Antisemitismus in der deutschen Geschichte (review)

The starting point for this slim but useful volume is the intense debate over the nature of German antisemitism that the publication of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners generated in 1996. Armin Pfahl-Traughber organizes this survey of the development of antisemitism in German history from the early middle ages to the present around the two intimately related arguments that Goldhagen made eight years ago: that there existed, unabated, a centuries-old hatred of the Jews in Germany, and that this continuous hatred in Germany, unlike that in other parts of Europe, was driven by a popular will to commit mass murder against the Jews.

Pfahl-Traughber questions the leap that Goldhagen asks his readers to make, namely that the constancy of antisemitism throughout German history, which the author accepts, was characterized by a singular continuity in its nature, namely that Germans as a nation always harbored the wish to exterminate the Jews, which he rejects as unproven. He corrects Goldhagen's simplistic and often disjointed analysis of antisemitism in Germany over the centuries by providing specific definitions and clear examples of all of the manifestations of Judenfeindschaft in Germanythrough the ages, from the exclusions and persecution of the pre-modern era to the policy of extermination at Auschwitz, and then beyond to the post-Holocaust period after 1945. For the entirety of German history, including the years leading up to the decision some time in the fall of 1941 to undertake the "final solution," he presents abundant evidence and cogent arguments that Goldhagen's alleged German national will to exterminate the Jews of Germany and the rest of Europe simply cannot be sustained (p. 155). Indeed, Pfahl-Traughber does an excellent job of delineating the variations in opinion in Nazi Germany as to how the general popular antipathy toward the Jews in Germany should be translated into policy.

The public debate among scholars over Goldhagen's assertions has abated considerably in recent years. Most scholars have effectively rejected his thesis of the uniquely "eliminationist" (read "exterminationist") nature of antisemitism in German history. But the arguments postulated by Goldhagen in 1996, particularly his characterization of German antisemitism and its uniqueness in European history, continue to be at the core of the debates over German antisemitism and the decision of the Nazis to commit mass murder. They remain a factor in the literature of the Holocaust that has appeared since then. Nevertheless, while Holocaust scholars are familiar with the complexities of antisemitism and the general history of Jew-hatred in European history, as well as the debates generated by Goldhagen's book, students and many general readers generally are not. They can be at a disadvantage when they attempt to understand the history of antisemitism and Nazi Germany, as well as the political, social, and cultural factors in Germany that led to Auschwitz.

With that in mind, this book is a valuable tool for students and interested non-scholars who delve into the literature of the Holocaust. Its value will obviously increase if it is translated into English and other languages. In a straightforward and dispassionate manner, the author provides some clear definitions of antisemitism in all of its variations. He examines the causes and consequences of antisemitism throughout German history, from the medieval and early modern periods, to the Second Reich, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and the period after the Second World War. Not surprisingly, he concludes with a brief comparative analysis of antisemitism in German history and in the histories of other parts of Europe, arguing that while antisemitism is obviously not a uniquely German phenomenon, it did achieve by far its "most brutal and inhuman expression" in Germany during the Third Reich (p. 164). Most importantly, he suggests that there are likely particular conditions in any society that make mass murder possible, and he laments the relative paucity of comparative studies of genocide and the conditions that generate it.

While in no way detracting from the important assets described above...