Raz - Month #7

The two books of this month address the same broad questions: why and how intellectuals shape public and popular discourses? And while Heschel deals with a group of theologians in Nazi Germany and Moses traces debates no less political than scholarly in West Germany and later in post-1989 Germany, both argue that the men – indeed, exclusively men – that stand at the center of their narratives had impacted significantly the emotions, beliefs, opinions, and relations in the societies in which they lived. 

Heschel’s book confirms the central place of the anti-Jewish discourse(s) in Nazi Germany – most of all by demonstrating the ways in which German theologians constructed, transmitted, and maintained this public discourse at the time. To anyone still in doubt about the importance of ideology in the case of the Holocaust, Heschel shows convincingly why and how the people and institutes she has studied contributed to the formation of genocidal consensus – in this case, utilizing a “racial theology” that found fertile ground in German society. Ideas matter, and Heschel’s research puts another nail in the coffin of explanations that ignore this sphere of human existence. 

Moses’ book stands as a model for research on the emergence of national narratives in post-genocide perpetrator societies. His attempt – overall successful – to understand these narratives through the political emotions – and, indeed, the “political theology” – at their core, presents a multidisciplinary approach vital to the topic. In one place, though, he missed a huge opportunity: he failed to discuss the 68ers in the context of their appropriation of an imagined “Jewish identification.” Besides the chance for an intriguing analysis, which Christoph Schmidt has recently offered in a challenging article in Dapim, Moses has overlooked this phenomenon as a theme in both the narratives that he has identified. Moreover, as Heschel has discovered, German theologians in the service of Nazi Germany also assumed a form of “Jewish identification” after World War II as part of their drive to conceal their active cooperation in mass murder (p. 279). This return of “the Jews” into German society after World War II deserves more attention, and in the framework of research drawing on psychological and social-psychological theories, analytical potential drips from this process.

Since the components of the discourses described and dissected by Moses may appear in societies in the various stages towards/of mass violence – i.e., not only post facto – I see this book, in effect, also as an addition to the emerging field of genocide prevention. For any society in which intellectuals of all kinds (theologians included) become propaganda tools in the service of the state, stands on the path that may lead to genocidal violence. Whether we like it or not, intellectuals need to play active roles beyond university halls, less they leave sufficient space for such propaganda to turn into murderous consensus.

Betsy - Moses

Moses writes about the generation born 1925-1932, who were HJ or very young soldiers during the war and who had to deal with a post-Holocaust Germany. This generation of intellectuals fell into 2 different groups, which set the tone for Left-Right discourse in postwar Germany. He defines the two groups as “German-Germans” and “Non-German Germans.” “German-Germans” or ‘integrative republicans’ wanted to find something good in pre-Nazi German history to be proud of and to find continuity with. “Non-German Germans” or ‘redemptive republicans’ wanted to divorce their generation from the Nazi past and reinvent a cosmopolitan, non-national (post-national) identity. I especially appreciate his recognition of the importance of social psychology in examining history and politics, including family history and intergenerational transmission of trauma and memory. One cannot be divorced from the other, and I think this is a real missing link in a lot of history and the understanding thereof. I honestly don’t know enough about the topic of important German intellectuals to comment much, but wonder – where is Willy Brandt? Just part of my Kreisky fascination, maybe. Moses did comment that he wanted to look at less-known intellectuals who had important roles in shaping German discourse, but still, no real mention of Brandt?

NOTES:

Should the following generations respond to Nazi crimes like the parents of the prodigal son (welcome son home with no mention of transgressions) or like Cain and Able (murder leaves a stigma for 4 generations) à Moses says, Cain and Abel; and that now, the stigma of Cain lifted with the Mahnmal and the emergence of the 4^th generation of Germans post-WWII, who identifies with the victims. Important – his terminology moves from guilt and shame to stigma.

Incorporates family life and inter-generational transmission into the understanding of German intellectual discourse – not usually done, and I like it!! Social psychology necessary for the study of politics, history.

Moses says neither Adenauer nor 68er generations responsible for building a democratic Germany. Other than Wiedergutmachung to Israel, Adenauer didn’t do much to recognize crimes against Jews; also didn’t purge administration of Nazis. Moses says the cohort born between 1922 and 1932 (those in HJ or were young soldiers at end of war) turned Germany back to liberalism, democracy, and Enlightenment thought and values, plus openness to democratic West. It was their reaction to the stigma of being German after the Holocaust in 2 different ways (German-German and Non-German German) that determined the left-right political discourse in Germany. Moses outlines that their 2 opposite reactions to the trauma and how these 2 responses turned into the left-right poles of German political discourse. He traces this progress from founding of Federal Rep. in 1949, to university reform debates in 50s, to political scandals in 60s, 68ers, to memory debates of 80s and 90s.

Moses looks at less-known intellectual thinkers – those who served in government and as advisors and thus really shaped German thought. He divides them into 2 categories:

1, German-Germans = ‘integrative republicans’ – look for good traditions in German history to keep NSDAP from tainting Germany back into the 19^th century; seek something to be proud of

1. Martin Walser (academic theorist) – claims Germans engage in “individual contrition” – Moses rejects this, and uses example of Henryk broder, German Jewish journalist, who said Mahnmal was about German conscience and not genocide of Jews – a real memorial would have been built when Nazis still around
2. Wilhelm Hennis (academic theorist) – shocking that post-1945 his political world was still intact, and that he felt a complete individual and a patriotic German (as opposed to Habermas, see below)
3. Rudolf Augstein (editor of Der Spiegel)
4. Michael Stürmer (conservative
5. Ernst Nolte (conservative)

                                                               i.      Walser, Hennis, and Augstein started as N-GGs and moved to the Right

2. Non-German-Germans = ‘redemptive republicans’ – demanded that all citizens reflect and act on the genocide, divorce from the past; patricide; denazification of civil service
1. supported Mahnmal;
2. critical of the anti-Zionism of the European Left
3. Jürgen Habermas (hero of the book!) – kept pressure on educated Germans to recognized crimes Germany committed; complete rejection of German nationalist tradition; had been a Nazi youth and he and his friends found that all they knew was false (Nazi) and had to direct energies elsewhere à Left
4. Kurt Sontheimer – wrote book critical of German past
5. Karl Dietrich Bracher – wrote book critical of German past

 “moral and political pollution” (Moses’ term) created by German nationalism

Betsy - Heschel

The Institut zur Erforschung und Beseitigung des juedischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben, a Nazi theological institute, used antisemitism to appeal to Germans in an effort to purify both Christianity and Germany. Members used research and academia to reframe the Nazi program within Christianity and to show Nazism as a fulfillment of Christianity (Jesus prefigured Hitler, Hitler an avatar of Luther). Nazism as an anti-Christian, pagan movement is a myth; they actually tried to superseded and incorporate Christianity, exploiting language and ideas. This myth, however, has been used to excuse theologians from responsibility. They also hid in long-standing church anti-Judaism, exploiting a myth of division between anti-Judaism and antisemitism. Postwar, these theologians embraced the Old Testament (which they had so thoroughly rejected during Nazi times) to create metaphors comparing German people to exiled Israelites. German Christians were the "true Jews," persecuted by the Nazis while remaining loyal to their Christian faith and church.

Notes:

1)      Institut zur Erforschung und Beseitigung des juedischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben, opened 06 May 1939 - to remove Jewish influence from Christian theology to transform it into a Germanic, Aryan religion. Walter Gundmann, professor of New Testament at University of Jena the academic director. Lots of success. Saw Jesus as seeking the destruction of Judaism. Wanted to eradicate any trace of Judaism from Christianity, as a part of the larger goal of wiping Jews clean from German society. Saw itself as finishing what Luther had begun. Proposal to est. came in the days following Reichspogrommnacht.

2)      German Christian movement - to reform the Lutheran church first but then ultimately to create something new that would overcome differences between Catholic and Protestant. 600,000 pastors, bishops, profs. of theology, religion teachers, laity. Pro-Nazi, placed swastika on altar next to cross, saw Hitler as God-sent. Supported altering Christian doctrine to comply with Reich; supported 1933 order to remove Jews from civil service and demanded church remove non-Aryans (even baptised) from church positions. New movement in Protestant church, the Confessing Church, opposed German Christian movement, as did the Catholic church, but both didn't care if Jews were expelled from society, etc. - they just didn't want doctrine or liturgy changed. Could see Old Testament as anti-Jewish because of so much punishment by God.

a)      Movement much larger than originally suspected; many historians/scholars told Heschel it was a marginal movement, but it seems that it guided all German (protestant) church doctrine, etc. during the Reich.

b)      3 ideological prongs of German Christian movement: (1) opposition to church doctrine; (2) antisemitism; and (3) effort to craft a "manly" church. Was utilized within the existing Protestant church to disseminate theological views.

c)       ANTISEMITISM made it successful. Linked Nazi propaganda to the traditions and authority of the church. Saw church as finally fulfilling Luther's intentions. Some          argue that Church antisemitism more important than the economic crisis for the success of Nazi goals. Christianity useful to Nazis BECAUSE of the anti-Judaism. Antisemitism formed the basis on which the Nazis could appeal to the people. Nazis and German Christian movemnt saw Hitler as Jesus's second coming. Ultimately wanted to undermine (maybe even do away with) church, so melded together the messages of tradition to ring true with Europeans in a society based on such history; the German Christians incorporated Nazi symbols, etc. to appear modernized, too.

d)      Supported idea of killing Jews as early as 1936; presented at a conference and no opposition by those in attendance. Comparison of a Jewish rape of Germany to the crucifixion, using image of Aryan woman molested by Jewish men. Laws to control sexual relations between Jews and Aryans ok'd by church because of this view.

3)      Institute opened on anniversary of Luther's flight. First thing, it revised the New Testament. Activities included academic lectures on German Teutonic past and its compatibility with Christianity. Members united by thought that eradicating Jewishness was a way to purify both Christianity and Germany. Propaganda made it appear that the Nazis did in the social sphere what the Protestant church taught in the spiritual. Part of Nazi war effort.

a)      Institute statements were Christian-language mirrors of Nazi propaganda. Postwar, the insitute closed and they were able to hide their antisemitism behind traditional anti-Judaism.

b)      Most important - it carried out its program of eradicating the Jewish within Christianity precisely while the Jews of Europe were being deported and murdered. Effectively reframed Nazism as the very fulfillment of Christianity through research.

c)       Members' postwar careers continued well, too, in East and West Germany. No one held accountable

4)      Max Weinreich first wrote about the Institute in 1946, but it was largely ignored. Existence of institute vaguely known postwar. Overlooked or minimized until Doris Bergen in 1996. Recent writings minimize the antisemitic/racist aspects still.

5)      Theology and race - In its iteration of antisemitism, race was used by some theologians as a restorative force of coherence for Christian theology. Christians thought they could appeal to Nazis who hated the church. Racial heirarchy was to be seen as an extension of God's creation of heirarchical orders in nature and society. Presented war as a Christian war against the Jews that sought to dominate and subjugate Gentiles.

a)      Theologians have long tried to show anti-Judaism of the church as something entirely different from antisemitism to try to relieve the church of guilt on racist         ideas and teachings. Church identification with physiognomy could be justified that the body carried the spirit and soul and although the body wasn't inherently evil, it could signal the moral depravity (ie. a Jewish soul) that lie within and was therefore useful. Soul incarnate in the body - Institute sought to make Christianity seen as body and National Socialism the sould.

b)      Nazis didn't try to destroy Christianity but to supersede and incorporate, exploiting language and ideational framework.

c)       Work of institute, de-Judaized New Testament, etc. discarded by the postwar Protestant church.

Chapter 1 - Inventing the Aryan Jesus - found ways to intellectually see Jesus as a non-Jew, citing that he spoke a different Aramaic than Jews of the day (which was actually closer to German!) or trying to say that Gallilee was Gentile. The Institute united all these scholars and ideas to eradicate Jews from the church, Judaism from Germany, and any traces of Jewishness from Christianity. Sought to use Jesus to anchor christian identity of Germans and as an Aryan he could anchor the Germanic identity of Christianity. Jesus could be used for the fundamental race differentiation between Jew and Aryan. "Germanic Jesus" approved Germany's racial and military goals. Antisemitism held it all together.

Chapter 2 - Founding the Institute - The theologians' outlet for antisemitic propaganda (such institutes existed for all different disciplines). Enthusiastic and productive, many conferences, lecture tours, working groups, and publications (scholarly books and pamphlets). Most important publications were for use in churches (New Testament revision, hymnal, catechism). Sought to recover Jesus's teachings with no Jewish element, to put them into their pristine form. Life or death struggle vs. Judaism. Goal to demonstrate that the teachings of Jesus and those of the Teutonic myths were the same -- the essense of Christianity was Aryan, Germanic religion.

Chapter 3 - Projects of the Institute - Sought theological shift from showing humanity of God to the divinity of man (Hitler was a Christ, the German Volk a Christ, and Judaism an enemy). This a part of Nazis taking over Christianity and Nazi-fying it, politico-theological supersessionism. Make Christianity Nazi.

Chapter 4 - Making of Nazi Theologians - Diverse membership, in age and background. Grundmann was the backbone and driving engine of the Institute and held them all together. Membership and endorsement of the institute helped build academic careers. Recognized in Third Reich but also after its defeat. Postwar, members could claim to be scholars of Judaism, to reinvent themselves and conceal their work in the antisemitic effort. Postwar, members attested to each other's anti-Nazi credentials. They didn't support the persecution of other groups, just Jews; antisemitism was crucial to their identity and aligned them with Nazism.

Chapter 5 - Theology Faculty at the University of Jena - Univ. of Jena a stronghold of the institute and it was allied with the univerisity. New PhDs got to show their work at Institute conferences and working groups. It, as all departments at Jena, were thoroughly Nazified. Heussi was the continuity - he helped complete Nazification of faculty after 1933 and then prevented its thorough denazification post-1945. He justified that it wasn't collaboration, per se, but loyalties to Christianity that required participation; the only way to preserve it. Postwar, just pretended Christianity had overridden the corruption of the Nazi regime.

Chapter 6 - Postwar - Fiction about Christianity's resistance to Nazism created by allied officials and church leadership. In fact, proof of church attendance could help with one's proof that they weren't Nazi! Professors largely avoided denazification and reinvented selves as scholars of Judaism postwar, no reference to propaganda work at wartime. Christian anti-Judaism seen as different from Nazi antisemitism and therefore didn't hold church responsible. Postwar Grundmann continued his anti-Jewish writing in the GDR and even wrote that the Holocaust was a divinely ordained punishment for Jews' crucifixion of Jesus.

Conclusion - Postwar, Confessing Church and German Christian movement united by using Old Testament images to portray Germany as Israelites in exile. (!!) Used Old Testament to exonerate Christians from responsibility during the Holocaust, even though they wanted to do away with it previosly! Some tried to blame Nazism on a secularization. First generation of postwar German church historians tried to exonerate theologians. The reality was (Bergen says) that the church wasn't weakend but actually reached its zenith of power and influence with calls for dejudaization and by engaging so many professors in its program. Fusion of Protestantism and Germanism -- Jesus prefigured Hitler, Hitler an avatar of Luther. Hitler messianic. Jesus was anti-Jewish, they said, and it was their duty to take out the mistakes of the gospels to show his pure message. Institute sought to alter Christian doctrine and adopt Teutonic ideas -- antisemitism always at the forefront of the agenda. A myth of division between Christian theological anti-Judaism and modern racial antisemetism helped theologians say they didn't contribute to the murder of the Jews. Nazism wasn't a widespread anti-Christian, pagan movement, either. These 2 things, though, used to excuse theologians from responsibility. Theologians used racism to modernize Christianity, to show its principles in accord with racial theory. Racism itself, she says, can be seen as a form of incarnational theology, centrally concenred with moral and spiritual issues, insisting that the spiritual is incarnate in the physical. Grundmann could continue with his antisemitic writings and not be found guilty for the antisemitic work during the war because it was viewed as traditional church anti-Judaism AND the Confessing Church (in charge, postwar) shared the antisemitic beliefs. Church denazification superficial. Racism essential in their groundings as theologians, and Nazism central to their careers as academics and pastors (gave them political arena and platform to share views). Postwar, just retreated to shelter of the church. "Neutrality" of long-standing church anti-Judaism protected them, and they suddenly started to embrace Old Testament (which they had so thoroughly rejected during Nazi times) to create metaphors comparing German people to exiled Israelites --> they were the "true Jews" who had been persecuted by the Nazis but had remained loyal to their Christian faith and church.

 

Sources/methods:           "Institute for the Study of and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Church Life" - only recently really uncovered archive in Eisenach; she interviewed a few of the members in the 1990s. Much archival material at Jena University, as the institute and many of its members had worked and/or studied there. Draws from church materials.

Her aim:              History of Institut zur Erforschung und Beseitigung des juedischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben, especially in the context of calls within Germany to dejudaize Christianity starting in the 19th c. (how it came to be, how it won approval and financing from church leaders, nature of dejudiazed New Testament and hymnal, conferences and lectures it organized, who joined and became an active member - esp. from academic world of theology and with focus on academic director, Walter Grundmann); shows how theologians could find career advancement and solid academic reputations through the Institute, despite Nazis' contempt for theologians

Jody - # 15 Moses

Moses, A. Dirk. German Intellectuals and the Nazi Past. (Cambridge: Cambridge, 2007)

Summary of Argument:

Memory is indeterminate, and Moses sets out to study "professors and politics" to overcome the distinction between the history of ideas and the social history of intellectuals. Moses' work does not explore each controversy and debate but looks to how and why a political consensus developed. "Rather than posit linear progress or transformations in collective memory [YAY!], it tries to explain the source of controversies about the national past between 1945 and 2005 as manifest enactments of an underlying structure of German political emotions" (5). His focus is on the '45ers and not the '86ers. These intellectuals are important for they viewed universities as the site of national defense and renewal. They were the generation who lived through Nazism and understood that they must be the first German generation to uphold democracy and the Republic. These 45ers openly debated the future of Germany while holding to the importance of democracy and the Republic. And thus the book argues: "that the answer to the question about the sources of German political reorientation can be found by looking at another generation. [...] The 'forty-fivers' became the young academics and journalists in the 1960s who commenced the task of subjecting the national intellectual traditions to a searching critique in light of their experiences of the rupture of 1945 when many of them had to being reconsidering what they had been taught in the Hitler Youth or army" (9). And to be sure, public debates cannot be isolated from the political emotions [and experiences/perception] of the intelligentsia. In the end, their struggles led to the developments of debate and discourse that produced the now fourth-generation and its ability to separate themselves from the Nazi past.

Comment:

Wow! What can I say? I love, love, love this work - a few points to continue pondering:

• Immediate postwar the Americans want Germans to shake the stigma of the past, yet 65 years later the world does not budge on holding then to it. (31)
• Younger Germans are no longer vulnerable to such attempts to revive German stigma in the service of partisan geopolitics (283) Is this too optimistic? Never say never.

The book does start off very promising with the wonderful 'introduction' and '1st chapter' but then lingers on with political heaviness for the remaining chapters. The only other thing that I could critique is the book's repetitiveness, but then again this is not a major issue but an annoyance.

Argument (Chapter Outlines) with Notes:

Introduction

• German experience has become model of dealing with past (1)
• "Many Germans opposed the new memory politics, which they felt was imposed on them by distant leaders attuned to the expectations of Atlantic political and cultural elites" (2)
• Many literature elites exposed with Nazi past (3-4)
• "Mastered past" was (and is) unattainable (5)
• "All evidence points to the fact that the meaning of memory is indeterminate, controversial, and never fully controlled by political elites" (5)
• A consensus about German political institutions - as opposed to national identity - did develop over the past 60 years (5)
• No consensus about the Nazi and pre-Nazi past (7)
• '68s as crusaders, but the intentions and outcomes were NOT the same (8)
• Focus on the more important '45ers rather than '68ers (9)
• Controversies and disputes are a discursive achievement, not an anti-fascist or conservative-integrationist one (10)
• "Too often, ideas are isolated from the lives of their articulators, although it is readily apparent that the conceptual blockages and blindnesses that constitute the underlying structure of postwar German memory are bound up in the formative, adolescent experiences of the country's leading intellectuals" (10)
• "No party in the customary memory disputes in such societies possesses any epistemological advantage over the other. A future value consensus emerges incrementally out of contested struggles over collective memory" (14)

I. Stigma and Structure in German Memory

• problems arise from unification - who is German? (15)
• Outside view judges Germany through minorities and WWII remembrance (17)
• Use stigma and sacrifice over guilt-shame to understand G. pol. emotions (17)
• (German-) Jewish students equate "Germans" with those related to perpetration of the Holocaust (18)
• Immediate postwar Germans "had been indignant about the accusation of "collective guilt" leveled at them by the American authorities in particular" (19).
• The private sphere more than public sphere is the source of social memory (22)
• Stigma as flawed social identity not natural but constructed and maintained by others (25).
• Germans needed to absolve family from crimes - and nation as well since they see nation as community (29)
• Non-German German: those affected by stigma and the psychological dissonance it caused who leave their German identity behind to become new (30)
• Binary systems do not work [amen] - to understand we need not participate (32)
• Germans, postwar, could "try to convince themselves and others that they had invented a new collectivity, divorced from the unbearable past [non-G. Germans], or they could defend the viability of their collective identity by making the national past bearable through a variety of displacement strategies [G. Germans] (32)
• Volkan: traumatic memories are not handed down but are deposited (34)
• German German: needs to ward off the stigma by denationalizing the causes of the Nazis and ascribing them to non-German causes (37)
• This process of constructing and rejecting stigma was culturally productive (37)

II. The Languages of Republicanism and West German Political Generations

• Intellectuals represent the large-group identity (38)
• problems of distancing but integrating people associated with crime (40) = initial discourse of German intellectuals
• 2 enduring  features of redemptive republican consciousness in W. Germany: 1. tainted birth of the Fed Republic; 2.  missed revolution due to old elites (44) = mistrust of Fed Republic to have the Nazis still there postwar
• '68ers produce the Non-G. Germans (46)
• postwar pol. polarization persisted through early 21st century until trust in German society was gained by intellectuals (47)
• West German democracy was a discursive achievement not an integrationist or redemptive one (50)
• Intellectual generation of 45ers was responsible for democratization of Fed Rep (51) - giving W. Germany legitimacy
• Essentially the 45ers were "fresh contacts" with little to rely on the past - need to form new and not rely on synchronic interaction of cohorts and their historical context (53)

III. The Forty-fivers: A Generation between Fascism and Democracy

• Those born between 1922-1932 belong to a single intellectual generation (56)
• Their issue: reflect upon their cognitive map in view of bankruptcy of ideals they grew up in and the criminality of Nazi which they socialized in (57)
• Most Germans in the 50s retreated to private sphere of family/work (59)
• 50s/60s = denial and defensiveness (59)
• Many 45ers were bound to Hitler and defeat was disappointing (63)
• First G. generation to commit to democratic/republic system (65)
• [JRM:] In essence, they experienced Nazism and could want for change - hence no denunciation or questions of family actions during Nazism
• Either cut off Nazis as alien or ascribe Nazism to other sources - forming a postwar symbiosis necessary for the new state(73)

IV. The German German: The Integrative Republicanism of Wilhelm Hennis

• Prominent political thinker, Hennis, wrote mainly about Max Weber (74)
• 3 years of naval military experience (75) but kept distance from Nazism
• focus question of 45ers: How did '33 happen and how to prevent it again (77)
• Identified German problems in the larger European context (82)
• Hennis saw as problem of European modernity and not the sway from Germany's "special path" away from modernity (86)
• distrust of politicals and Western lib. dem. seen as insufficient (87)
• Urged others to support state even with problems (89)
• Sees fascists potential in all modernizing societies - but then again Germans actively persecuted Jews (103) 

V. The Non-German German: The Redemptive Republicanism of Jürgen Habermas

• Solidarity with Israel was imperative (106)
• wanted release from nationalism and to move beyond nation-state (107)
• separate Germans from Nazis (109)
• reject any notion of past - due to privileged insight of being a Nazi (121)
• Germans and Jews were in symbiosis according to Habermas (125)
• 50s study finds students not completely supportive of democracy (128)
• radical university reform needed (130) 

VI. Theory and Practice: Science, Technology, and the Republican University

• restructuring university to be various autonomous faculties with students making their own course of study (132)
• must separate state and politics from university (134)
• should emphasize new work and not rely on old (Nazi) findings (142)
• saw university as place for cultural wars (151)
• no consensus possible in 60s but opened way for '68ers (159)

VII. The Crisis of the Republic, 1960-1967

• 60s: decade of cultural awakening, pol. progress, and social dynamism (160)
• key issues: (anti)communism, intellectuals, domestic and foreign policy - all with the Nazi shadow lingering (161)
• Spiegel affair and Nazi past were of utmost importance for intellectuals (174)
• Over this decade there was a polarization of the intellectuals (184)
• The student protests would drive a wedge between redemptive rep. and integrative ones (184)

VIII. 1968 and Its Aftermath

• student radicalization came from the shooting of Benno Ohnesorg in Berlin on 2 June 1967 along with anxiety of emergency law threat (187)
• Students failed to realize the diff btw Nazi/Rechtsstaat (same as Nazis) (197)
• pol. comm. profs. and graduates, the media, and cultural life finally influenced ideals to hold to the Basic Law (203) - but there was a dark side
• 1977 height of terrorism - real threat was blame instead of looking at est. (218)

IX. The Structure of Discourse in the 1980s and 1990s

• 80s & 90s debates - from Bitburg to Historian's Debate (219)
• 1982 - Kohl to repair the cultural damage of '68 (220)
• 2 big questions: how to us power and who belongs to German state? (221)
• Guest workers invited in the 50s/70s not returning home (226)

X. History, Multiculturalism, and the Non-German German

• Historian's dispute put the Holocaust as unique (232)
• for non-G. Germans the Berlin memorial is a stigmata rather than stigma (240)
• link btwn. Holocaust victims and crucified Christ (240)
• taboo: fear of communist comparison (242)

XI. German Germans and the Old Nation

• Germany conducted its foreign policy with moral highground and goodness (250)
• The nations knew the limits of power and had learned their lesson (250)
• Most important domestic issue was asylum law and violence toward foreigners (251)
• Nolte argues that utopianism drove Nazism as well as Communism (253) Kuehne
• Media (Non-G. Germans) was seen as cont. stigmatization (261)

XII. Political Theology and the Dissolution of the Underlying Structure

• Struggle with the Berlin memorial - who controls/makes memory (265-6)
• Attempting to separate: German/Germans, German/Jews, Turkish/G, etc (267)
• 3 generations and collective guilt questions continue (269)
• memorial for honor not happiness (273)
• the memorial exists for a non-monolithic meaning (278)
• 4th generations grow up with no living family member part of Nazism (281)
• The generational change shows no more stigmatization or stigmata - just a tourist attraction, object of indifference, or educational tool (282)
• Younger Germans are no longer vulnerable to such attempts to revive German stigma in the service of partisan geopolitics.  Identity dilemmas based on ethnicity and immigration as with all countries (283)

Jody - # 14 Heschel

Heschel, Susannah. The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008)

Summary of Argument:

Heschel's study looks at not only theologians of the Nazi era, especially the German Christians, but more importantly delves into academics as well since the institute was established as purely academic (91). The German Christian movement thus did not disintegrate during Nazism, in fact it reached its zenith by carrying out calls for dejudaization and engaging professors of theology in its program. "The combination of old voelkish A/S, nationalism, and racism with Christianity, and the Institute's emphasis after 1941 on bringing Teutonic elements into Christianity, broadened its appeal to Germans with a range of Christian commitments and theological understandings" (282). In essence, it had major influence beyond its members. Church and politics used each other but Nazism tried to distance itself. Nazi politics made German Christian theology seem less radical and in essence a strong religious affirmation of nationalism and state.

She focuses on its driving force, Grundmann, who was born in 1906 - thus seeing the 1st generation of the 20th century as crucial [which backs up Wildt's argument]. She also states that they were non-careerists and did not attack other persecuted groups (200). While the institute focused on religious issues the line between theology and race was porous - in fact racial theory gave scientific legitimization to religion. Postwar denazification did not work and there was a lack of concern with A/S in theology and church politics. Most important, "As the denazification investigations pursued them, the Christian antisemites of the Third Reich could represent themselves as the true Jews who had been persecuted by the Nazis but remained loyal to their Christian faith and their church"(289).

Comment:

I feel this is a great work which deals with an aspect of the Nazi era that I had little knowledge of (reflective of my comps :), but at the same time its focus is on the institute and not the church so much. I think that it thus much more important that (as Heschel argues) we look at the academics making up the pedagogical and theological texts. It is also vital that the institute did not attack other persecuted groups (200) - obvious due to the nature of their mission, but then again I wonder if 'others' were ever taken into consideration. Again though, we are talking about de-Judaifying the bible - not genocide. Very interesting and thought provoking work, yet I do find one issue nagging at me: While leaders, such as Grundmann, were virulent A/S-the question thus arises: How far down into society did this go? Heschel states that the public bought into the institute teachings, through publications/church, which saw Hitler as Christ, the Volk as collective of Christ, and Christ as opposed to Judaism (164-5). While these points reflect propaganda of the time (sorry-see Herf), how can one judge and quantify how far these saturated the public?  Especially when Heschel does not look into public opinion polls or surveys/testimonies. It seems to me that this is contradictory to what she is saying - church was pushed far enough away to not affect Nazism (thus how could it has have such a deep impact on society) and it was the ideology was the most important (that had little to say, other than utilizing semiotics, about the Bible). On the other hand, in the eyes of culture psychology, Hitler was the symbolic Messiah - but not through use of the bible. Sidenote: Is there a picture of Hitler with a bible? That would be interesting!

Argument (Chapter Outlines) with Notes:

Introduction: Theology and Race

• 6 May 1939: Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Church Life (located in Eisenach) is established (1)
• Jesus is not Jewish but fought Judaism and died trying (1)
• Racial hygiene of the spirit (1)
• Religious opposition to church was seen as influenced by Jews (2)
• Want to unify church (protestant/catholic split) to National Church (3)
• German Christian mvmt takes over (40%) of protestants in Nazi Germany (5)
• "Church Struggle" = German Christian and confessing church for control of Protestants (7)
• Nazis could not reject Christianity but must enforce it for power (8)
• Nuremberg Laws seen as upholding Christian values (11)
• new testament w/o references to Jews (13)
• Theologians as part of G. apparatus giving Nazism rel./moral authority (16)
• Use of race to gain support of Christians to Nazism (19)
• Dejudaizing Christianity renews it to a racial christianity (21)
• Racism emphasizes the bodies danger posed to the spirits (22)
• Thesis - Conclusion - legacy (23-5)

I. Draining Jesus of Jewishness

• Philology -> Racism -> Genocide (32)
• 19th c. Roman writings -> de-judaizing Jews (35) Jesus freed himself
• Frenssen -> Novel claiming Jesus as German (43)
• Not new concept - 1870-1945 Volkish religious mvmts - race and nationalism (44)
• Jew vs. Jesus on cross -> see image change (51)
• Many roads to A/J - A/S as glue holding race and religion together (66)

II. The Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Church Life, 1939 to 1942

• Church held at distance by Nazis (67)
• Institute's role: Eradicate Jewishness AND produce A/S propaganda (68)
• Conflicts in church over establishment of institute (87)
• Intended as purely academic (91) But always had A/J motives even when "eradication" was removed from official title (93)
• Financial support from church donation and publication sales (96)
• 3 Sections: 1. Scholarly tasks; 2) Conferences for scholars/clergy; 3. publications (99)
• Institute's goal, like German Christians, was to create all-inclusive Reich church (113)
• Prayer: from atonement and petition -> praise and affirmation (113)
• To Vienna as well in 40s (132)
• Catholicism never removed nor dejudaized religion but some had similar Grundmann arguments (133)

III. Projects of the Institute

• De-Judaify and bring Teutonic myth and ritual to Christianity (138)
• Follow Hitler's rhetoric about Jewish threat (144)
• 3 reasons for "Aryan" Jesus: (all based on race) (152) ANTI-J CRUSADE

- Jesus' ancestry linked to Aryans moving to Galilee

- Jesus' teaching leaned away from old testament

- perceptions of followers seen as Aryan

• Grundmann sent to Eastern Front in 1943 (161)
• Institute -> Shifted public Christians (164-5)

- Hitler as individual Christ

- German Volk as collective Christ

- Christ as Judaism's deadliest opponent

IV. The Making of Nazi Theologians

• No demographic determination to fit those who made up institute staff (175), but Grundmann born 1906, thus Heschel sees 1900-1909 important (See Wildt)
• Grundmann was the backbone and driving force of the institute (199)
• They were non-careerists and did NOT attack other persecuted groups (200)

V. The Faculty of Theology at the University of Jena

• University of Jena as stronghold of Nazism (201)
• Use of university to promote agenda (226) not God but Volk
• Doctorates were politicized and based on racial theory (234)
• Dissertations should have A/S conclusions (239)

VI. The Postwar Years

• Churches carry out their own denazification (244)
• Though his Nazi past was known, Grundmann published extensively (239)
• No longer Aryan Jesus but rhetoric of Jews as violent = cont. A/S (262)
• Institute members protected by church and academics (272)
• Martin Neimoeller felt denazification was demoralizing and seen as revenge toward Germans (276)
• Churches had difficulty separating A/S from A/J (277)
• Theology and politics pushed for church to be hostile toward denazification (277)

Conclusion: Crucified or Resurrected: Institute Theology in Postwar Germany

• Great summary of thesis/work
• German theologians put Germans = Jews and god using Germans to do his work (on the Jews) (281)

Raz - Month # 6

While Freidenreich’s Female, Jewish, and Educated and Rose’s Jewish Women in Fin de Siècle Vienna address similar issues, they present readers with very different approaches. Freidenreich’s book calls to mind “her-story” methods of feminist scholars (according to Scott), who sought mostly to uncover the role of women in historical narratives centered on male figures. However, this outdated approach – focused on social history and descriptions – adds little in the way of analysis. Indeed, Freidenreich has produced a historical account with no real theoretical framework – certainly not one in the forefront of research in the humanities and social sciences in the past decade. In fact, Freidenreich’s major insight addresses a sad situation: in the beginning of the 21^st century, many women who seek to establish academic careers, face similar obstacles, problems, and limiting public and popular discourses as their predecessors a century ago. While this state of affairs no doubt deserves scholarly attention, Freidenreich’s book addresses mostly the past – and besides uncovering much information about a specific group of women, she has failed to point to and inquire about possible implications and meanings of the many details that readers encounter.   

            By contrast, Rose has made an effort to offer a novel interpretation that not only presents the marginalized women in the existing narratives but challenges the latter fundamentally (Rose, p. 2, for example). This method applies to received wisdom on fin de siècle Vienna’s Jews as well as on the city’s non-Jewish “…cultural, social, and political climate …” (p. 219). Rose’s double perspective – Jewish women as well as images of Jewish women (i.e., subject and object – Rose, p. 7) – turns the spotlight on intriguing intersections in fin de siècle Vienna between issues of gender and collective identifications. Indeed, Rose joins growing trends of research in many fields, which interpret the rise and paths of modern national movements through the lenses of masculinity and femininity. But one of Rose’s major points – male Jews in Vienna displaced anxieties that mirrored anti-Jewish stenotypes in Viennese society onto Jewish women – hardly comes as a great novelty. Likewise, Rose’s discussion of Zionism and Jewish women stands on well-treaded soil. Therefore, even though Rose’s method and approach differ from Freidenreich’s, both books mainly point in directions still in need of much research.    

Betsy - Rose

Thesis:

Images of Jewish women incorporated Viennese bourgeois gender stereotypes, reflecting and fusing together with the non-Jewish cultural surroundings. In other words, Viennese Jewish identity was an amalgam of Jewish and bourgeois Viennese identity, and views on women reflect this combination. Rose adds to Marsha Rozenblit’s “tripartite identity” thesis that Jewish women had a “quadripartite identity.”

Sources:

Personal papers, diaries, memoirs, pamphlets, oral histories

My comments:

Rose misconstrues Marsha Rozenblit’s “tripartite identity” thesis of nationality. Rozenblit’s work analyzes nationalism and nationalist feelings of Jews in the Habsburg Empire, finding that a Habsburg Jew could feel politically Austrian, culturally German (or Czech, or Polish, etc.), and ethnically Jewish. Gender is of utmost importance in personal experience and identity, obviously, but doesn’t fit as an element of nationalism. She’s stretching here. Of course women had/have different challenges to face than men and so in singling out Jewish women, they naturally have a fourth identity to manage, but Rozenblit is talking about national identity. This topic is very important and adds a lot to historical understanding, so why does she have to find a way to modify an existing thesis? Why not just have her own?

Not enough about things BY women. Most of it was ABOUT women, and men’s views on women. Maybe this reflects what is or is not available, but it was disappointing and didn’t seem to live up to her promise.

 

Book notes:

Chapter 1 – Childhood and Youth of Jewish Girls

Jewish girls experienced alienation and difference in Vienna. At the fin-de-siècle, wealthier Jewish girls were being educated to equip them for high society and as ornaments of their father’s/family’s wealth. Gymnasien for girls began, as did a form of “Jewish confirmation” (for both boys and girls) to provide proper Jewish education and to ensure that girls could raise a good Jewish family.

Jewish girls doubly isolated in comparison to Jewish boys, because they were Jews and female. Highly educated daughters of wealthy Jewish families seen as ornaments of upward mobility; what education they got was focused on language, literature, etc. to enable their function in high levels of society. Overall, education not considered necessary for women – none for proletarian girls. In any case, in 1868 (post-emancipation) schools/Gymnasien for girls began and women were allowed as non-matriculated students at university. There was no good Jewish education for dealing with the antisemitism that existed, and so a Jewish confirmation was developed for girls and boys. Girls’ education in things Jewish was to specifically strengthen the family. Argument against Jewish confirmation, though, because it was borrowed from the church. Catholic nannies and servants had influence on children’s identities; also assimilated or converted parents, traditional grandparents à all confusing to Jewish children.

Chapter 2 – Community, Spirituality, and Philanthropy

Vienna a crossroads between tradition and modernity for women’s roles. Charity and philanthropic work in the Jewish community provided Jewish women with a role in the community that met their needs for social life, work outside the home, and religious sensibilities. Jewish women were also responsible for the home and the family, ensuring its faith and morals. Jewish leaders portrayed Jewish attitudes towards women to have been historically forward thinking and reflective of fin-de-siècle bourgeois Viennese values much earlier than the turn of the century.

Some women Jewish women assimilated, while others involved themselves in the Jewish community through charity work and prayer-related organizations (burial societies, etc.). Modern ideas, assimilation, and antisemitism prompted a definition of Jewish women’s roles. A women’s prayer book was developed, for example, that had little Hebrew and reinforced gender stereotypes. Philanthropic organizations gave women an outlet outside of the home, a social life, and met their religious sensibilities; it enabled them to participate in Jewish culture even if they were not religious. The tensions of modernism and the situation of Viennese Jews between East and West shaped Jewish leaders’ views of Jewish women, and the strict separation of gender spheres in the Jewish community reflected the bourgeois values of fin-de-siècle Vienna. Women’s roles included charity work, taking care of the family and its morality, devotion, and faith. Many leaders looked to the past and showed women’s roles in tradition – home, family, morality; defended the Jewish treatment of women, defended against antisemitic claims that included Jewish women. Used Jewish tradition to show that Jewish attitudes towards women predated and were the same as those of the fin-de-siècle Viennese bourgeois values.

Chapter 3 – University and Political Involvement

Jewish university women led the way for all women into politics and university education. University education meant emancipation as Jews and as women. Jewish university women lacked a strong Jewish identity, as they came largely from secular, assimilated homes and had had a secular education before. Most Jewish university women distanced selves from feminist movement.

Jewish women led the way of women’s entry into the male domains of politics and university. Proportionately more Jewish women at university when the doors opened to women; more in Vienna than in Germany, too. Bildung = emancipation for them, both as Jews and as women. Most Jewish university women lacked a strong Jewish identity; most from upper-middle class and had had a secular education, were of assimilated families with few religious observances. Not much in feminist movement. Many women at university made sure they didn’t appear as feminists. Jewish women blamed for feminism by antisemites. Zionism, socialism, communism. Jewish writing about the women’s movement took 3 themes: (1) Jewish women didn’t need feminism because they already had a high status in the Jewish community; (2) fear that the women’s movement weakened their Jewish identity; (2) women’s movement dangerous because of blurred lines between men and women. Jewish university women seen as masculine – feminism blamed for female hysteria.

Chapter 4 – Women and the Zionist Movement

Zionism sought to masculinze Jewish men (working the land) and to reverse stereotypes of “masculine” Jewish women (in charge of home and family and, thereby, nation). No new ideas – borrowed from bourgeois Viennese society, as well as sexist stereotypes, too. Herzlian Zionism offered women equal rights in exchange for being responsible for home and family, culture and tradition.

Zionism was a way to negotiate female identity, Jewish identity, and turn-of-the-century antisemitism. Zionism a way to work for Judaism in a feminine way. Some Zionists saw feminism as a danger because it was of assimilation; feminist took Jewish women away from their people. “Natural” areas of the woman – home, family, and nation; education of Jewish youth. Some argued for political involvement of women, not just in women’s roles. Zionism sought to change gendered stereotypes regarding “feminine” Jewish men and masculinized Jewish women – through Zionism, men were to become more manly by farming the land and women were to be responsible for transmitting culture and faith to their families. This was not new – borrowed from bourgeois Viennese society (sounds Nazi, actually!!). Women to be devoted to family and thereby to nation building. Charity was also an appropriate form of women’s work. Herzlian Zionism was supposed to give equal rights to women in exchange for them being in charge of the home and family, culture and tradition. Sexist stereotypes borrowed from Viennese bourgeois culture.

Chapter 5 – Medicine and Psychoanalysis

Jews and women both supposed to have physical and mental weaknesses; the 2 linked by gender and racial stereotypes. Psychotherapy a way for Jewish women to navigate female AND Jewish identity. Jews supposed to be repressed and neurotic; at the same time, over-sexed; at the same time, Jewish men seen as feminine. Jewish health problems said to be linked to inbreeding; others said linked to emancipation and sudden exposure to diseases from which they’d been isolated. Medical theories fought racist stereotypes and embraced sexist ones. Jewish doctors had same views about women as non-Jewish contemporaries.

Jews and women were linked by gender and racial stereotypes; both supposed to have physical and mental weaknesses. Jewish women attracted to studying psychotherapy because it served as a way to navigate both female and Jewish identities. Freud’s theories reflect his view of Jewish women because all/most of the patients about whom he wrote were Jewish women; he hid this as part of an effort to de-Judaize psychotherapy. Freud masculinized Jewish women with his theories of bisexuality. Jews were supposed to be repressed and neurotic; also the contradictory over-sexed stereotype. “Typically Jewish” disorders supposedly existed. Jewish men seen as feminine. Self-hatred appears among Jewish doctors. Some linked Jewish problems to intermarriage and inbreeding; others said they had actually been isolated from certain diseases for so long that exposure upon emancipation struck them, they had no tolerance or ability to deal. Fought antisemitic stereotypes in medical theory while embracing sexist stereotypes. View of Jewish doctors the same as their non-Jewish contemporaries.

Chapter 6 – Literature and Culture

Viennese Jewish images of women took on many of the general characteristics of stereotypes of women.

General bourgeois gender stereotypes incorporated into images of Jewish women; represents a synthesis of Jewish culture with bourgeois European culture. Jewish women provided enlightenment without losing Jewish identity in literature, or provided a link to tradition in a changing world. Jewish women characters in art and literature provided a way of responding to dilemmas of modernity. Jewish authors normally didn’t deal with Jewish topics. Jewish women either anticipated change or provided reminders of or links to the past/tradition. Ghetto stories used to suggest religious reform and modernity through women à modernity without losing Jewish identity. First ½ of 19^th c., emphasis on the positive effects of modernity on Jewish women. Second ½ of 19^th c., support traditional Judaism and women’s roles therein. In Zionist stories, Jewish women influence Jewish men to modern ideas. Amongst Jung Wien, not so concerned with already assimilated Jewish women; reacted to antisemitism. Theater – stereotypes on stage, antisemitism – Eastern Jewish women alluring, beautiful, exotic; Western Jewish women focus on Bildung and assimilation, sexual, witchcraft. Jewish playwrights didn’t do much to correct such views.