Anti-Semitism in Germany: The Post-Nazi Epoch Since 1945 (review)

Book Reviews 161 Anti-Semitism in Germany: The Post-Nazi Epoch Since 1945, by Werner Bergmann and Rainer Erb. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1997. 385 pp. $39.95. This is a timely and important book. German unification, the approaching (1999) 50th anniversary of the founding of the Federal Republic, and continuing controversy over the role of "ordinary" Germans in the Holocaust form a contemporary context that heightens the significance ofthis analysis ofGerman opinions and attitudes toward Jews over the past 50 years. Werner Bergmann and Rainer Erb are well known to German specialists for their many contributions to research on antisemitism, and this book presents their most important findings to the English-reading community. The work is based largely on the authors' 1991 study, Anti-Semitismus in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, which presented a variety of data over the time period from 1946 to 1989. An additional chapter focusing on East-West German comparisons from 1990 to 1995 has been added to this English edition. The introductory chapters focus on the antisemitism research conducted in the early postwar period. Unfortunately , this early research was episodic and consisted of surveys commissioned in response to particular events such as the 1959-1960 wave of antisemitic incidents and the 1965 debate on the extension ofthe statute of limitations for war crimes. There was no systematic longitudinal research program to examine attitudes toward Jews over time. Nonetheless, in their review of the early research the authors found "a massive persistence ofanti-Semitism after 1945." About 30 to 40 percent ofadult West Germans were openly antisemitic, as measured in open-ended self-appraisal questions, e.g., "What is your general attitude toward Jews?" These early studies provide some support for the controversial thesis of Daniel 1. Goldhagen (Hitler's Willing Executioners, Knopf, 1996), who argues that ordinary Germans, because of widespread virulent antisemitism in Germany, were eager participants in the Holocaust. Significantly, the early work also found that antisemitism was higher among younger people and the better educated, those age cohorts socialized during the Nazi period. Even as late as the 1980s, 35 percent of this by-now small and elderly cohort still expressed strong antisemitic attitudes. The main body of the study consists of a careful and detailed analysis of two national surveys conducted by the authors in 1987 and 1991. They employ a variety of sophisticated -measures of antisemitism and relate attitudes towards Jews to other phenomena such as xenophobia, discrimination, and intolerance. There are two core findings to their research: antisemitism has declined over the past half-century, and much of this decline has been generational. Indeed the single most important demographic predictor today ofwhether or not a German is antisemitic is age. But there is also evidence ofattitudinal change among older age cohorts, including the so-called "Hitler Youth" generation. Their postwar experiences with democracy as practiced in the Federal Republic and their steady integration into this new political culture has 162 SHOFAR Spring 1998 Vol. 16, No.3 apparently had a moderating effect on their antisemitism dispositions. Indeed, in reviewing these data one fmds a clear relationship between the decline of antisemitism and increased support for the values, beliefs, and institutions ofliberal democracy. Other important correlates of modem antisemitism today are low levels of education, xenophobia, nationalism, hostility to Israel, and positive attitudes towards the Third Reich, especially a strong tendency to relativize the Holocaust and to ascribe shared blame to Jews. These attitudes in the 1990s are held by about 12 percent of the adult population. Clearly in both East and West antisemitism is not legitimate: "Anti-Semitism exists in Germany today only in ideological fragments and as personal prejudice. Assumption of anti-Semitic prejudice can be attributed only to an individual's active receptivity; outside of a right-wing extremist context, it is no longer accepted as an integral component of other political or ideological orientations." The authors' core conclusions are generally positive: the emergence of younger generations unburdened by the past and rising educational levels "allow us to assume that anti-Semitism will continue to diminish in the future." In spite of the ihlpressive array and analysis of survey data, the work has several shortcomings. First, the...