HOLOCAUST ANGST: The Federal Republic of Germany and American Holocaust Memory since the 1970s

Beiträge zur Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts #27

by Jacob S. Eder

In the face of an outpouring of research on Holocaust history, Holocaust Angst takes an innovative approach. It explores how Germans perceived and reacted to how Americans publicly commemorated the Holocaust. It argues that a network of mostly conservative West German officials and their associates in private organizations and foundations, with Chancellor Kohl located at its center, perceived themselves as the "victims" of the afterlife of the Holocaust in America. They were concerned that public manifestations of Holocaust memory, such as museums, monuments, and movies, could severely damage the Federal Republic's reputation and even cause Americans to question the Federal Republic's status as an ally. From their perspective, American Holocaust memorial culture constituted a stumbling block for (West) German-American relations since the late 1970s.Providing the first comprehensive, archival study of German efforts to cope with the Nazi past vis-à-vis the United States up to the 1990s, this book uncovers the fears of German officials-some of whom were former Nazis or World War II veterans-about the impact of Holocaust memory on the reputation of the Federal Republic and reveals their at times negative perceptions of American Jews. Focusing on a variety of fields of interaction, ranging from the diplomatic to the scholarly and public spheres, the book unearths the complicated and often contradictory process of managing the legacies of genocide on an international stage. West German decision makers realized that American Holocaust memory was not an "anti-German plot" by American Jews and acknowledged that they could not significantly change American Holocaust discourse. In the end, German confrontation with American Holocaust memory contributed to a more open engagement on the part of the West German government with this memory and eventually rendered it a "positive resource" for German self-representation abroad.Holocaust Angst offers new perspectives on postwar Germany's place in the world system as well as the Holocaust culture in the United States and the role of transnational organizations.

316 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Patrycja · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesująca lektura, podczas której ciągle uderzało mnie, jak my (Polska) nie myślimy o/i tym samym nie umiemy prowadzić subtelnej dyplomacji publicznej. Autor odnosząc się do: wizyty Reagana i Kohla w Bitburgu w 1985; wydania książki Goldhagena "Gorliwi kaci Hitlera", budowy Muzeum Holocaustu w Waszyngtonie i wyświetlania serialu Holocaust przez NBC a następnie filmu Spielberga "Lista Schindlera" pokazuje, jak nerwowo Niemcy reagowali na upamiętnianie Holocaustu w USA, co ich zdaniem (przede wszystkim administracji Kohla) mogło wpłynąć negatywnie na interesy Niemiec.
Ciekawa teza, ciekawe przykłady, choć:
- tych przykładów jednak mało - wszystkie wymieniłam wyżej
- są liczne, drażniące powtórzenia
- autor wyciąga daleko idące wnioski z jednej wypowiedzi
- przykłady wymienione wyżej są potraktowane jednak dość oględnie (na zasadzie, co do reakcji na książkę Goldhagena zob. sobie literaturę w przypisie, mimo to, że to jeden z głównych punktów argumentacji monografii).

Ogólnie pozycja nie porywa, ale można się zapoznać, by wyciągnąć wnioski nie o tym, jacy Ci Niemcy źli, lecz dlaczego Ci Polacy tacy nieprzemyślni.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once thought of as a solely a Jewish tragedy , In recent years, the Holocaust has shifted from esoteric proportions to a larger American and even greater transnational consciousness. Charting its progression from mere obscurity to wide spread notoriety, scholar and author Jacob S. Eder examines how Germans perceived and reacted to how Americans publicly commemorated the Holocaust. As a scholar of transnational and international history particularly German and American history Eder observes how holocaust memory has been shaped from the late 1970s to early 1990s,. In assessing the repercussions of this newly found interest in America that often mediated between fixation and obsession, Eder elucidates how Germans abroad reacted with unease in a fixed state of anxiousness coined by author and scholar Eder as “ Angst”. This heightened state of anxiousness by West German officials is often characterized by exaggerated and groundless fears of Jewish control of American public perception. This was by no means true but exemplified the nuances of West Germanys fear of a large SURVIOR population in the Us ready to exert influence on the political sphere subverting the question of Germanys strategic and global alliance with the US and its overall legitimacy and place in NATO.
Building on a rich repository of varying sources from correspondences, Newspapers, articles, and more than thirty interviews Eder shows us a valuable behind the scenes analysis of memory diplomacy in action. Eder guides us through an intimate and personal montage of correspondences, speeches and historical moments that build up to the state of anxiousness experienced by German diplomats, museum chairs, intellectuals and key figures . Holocaust remembrance for many German diplomats was seen as a Public Relations campaign to discredit Germanys standing in geopolitical framework. Moving past mere observation, Eder argues that due to portrayal of Holocaust memory in the United States, West German officials within the Kohl government changed their policies and perceptions of Holocaust memory at home vis a vis the United States.

[Michał Kosiorek · Rating 4 out of 5]

O tym jak należy prowadzić skuteczną politykę historyczną. Pragmatycznie, zakulisowo i bez nagłych, nieprzemyślanych ruchów.