About the Genocide Forum
A Platform for post-Holocaust Commentary
- Two Views of Martin Niemöller: Repentant Pastor or Protestant Participant?
- Witches, Scapegoats and the Other
- On the German Jewish Exodus: Shelving a Myth
- Post-Genocide Re-migration: The Jewish Return to Germany
- Post-Genocide Re-migration: The Jewish Return to Germany
November-December 1999
Year 6, No. 2
Bonnie Falchuk: Managing Editor
Carol Rittner: Associate Editor
Henry R. Huttenbach: Founder- Editor
Sandrine Dikambi: Assistant Editor
Two Views of Martin Niemöller: Repentant Pastor or Protestant Participant?
The article (TGF 5/6) analyzing Niemöller's purported post-war ditty on his political myopia during the early years of Nazi rule in Germany set off a minor fire-storm of responses in support of Niemöller and an equal number condemning him.
In dispute is the oft-quoted (mal-quoted according to some) quasi-aphorism in which he seeks to repent, post-facto, his political (moral?) blindness at the onset of Nazism. Some claim he never said it; others insist he did, disagreeing on both what he said and/or why he said it. He has left no definitive, formal formulation.
What is clear is that between 1933 and 1945, Niemöller, the Protestant patriot and pastor, gave exclusive thought to himself, some to his faith, and literally none to the Jews. According to Professor Jörg Wollenberg (Bremen), Niemöller's statement excluded the Jews! Whatever the exact form, Niemöller's retrospection about his own myopia counts for little; no more than a post-Auschwitz expression of regret by Hitler.
What follows are two letters by two prominent Holocaust/Genocide scholars, each with a fundamentally different assessment of Niemöller. (Perhaps there are other views readers would like to share.) Half a century after the fact, Niemöller still inspires conflicting views: one is generously charitable; the other, focused on his darker side, is more critical. Is there an "objective" (3rd way) solution? Or do these polar responses reflect two conflicting agendas: the need for a repentant, Christian hero and the counter-need for a fallen villain who betrayed his religion and fell for the seductive Nazi sirens of ultra-radical patriotism?
_____ . _____
To the Editor,
The current issue of your useful newsletter has arrived. I am again admiring your industry. But this time I am half astonished and half irritated that you should purvey that bowdlerized issue of Martin Niemöller's famous saying – and then compound the offense by attributing to him opinions and activities of which he was not guilty. As I discussed at our Annual Scholars' Conference in Seattle, and as was published in [the] conference volume – Remembrance and Recollection, p. 8 – the correct form of the memorable message [essentially, the editor] was this: Communists, Socialists, union leaders (Gewerkschaftler), Jews – and then they came for me.
That order is not only historically accurate but also literarily pointed, for it brought the emphasis upon the Jews – which was Niemöller's often-expressed post-war concern. Like a number of others, including some Christian martyrs, he deeply repented of the kulturantisemitismus and political bad judgment that led him to delay seeing the viciousness of Nazism for what it was until after the last open election and the Ermächtigungsgesetz. He was along with Karl Barth the moving force back of the Barmen Declaration of May 1934, and like Barth also regretted that in their anxiety to defend the church bureaucracy against Nazi Gleichschaltung (which they did better than the universities or any other sector) they were blind to "die Judenfrage." Bonhoeffer was the only one who at that time saw that as a fatal error and criticized the failure of Barmen to deal with it – and with DB not just baptized Jews, as so many of my colleagues say, but Jews as Jews.
The addition of "the Catholics" to the list aroused him to laughter. I was with him one time in Germany when the question was raised. Said MN: "I never said it! The Catholics take care of themselves." This may not be in the spirit of the contemporary "ecumenical" mishmash, but I heard it. Also I have verified the text – which goes back to his preaching missions in the USA after the war – with his widow, who is presently as irritated as I am at the way the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (& Yad Vashem's recent pamphlet) mix up the sequence and freely add a group or two of hitch-hikers. (I saw "then they came for the gays" in a recent magazine issue! You may be sure MN would have had less patience with that kind of exhibitionism and exploitation of the victimology theme which became a staple of Western Culture.) Of course "they" never came for "the Catholics" any more than "they" came for "the Protestants": the whole line is dishonest and should be an embarrassment to any honest student of the record.
Franklin H. Littell
Distinguished Professor of Holocaust Studies,
The Richard Stockton College, New Jersey
To the Editor,
I found your comments on Niemöller excellent and was very glad to see them in The Genocide Forum. I was more than annoyed when I saw his phrase featured at the Holocaust Museum on a large and prominently placed placard, and I complained about it. (I was there to run a seminar). He never defended the Jews, as you also know; indeed, he only defended Christians of Jewish origins, that is to say, Christians. As you undoubtedly know, Niemöller was in fact an early Nazi supporter; he voted for them in 1924 and 1933, and allowed the SA to appear in uniform in his swastika-decorated church before Hitler came to power. Something the Protestant Church then frowned upon. He also organized fellow students to support the notably antisemitic Kapp Putsch.
As for his unjustly famous statement, he was in fact happy when Hitler came for the Communists and also for the Socialist Trade Unions, not just neutral, as follows from his early pro-Nazi attitudes. Your remarks on the relative moral values revealed by his statement are brilliant …
John Weiss
Lehman College (CUNY)
Witches, Scapegoats and the Other
Genocide requires a target group "deserving" of extermination. Before "they" are annihilated, though, the group's members must be transformed into a cohesive whole, in which the individual is deprived of any individuality other than what stems from a collective identity. In short, each person is eliminated for being part of a despised group and not for any personal characteristics. Each individual qua microcosm embodies the "sins" of the group, for genocide demands a fully demonized target group in which each and every member is equally tainted with the "crimes" of the collective. In short, an entire group is transformed into a single, compressed scapegoat.
Scapegoats are saddled with the guilt of a wide array of "sins." They can be held accountable for a whole slew of social ills: mass, systemic unemployment, humiliating defeat in war, chronic social unrest, rampant crime, widespread epidemics, devastating inflation, etc. The greater the sin, the more the crystallization of the scapegoat status. In the case of genocide, scapegoat-hood has to be hermetical, with no escape hatch, no room for exceptionalism. The very state of being is sufficient ground for the total removal of the scapegoat group, the object of absolute rejection. Hence, the "sin" must match the punishment – extermination. Genocide becomes necessary because society has the obligation to protect itself from the evil intentions, destructive deeds, and the devastating effects of the scapegoat.
In that sense those who perceived "witches" as scapegoats deserving of death are psychologically closely related to the genocidist mindset and behavior. Witches represented the devil incarnate, evil forces seeking to corrupt souls, endangering and bringing them closer to eternal damnation in hell, there to suffer endless, unrelieved torment. Hence, death by burning was considered symbolically and physically appropriate punishment. And so the Jews, too – as a target of group extermination – were saddled with commensurate satanic, witch-like aptitudes well deserving of their fiery end in the Final Solution.
As the consummate "other", Jews once stood alongside the multitude of accused witches of the past. It is not accidental that in Europe during the Middle Ages, a rising fear of Jews coincided with a similarly dark fear of witches. For centuries both were made deserving of removal from Christendom. And when the Nazis assumed power, they could and did draw upon millennia of pagan and Christian scapegoatism in which witches played a central role. It was no accident that Nazism drew so heavily from the Wagnerian pagan world, a world of dark images, stark fears, witch-like creatures and shadowy references to Jews.
This may seem a contrived linkage; yet it has some merit on further examination. The demonization of one or many is not necessarily a difference of kind but only of degree. Witches (though few in number) and Jews shared a common status in medieval Europe: socially despised, made vulnerable with overlapping scapegoatisms and, therefore, subject to eradicational treatment for the unforgivable sins they embodied.
Witches belong to the category of imagined creatures that includes demons, close servants of the devil. Such a status has no redeeming feature; they forfeit being part of a Christian society. The same exclusivist thinking once threatened European Jews and, today, threatens many ethnic group at odds with a radicalized rival ethnic group. At one time or another, witches and Jews - both absolute non-conformists - represented "the enemy" par excellence, and their suppression demanded death, whether of one single scapegoat or of an entire scapegoated minority.
Those who study genocide need to pay more attention to the witch-scapegoat connection. It will help them navigate the turgid thought process and criminal behavior of the genocidist.
Henry R. Huttenbach
On The German Jewish Exodus: Shelving a Myth
Again and again German Jews are accused of having delayed their departure – flight – from Nazi Germany on account of their patriotism and their involvement with German culture. Over-infatuation with German culture, so it is said, lulled them into embracing false hopes about the future, with the result that all-too-many Jews were trapped in Germany unable to escape destruction once World War II had broken out in 1939. Not till the Kristallnacht assault in November 1938 were German Jews finally persuaded that there was no future in remaining in the Third Reich.
As in any general statement and, in this case, implied accusation, there is a measure of truth as well as a portion of inaccuracy in this glib "history" of the tragedy that confronted half a million German citizens officially labeled as Jews by the 15 September 1935 Nuremberg Racial Laws. What makes the exodus or seemingly failed exodus look as an indictment of mass blindness is a combination of hindsight, lack of comparison and egregious ignorance.
A glance at the numbers should change the perspective on the emigration pattern of German Jews. For example, until the British White Paper of 17 May 1939 over 53,000 Jews from Germany (10%) had settled in Palestine, most of them young, well educated, the majority non-Zionist. Hardly an index of inflexibility. There were thousands more ready to leave, but England effectively closed the doors of Palestine. Another 57,000 or so managed to reach the United States, despite the hurdles of an inflexible quota system and a criminally corrupt consular corp. Tens of thousands wanted to go to the United States but were simply unable to go – insufficient funds, no relatives to sponsor them, and, ultimately, virtually no transportation after 1939. Up to 30,000 entered Great Britain, including about 10,000 children bureaucratically but cruelly separated from their parents who certainly did not stay behind for their love of the fatherland!
A Nazi census of Jews taken in March 1940 revealed that, since 1939, virtually all remaining Jews in Germany had emigration plans or hopes, hindered only by lack of opportunity or means. There is absolutely no indication of zealous and, therefore, paralyzing patriotism. Of the circa 200,000 Jews remaining in Germany by September 1939, the vast majority were old, infirm and poor; of the young, the majority had no means to leave, or stayed behind to care for elderly parents. The statistics of the 1940 census make this eminently clear.
Tens of thousands had fled to adjacent countries – France, Belgium, Holland, Poland, Italy and Yugoslavia – not aware, of course, that they would be swept up by World War II. Who knew the extent of that war before its outbreak? In all, around 350,000 German Jews (62%) emigrated, (hardly proof of a paralyzing attachment to the country of one's birth.) This included nearly 75,000 who went to Central and South American countries. The annual totals of departures speak for themselves. According to conservative estimates, they are as follows:
1933= 64,000 1937= 25,000
1934= 45,000 1938= 49,000
1935= 35,000 1939= 68,000
1936= 34,000
Now what of Jews elsewhere? Why did the Jews of Poland, well aware of events in Germany, not make their exodus en masse? In Germany, the voice of Rabbi Leo Baeck was heeded, when in 1933 he declared "a 1000 years of Jewish history in Germany are over." In the east the pleadings of Vladimir Jabotinsky went largely unheeded or were openly mocked. There simply was no large-scale departure, or, at least, attempts to depart. The same international restrictions and barriers stopped East European Jews from fleeing; however, there is little evidence they sought to leave proportionately and numerically as did the Jews in Germany. Why was that? For one thing, many were wedded to their conditions in Poland: the assimilated Polish Jews felt at home in Polish culture, even more it seems than their German counterparts; religious Jews, on the whole, tended not to be Zionists, preferring their Polish environment; and Socialist-Bundist–Jews were committed to a secular life in Europe.
Seen from this perspective, the German Jewish exodus between 1933 and 1939 shows a far higher level of awareness and response to the crisis than by the Jewish masses next door in Poland. The myth of the German Jewish failure to emigrate is harbored largely by the descendents of East European Jews in the United States. They are the products of mass Jewish emigration between 1881 and 1922 in response to political and economic conditions in the Russian Empire and, coincidentally, unrestricted immigration to the U.S. When the shadow of Nazi Germany began to fall on East Europe in 1933, few Jews left in comparison to those hundreds of thousands who exited Nazi Germany.
Henry R. Huttenbach
[Readers might wish to consult Herbert Strauss Jewish Emigration from Germany: Nazi Policies and Jewish Responses, Parts I and II in Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 25(1980) pp. 313-361 and 26(1981) pp. 343-409 respectively.]
Post-Genocide Re-migration: The Jewish Return to Germany
There is much irony in history, indeed history is almost synonymous with irony. How often do we hear exclaimed in surprise: "Who would have thought…?" Who would have thought that after experiencing Nazi-initiated genocide, Jews, in ever larger numbers, would voluntarily return to Germany in this century, when only two generations ago, their Jewish predecessors were driven out en masse, some forced to emigrate, others condemned to an agonizing death.
Understandably, the flow of Jewish immigrants to Germany is modest, but that makes it no less significant. After 1945, there was still a sizeable Jewish population on German territory; the vast majority were not from Germany but survivors from concentration camps, penned up after the war in Displaced Persons camps. The bulk of those, however, left within two or three years, the majority to the United States and to what was then still British Mandate Palestine. For all practical purposes, divided post-war Germany was effectively Judenrein, especially in the western zones; in East Germany, half a dozen tiny Jewish communities were formed, heavily subsidized by the communist government.
Not till the mid-1950s did a small wave of Jewish immigrants enter West Germany, largely settling in Hamburg, Frankfurt and Mainz. These were almost all from Israel, forced out by the country's first major economic depression and attracted by the young and expanding German economy. By the end of the decade there were still no more than ten thousand Jews in West Germany, including a handful of German Jews who returned from abroad. Given the skewed age distribution, towards the older end of the spectrum, few saw this population as one with a demographic future. At best it was of symbolic value; a sad reminder of the once vibrant Jewish life prior to 1933.
However, in the late 1960s there began another slow but steady flow of Jews to Germany, some from Poland after the 1968 crisis and some from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Jews came via Rome, where they could choose whether to continue on to Israel or go elsewhere. A surprising number opted for Germany in response to its booming economy. Seemingly, memory of the Holocaust no longer acted as an inhibitor, at least to an expanding minority of those leaving the USSR. By the mid-1970s, the unofficial but accepted total of Jews in West Germany was around 28,000; a new cluster of them settled in West Berlin. It was a generation after Auschwitz. Yet despite the tripling in size of the Jewish population in West Germany between 1960 and 1975 it showed no signs of cultural and demographic viability. For one thing, the young married out and, furthermore, they showed little interest in maintaining a functional Jewish identity.
With the appearance of Mikhail Gorbachev, in 1985, however, Jews from the Soviet Union started coming in even greater numbers, this time directly to Germany, first by the hundreds and then by the thousands. The considerable immigration of Jews from the former USSR continues to this day. Statisticians and census-takers have finally begun to take the presence of Jews in Germany more seriously. These now number in the neighborhood of either 49,000 or 94,000.
What does this discrepancy mean? According to the German immigration authorities, since 1991 c. 120,000 "Jews" from the ex-USSR received entrance and residency permits; about 94,000 accepted and went to Germany. But according to Jewish communities, only 49,000 of these were Jewish according to Halachic standards. Depending on which total one accepts, the present Jewish population in Germany is either c. 77,000 or c. 122,000. In either case, it is a significant evolution precisely because it now is demographically viable due to a greater shift towards the younger end of the spectrum. Besides, Jews in Germany are now better organized, integrated, and visible.
The genocide of the past, though by no means forgotten, no longer makes living in and coming to Germany a taboo for Jews. Taking up residence in Germany is now perceived as both normal and legitimate, especially by Jews from East Europe. Critical voices are few and far between. On the whole, German Jews express confidence in German democracy and seem not to fear the future unduly. The majority see Germany fully tied to the West and completely distinct from the Germany of the dark past at mid-century.
A major factor in pushing the inhibiting fact of the Final Solution into the background for the Soviet Jews was and is the daily experience of living in the USSR and its successor states. Most Jews in the USSR ranked with the most educated. They were all – as other Soviet citizens – profoundly aware of the traumas inflicted by Stalin. At the same time they lived and worked in a country in which antisemitism in various forms – including racist anti-Zionism – impacted on their daily lives. Holocaust memories were less of a factor in their collective consciousness; yet, fear of a return to some kind of neo-Stalinism was always there. By the late 1970s, the Soviet economy under Leonid Brezhnev fell into steady decline and structural stagnation, and with it came renewed antisemitism, prompting another mass desire to leave. Hence the mass exodus to the USA, to Israel, and to Germany, a Germany they perceived as progressive, affluent, and one with a safe future. Germany is now seen as fully purged of its past. In contrast, life in post-USSR has gone from bad to worse, including episodes of vicious antisemitism emanating from all quarters of society, boding ill for the future.
From this perspective, the return of Jews to post-Holocaust Germany may serve as a model against which other countries can compare their own post-genocide experiences. Is it realistic, for example, to expect Bosnian Croats, Serbs and Muslims to return to their multi-ethnic communities so soon in the wake of recent massacres? Should one expect Tutsis to live alongside Hutus or vice versa, just a handful of years after genocide? And what of Kosovo: can one honestly expect the hundreds of thousands of returning Albanian refugees to live with restraint next to their Serbian neighbors? Or, in turn, should one ask the Serbian minority to feel safe among the deeply wounded Albanian majority? Does there not have to be a long period of recuperation as took place in Germany? The parallels, of course, are not the same; the circumstances are very different to the point of canceling out extended analogous analysis. Perhaps each post-genocide era must be assessed de novo regardless of experiences elsewhere. Nevertheless, the substantial return of Jews to Germany after the Holocaust merits an in-depth study to assess what can be learned from it in terms of other genocides.
Henry R. Huttenbach
The Return of the Ghetto
Who will Protest?
A year ago, the mayor of Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic, threatened (or suggested) that a barbed-wire fence or something similar be erected to wall off the town's Roma (Gypsy) population from the rest of the citizens. Except for sporadic criticism from abroad, little was made of the assault on this ethnic minority's rights. Not even the "liberal," ex-anti-communist playwright, President Vaclav Havel, felt sufficiently aroused to use his moral authority.
This lack of sufficient opposition allowed the matter to be put on hold, tactically mooted by the city fathers until this October 12. That Tuesday, the municipal government of Usti resumed construction work to fence in a street inhabited by the Roma from the rest of the town's residents. The wall is slightly over 6 feet high and 70 yards long. It is designed to cut off two apartment blocks housing 37 Roma families. The town fathers claim that the people living in the adjacent houses complained of noise, dirt and crime. Despite protests by the Roma, but none from President Havel, the wall with two gates is now complete.
Given the depth of anti-Roma feelings in the Czech Republic, this wall, if allowed to stand, may be only the first. Other municipalities will seize the precedent and decide to build their own walls. If the wall in Usti is allowed to stand, then all who know about it share in the guilt if they fail to add their voices to those few presently protesting. The question raised here is: does anyone care? Is anyone dealing with genocide prevention listening? Is not the possible ghettoization of the Czech Roma an ominous step? Will this minor beginning be stopped or not? It will be interesting to see which organizations see fit to come to the Roma's side and prevent this evil.
On a broader scale there is the larger issue, that of genocide prevention. Scholars and diplomats are engaged in exploring ways and means of determining when the danger of genocide becomes evident. The study of Early Warning is now a serious pursuit of the unanswerable except retroactively: namely, at what moment can one declare a clear-cut warning? Is this neo-ghettoization of the Czech Roma in Usti a prelude? Some would invoke the "slippery slope" theory. Others the "call of 'Wolf!' once too often" theory. How do we cut this Gordian Knot? The Nazi party was once only a handful of marginal individuals ten years before its ascension to power. Will the Wall of Usti be a perverse exception or the ominous beginning of something worse? Who can tell, except after the fact of genocide or non-genocide?
The opinions of readers would be appreciated, especially from those engaged in flush-funded Early Earning (and its cousin Conflic Resolution) research. What do we tell the Roma? "Be patient. Wait!" Or "Protest! Violently if necessary." Or, "Don't worry. We are with you." There is more than intellectual integrity at stake. There is a moral principle involved. Footnoted academic pieties are not enough. But what is, in this imperfect world?
Bystanders arise! You have nothing to gain but your credibility.
Henry R. Huttenbach
The Editors of The Genocide Forum recommend the following two books to our readers:
1) John Cornwell, Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (New York: Viking, 1999, 430pp, $29.95).
What Pope Pius XII did or should have done during World War II and the Holocaust is once again being debated in the media. Saul Freidlander had this to say about Hitler's Pope: "Cornwell's book is most illuminating in the analysis of Parcelli's [Pope Pius XII's] formative years, in the assessment of his personality, in the discussion of his abandonment of German political Catholicism for the sake of the concordate with Hitler and in the description of Parcelli's unrelenting efforts to centralize all major initiatives in the pope's hands. In dealing with the war years and particularly with Pius XII's silence in the face of the extermination of the Jews (of which the pope was well-informed from early 1942 onward), Cornwell had no choice but to rely on the abundant documents and studies that were published from the mid-1960s onward. His access to Vatican archival material did not include any significant new documents on these essential issues" (Los Angeles Times, October 10, 1999). Whether one agrees or disagrees with Cornwell's conclusions, Hitler's Pope will define the issues and questions in the months and years ahead.
2) Pierre Blet, Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 304 pp, $29.95).
Blet, a Jesuit priest, is one of the editors of the 11 volumes of documents on Pope Pius XII's role in World War II published by the Vatican between 1965 and 1981. Blet's book is "solidly based on archival research, not only of the Vatican documents, but of other primary sources as well" (America, October 23, 1999).
Both volumes are recommended, as they will certainly add fuel to the controversy and discussion about Pope Pius XII. They also will make it clear to some readers why scholars should be given unfettered access to Vatican archival material relevant to Pope Pius XII, World War II and the Holocaust.
About The Genocide Forum
The Forum is a publication of the Center for the Study of Ethnonationalism located on the campus of the City College of New York. The founder and editor of The Genocide Forum is Professor Henry R. Huttenbach.
The Genocide Forum, which appears bi-monthly, is intended to serve as a convenient vehicle of exchange to discuss critical issues of common interest to students of Holocaust and Genocide Studies. The Forum is designed to accommodate experts in the field to share their concerns via concise (1,500 words) analytic essays.
Contributors are invited to submit their essay on a 3.5" disk (Macintosh/MicroSoft Word) with one double-spaced print-out to Professor Henry R. Huttenbach, History Department, The City College of New York, Convent Avenue at 138th St., New York, NY 10031. Tel: (212) 650-7384; Fax (718) 624-0450.
Back Issues of The Genocide Forum are available on request as long as supplies last. Complete sets of back issues are available on 3.5" diskette (Macintosh/Microsoft) for $25.
Quotations may be made as long as proper credit is given. Duplication of long passages or entire articles require the written permission of the editor.
The Genocide Forum is made possible through the partial support of the Division of Humanities of the City College of New York.
Nota Bene: Views expressed by authors are not necessarily those of the editor.
Henry R. Huttenbach
c/o History Department
City College of New York
Convent Ave. at 138th Street
New York, NY 10031
A Publication of The Center for The Study of Ethnonationalism
The City College of The City University of New York