Date: Thu, 04 Sep 1997 00:08:05 +0100
From: Chris Burford <cburford-AT-gn.apc.org>
Subject: M-I: Frankfurt Institute of Social Research on anti-semitism


At 08:26 AM 9/1/97 +0200, Hinrich wrote:

<snip>


>Carrol, you are still on the wrong way. It's not a core secret what is at
>stake nor the desperate search for it. What is at stake is an analysis of
>anti-semitism and its transition into genocide. Once again the outline of a
>comprehensive, collective  analysis of one of the central problems of
>Marxist theory yet to be resolved:

Perhaps I am biassed by an informative visit to Dachau last year, which was
not necessarily typical, but my understanding was that civil rights were
smashed much more rapidly in 1933 than Jews were rounded up. Indeed Dachau
was for the first five years almost exclusively to discipline the
left-wingers. It did not receive a significant number of Jews until the
occupation of Austria in 1938. I got the impression that while the Nazi's
held an extreme form of anti-semitism, the importance of the anti-Jewish
laws in 1933 was the principle that civil rights can and should be removed
from a section of the population. 

Since anti-semitism had been present in European society for centuries it
does not seem to me to distort history to look for special circumstances,
including the specific thinking of leading members of the Nazi Party to
explain why under conditions of fascism it took such a serious form. 

I happen to agree with the importance of integrating psychological insight
into politics and economics, and in abstract I agree that all racism is
potentially eliminationist - it is a mind set, that can occur in many other
situations in which the human validity of the other, is denied. We can all
do it, and people are psycholgically annihilated repeatedly on these lists.
Fortunately no one has charge of a local militia and no one else is their
prisoner...  

Whether Goldhagen is attempting to create a monocausal explanation, or just
to emphasise something which he thinks has been overlooked in the pattern
of causes, I read Hinrich's extracts from the Institute of Social Research
as seeking certainly more profound explanations that the monocausal.


___________________________

Rough translation - (it seems to me right that English speaking as well as
German speaking contributors should try to battle with the difficulties of
translation. Even a paragraph of this length takes me some time, but here
is my rough understanding. If the errors are instructive, I hope Hinrich or
someone else will point them out.) -

"Here is the formulation (according to the Institute) of the core thesis
for the understanding of Anti-semitism: that the picture of Jews as
parasitic, useless diners (at the table of society?) in the period of
development of the bourgeois-capitalist world, was embedded deep in the
collective memory of this social structure and remained latent.
However in particular crisis-laden developmental phases of modern bourgeois
society they could become realised. 

The crisis of the Weimar republic and the fascist Crisis Solution represent
such a developmental constellation. From today in retrospect (aus gesehen?)
the interwar years can be understood as a crisis-laden transformation
process of capitalism in Germany in a Fordist developmental direction. This
transformation included a gathering together of the latent antisemitism and
eventually a qualitative alteration within the fascist system of rule. From
such a problem perspective it should be possible to do productive work on
the different strands of the left wing analysis of fascism - from the
theories of imperialism to the social-psychological approaches. 



>Hier [bei der Problemskizze des Instituts fuer Sozialforschung]
>ist als eine Kernthese zum Verstaendnis des Antisemitismus formuliert,
>dass das Bild vom Juden als Prototyp des *parasitaeren, unnuetzen Essers* in
>der Entstehungsperiode der buergerlich-kapitalistischen Welt tief in das
>kollektive Gedaechtnis dieser Gesellschaftsordnung eingegraben wird, latent
>bleibt, aber in bestimmten krisenhaften Entwicklungsphasen der modernen
>buergerlichen Gesellschaft wieder reaktualisiert werden kann. Die Krise der
>Weimarer Republik und die faschistische *Krisenloesung* markieren eine
>solche Entwicklungskonstellation. Von heute aus gesehen kann die
>Zwischenkriegszeit als krisenhafter Transformationsprozess des Kapitalismus
>in Deutschland hin zu einem *fordistischen* Entwicklungsweg begriffen
>werden. Diese Transformation schloss eine Verallgemeinerung des latenten
>Antisemitismus und schliessliche Qualitaetsveraenderung innerhalb des
>faschistischen Herrschaftssystems ein. In einer solchen Problemsicht
>koennten auch die unterschiedlichen Straenge linker Faschismusanalysen - von
>der imperialismustheoretischen bis zur sozialpsychologischen Sichtweise -
>produktiv bearbeitet werden.
>



Comments:

Clearly the answer will not come in one or even several brief letters on a
e-mail list. But perhaps some trends have already emerged. My reactions:

1. Historically an elaboration of the position of Jewish culture as
creatively marginal in European christian culture. I was struck by a member
of the ANC saying on these lists a couple of years ago that in one south
african language there was no word for capitalist, and the word for jew was
used. I think the non-racist point here is that with christian
proscriptions on usury, until the development of joint stock companies and
self-help friendly societies in the 18th century there was no simple social
way to raise a pool of savings for insurance or developments. This function
which is really one of social trust and has to be sanctioned by society to
work, was split off as a specialised function to the jewish community with
all the potentialities of exacerbated mistrust when credit came under
strain. The joint stock company had to be developed for anything as
hazardous as voyages of exploration.

2. Jewish culture where it has been resilient, has nurtured its children
often successfully to overcome the obstacles and to outperform those of the
host culture. The roll call of history is eloquent and does not need
repeating on a marxism list. This contributed to an intellectual rivalry
that under the influence of a intense racist theories at their extreme lead
to book burning. But the political importance of introducing censorship was
perhaps more significant.  


3. Concerning the more recent part of their hypothesis, this sounds
intriguing. I was struck also on visiting Dachau to hear how by the end of
the war what a large proportion of the German economy was linked to the SS
war production. While much of this was slave labour, aspects of production,
for example by the more trusted prisoners in the later 30's or early 40's
might have had features that were essentially fordist. Are there any
analyses of that?


4. Presumably there is discussion of the differences of German and Italian
fascism which illuminates how much anti-semitism had a core role in one but
not the other.




Chris Burford

London



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