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