File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9709, message 301


Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 18:27:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: Not committed to Goldhagen?


On Mon, 15 Sep 1997, Hinrich Kuhls wrote:

> Henwood and Proyect still have not got the point: Goldhagen has written a
> book on the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, not on the Weimar Republic.
> 

Hinrich is wrong. Goldhagen has written a book that explains the genocide
as the fruition of long-standing anti-Semitic undercurrents that go back
to the nineteenth century. Germany was no more or no less anti-Semitic
than any other western European country prior to Hitler's taking power.
You could point to the Dreyfus case in France as an example of a more
egregious proof of anti-Semitism than anything that happened in Germany
during the same period. Even worse, in Eastern Europe there were pogroms
that resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent Jews. There is no
counterpart to this in Germany. One of the reason, tensions grew in
Germany during the Weimar period is that many Jews had fled Eastern Europe
during the pogroms seeking shelter. In conditions of economic collapse,
the Nazis found these newly arrived Jews with their strange appearance,
language and customs to be a convenient scapegoat. German Jews were much
more integrated in society and tended to view their Eastern brethren as an
inconvenience. Most German Jews, in fact, considered themselves to be more
German than Jewish.

I am sorry that this discussion has caused Hinrich to leave the list. He
will be missed. But Andy has not been treated unfairly. Goldhagen is a
scoundrel and Marxists, especially those of Jewish descent like myself,
would be remiss if we allowed him to speak in the name of the Jewish
people.

Louis Proyect




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