Volume XXVII No. 11 November, 1972 INFORMATION ISSUED BY THE ASsttmnoM Of MVUSH KERIOES m atui OHTJUI ^fnest Hearst It would be unfair to accuse Hans-Helmuth Kniitter's Die Juden und die deutsche Linke in der Weimarer Republik (Droste Verlag, DUsseldorf, 1971) of similarly deliber­ BROTHERLINESS AND ITS ate distortions. He has diligently studied the vast literature on the subject, both Jewish DISCONTENTS and nonJewish. He has also been at pains to achieve "critical detachment" disregarding (Germany's New Left "unjustified susceptibilities of the persecuted Jews". This implied dissatisfaction with cur­ like clothes, have their fashion. rent views has predictably and at times provo­ the as a mere adjunct to and variant of Fascism. to tv,'"°^ °^ '^® '™® proves as irresistible Given these assumptions it seems to follow catively afl^ected his findings. Trying to dis­ ,. the makers of public opinion as do the that the middle-classes were by their very cover the reasons for antisemitism he con­ ^ ctates of the couturiers decreeing what can nature the begetters as well as the bene- structs a sort of psychogram, noting under ^cannot be worn. In the 'thirties, when fiiciaries of the Nazi tyranny, and that even the heading Jeunsh Characteristics : "Jewish National Socialis" m was in the ascendant, the bourgeois Jews, although doomed to be intellectuals have difllculties in attaining the ^'rend^ .y. intellectuals, academics and the destroyed by Hitler, must, nevertheless, be discipline necessary for party-political work ,^«nipulators of popular resentments found held responsible for his rise to power. It or the running of a public oflBce", a disability Wor'lf-^"^ to indulge in nationalism, leader- is perhaps uncharitable—though not irrele­ which, in his opinion, accounted "for the [Up "ip and antisemitism. In those days vant—to note that the young Left-wing mili­ rapidly diminishing Jewish influence in cen­ jp low so self-consciously Left-wing IRA tants, who now cast the Jews of the Weimar tral and local govemment after the November thp u*^' ^^ ™^y ^^ recalled, blue shirts and period into the part of, at best, unwilling revolution". Were these, then, one is bound loL salute. Yet though the termino- supporters of Hitler and, therefore, deserving to wonder, the inadequacies responsible for ein t°* politics changes with the Zeitgeist, the condemnation rather than sympathy, belong the rapidly declining influence of Rosa f^^ons and aggressions it articulates often sociologically to that stratum of middle-class Liixemburg and Walther Rathenau? One is j^m unchanged, and even in politics the intellectuals which has traditionally rational­ also struck by the localised nature of these ^*er cn all too often turns out to be ised and propagated antisemitism in Germany. deficiencies; they signally failed to inhibit a "ghtly refurbished "old hat." Although the new revolutionaries would Disraeli, Trotsky, Blum, Shinwell, Kissinger, tud four or five years ago anti-Jewish atti- strenuously deny the charge of disseminating Slansky, etc., etc. j es or thoughts were taboo in Germany, a refurbished version of the ancient preju­ A little later a quotation taken from Eva ft .t"?rinere was perhaps a shade of cloying arti- dice, it would be difficult to find another Reichmann's "Flucht in den Hass" suggests j^"^*lit aiuy i[J^n th (,}je gobligator obligatory ygood-wil good-will lextende extended d interpretation of the perverse misrepresenta­ that "propaganda which by singling out Jews With°^ Jewish fellow-citizens", in the violence tions of which, to give an example. Professor as a special group, made them the object of iixc ^'''^^ the press reacted against any Reinhard Kiihnle delivered himself in his hatred" figured prominently among the factors "y ""^sequential antisemitic utterances by the critique of Nolte's concept of Fascism : creating anti-Jewish feeling. Quotations out e^°^®aehables", the revulsion against the " The Jewish bourgeoisie (he asserts) re­ of context can be misleading, and the reader lev'^l''^^ committed "in our name" was acted as bourgeoisie; it regarded Fascism is again left to wonder how nurses, postmen, *as^f genuine and sincere. Jews, it as an anti-Communist movement which bus conductors or, for that matter, any other Pf^ j^lt, were entitled to some demonstrative might, at worst, attack greengrocers from easily identifiable group managed to elude 5y.°t of collective shame and compassion, Galicia, but would not admit that such the hate producing factor. But the conclu­ eninf- ^"^®' remorse and pity are ephemeral highly respectable personages as doctors, sions Kniitter deduces from this factor are notions; the claims they make on the con- professors, solicitors and writers could be even more amazing. This antisemitic effect, a DR^-^ ^""^ *°o demanding to sustain over exposed to the plebeian terror without pro­ he notes, "can be produced by religious in­ voking Germany's haute bourgeoisie into struction in the classroom, but equally can tion • ^^ ^™^ ^"*^ ^^ ^^y °^ self-justifica- a show of class solidarity and active resist­ ff).»L®^^"^y turn against the objects of their it be generated by philosemitism", a failing ance". (Politische Vierteljahresschrift, to which, in his opinion, Germany's post-1945 by^i?'^^^^'^ younger generation, untainted 1970 H.2-3.) literature was particularly prone. Again one •latu 11 ^^"^i'^s of their elders, was quite Although only a comparatively young wonders about the ethos of a society in which tion i the most vociferous in its denuncia- academic, unaware of the antisemitic brutali­ the effort to deal understandingly with the "j , °f their barbarities and most eager to ties "respectable" Jews had to endure long agonies of a doomed minority is bound to al^^tv *^® ^^^"- ^^^ predictably it is before Hitler came to power, could have prove counter-productive. In fact, unless Sen 1 ^ younger generation, which in its written these lines, it is diflScult to believe Kniitter can provide incontrovertible evidence ^he^'n ^^^ wholesale disenchantment with that he was misled by ignorance alone. To for his assumption, I would be inclined to to n ^'^^ agonies of our age, now begins speak of Fascism when the point at issue believe, he has judged his countrymen too "^em ^*^°° its erstwhile provTewish commit- was Nazi antisemitism, illustrates the uses to harshly. the discovered and eagerly embraced in which semantic imprecision can be put. For The burden of his whole argument is that not "^°"^arxism of Marcuse and his disciples Fascism suggests authoritarian, anti-Socialist, German Jewry's middle-class character ren­ also °° ^ blueprint for total happiness but militantly nationalistic Right-wing extremism; dered its relations with the Left and vice fj.y^*°.all-encompassing explanation for the an option—however repugnant—open to Jews versa somewhat ambivalent and that the dis­ ouj. "^*^ons, tensions and conflicts bedevilling and one of which they admittedly availed agreements within the Jewish camp between tion '^^""®onal, social and intemational rela- themselves in Italy. National Socialism, on the Zionists and the assimilationists as to the ceo* U^ideterred by such sense-defying con- the other hand, was an antisemitic race reli­ nature and solution of their predicament fur­ ing" as "repressive tolerance" and the glar- gion threatening the very survival of Jews. ther aggravated the already existing ambigui­ Hlj failures and malfunctions of applied Both to those who posed and those who faced ties. Consequently, co-operation between the cajj]?"^?i-Leninism, they gaily reinstated the threat, the class struggle was a meaning­ Left and the Jews, the two most exposed Sres? ^^ ^^® arch-enemy of peace, pro- less irrelevancy. It is precisely because the adversaries of the rising Nazi movement, was fifitir ^^^ paradise. In this scenario Fascism tragedy of the "Final Solution" cuts across less wholehearted and effective than it might, ^jjres as the last ditch defence of a mori- and, indeed, invalidates the tenets of any and should, have been. In his view, "the With-t'^P"^^™! and National Socialism, not- class based ideology that those anxious to intellectual mood of the time was, in the trejj^'^ding the specifics of its ideology, is reinstate it are compelled to use this kind final analysis, responsible for the defensive ^d not as a phenomenon sui generis but of terminological camouflage. Continued on page Z, column 1 Page 2 AJR INFORMATION November, 1972 modate its complexities and to do justice to BROTHERLINESS AND ITS DISCONTENTS Arab viewpoints. To the observer of the changing political Continued from page 1 climate in the Federal Republic, Professor Landmann's arguments throw interesting side­ attitude of the Left and the Jews. The social responsibility. In as much as Knutter is an lights on the anti-Jewish mood animating her cleavages between them account for the exponent of the new German trend of looking Left-wing radicals. "Why (he asks) do they feebleness of their struggle against the com­ at the "Jewish Question", his book marks a never demand active participation in the Viet- mon enemy. Sociologically the Westem departure from the now unfashionable cong's struggle against the USA, but insist Jews belonged to the bourgeoisie and hence attempt to "overcome the past" and progress nowadays on just such a commitment i" to the of^Msite side in the class confronta­ towards a broader human solidarity. support of the Palestine guerrillas? " This tion". From these premises, at best meaning­ Donaild L. Niewyk's Socialist, Anti-Semite, question goes to the heart of the matter- less to the Jewish condition in the last, des­ and Jew (Louisiana Staite University Press, There are no rational grounds for such a perate years of Weimar, Kniitter proceeds Baton Rouge, 1971) is a rewarding and well- preference, but some irrational ones, a^ to the crowning misstatement which con­ documented study of the German social-demo­ equally disreputable. Particularly in Germany cludes his book. "The irreconcilable internal cratic response to antisemitism in the inter- any appeal to fight the Jews in Israel must Jewish dissensions, the socio-ideological ten­ war years.