Democratization and the Jews: Munich, 1945-1965Published for the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism Democratization and the Jews explores the ways in which West Germans in Munich responded after 1945 to the Holocaust. Examining the political and religious discourse on the ?Jewish Question,? Anthony D. Kauders shows how men and women in the immediate postwar era employed antisemitic images from the Weimar Republic in order to distance themselves from the murderous policies of the Nazi regime. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, many people?and particularly Social Democrats and members of the churches, both Catholic and Protestant?began to repudiate antisemitism altogether, appreciating the connection between liberal democracy, on the one hand, and the rejection of hatred of Jews, on the other. This change was a revolutionary moment in the democratization of the Federal Republic, as the language of liberalism merged with the spirit of democracy. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 53
... population would blame unpatriotic elements for subverting the nation's war effort . Hitler's demise was compounded , furthermore , by the destruction of the East Elbian power base , the elimination of Prussia as an independent state ...
... population at large.24 While most Jewish leaders and the Jewish press failed to spell out the exact nature of democracy , their records indicate that they instinctively embraced democracy of an Anglo - American provenance . Indeed , a ...
... population was directly faced with the past , so that " repression " or ignorance was hardly viable and conscious responses to the events surrounding the " Jewish question " were inevitable . Munich was in the American zone of ...
... population , “ seriously working through the past " so as to " break its spell through lucid consciousness . " Rather , most people sought to " draw a line under the past " ( Schlußstrich ziehen ) , and possibly hoped to eliminate it ...
... population to deny its responsibility for the events of the past : being guilty amongst the guilty could not lead to the isolation or ostracization encountered by someone who is guilty and surrounded by the innocent.45 Democratization ...
Contents
History as Pedagogy Munichs Jewish Community after the War | 38 |
History as Memory Democracy and Antisemitism 19451949 | 65 |
History and Memory in the Economic Miracle Dormancy and Difference 19491957 | 137 |
History as Change Jews as Fellow Beings 19581965 | 201 |