently brilliant raie: in industry, in eine ganz herausgehobene, oftmaIs glanzende banking, and business life, among physicians and Rolle: in der [ndustrie, im Bankenwesen und lawyers, in the entire cultural sphere, as weIl as in Geschaftsleben, untel' Arzten und the modern natural sciences.-That created envy Rechtsanwillten, im gesamten kulturellen Bereich and inferiority complexes and the immigration of wie in den modemen Naturwissenschaften. Das Jev,.'S from the East was observed with extreme weckte Neid und Inferioritatskomplexe, und die dislike. Zuwanderung von Juden aus dem Osten wurde mit auBerstem MiBfallen beobachtet. 3ï Der Kapitalismus und die GraBstiidte mit ihren Capitalism and the big cities with their unvermeidIichen Begleitu mstanden-das unavoidable attendant circumstances that erschien ebenso "undeutsch" wie das prominente appeared just as "un- German" as the praminent Engagement von Juden in liberalen und invoivement ofJe\vs in liberal and sociaIist groups. sozialistischen Gruppierungen. 38 Eine Flut von Schriften und Traktaten befaBte Aflood of publications and treatises dealt \vith the sich mit der angeblich verderblichen RoHe "des" allegedly corrupting raIe of "the" Jew and, in Juden, und neben unbekannten Autaren und addition to unknown authors and known ones like bekannten, \Vie Gobineau und Chamberlain, Gobineau and Chamberlain, there were also waren es eben auch GraBen des deutschen important figures of German intellectual and Geistes- und KulturIebens, wie Heinrich van culturallife such as Heinrich von Treitschke and Treitsehke und Richard Wagner, die das Richard Wagner, who made the anti-Jewish antijüdische Ressentiment salonfahig machten. feelings of resentment socially acceptable. The ]e\\'S DieJuden wurden zu gesellschaftlich erlaubten became socially sanctioned abjects of hale. HaBobjekten. 39 AIs besonders verhangnisvoll erwies sich die The instrumentalization of Darwin's theory by the [nstrumentalisierung der Darwinschen Lehre propagandists of anti-Semitism proved to be durch die Propagandisten des Antisemitismus. especially fateful. Here, finally, were the tools to Hier war endlich das Rüstzeug, um dem Geraune provide a scientific cloak for the whisperings of the von der jüdischen Weltverschworung und dem Jewish world conspiracy and of the etemal battie of ewigen Kampf der Rassen ein wissenschaftliches the races; here things healthy, strang, useful, there Mantelchen urnzuhangen; hier das Gesunde, things diseased, harmful, the ]ewish "decay," the Starke, Nützliche. dort das Krankhafte, "vermin" From which people had to be freed by Minderwertige, Scharlliche, die jüdische "eradication" and "extermination." "Verwesung", das .. Ungeziefer", von dem es sich durch "Ausmerzung" und "Vernichtung" zu befreien galt. • APPENDIXA THEJENNINGER SPEECH 101 40 Hitlers sogenannter "Weltanschauung" fehlte Hitler's so-called ideology lacked any original • jeder originare Gedanke. Alles war schon vor ihm thought. Everything was there even before him: da: der zum biologistischen Rassismus gesteigerte The anti-Semitism intensified to biologistic racism JudenhaB ebenso wie der Affekt gegen die as weil as the emotion directed against the Modem Moderne und die Utopie einer ursprünglichen, Age and the utopia of an unspoiled agrarian agrarischen Geseilschaft, die zu ihrer society that required "living space" in the East for VeIWirklichung des "Lebensraumes" im Osten its implementation. Except for the further bedurfte. Sein eigener Beitrag bestand auBer in coarsening, simplification, and brutalization of der weiteren Vergroberung, Vereinfachung und the world view taken over from others, his own Brutalisierung des von anderen übernommenen contribution essentiaIly consisted in his fanatical Weltbildes im wesentlichen in der fanatischen obsession and his talents in mass psychology by Besessenheit und massenpsychologischen which he raised himself to become the most Begabung, mit der er sich selbst zum wichtigsten important propagandist and program initiator of Propagandisten und Programmatiker des National SociaIism. NationalsoziaIismus emporhob. 41 Waren die Juden in früheren Zeiten rur Seuchen While in earlier times ]e\vs had been made und Katastrophen, spater für wirtschaftliche Not responsible for epidemics and catastrophes, later und nundeutsche" Umtriebe verantwortlich for economic hardship and "un-German" gemacht worden, so sah Hitler in ihnen die activities, Hitler saw in them the ones guilty for aU Schuldigen für schlechthin aile Übel: sie standen evil per se. They were behind the "November hinter den "Novemberverbrechern" des Jah res criminals" of 1918, the "b!oodsuckers" and 1918, den "Blutsaugern" und "Kapitalisten", den "capitalists," the "BoIshevists" and "Free Masons:' "Bolschewisten" und "Freimaurern", den the "Liberals" and the "Democrats," the "defilers "Liberalen" und "Demokraten", den of culture" and "corrupters of moraIs," in short "Kulturschandern" und "Sittenverderbern", kurz they were the actual wirepullers and those causing sie waren die eigentlichen Drahtzieher und all military, political, eeonomic, and social Verursacher allen milillirischen, politischen, disasters that had afflicted Germany. wirtsehaftlichen und sozialen Unglücks, das Deutschland heimgesucht hatte. 42 Die Geschichte reduzierte sich auf einen Kampf History was reduced to a battle of the races, der Rassen; zwischen Ariern undJuden, zwischen between Aryans and lews, between "Germanie "germanischen Kuiturspendern" und "jüdischen cultural contributors" and "Jewish subhumans." Untermenschen". Die Rettung für das deutsche The salvation for the German people and the final Volk und die endgültige Niederwerfung des defeat of the despoilers of humanity could only lie Menschheitsverderbers konnten nur in der in the deliverance of the world fromJe\\-lsh blood Erl6sung der Weit yom jüdischen Blut als dem as the evil principle of history. b6sen Prînzip der Geschichte liegen. • APPENDIXA THEJENNINGER SPEECH 102 43 Das Gegenbild war der Krieger und Bauer, der in The opposite picture was the warrior and farmer • den Weiten des Ostens im steten Kampf gegen who kept expanding the borders of the sphere of asiatische Horden die Grenzen des germanischen Germanie culture in the expanses of the East and Kulturlandes immer weiter ausdehnte und al the sarne time following Mendelian laws, gleichzeitig mittels Zucht und Veredelung die raising the Germanie race to fantastic heights by germanische Rasse in einsame Hohen discipline and breeding. Even at a lime when hinaufmendelte.-Noch ais anderswo arn Bau elsewhere work was being done on building a der Atombombe gearbeitet wurde, verkündeten nucIear bomb, Himmler and others procIaimed Himmler und andere diese an Idiotie grenzenden these ideas borde ring on idiocy \Vith the tiring Vorstellungen mit der ermüdenden Eintonigkeit monotony of the mentally HL von Geisteskranken. 44 Gleiches galt für Hitlers Zwangsvorstellung des The same was true of Hitler's obsessive notion of schwarzhaarigen, hakennasigen Juden, der die the black-haired, hook-nosedJewwho violates the weiBe, blondgelockte germanische Frau mit blond, curly-haired German woman with his blood seinem Blut schilildet und darnit rur immer and thus steals her from her people forever. As ihrem Volk raubt. Schon in "Mein Kampf" findet early as in "Mein Kampf' there appears again and sich wieder und wieder diese Wahnvorstellung, again this delusion which is continued in an die sich in einer endlosen Litanei über "Unzucht" endless litany about "sodomy" and und "Bastardisierung", "Vergewaltigung" und "bastardization," "rape," and "ineest" continuing "Blutschande" bis in sein Testament hinein up to and in his last will and testament. fortsetzl. 45 Das Elend der Kindheit, die Demütigungen der The misery of his childhood, the humiliations of Jugend, die ruinierten Traume des gescheiterten his youth, the ruined dreams of the failed artist, Künstlers, die Deklassierung des stellungs- und the pauperization of the unemployed and obdachlosen Herumtreibers und die Obsessionen homeless tramp and the obsessions of the sexually des sexuell Gestorten das alles fand in Hitler ein troubled-all this found an outlet in Hitler, his Ventil: seinen unermeBlichen und niemals immense and never-ending hatred of the jews. The endenden HaB auf die Juden. Der Wunsch, zu desire to humiliate, to beat, ta exterminate, and to demütigen, zu schlagen, auszutilgen und zu destroy daminated him up ta the last moment. vemichten, beherrschte ihn bis zum letzten Augenblick. • APPE.NOrx A THEJENNINGER SPEECH 103 46 Mit dem Überfall auf die Sowjetunion bot sich die The attack on the Soviet Union offered the • M6glichkeit, beides miteinander zu verbinden: die opportunity ta connect both with one another: the Eroberung von "Lebensraum" im Osten und die conquest of the "living space" in the East and the schon am 30.Januar 1939 6ffentlich angedrohte "extermination of the Jewish race in Europe" "Vernichtung der jüdischen Rasse in Europa". publicly threatened on 30 January 1939. As early as Bereits im Vorfeld des Osûeldzuges zeichnete prior to the Eastern campaign, gigantic killings sich-Stichworte "Kommissarbefehl" und became apparent-tenus like "Kommissarbefehl" "Einsatzgruppen"--ein gigantisches Morden ab, (commissioners arder) and "Einsatzgruppen" das selbst das. was zuvor in Polen geschehen war, (task forces)-killings that by far dwarfed even weit in den Schatten stellen muBte. In den the things that had happened earlier in Poland. Monaten nach dem 22.Juni 1941 werden unter During the months after 22 June 1941, under the dem Vorwand der Partisanen- und pretext of fighting partisans and gangs, hundreds Bandenbekampfung Hunderttausende jüdischer of thousands of]ewish men, women, and children Manner, Frauen und Kinder von hinter der Front were shot to death by Einsatzgruppen operating tatigen Einsatzgruppen erschossen. Die behind the front. The "final solution" had ..Endlosung" hat begonnen-Iange bevor sie am started-Iong before they became known for the 20.Januar 1942 auf der "Wannsee-Konferenz" record on 20 January 1942 at the "\Vannsee aktenkundig wird. Conference." 4.7 In der Folge entstehen die Fabriken des Todes; Subsequently the facto ries of death arise; "gas aus den" Gaswagen" werden Gaskammem und trucks" become gas chambers and crematoria Verbrennungsofen, wahrend die ErschieBungen while the executions by shooting continue. Even weitergehen. Den unschuldigen Opfem wird the executioner is refused to the innocent victims; selbst der Scharfrichter verweigert; die Tater the perpetrators replace the hangman by the ersetzen den Henker durch die ins Monstrose industrialized methods of the pest exterminator gesteigerten industrialisierten Methoden des raised to a monstrous Ievel-true ta lheir wards Kammerjagers-getreu ihrer Sprache, es gelte that what is involved is "exterminating vermin." "Ungeziefer auszutilgen". Und auch vor diesem On this day we aIso do not want to dose our eyes ta letzten, schrecklichsten woIIen wir am heutigen this last thing, the most horrible. Tag nicht die Augen verschlie~n. 48 Von Dostojewski stammt der Satz: "Wenn Gatt Dostoyevski coined the sentence: "If Gad did not nicht existierte, ware alles erlaubt." Wenn es exist everything would be permitted." If there is no keinen Gott gibt, so ist alles relativ und imaginar, Gad, then everything is relative and imaginary da yom Menschen gemacht. Oann gibt es keine since it is made by man. In that case there is no Wertordnung, keine verbindlichen Moralgesetze, system of values, no binding moral code, no crime, keine Verbrechen, keine Schuld, keine no guilt, no pangs of conscience. And since those Gewissensbisse. Und da denjenigen, die um dieses who are privy to this secret are "pennitted Geheimnis wissen, "alles erlaubt" ist, hangen everything," their actions depend on their will ihre Handlungen aIlein von ihrem Willen ab. Sie alone. They are free to dis regard aillaws and sind frei, sich über aile Gesetze und morallschen moral values. \Verte hinwegzusetzen . • APPENDlXA THEjE.!\JNlNGER SPEECH 104 Dostoje'W-ski hat diesen Gedanken-der sp~iter bei Dostoyevski has examined this idea which recurs • Nietzsche wiederkehrt-in mehreren seiner later on with Nietzsche in severa! of his works Werke auf seine Konsequenzen für das concerning i15 consequences for the individuaI as Individuum \Vie für das Zusammenleben der weIl as for the living together of people, for society. Menschen, für die Gesellschaft untersucht. Was What might have appeared to his contemporaries seinen Zeitgenossen als abseitige Spekulation as the remote speculation of a religious braoder, eines relïgi6sen Grüblers erscheinen mochte, praved ta be prophetie anticipation of the political erwies sich als prophetische V01Wegnahme der crimes of the 20th century. politischen Verbrechen des 20. Jahrhundertc;. 50 H6ren wir dazu einen Augenzeugen der In this connection, let us listen to an eyewitness of deutschen Wirklichkeit desJahres 1942: the German reaIity of 1942: 51 "Die von den Lastwagen abgestiegenen "The people who got off the truck, men, women, Menschen, Manner, Frauen und Kinder jeden and children of ail ages, at the command of an SS Alters, muBten sich auf Aufforderung eines man who held a riding or dog whip in his hand, SS-Mannes, der in der Hand eine Reit- oder had to strip and place their clothing, separated by Hundepeitsche hielt, ausziehen und ihre Kleider shoes, outer clothing, and underwear on specific nach Schuhen, Ober- und Unterkleidem getrennt places... These people undressed without yelling or an bestimmten Stellen ablegen ... Ohne Geschrei crying, 5tOoo together in family groups, kissed and oder Weinen zogen sich diese Menschen aus, said goodbye to each other and waited for the standen in Familiengruppen beisammen, h.'uBten gesture of another 55 man who stood at the pit und verabschiedeten sich und warteten auf den and also held a whip in his hand... 1observed a Wink eines anderen SS-Mannes der an der Grube family of about 8 persons, a man and a woman, stand und ebenfalls eine Peitsche in der Hand both about 50 years old, \Vith their children about hielt ... Ich beobachtete eine Familie von etwa 1,8, and 10 years old, and 2 grawn daughters, 20 acht Personen, einen Mann und eine Frau, beide tü 24 years of age. An old woman \Vith snow white von ungeHihr 50 Jahren, mit deren Kindem, 50 haïr was holding the l-year old on her arm and ungefalu 1-,8- und lOjahrig, sowie zwei sang something to it and tickled il The child erwachsene T&hter von 20 bis 24 Jahren. Eine squealed \-vith deIight. The couple watched with alte Frau mit schneeweiBem Haar hielt das tears in their eyes. The father held the hand of a einjahrige Kind auf dem Arm und sang ihm boy about la, spoke ta him softly. The boy fought etwas vor und kitzelte es. Das Kind quietsehte vor back his tears. The father pointed with the finger Vergnügen. Das Ehepaar schaute mit Tranen in toward heaven, stroked his head and appeared to den Augen zu. Der Vater hielt an der Hand einen explain something to him. At that point the SS Jungen von etwa 10 Jahren, sprach Ieise auf ihn man at the pit shouted something to his comrade. ein. Der Junge kampfte mit den Trfulen. Der Vater He split off about 20 persons and instructed them zeigte mit dem Finger zum Himmel, streichelte to go behind the earth mound... 1went around the ihn über den Kopf und schien ihm etwas zu earth mound and stoOO in front of a huge grave. erkHiren. Da rief schon der SS-Mann an der Tightly pressed together the people were lying on Grube seinem Kameraden etwas zu. Dieser teilte top of each other 50 that only the heads could be ungefahr 20 Personen ab und wies sie an, hinter seen. Blooo ran over the shoulders from n~arly aIl den Erdhügel zu gehen ... Ich ging um den heads. Sorne of those shot still moved. Sorne raised Ercihügel herurn und stand vor einem riesigen their arms and tumed their heads to show that Grab. Dicht aneinandergepreBt lagen die they were still alive The pit was nearly three Menschen so aufeinander, daB nur die K6pfe zu quarters full. Aceording tü my estimate about 1000 sehen waren. Von fast allen K6pfen rann Blut persons were already in the pit. 1looked around for • über die Schultem. Ein Teil der Erschossenen the marksman. The latter, an S5 man, sat on the APPENDIXA THEJENNINGER SPEECH 105 bewegte sich noch. Einige hoben ihre Anne und ground at the edge of the narrow side of the pit, let • drehten den Kopf, um zu zeigen, daB sie noch his leg hang inta the pit, had asubmachine gun lebten. Die Grube war bereits dreiviertel voll. Nach on his knees and smoked a cigarette. The meiner Schatzung lagen darin bereits ungefâhr completely naked people walked dawn by steps that 1000 Menschen. Ich schaute mich nach dem had been dug into the clay wall of the pit, slid over Schützen ume Dieser, ein SS-Mann, saS am Rand the heads of those who were lying dovm up to the der Schmalseite der Grube auf dem Erdboden, point which the SS man indicated ta them. They lieS die Beine in die Grube herabhangen, hatte lay dawn next to the dead or waunded people, auf seinen Knien eine Maschinenpistole liegen sorne caressed those still living and spake ta them und rauchte eine Zigarette. Die vollstandig softly. Then l heard a series of shots fired. rlooked nackten Menschen gingen an einer Treppe, die in into the pit and saw how the bodies twitched or the die Lehmwand der Grube gegraben war, hinab, heads were already still on the bodies lying there rutschten über die Kopfe der Liegenden hinweg under them...The next group already approached. bis zu der Stelle, die der SS-Mann anwies. Sie went down into the pit, lined up on the previous legten sich vor die toten oder angeschossenen victims and were shot ta death." Menschen, einige streichelten die noch Lebenden und sprachen leise auf sie ein. Dann horte ich eine Reihe Schüsse. Ich schaute in die Grube und sah, wie die Korper zuckten oder Kopfe schon still auf den vor ihnen liegenden K6rpem lagen ... Schon kam die nachste Gruppe heran, stieg in die Gnlbe hinab, reihte sich an die vorherigen Opfer an und wurde erschossen." • APPENDIX A THE}ENNINGER SPEECH 106 Dazu sagte der Reichsführer SS in seiner Rede vor And now let us listen to the Reich leader of the 55 • SS-Gruppenführern in Posen im Oktober 1943: from his speech before 5S major generals in Poznan in October 1943: S3 ,,[ch will hier vor Ihnen in aller Offenheit auch "[ also wanl to mention here to you in all ein ganz schweres Kapitel eMahnen. Unter uns frankness a very difficult subject. Among us it is to solI es einmal ganz offen ausgesprochen sein, be stated for once qulte openly, nevertheless we will und trotzdem werden \Vir in der Offentlichkeit nie never talk about il in public... [ refer now to the darüber reden ... Ich meine jetzt die evacuation of the ]e\V'S, the extermination of the ]udenevakuierung, die Ausrottung des jüdischen Jewish people. rt is one of the things that is easily Volkes. Es geh6rt zu den Dingen, die man leicht said. 'The Jewïsh people are being exterminated,' ausspricht.-..Das jüdische Volk wird every party comrade says, 'obvious, it is in our ausgerottet", sagt ein jeder Parteigenosse, "ganz program, elimination of the ]ews, extermination. klar, steht in unserem Programm, Ausschaltung that will be done by us.' And then all of them der ]uden, Ausrottung, machen wir." Und dann come, the good 80 million Germans and everyone kommen sie alle an, die braven 80 Millionen of them has his decent]ew. Obviously, the others Deutschen, und jeder hat seinen anstandigen are all swîne, but this one is a greatJew. Of aH of ]uden. Es ist ja klar, die anderen sind Schweine, those who talk that way, no one has looked on, no aber dieser eine ist ein prima]ude. Von aIlen, die one has gone through il. Most of you will know 50 reden, hat keiner zugesehen, keiner hat es what il means when 100 corpses lie there together, durchgestanden. Von Euch werden die meisten when there are 500 or when there are 1000 lying wissen, was es heilSt, wenn 100 Leichen there. Ta have endured this and-apart from beisammen liegen, wenn 500 daliegen oder wenn exceptions of human weakness-to have 1000 daliegen. Dies durchgehalten zu haben und remained decent in this situation, that has dabei-abgesehen von Ausnahmen hardened us. This is a glorious chapter of our menschlicher Schwache-ansUindig geblieben history, never written and never to be written. [n zu sein, das hat uns hart gemacht. Dies ist ein general we cao say that we have fulfilled this most niemals gesch riebenes und niemals zu difficu[t task from love for our people. And as a schreibendes Ruhmesblatt unserer Geschichte ... r€Sult we have not suffered any harm inside [nsgesamt konnen wir sagen, daIS wir diese ourselves, in our soul, in our character." schwerste Aufgabe in Liebe zu unserem Volk erfüllt haben. Und wir haben keinen Schaden in unserem Inneren, in unserer Seele, in unserem Charakter daran genommen." 54 Wir sind ohnmachtig angesichts dieser S~itze, wie We are helpless in view of these words, we are wir ohnmachtig sind angesichts des helpless in view of this millionfold destruction. millionenfachen Untergangs. Zahlen und Worte Numbers and words do not help. Human suffering helfen nicht welter. Das menschliche Leid ist is not reversible, and every single one who became nicht rückholbar; und jeder einzelne, der zum a victim was irreplaceable to his family. There Opfer wurde, war rur die Seinen unersetzlich. So remains a residue for which aIl attempts fai! to bleibt ein Rest, an dem aIle Versuche scheitem, explain and to comprehend. zu erklaren und zu begreifen. • APP~roIX A THEJENNINGER SPEECH 107 ss Das Kriegsende 1945 bedeutete rur die Deutsehen The end of the war in 1945 meant a deep shock to • in mehrfacher Hinsicht einen tiefen Schock. Die the Germans in more ways than one. The defeat Niederlage war total, die Kapitulation was total, the capitulation unconditionaL AlI bedingungslos. Alle Anstrengungen und Opfer efforts and sacrifices had been pointless. To the waren sinnlos gewesen. Zu der entsetzlichen horrible truth of the holocaust is added the Wahrheit des Holocaust trat die "ielleicht bis knowledge thus far not completely digested that heute nicht vollig verinnerlichte Erkenntnis, daiS the planning of the war in the East and the die Planung des Krieges im Osten und die extennination of tlle Jews were inextricably linked Vemichtung der Juden unlosbar miteinander with one another, that the one would not have verbunden gewesen waren, daB das eine ohne das been possible without the other. andere nicht moglich gewesen wace. s6 Die Deutschen waren auf ihre bare Existenz The Germans were thrown back ta their bare zuruckgeworfen; niemand wuBte angesichts existence, nobody knew, in view of millions of Millionen Toter und der zerbombten Stfu:lte sowie dead and the bombed-out cities, as weIl as the der Millionen, die flüchten muBten, wie es millions who had been forced to fiee, how life weitergehen soIlte. Alle Werte, an die man was ta go on. AlI values in which people bad geglaubt hatte, aile Tugenden und Autoritaten believed, all virtues and authorities were waren kompromittiert. Die Abkehr von Hitler compromised. Tuming away from Hitler took erfolgte beinahe blitzartig; die zwolfJahre des place virtually lightning-like, the 12 years of the "Tausendjahrigen Reichs" erschienen bald wie "1000 year Reich" saon seemed to be like a ein Spuk. Darin auBerte sich gewiB nicht nur die phantom. This undoubtedly ~"(pressed not only the volistandige Desillusionierung hinsichtlich der complete disillusionment \vith respect to the Methoden und Ziele des Nationalsozialismus, methods and aims of National Socialism but also sondem auch die Abwehr von Trauer und Schuld, defense against grief and guilt. the aversion ta a der Widerwille gegen eine schonungslose merciless grappling with the past. Auseinandersetzung mit der Vergangenheit. 57 Die rasche Identifizierung mit den westlichen The quick identification with the Western victors Siegem fdrderte die Überzeugung, letzten promoted the conviction in final analysis-just as Endes-ebenso wie andere VOlker-von den other nations-ta have been only misused by the NS-Herrschem nur miBbraucht, "besetzt" und Nazi rulers, "occupied," and finally liberated. schlieBlich befreit worden zu sein.-Auch dies This, too, was one of the basis on which a gehorte zu den Grundlagen, auf denen eine tremendous reconstruction effort produced the ungeheure Wiederaufbauleistung das von der German economic miracle marveled at in disbelief Welt unglaubig bestaunte deutsche by the wodd. Wirtschaftswunder hervorbrachte. • APPENDIXA THEJENNINGER SPEECH 108 58 Man kann solche Verdrangungsprozesse, meine It is now possible ta criticize such processes of • Damen und Herren, heute mit einleuchtenden repression with plausible arguments and it would Gründen kritisieren, und wir tun gut daran, diese he a good thing for us ta consider this criticism Kritik ernsthaft und vorbehaltlos zu bedenken. seriously and without reservations. But moral Moralische ÜberhebIichkeit führt dabei allerdings arrogance does not help us along here. It is nicht weiter. Vielleicht konnte das deutsche Volk perhaps possible that the German people couId not in der heillosen Lage des Jahres 1945 gar nicht react in any way differently in the awful situation anders angesichts der groBen Not, des Hungers, in 1945 and perhaps we expect too much of der Trümmer reagieren, und vielleicht ourselves in retrospect in our demands on that überfordern \Vir uns rückblickend auch selbst in time. unseren Ansprüchen an die damalige Zeit. 59 Heute, meine Damen und Herren, stellen sich für Today all questions are posed to us with full uns aile Fragen im vollen Wissen um Auschwitz. knowledge about Auschwitz. In 1933 nobody could 1933 konnte sich kein Mensch ausmalen, was ab imagine what became reality starting in 1941. But 1941 Realitat wurde. Aber eine über Jahrhunderte an anti-Semitism that had grown over centuries gewachsene Judenfeindschaft hatte den had prepared a breeding ground for unbridled Nahrboden bereitet für eine maBlose Propaganda propaganda and for the conviction of many und für die Überzeugung vieler Deutscher, daS Gennans that the existence of the Jews actually die Existenz derJuden tatsachlich ein Problem constituted a problem, that there existed darstellte, daB es so etwas wie eine ,Judenfrage" something like a "Jewish question." The wirklich gab. Die zwang~eise Umsiedlung aller compulsory resettlement of aIl Jews perhaps to Juden~twa nach Madagaskar, wie von den Madagascar, as had been for a li me under NS-Herrschem voriibergehend erwogen -, ware consideration by the Nazi rulers would probably damais vermutlich auf Zustimmung gestoBen. have met with approvaL 60 Es ist wahr, daB die NationaIsoziaIisten groBe It is true that the National Socialists made great Anstrengungen untemahmen, die Wirklichkeit efforts to keep the reaIity of the mass murders a des Massenmordes geheimzuhalten. Wahr ist aber secret. But it is aIso true that everybody knew about auch, daB jedermann um die Nümberger Gesetze the Nuremberg laws, that all could see what wuBte, daB aIle sehen konnten, was heute vor 50 happened 50 years aga today in Germany and that Jahren in Deutschland geschah und daB die the deportalions took place cornpletely in public. Deportationen in aller Offentlichkeit vonstatten And it is also true that the rnillionfold crime gingen. Und wahr ist, daB das millionenfache consisted of the deeds of many individu ais, that the Verbrechen aus den Taten vieler einzelner action of tlle Einsatztruppen was the topic of bestand, daB das Wirken der Einsatzgruppen conversations carried on in whispers not only in nicht nur in der Wehrmacht, sondem auch in der the Armed Forces but aIso on the homefront. Our Heimat Gegenstand im Flüsterton geführter unforgotten colleague Adolf Arndt 20 years after Gespdiche war. Unser früherer Kollege Adolf Arndt the end of the war in this house uttered the hat 20 Jahre nach Kriegsende in diesem Haus den sentence: "The essenlials were known." Satz gesprochen: "Das Wesentliche wurde gewuBt." 61 SchlieBlich hatten doch die Machthaber dies In the end, those in power had indeed planned geplant. Am Ende standen die Juden aIlein. lhr this. At the end the Jews were ail alone. Their fate • SchicksaI stieS auf Blindheit und HerzenskaIte. came up against blindness and coldheartedness. APPENDIXA THEJENNINGER SPEECH 109 • 62 Viele Deutsche lieBen sich yom Many Germans let themseives be dazzied and led NationaIsoziaIismus blenden und verführen. Viele astray by National Socialism. Many made the ermoglichten durch Ihre Gleichgültigkeit die crimes possible by indifference. Many became Verbrechen. Viele \\Iurden selbst zu Verbrechern. criminals themseives. Everybody has to answer for Die Frage der Schuld und ihrer Verdrangung himself the question of guilt and its repression. muS jeder für sich selbst beantworten. 63 Wogegen wir uns aber gemeinsam wenden But what we have to oppose jointIy is the calling müssen, das ist das lnfragestellen der historischen into question of the historical truth, the Wahrheit, das Verrechnen der Opfer, das miscounting of the victims, the denying of the Ableugnen der Fakten. Wer Schuld aufrechnen facts. Whoever wants ta offset guilt, whoever daims will, wer behauptet, es sei doch alles nicht so- that everything had not been that terrible or not oder nicht ganz so--schlimm gewesen, der quite so terrible makes the attempt ta defend the macht schon den Versuch, zu verteidigen, wo es indefensible. nichts zu verteidigen gibt. 64 Solche Bemühungen laufen nicht nur tendenziell Such efforts not only ron in the direction of a auf eine Verleugnung der Opfer hinaus-sie sind deniaI of the victims-they are compietely auch ganz sinnlos. Denn was immer in der senseless. For whatever may happen in the future Zukunft geschehen oder von dem Geschehenen in or may be forgotten of the events in the past: Vergessenheit geraten mag: An Auschwitz werden People will remember Auschwitz until the end of sich die Menschen bis an das Ende der Zeiten ais time as part of our, the German history. eines Teils unserer deutschen Geschichte erinnern. 65 Deshalb ist auch die Forderung sinnlos, mit der Therefore the request to "finaUy stop" talking Vergangenheit "endlich SchluB" zu machen. about the past also makes no sense. Our past will Unsere Vergangenheit wird nicht ruhen, sie wird not be buried, nor v.ill il pass. And independent of auch nicht vergehen. Und zwar unabhangig the fact that the young people cannot be blamed at davon, daiS die jungen Menschen eine Schuld gar aIl. Renate Harpprecht, an Auschwitz survivor, said nicht treffen kann. Renate Harpprecht, eine in this connection: "You cannat choose your Überlebende von Auschwitz, hat dazu gesagt: people. At that lime rhad sometimes wished l were "Man kann sich sein Volk nicht aussuchen. Ich not aJewess, but then l have become one in a verY habe mir damals manchmaI gewünscht, nicht conscious way. The young Gerrnans must accept ]üdin zu sein, dann bin ich es aber in sehr the fact that they are Gennan-they cannot sneak bewuBter Weise geworden. Die jungen Deutschen away from this fate." müssen akzeptieren, daE sie Deutsche sind-aus diesem Schicksal konnen sie sich nicht davonstehlen. " • APPE!'.rr>1X A THEJENNINGER SPEECH 110 66 Sie wollen sich, meine Damen und Herren, auch They do not want to sneak awayeither. Rather • nicht davonstehlen. Sie wollen vielmehr von uns they want to know from us how it ail happened, wissen, wie es dazu kam, wie es dazu kommen how it could have happened. Thus the study of the konnte. So nimmt die Beschaftigung mit den National Socialist crimes despite the growing nationalsozialistischen Verbrechen trotz des distance in time to the events does not decline but wachsenden zeitlichen Abstandes zu den gains in intensity. It also applies to the psyche of a Ereignissen nicht ab, sondem gewinnt an people that the digestion of the past is possible only [ntensWit. Auch für die Psyche eines Volkes gilt, in the painful experience of the truth. This daB die Verarbeitung des Vergangenen nur in der self-liberation in the confrontation with the horror schmerzlichen Erfahrung der Wahrheit moglich is less agonizing than its repression. "To learn ist. Diese Selbstbefreiung in der Konfrontation mit from the past for the sake of the future is the dem Grauen ist weniger quillend aIs seine demand of many. To recognize what was, to Verdrangung. "Aus der Vergangenheit rur die understand what is and ta comprehend what will Zukunft zu lemen, ist das Veriangen vieler. Schon be, that after ail appears to be the task that is zu erkennen, was war, um zu verstehen, was ist, assigned to historicaI knowledge." These sentences und zu erfassen, was sein wird, das scheint doch were written in May 1946 by Leo Baeck who had die Aufgabe zu sein, die der Geschichtserkenntnis escaped [rom death in the Theresienstadt zugeschrieben wird." Diese Slitze schrieb im Mai concentration camp. 1946 Leo Baeck, der dem Tod lm Konzentrationslager Theresienstadt entronnen war. 67 Meine Darnen und Herren, die Erinnerung Ladies and Gentlemen, keeping the memory alive wachzuhalten und die Vergangenheit ais Teil and accepting the past as a part of our identity as unserer Identitat als Deutsche anzunehmen Germans-this alone promises us aIder people a.'\ dies allein verheiBt uns Alteren wie den Jüngeren well as the younger ones liberation from the Befreiung von der Last der Geschichte. burden of histOlY. 68 "Europa wird yom Gehirn gehaIten, yom Denken, "Europe is held together by the brain, by thinking, aber der Erdteil zittert, das Denken hat seine but the continent trembles, the thinking has Sprünge"-so hat Gottfried Benn am Ende des cracks," according to Gottfried Benn. Now these Krieges geschrieben. Heute liegen diese Spriinge cracks expose splits. als klaffende Risse bloS. 69 Vor dem Hintergrund der katastrophaIen [rrwege Against the background of the catastrophic wrong unserer neueren Geschichte elWachst uns fast tums of our more recent history there arises for us notwendig eine besondere ethische aImost necessarily a special ethical Verantwcrtung-eine neue "Ethik der responsibility-a new "ethic of responsibility for Zukunftsverantwortung" wie sie uns Hans Jonas, the future," as is taught us by Hans Jonas, L~e der Friedenspreistdiger des Deutschen winner of the Peace Prize of the Gem1an Book Buchhandels von 1987 und selbstJude lehrt. Trade in 1987 and himself aJew. • APPENDIX A THEJENNINGER SPEECH 111 70 lm ZeitaIter der GroBtechnik, der In the age of large-scale technology of mass • Massengesellschaft und des Massenkonsums ist society and of mass consumption, not only the nicht nur die Bedrohung des einzelnen, sondem threat to the individual but also to humanity has der Menschheit insgesamt gewachsen. Eine grown. Athreat that can be aimed at our living Bedrohung, die unseren Lebensbedingungen conditions but which can also jeopardize the basic geIten kann, die aber auch die Wertgrundlagen values of our life on earth in general. der irdischen Daseinsordnung überhaupt in Frage zu stelien vennag. 71 Diese Bedrohung manifestiert sich in doppelter This threat manifests itself in dual respect: on the Hinsicht: einerseits in einem one hand, in a potential for catastrophe--such as Katastrophenpotential-wie in einem moglichen a possible nudear war. but also the creeping Atomkrieg, aber auch der schIeichenden destruction of the environment-and on the other Umweltzerstôrung-und zum anderen in einem hand in a potential for manipulation. which, e.g., ManipuIationspotential, das etwa durch ein by genetic reconditioning of our nature but also by genetisches Umkonditionieren unserer Natur, forrns of rule of massive bureaucracy can lead to aber auch durch groBbürokratische the ethical incapacitation of man. Herrschaftsfonnen zur ethischen Entmündigung des Menschen führen kann. 72 Beides fordert unsere Wachsamkeit heraus, eine Bath challenge our vigilance, a vigilance in the Wachsamkeit im Gehrauch menschlicher Macht, use of human power that is conscious of the die sich der Verantwortung gegenüber künftigen responsibility toward future generations as weil as Generationen ebenso bewufSt ist wie dessen, was of the fact of what man is capable of doing to man der Mensch dem Menschen im Geist zügeUosen in the spirit of unbridled and fanatical misuse of und fanatischen MachtmiBbrauches anzutun power. fahig war. 73 Auf den Fundamenten unseres Staates und On the foundations of our state and our history it unserer Geschichte gilt es eine neue moralische i.s important to estabHsh a new moral tradition Tradition zu begründen. die sich in der humanen that must validate itself in the humane and moral und moralischen Sensibilitlit unserer Gesellschaft sensitivity of our society. beweisen muB. 74 Nach auBen bedeutet dies die Pflicht zur Towards the outside, mis signifies the duty for kollektiven Friedensverantwortung, zur aktiven collective responsibility for peace, for active Befriedung der WeIl. Dazu gehort für uns auch pacification of the world. For us that also includes das Existenzrecht des jüdischen Volkes in the right of the ]ewish people to exist \vithin secure gesicherten Grenzen. Es bedeutet die borders. It signifies the system-opening systemoffnende Kooperation zwischen West und cooperation between West and East. And it signifies Ost Und es bedeutet eine Garantenpflicht für das a duty ta guarantee the survival of the Third Überleben der Dritten Welt. World. • APPENDIX A THEJENNINGER SPEECH llZ ïS Nach innen bedeutet es Offenheit und Toleranz Intemally it signifies openness and tolerance • gegenüber dem Mitmenschen ungeachtet seiner toward one's fellow man regardless of his race, his Rasse, seiner Herkunft, seiner politischen origin, his poLitical beliefs. It signifies Überzeugung. Es bedeutet die unbedingte unconditional respect for the law. It signifies Achtung des Rechts. Es bedeutet Wachsamkeit vigilance in the face of social injustice. And it gegenüber sozialer Ungerechtigkeit. Und es signifies uncompromising action against any bedeutet das kompromi8lose Eintreten gegen jede despotism, against any attack on the dignity of Willkür, gegen jeden Angriff auf die Würde des man. Menschen. 76 Dies ist das Wichtigste: Lassen wir niemals wieder This is the most important matter: We must never ZU, daiS unserem Nachsten die Qualitat als let it happen again that our neighbor i5 denied his Mensch abgesprochen wird. Er verdient Achtung; quality as a human being. He deserves respect. for denn er tdigt wie wir ein menschliches Antlitz. he has a human face as we do. [Zitiert nach: Deutscher Bundestag-Il. Source: FBIS-WEU-88-226, 23 November 1988, Wahlperiode--Stenographische Berichte- Bonn, 6-12. This is a translation of the following: IO.November 1988,S. 7270-7276] ]enninger, Philipp. " "Die Opfer wissen, W3S der November 1938 für sie zu bedeuten hatte." Die Rede des Bundestagsprasidenten / Der Wortlaut des Manuskripts." 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Einstellung und Einstellungsbekundung in derpolilischen Rede: eine sprachwissenschajtliche Untersuchung der Rede Philipp jenningers vom 10. November 1988. Diss. Johannes Gutenberg Universitat Mainz, 1992. Frankfurt a. NI.: Peter Lang/Europaische Hochschulschriften, 1993. Graf, Lothar. Letrer. "Jenningers Rücktritt ist eine Schande! 5piegel N° 47. 21 Nov. 1988: 7. Greffrath, rvlathias. HDas faIsche Wir." Die Zeit 18 Nov. 1988: 5. Greiner U. "Das Ende der Dialektik." Die Zeit 18 Nov. 1988: 5. Haaxman-Krahn, Era. Letrer. "Da versucht endlich mal jemand...·' Spiegel N° 47, 21 Nov. 1988: 7. Hachmann, Eckart. Letter. "Sogartig und ohne Abwagen. ,. Frankjilrter Allgemeine Zeitung 26 Nov. 1988: N. pag. Hartmann, Dr. Michael. Lerrer. "Unheilige Allianz.·' Frankjitrte, Allgemeine Zeitung 22 Dec. 1988: N. pag. Hax, Professor Dr. Herbert. Letter. "MiBverstehen konnte. nur wer miBverstehen wollte." Frank/urter Al/gemeine Zeitung 21 Nov. 1988: N. pag. Heigert, Hans. "Der deutsche Sonderfall." Süddeutsche Zeitllng 19 Nov. 1988, N°. 267: 4. Herf, Jeffrey. "Philipp Jenninger and the Dangers of Speaking Clearly." Partisan Review s6 (1989): 225-236. Heringer, Hans-Jürgen. "Jenninger und die kommunikative J\iIoral." 1990 Sprache und Literatur in Wissenschajt und Unterricht 21: 1 (65) (1990): 40-48. --. "Ich gebe lhnen mein EhrenuJort." Politik. Sprache. tHora!. München: Beck'sche Reihe, 1990. Herles, Helmut. "Zuspruch." Frank/urter Allgemeine Zeitung OH Politik. 26 Nov. 1988: N. pag. HeuB, Dr. Ernst. Letter. "Bestürzend. Il Franlifurter Allgenzeine Zeitung 26 Nov. 1988: N. pag. Hill, \Verner. see jenninger. Was eine Rede an den Tag brachtt:. --. see Die Ajfdrejenninger. W~~ eine Rede an den Tag brachte. Hirsch, H. "Zuwenig gesagt.'t Die Zeit 18 Nov. 1988: 7. • WORKS CONSULTED 122 ., "Hitlers Triumphzug muBte den Deutschen aIs \Vunder erscheinen.,. • Eine Rede, die zum Eklat führte: Philipp ]enninger in der Gedenkstunde des Bundestages zum 50. ]ahrestag der Novemberpogrome." Frankfurter Rundschau Il Nov. 1988: N. page Hoffmann, Ludger, and Schwitalla, Johannes. "ÂuBerungskritik oder warum Philipp Jenninger zurücktreten muBte." Sprachreport 1 (1989): 5-9. Hofmann, GÜnter. "Der Alleingang ins Abseits. Bonn Llnd die deutsche Geschichte: \Vie Philipp Jenningers Absichten im Eklat untergingen." Die Zeit 18 Nov. 1988: N. page Holterling, Victor. Lerrer. "Die Reaktion des Bundestages..." Frankjilrter Allgemeine Zeitung 6 Dec. 1988: N. pag. Isensee, Udo. Letter. "Die Kritik an der Rede Jenningers." Frankjitrter Allgemeine Zeitung 6 Dec. 1988: N. pag. ]anBen, Karl-Heinz. "Die \Vahrheit nicht bezweifelt." Die Zeit 18 Nov. 1988: 4. "Jenninger, ein Jahr danach." by Bernd GabIer. ZAK \Vestdeutscher Rundfunk, Cologne 10 Nov.1989. Jenninger, Philipp. "Die Opfer wissen, was der November 1938 für sie zu bedeuten hatte. Die Rede des Bundestagsprasidenten / Der Wortlaut des Manuskripts." Frankfurter Afgemeine Zeitung DH Politik, Il Nov. 1988: N. page --. "Address of Bundestag President Philipp ]enninger on 10 Nov 88: uThe Victims Know \Vhat November 1938 Had Meant For Them" CEnglish transaltion of Full Text of Jenninger Bundestag Address as it appeared in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Il Nov. 1988). FBIS-\VEU-88-226, 23 Nov. 1988, 6-12. --. "Rede." Frankfurter Rundschau. Il Nov. 1988: N. pag. --. U "Hatten sich die Juden nicht doch eine Rolle angemaBt. die ihnen nicht zukam?" Die umstrittene Rede des Bundestagsprasidenten Philipp Jenninger. (Excerpts)" Süddeutsche Zeitung N° 261. Il Nov. 1988: 13. jenninger. Was eine Rede an den Tag brachte. Television programme. By Werner Hill. Dir. Horst K6nigstein. Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NOR 3), Hannover (Special project). Il Nov. 1989 [Rebroadcast: \VDR,Cologne. Il Nov.19891. "Jenningers Rede war mutig." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung DII Politik, 19 Nov.1988: N. page Jens, \Valter. "Ungehaltene Worte über eine gehaltene Rede. Wie Philipp • ]enninger hatte reden müssen." Die Zeit 18 Nov. 1988: N. page WORKS CONSULTED 123 Jesse. Eckhard, and Rainer Zitelmann. "Die Tabus der Tabubrecher." • Rheinischen 1l1erkur/Christ und Welt 18 Nov 1988: N. pag. Reprinted in Laschet, Armin, and Heinz Malangré, Eds. PhillPP jen n inger. Rede und Reaktion. AacheniKoblenz: Einhard/Rheinischer Merkur, 1989: 76-81. Joffe, Josef. ""Galinski redet sehr schnell und sehr laut:' Vorwurf gegen Zentralvorsitzenden/Zustimmung zu Jenningers Rede gerechtfertigt. SZ-Interview mit tvlichael Fürst." Süddeutsche Zeitung N°. 267. 18 Nov. 1988: N. pag. Kanderske. Ivlanfred, Rose Kanderske and Hannes Thomsen. Letter. "Jeder Deutsche scheint dauerhaft die Verpflichtung... ·' Spiegef N° 47. 21 Nov.1988: 10. Kilders, Dr. Matthias. "Jenningers Fehler." Frankfurter A/lgemeine Zeitung 22 Nov. 1988: N. pag. Knie, Elmar. Letter. "In einem historischen Rückgriff..." Spiegef N° 47, 21 Nov. 1988: 9. Kopperschmidt, Josef. "Offentliche Rede in Deutschland. Überlegungen zur politischen Rhetorik mit Btick auf zwei Gedenkreden im Deutschen Bundestag." JJ;!uttersprache 99/3 (1989): 213-230. Kornetius, Stefan. "Philipp Jenninger rechtfertigt Rede..,Ich stehe zu jedem Satz und würde sie nochmal halten.·· " [Einen Manat nach dem Rücktritt aIs Bundesprasidentl Sllddeutsche Zeitung 17 Dec. 1988: N. pag. Krebs, Birgit-Nicole. Sprachhandlung und Sprachwirkung. Un ter suchungen zur Rheton'k, Sprachkn'tik und zum Fal! jenninger. Berlin, Bielefeld, and München: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1993. Kropatscheck. Dr. med. Walter. Letter. "Der Begriff "Fascinosum"'" Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 1 Dec. 1988: N. pag. Kubiak, Klaus-Peter. Letter. 44Dieses ganze Gezeter um die ]enninger Rede ist mir ziemlich unverstandlich..." Spiegel N° 47, 21 Nov. 1988: 10. Kuby, Erich. uJenninger, der gute Deutsche. Erich Kuby über clen schuld- und wehrlosen, den guten und blinden Deutschen." Die Tageszeitung 21 Nov. 1988: B7. Lange, Mechtild. Letter. "Wollte den Blick scharfen.·' Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 25 Nov. 1988: N. pag. Langhans, Daniel. Letrer. "Feigheit und Heuchelei beim "FaU Jenninger"." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 22 Dec. 1988: N. pag. Laschet, Armin, and Heinz Malangré, Eds. Philipp jenninger. Rede und • Reaktion. AacheniKoblenz: Einhard/Rheinischer Merkur, 1989. WORKS CONSULTED 124 LeisL Ernst. "Der Misserfolg von Philipp Jenningers Rede. Versuch einer o • sprachwissenschaftlichen Erklarung. , Neue Zü.richer Zeitung 12 Jan. 1989: N. pag. --. "Jenningers miBglückte Rede. Versuch einer Sprachwissen schaftlichen ErkHirung." PoLirische Meinung 34/243 (1989): 77-80. Liebknecht, \'X7ilheIm. Die Emser Depesche, oder loie Kn'ege gernacht werden. Nürnberg: W6rlein, 1892. Lindner, Dr. Joachim. Letter. "Vom bIoS demonstrativen Trauerritual abgewichen.'· Frank/ur/er Allgemeine Zeitung 25 Nov. 1988: N. pag. Lobenror, Rudolf. "Fast ist man versucht..." Spiegel N° 47. 21 Nov. 1988: 7. L6wer, Reiner. Letter. "Bemühen um historische Aufklarung." Frankjilrter Allgemeine Zeitun.g 19 Nov. 1988: N. pag. Marcus, Richard L. "Jenninger Cut Tao Close ta the Truth." iVeU) York Times 22 Nov. 1988: 27. Meines, Rob. 'Jenninger wilde verklaren wat niet te verklaren is." lVRe I-Iandelsblad 16 Nov.198B: N. pag. NIeyendorff, Lana Freiin von. Letter. "Wohltuende Sachlichkeit." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 22 Nov. 1988: N. pag. "Mit Knobelbechem durch die Geschichte." Spiegel N°. 46. 14 Nov. 1988: 22-28. Mommsen, Hans. "Suche nach der 'verlorenen Geschichte'? Se merkungen zum historischen Selbstverstandnis der Bundesrepublik." Merkur 40 (1986): 864-874. Muenzer, Paul J. Letter. "Mit seiner unglücklichen. instinktlosen..... Spiegel N° 46. 21 Nov. 1988: 7. Neumaier, Eduard. "Der Sturz Jenningers-ein deutscher FaU. Yom Zwangskonformismus und dem 6ffentlichen Umgang mir der Wahrheit." RheinischerMerkur 18 Nov. 1988: N. pag. Nieberding, Bernd H. "Die Betroffenheit der Parlamentarier über ]enningers Rede bringt..." Spiegel N° 47,21 Nov. 1988:9. ""Niemand darf im Amt bequem werden"," Spiegel N° 47, 21 Nov. 1988: 18-21. O'Monte-Durand, Pablo. Letter. "Schade um das SUd der jungen deutschen Nation..." Spiegel N° 47, 21 Nov. 1988: 8 "Out of Time." Tilnes Editorial. 12 Nov. 1988: Il. Papsthart, Christian. Letter. "Der Skandal liegt nicht im Inhalt des Vortrags..." Spiegel N° 47,21 Nov. 1988: 9. Parnass, Peggy. "Viel Gerede. Peggy Parnass zum Aufruhr um • ]enningers Rede. 1t Die Tageszeilung 21 Nov. 1988: B7. WORKS CON5ULTED 125 Petersen, S6nke. "nDiese Leute woilten mich politisch umbringen.·· Ein • v611ig verbitterter ]enninger beklagt seinen politischen Sturz.·' Abendzeilung 17 Mar. 1989: N. pag. Philipsen, Klaus. Letter. "Mit seinem Rücktritt kann vielleicht. .. " Spiegef N° 47 21 Nov. 1988: 10. Polenz, Porter von. "Verdünnte Sprachkultur: das Jenninger Syndrom in sprachkritischer Sicht." Deutsche Sprache 17/4 (1989): 289-307. Porath. Peter. "Jenninger hat sich zu seiner Rede..." Spiegel N° 47. 21 Nov. 1988: 7. Poschinger, Dr. Georg. Letrer. "Versuch der Erklarung." Frankjilrter Allgemeine Zeitung 1 Dec. 1988: N. pag. Rdh. "Hoher Preis.'· Süddeutsche Zeitung N° 267, 19 Nov. 1988: N. pag. Rede des Prdsidenten des Deutschen Bundestags, Dr. Philipp jenninger. loiihrend der Gedenkveranstaltung aus AnlafS der Pogrome des nationalsozialistischen Regimes gegen die jüdische Beu6lkerung uor 50jahren. Videocassette. Source unknown. Rehn, Rosemarie. Lerter. "Aufs neue zutiefst betroffen." Frankfurter Allgenzeine Zeitung 19 Nov. 1988: N. pag. Reuter. "How the Bonn Speaker talked himself out of a job." The Times 12 Nov. 1988: 7. Riehl-Heyse, Herbert. "Der traurige Zustand eines Dialogs." Süddeutsche Zeitung N° 262, 12 Nov.1988: 4. Schmemann, Serge. "A very German Storm: Oust SertIes and Unsettles.·' Nelo York Times 14 Dec. 1988: N. pag. --. "Address On Nazis Costs Bonn Aide." Nelu York Times 12 Nov. 1988: S. --. "Blunt Bonn speech On the Hitler Years Prompts a \X!aIkout." iVeu,' York Times Il Nov. 1988: 4. --. "West Germans Debating Their Taboos." International Herald Tribune 17 Dec.1988: N. pag. Schmôlders, Professor Dr. GÜnter. Letter. 'IJenninger und die Anführungszeichen." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 22 Nov. 1988: N. pag. Schucht, Joachim. "Aus aller Welt Lob für Jenninger." Frankjurter ,Velle Presse 30 Nov. 1988: N. pag. SchuIze, Hagen. Gibt es überhaupt eine deutsche Geschichte? Berlin: Corso bei Siedler, 1989. --. Wir sind, was wir geworden sind: Vom Nutzen der Geschichte für • die deutsche Gegenwart. München: Piper, 1987. \VORKS CONSULTED 126 Schwehn, Klaus J.F. "Gedenkstunde zu Pogromen: Eklat nach Jenninger • Rede. Bundestagsabgeordnete verlieBen PlenarsaallSpekuiation über Rücktrin." Die WeIl N°. 265, Il Nov. 1988: 1. Schweikart, Andreas. Lerrer. "Die aus fast aUen politischen Lagern umgehend..." Spiegel N° 47 21 Nov. 1988: 9. Sommer, T. "Von der Last, Deutscher zu sein." Die Zeit 18 Nov.1988: 1. Sonsino l Dr. C.M. Letter. "Diese Unsensibilitat der sich aIs christlich [, ..1 bezeichnenden Parteien." Spiegel N° 47 21 Nov. 1988: 7. Stanzel, F.K. "Zur Problemgeschichte der .,Erlebten Rede". Eine Vor bemerkung zu Yasushi Suzukis Beitrag "Erlebte Rede und der Fall Jenninger"." Gennanisch-Romanische l1;fonatsschriJi 41.1 (1991): 1 4. Stein, Horst. " "Das ist ja eine Blamage, h6ren Sie auf".·' Die Welt N° 265. Il Nov. 1988: 3. --. "Der Pflicht gestellt. lm Gesprach: Philipp ]enninger." Die l'Veit N° 265, Il Nov. 1988: 2. , Stibal, Erik. Letter. "Die Rede Herrn ]enningers hart sich....· Spiegel N° 47, 21 Nov. 19BB: 7. Suzuki, Yasllshi. "Erlebre Rede und der FaIl Jenninger." Gemzaniscb Romanische Monatsschrift 41.1 (1991): 5-12. "Touching Raw Nerves: German's Stark \Vords." ,VelO York Tinzes 12 Nov. 1988: 5. Unglaub. Kerstin. Letter. "Rationale Auseinandersetzung." FrankJitrter Allgerneine Zeitung 25 Nov.198B: N. pag. \Viggermann, Frank. "Mord kann niche wiedergutgemacht werden. Nur wer sich seiner Vergangenheit stellt, wird Frei für die Aufgaben der Gegenwart.·' Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Cin the section: FAZ in der Schule. Medienkunde für junge Leser) N° 265. 12 Nov. 1988: 33. "\Villentliche Text-Manipulation." Frankfurter Allgenzeine Zeitung OH Politik, 19 Nov.1988: N. pag. Zabel, Johannes. Letter. "Verwechslung der Politikebenen." Frankjitrter Al/gemeine Zeitung 21 Nov. 1988: N. pag. • IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (QA-3) 1.0 :; lii& ~III~ ~ Ii.i. 111112.2 ~~ - 1.1 ~ ~ ~ '"" 2.0 c-...... 111111.8 1 111111.25 11111 .4 111111.6 -150mm ------~--- ______--.J 6" - ...... - APPLIED _.:. II\MGE .ne1 -== 1653 East Main Street .:. Rochester. NY 14609 USA -=--= Phone: 7161482-0300 __ Fax; 7161288-5989 C 1993, Applied Image. 1nc., AIl Righ15 Reserved