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.