The Imperfectly Mastered Past: Anti-Semitism in West Germany since the Holocaust

While it is probably still correct to insist that the Nazi murder of European Jews, the Holocaust, is unique in the history of man's cruelty to man, one has a disturbing sense that it may not remain so rather, that it may become a typical form of reaction by a society at a particular stage of development to a particular kind of crisis. One's natural reaction to this suspicion is to inquire into the conditions which permit this kind of tragedy and into the measures which help to inhibit its occurrence. One obvious way to approach an understanding here is to ask what the Germans themselves have learned from this crime. telecast of the American film The Holocaust in West Germany provided an appropriate occasion for reflection,' and the special issue of New German Critique on this topic (Number 19, Winter 1980) contained a number of excellent articles analyzing the German response. However, it struck me that while most of the accounts of the German public reaction were historically oriented, there was little attempt made to trace the concrete historical development of post-war mass public opinion. My own research has been limited mainly to the question of political rather than ethnic or racial tolerance, but anti-Semitism and ethnocentrism cannot be entirely ignored in considering German liberalism any more than in considering American. Therefore, I felt I might be able to contribute to the discussion begun in New German Critique by adding a slightly different perspective and by deepening the concrete historical context.