Undeclared Wars with Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left, 1967–1989 by Jeffrey Herf (review)

This meticulously researched volume deepens Jeffrey Herf’s extended analysis of the complexities and contradictions within National Socialism, especially with regard to the Holocaust. Herf’s initial monograph, Reactionary Modernism (1984) explored ideological components that fed into Nazi thought, in particular the combination of cultural anti-modernism and a fascination with modern technology. His subsequent volumes broadened the treatment of Nazi Germany in important ways. He has mapped the memory of the era in the two postwar Germanys, and analyzed the propaganda of the dictatorship—including both the antisemitism that underpinned the genocide in Europe and the intentional dissemination of that antisemitism into the Arab world. In his new book, Herf adds an additional dimension to his research agenda by turning to the programmatic hostility toward the State of Israel that characterized the policies of both the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), and the extreme Left, particularly those parts of the New Left that slid into terrorism. His field of study has therefore shifted from Nazis to Communists (of various stripes) as he explores the differences, similarities, and interconnections between features of East and West German culture.

It is not surprising that the book explores two separate but contiguous processes, one in the East and one in the West. Following an initial period during which the Soviet Union supported the foundation of the Jewish state—Moscow saw this as a way to undercut British imperialism—Communist East Germany moved quickly to adopt an anti-Israel stance. During that early period, at least some Communists had viewed support of Israel as consistent with the wartime politics of anti-fascism: in light of the Nazi persecution of Jews, it might seem obvious that Communists would support the Jewish state. Yet the period of Communist support for Israel was brief, soon replaced by a fundamental animosity, as the rhetoric of anti-fascism metamorphosed into a propagandistic treatment of Israel as the heir to the Nazis. An important contribution of the book is its demonstration that today’s anti-Israel rhetoric borrows extensively from the Communist-era lexicon. Herf highlights the impact of the considerable emigration out of the GDR before the construction of the Berlin Wall, characterizing it as a loss of moderating influences on the regime’s radicalism. He documents the considerable military support the GDR provided to the Arab states, much of it clandestine, and he analyzes the GDR’s ambivalence toward radicalization processes in the West: East Germany was supportive but at the same time apprehensive of activists whom it might not be able to control. The underlying scandal fueling Herf’s investigation, however, is the blunt fact of a German state, after the collapse of the Third Reich, continuing to wage a war against Jews.

Much of the West, meanwhile, followed a similar trajectory, albeit on a somewhat different timeline. The West German Left was largely pro-Israel in the 1950s and 1960s, both as a response to the Holocaust and because of Israel’s reputation as a progressive society. The Six-Day War in 1967 and the radicalization of the student movement in Europe changed this, as an anti-imperialism modeled in part on the Communist discourse emanating from Moscow became more widespread. With the shift from anti-fascism to anti-imperialism, Israel came to be viewed not as a homeland for refugees from Nazism, but as an outpost of Western imperialism. The obstinate focus on Israel within the West German far Left can be viewed as a response to the support provided by the state to Israel, which reflected the Federal Republic’s own understanding of its post-Holocaust responsibility. Yet the response also belied a predisposition to antisemitism among at least some of the influential actors in the far Left, and this in turn explains the particular focus on Israel as a target of West German...