Dialog International

Liberal FDP's Creative (Self-) Destruction

Germany's Free Democrats (FDP) have much in common with Mitt Romney's Republican Pary in the US. Both parties worship the "free market" and represent the interest of Private Equity.  Both parties abhor government bailouts of failing enterprises:  Romney opposed the rescue of the US automakers and the FDP blocked the bailout of Opel.  Nothing must stand in the way of the "creative destruction" of pure capitalism. "Freedom" means the unfettered freedom of the "job creators" to lay off thousands of workers and transfer production to China.  Now, led by Philipp Rösler, the FDP has once again prevailed and blocked a government plan to save 11,000 jobs that are being eliminated by the insolvency of the Schlecker drug store chain:

Authorities hoped that, with the help of €70 million ($93 million) in loan guarantees from state governments, some 11,000 redundant employees could be moved into an interim rescue vehicle to get training and help finding new jobs — avoiding outright layoffs.

But the plan failed Thursday after state government officials from the Free Democrats — who oppose government intervention in business — rejected it.

And the FDP shares one additional aspect with its American GOP counterpart: both parties are waging a war on women.  In the case of the GOP, it is an assault on women's control of their own bodies and access to health care; for the FDP is an attack on women's ability to earn a living wage to support their families: 

Als heute Abend klar wurde, dass es für die Beschäftigten von Schlecker keine Transfergesellschaft geben wird, sondern nur die Arbeitsagenturen, die dann Tausende von schlecht ausgebildeten Frauen zu irgendwelchen staatlich subventionierten Maßnahmen verdonnern dürfen, als klar wurde, dass sich eine winzige Partei (hallo FDP, vier Prozent bundesweit) durchsetzen konnte gegen alles, was gerecht oder wenigstens menschlich wäre, eine Partei, die sich ehrlich gesagt sonst kaum noch durchsetzen kann, ist eines klar geworden: Frauen sind in diesem Land immer noch weniger wert, und je ärmer sie sind, je sozial prekärer ihre Lage, desto egaler sind sie der regierenden Koalition. Und Frauenleben müssen in diesem Land offenbar dafür herhalten, dass Politiker ihre Prinzipientreue demonstrieren dürfen. [...]Die FDP hat sich weder in der Eurofrage durchsetzen können, noch in sonst irgendwelchen kostenspieligen Rettungsmaßnahmen, die in den letzten drei Jahren von der Bundesregierung ausgegangen sind. Wenn aber ein paar tausend Frauen gerettet werden sollen, die ohnehin von ihrem Arbeitgeber systematisch ausgebeutet wurden, dann darf sich diese kleine Scheißegalpartei auf einmal durchsetzen.

("When it became obvious that a tiny party (the FDP, with a four-percent share of the vote nationwide) would get its way, torpedoing everything that is just or at least humane … one thing was clear: Women are still worth less in this country, and the poorer they are and the more socially precarious their situation is, the less they matter to the governing coalition. So women apparently have to pay for politicians being able to demonstrate their loyalty to their own principles. … The FDP was unable to prevail on the euro or any other expensive rescue measures undertaken in the past three years by the federal government. But when it comes to rescuing a few thousand women who have already been systematically exploited by their employer, all of a sudden this tiny, insignificant party is allowed to get its way.")

And this points to the principal difference between the FDP and Republican Party: in the US, the interests of big capital control Congress, the Supreme Court and the Media, while in the Germany the FDP is maneuvering itself into political irrelevance; it is unlikely to achieve the 5% hurdle for representation in the state or federal government.  In the recent elections in the Saarland the FDP was only able to muster 1.2% of the vote - the same as tne neo-Nazi NPD. 

Ulfkotte: Deport Muslims from Germany Now

Journalist and "Islam-expert" Udo Ulfkotte has some recommendations for Germany's Minister of the Interior Hans-Peter Friedrich concerning Germany's Muslim population. In an interview with the Citizen'TImes, Ulfkotte proposes to bring back a practice that was widespread during the early 1940s:

Erstens: Weisen Sie noch heute unter Beachtung unserer Gesetze alle Muslime aus Deutschland aus, die keine Arbeit haben und auch nicht die deutsche Staatsbürgerschaft.

Zweitens: Entziehen Sie allen Muslimen rückwirkend die Staatsbürgerschaft und weisen sie diese aus, wenn diese sich rückwirkend als nicht würdig erwiesen haben, die deutsche Staatsbürgerschaft zu haben – die USA machen das ja schon seit langem genauso, etwa bei Islamisten und Kriminellen.

Und drittens: Schaffen Sie flächendeckend Islamunterricht in deutschen Schulen. Und klären Sie dort die Kinder über die Nazi-ähnliche Ideologie von Muslimen auf. Wer Nazis bekämpfen will, der muss auch die Ideologie des Islam-Erfinders Mohammed bekämpfen.

(First: Under German law expell all Muslims from Germany if they are not employed and if they are not German citizens.

Second: Withdraw the German citizenship from all Muslims retroactively if they prove themselves unworthy of citizenship.  The US routinely does that with respect to Islamists and criminals.

Third: Implement an education program concerning Islam in all German schools. Teach the children about the Nazi-like ideology of the Muslims.  Whoever wants to fight Nazis needs to fight the ideology of the Mohammad, the founder of the Islam.)

How ironic that Ulfkotte uses the term "Nazi-like".

Review: Wolfram Wette's The Wehrmacht

After the end of World War II, the generals and senior officer corps of the Wehrmacht (German Army) successfully promoted the "clean hands" myth that they had nothing to do with mass murder of Jews and other civilians during the eastern campaign.  These atrocities were the work of the SS and the Nazi Party leadership; the officers and the troops of the Wehrmacht behaved honorably in battle and "kept their hands clean."  The "clean hands" legend persisted for nearly 50 years, and it is this myth that Wolfram Wette, a professor of history at the University of Freiburg,  explodes in his 2006 book The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality (Harvard University, translated by Deborah Lucas Schneider, original German edition Die Wehrmacht: Feindbilder, Vernichtungskrieg, Legenden).  Wette convincingly documents that the military not only shared the virulent anti-Semitism and racism of the Nazi leaders, but actively participated in horrible war crimes, including the Holocaust. 

Professor Wette begins his study with a useful history of anti-Semitic currents in the German military which he traces back to the Bismarck era.  By the time of the invasion of the Soviet Union, the generals had successfully indoctrinated the troops that the enemy were sub-human "Jewish Bolsheviks" who must be combated like a "poisonous parasite":

"...the portrayal of the enemy in strongly anti-Semitic terms prepared millions of soldiers for the possible forms that a future war might take - forms that were in no way connected to with facing the soldiers of enemy nations in battle.  A direct path leads from this material for indoctrinating racial hatred to the orders issued in the spring and summer of 1941 at the highest levels of the German military. The orders given to the GErman forces on the eastern front in fact concerned not just the defeat of the Red Army of the Soviet Union but also the extermination of large groups of noncombatants, who had been declared enemies on the basis of racist and political criteria."

Professsor Wette then documents some of the most egregious crimes of the Wehrmacht, such as its decisive role in the massacre in Babi Yar, where soldiers participated in killing more than 30,000 Jewish victims over a 3-day period, and then, when in retreat two years later dug up and burned the bodies in an effort to hide the crime.  But there is much that Wette leaves out of this section of th book.  Other researchers have documented the role of the Wehrmacht in the death by starvation of 2 million Soviet POWs as well as brutal atrocities in Serbia.  And there is little in the book concerning the Wehrmacht's participation in the Holocaust in providing logistical support in the transport of Jews as well as guarding the death camps. 

More than 11 million German men were active in the Wehrmacht at one time or another during the Nazi period, and Wette cites letters and diaries of soldiers to show that the troops were not simply obeying "orders from above", but rather supported the "mission" set forth by Hitler and his generals.  On the other hand, there was no opportunity to refuse combat duty except through a medical discharge.  Only one group of conscientious objectors - the Jehovah's Witnesses - refused enlistment in the Wehrmacht, and they were summarily executed. 

There were depressingly few instances of enlisted men objecting to, much less refusing, orders to commit crimes against non-combatant civilians.  Wette tells the story of one sergeant, Anton Schmid, who single-handedly saved the lives of 250 Jews and was therefore exectud by his commanders.  Anton Schmid's courage and humanity needs to be widely publicized and celebrated.

The strongest section of The Wehrmacht deals with the postwar construction of the "clean hands" myth and its gradual unraveling, beginning with the work fo Manfred Messerschmidt in the 1980s, and then reaching a climax with the Wehrmacht Exhibition  (1995-1999) where more than 1.2 million Germans were exposed for the first time to photographs and written documents concerning the Wehrmacht's role in the Holocaust and other war crimes.  But the myth of Wehrmacht's "clean hands" lives on even today in right-wing nationalist circles.  Recently, the American political historian Professor Paul Gottfried published a piece claiming that widespread participation by the Wehrmacht was a "leftist lie" meant to demoralize the German people and prevent them from achieving their nationalist destiny. 

Wernher von Braun and the Myth of the Non-Political Scientist

The US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Wernher von Braun with an exhibition - Von Braun: His American Journey:

This exhibition covers Dr. von Braun’s American experience, beginning with his surrender to U.S. forces and continuing on through his passing in 1977. Learn about his many technical achievements, not only with NASA, but with the Army and private industry as well. Explore his vision through artifacts, models of various spacecraft (both real and conceptual), breathtaking photographs and artwork, and multimedia displays featuring his speeches, interviews with him, and about him.
In addition to covering the history of Dr. von Braun’s time in the U.S., the exhibit also features a unique look at some of the more personal aspects of his life, including his hobbies, his family, his celebrity status, and his daring visions of the future.

I haven't been to the exhibition, but my guess is that it doesn't dwell on von Braun's career as a Nazi war criminal.  Wernher von Braun's second life as the hero of the NASA space program is another example of how Cold War considerations swept inconvenient historical truths under the rug in both Germany and United States. 

Die Zeit has a good piece on this:  Ein Mann der Gegensätze (A Man of Contradictions)):

1937 übernahm er die Leitung der neu gegründeten Heeresversuchsanstalt in Peenemünde. Seine wichtigste Aufgabe war die Entwicklung von Raketen, die im Luftkrieg eingesetzt werden konnten. Mit zum Teil utopischen Versprechungen bemühte er sich um die Gunst Hitlers. Seit 1941 trat die Serienproduktion raketengetriebener Waffen neben die Forschung. Bald mangelte es an Arbeitskräften aufgrund des Krieges. Die SS verschaffte ihm ein riesiges Heer an Zwangsarbeitern.

(In 1937 he took over the management of the newly-formed Military Test Institiute in Pennemuende. Hi most important job was to develop rockets that could be deployed in aerial warfare. His utopian promises made him one of Hitler's favorites. The serial production of rocket-propelled weapons began in 1941, but soon the war drained the availability of production workers. The SS secured von Braun a huge army of forced loborers.)

Von Braun contriubted to the senseless prolongation of combat with his promise to Hitler of delivering the Wunderwaffe (Miracle Weapon) which would change fhe course of the war back to the advantage of Germany: 

Nachdem ein britischer Bombenangriff 1943 Peenemünde getroffen hatte, wurde die Hauptproduktion in einen riesigen Bergstollen verlagert: in das Raketenwerk Mittelbau Dora, in der Nähe von Nordhausen im Harz. Dort kamen beim Bau der V-2-Rakete etwa 20.000 Häftlinge ums Leben – weit mehr Menschen, als beim Einsatz der Rakete getötet wurden. Deren Zahl beträgt etwa 8.000.

(After British bombers attacked Peenemuende in 1943 production of the rockets was shifted to a gigantic mountain tunnel close to Nordhausen in the Harz region.  It was there that more than 20,000 prisoners died while building the V-2 Rockets - far more than those actually killed by the rockets.  These are estimated at 8.000.)

Wernher von Braun should have been tried before the War Crimes Court at Nuremberg.  Instead we celebrate him today as the savior of the US space program, who helped America win the space race against the Soviet Union in the 1960's.

 

Done Deal - Gauck is Germany's New President

The outcome was never really in doubt but everything went as planned in the voting for Joachim Gauck as Germany's new president.  Only the LINKE, the Left Party, supported a different candidate - the "Nazi Hunter' Beate Klarsfeld.  Now we sill see  whether the charismatic ex-pastor Gauck can restore integrity, along with some lustre, to the position that was badly tarnished under the tenure of Christian Wulff.  One thing is for certain, Gauck, who describes himself as a "left-wing, liberal conservative", is likely to antagnize many on both the left and right:

Als ausgemachte Sache gilt, dass der neue Herr im Berliner Schloss Bellevue ein unbequemes Staatsoberhaupt sein wird. Aber das dürfte einem Mann in den Genen liegen, der von sich selbst sagt, er sei ein „linker, liberaler Konservativer“. „Ich bin fast sicher, dass ich mich hin und wieder über Gauck ärgern werde“, ist sich Grünen-Fraktionschef Jürgen Trittin sicher,

(It's a foregone conclusion that the new lord of the Bellevue Castle in Berlin will be a provocative head of state.  But that is in the genes of a man who calls himself a "left-wing, linberal conservative."  "I'm nearly 100% positive that Gauck will make me mad now and then," said Juerge Trittin, leader of the Green Party caucus.)

The New York Times asks whether Gauck can project a fresher, friendlier, image of Germany: 

Following the revolutions of 1989, principled leaders like Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia and Adam Michnik of Poland reminded Europe where the moral center of gravity lay; thanks in large part to them, what could have been a difficult post-Communist era was smoothed out.

It may be asking too much to expect Mr. Gauck, another creature of 1989, to play a similar role. Europe today is more of a muddle than a revolution, and the drama lacks all romance.

Yet with stressful times ahead, and the old cultural demons raising their heads, a strong voice of simple principle can be only to the good. Germans need frequent reassurance that they are O.K. The rest of the world likes frequent reassurance that the Germans are O.K. Mr. Gauck is in a position to give both.

One additional note of interest: Gauck is moving into Beellevue Castle with his partner Daniela Scheidt, 52, and has so far resisted divorcing his wife of 50 years and nother of his four children. Something like this would be unheard of in the puritanical United States.  But Germany's new First Lady is as strong, smart personality in her own right - a journalist in Nuernberg.  Der Spiegel has a good portrait of Scheidt. 

What do white evangelical "Christians" believe?

Evidently the presidential campaign of former senator Rick Santorum - leader of the American Taliban - has been buoyed by the enthusiastic support of "white evangelical Christians".   As a self-identified Christian (Anglican variety), I am often baffled by the belief system of these "white evangelical Christians" since it seems diametrically opposed to my reading of the Gospel. 

A recent survey of "white evangelical Christians" in the Deep South provides a clue to Santorum's success:

Kurz zusammengefasst: In Alabama und Mississippi braucht der Präsident gar keinen Wahlkampf zu machen, denn er hat überhaupt keine Chance. Nicht nur, weil die Mehrheit hier konservativ ist, sondern weil die Evangelikalen und die Tea Party hier verheerend erfolgreich sind.Wo sonst sähen über 50 Prozent den reaktionären Talkshowproleten Rush Limbaugh positiv oder glaubten über 60 Prozent die Sache mit der Evolution stimme nicht. Und wo sonst dächten 45 Prozent (Alabama) oder 52 Prozent (Mississippi), Obama sei Muslim

(In summary, the President doesn't need to campaign in Alabama and Mississippi since he has no chance there.  Not just because the majority is conservative, bu also because the evangelicals and Tea Party have been so devastatingly successful.  Where else are more than 50% supporters of the reactionary talk show proletarian Rush Limbaugh or are more than 60% skeptical about evolution.  And where else do 45% (Alabama) or 52% (Mississippi) think that Obama is a Muslim.)

Let's examine some other core beliefs of "white evangelical Christians":

1. Bombing is always better than diplomacy.  Evangelicals believe we must bomb Iran now. 
2. Torture is good.  Frequent churchgoers are the most enthusiastic supporters of waterboarding.
3. Women are subordinate to men.  Here the evangelicals share the views of Mormons and Roman Catholics that women cannot be part of the church hierarchy and must surrender to the "servant leadership" of their husbands. 
4. Women who use contraceptives are "sluts" and "prostitutes".  Closely aligned with (3.) and confirmed by evangelicals' unconditional support for Rush Limbaugh.
5. Gays and Lesbians are evil.  Although there is some disagreement among evangelicals whether or not gays should be executed.  
6. Sickness and Disease are God's Will.  Therefore affordable health care - otherwise known as "Obamacare"  - is Satan's plan.  
7. The Poor will always  be with us.  Therefore welfare, public works programs, public education, etc. should be abolished.  
8. Ignorance is bliss.  Science education must be informed by creationism.
9. Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ.  How else to describe a Harvard-educated, socialist-Nazi Muslim black man?

Historical revisionism and the American genocide that never happened

Stefan Scheil belongs to the group of radical right-wing revisionist historians who are on a mission to rewrite 20th history.  In his books and articles Scheit reassigns blame for the outbreak of the Second World War to the treachery of Stalin, the diplomatic blunders of Great Britain and the hegemonist designs of the United States.  Hitler, in Scheit's revisionist history, was fundamentally a man of peace who was forced into a "preventive war" to save the German nation. (See my post Operation Barbarossa and the Miyth of the Preventive War)

Recently, in the pages of the völkisch-national weekly Junge Freiheit, Scheit has written pieces "debunking" the idea that the concept of the Herrenrasse ("Master Race")  was ever promoted in the ideology of the Third Reich.  Or, if it existed at all it was simply borrowed from the Americans.  Sheit's thesis is preposterous to anyone who has read Mein Kampf, or the publications of the notorious anti-Semite Julius Streicher, or to anyone who has researched the Lebensborn Experiment.  

But Scheit goes much further in his indictment of the Americans, basically claiming that the Nuremberg Trials were illegitimate since the American prosecutors had no moral standing to accuse the German defendants of racism.  America had long practiced discrimination, persecution and segregation of African-Americans, therefore it was the height of hypocrisy for Americans to prosecute others - in this case, Germans - for doing the same with a different ethnic group - in this case Jews:   

Der schreiende Widerspruch, die Deutschen als angeblich unverbesserliche Rassisten zur Umerziehung zu verpflichten und dabei Streitkräfte einzusetzen, die selbst rassistisch durchorganisiert waren, hatte den US-Behörden ursprünglich Kopfzerbrechen bereitet. Man lieferte etwaigen deutschen Gegenargumentationen schließlich eine unfreiwillige Steilvorlage. Allein, die Deutschen waren seit dreißig Jahren wechselweise Krieg, Inflation oder Hunger ausgesetzt gewesen und somit zu erschöpft, um so etwas noch zu nutzen.

(The glaring contradcion of forcing the supposedly incorriibly racist Germans into reeducation programs while deploying military forces that were racially segregated was at first a major headache for the US officials. This presented the Germans with a golden opportunity to repudiate the US charges.  But the Germans were too worn out from 30 years of war, inflation and hunger to take advantage. ) 

But the question Scheit should be asking is why did the racially motivated persecution of the Jews lead to a Holocaust in which millions were murdered, whiile discrimination against the African-Americans in the US resulted in the civil rights movement barely a decade later?

The only historian I know of who has systematically compared anti-Semitism in Germany with racism in America is Manfred Henningsen.  In his 2009 book Der Mythos America (see my review here and my interview with the author here) Henningsen has a chapter with the title Der ausgebliebende Genozid ("The Genocide that Never Happened") in which he points out that up until 1933 anti-Semitism in Germany was far less virulent than American anti-black racism, especially in the American South with the epidemic of lynchings.  In fact, there was a far greater probability in 1933 of genocide against African-Americans  than against Jews in Germany.  What tipped the scale in Germany was a political regime following the Nazi seizure or power that legitimized the systematic detention, deportation and finally murder of an entire population.

Ohne die Legitimation durch das Regime hätte der Terrror nicht stattgefunden. Gesellschaften können nicht auf einer Ad-hoc-Basis zwölf Jahre land im gronssen Stil Massenmord und Totschlag veranstalten.

(The terror never would have happened without the legitimation through the regime. Societies can't keep committing murder on a massive scale for twelve years on an ad hoc basis.)

As unsatisfactory as this explanation is, at least Henningsen is thinking about the historical realities instead of rewriting history to fit a right-wing ideology like Stefan Scheit is doing.

Incidentally, the American counterpart to Junge Freiheit, the Webzine Alternative Right, just published a piece advocating "Black Genocide" -the elimination of the black race. So this is where historical revisionism ultimately leads us. 

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Disgraceful - Christian Wulff Leaves Office

The Großer Zapfenstreich ("Grand Tattoo") is a solem, torchlit military ceremony to honor distninguished public figures for their service to the Federal Republc of Germany.  Christian Wulff, who was forced to resign the presidency under a cloud of controversy, was given a Zapfenstreich but it was hardly the celebratory event he had hoped for: 

Vuvuzela-wielding protestors kept up a constant barrage of noise at a torchlit military ceremony on Thursday for Germany's former president Christian Wulff who left office under a cloud.Around 250 demonstrators blowing the plastic horns that became famous during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa made their feelings loudly known as a military band battled to compete.

But Wulff has the last laugh, as he leaves office with a guaranteed annual stipend of more than $250,000. 

At least the whole sordid affair is making people rethink how the president is picked.  Currently the president is selected by members of the Bundestag and other dignitaries.  But recent polls show that 80% of Germans would like to see the president, who is supposed to be Germany's moral compass, chosen by the people. 

One final thought on Wulff:  for all of his weaknesses, and they were many, Wulff spoke out against the Sarrazin-fueled intolerance of Germany's Muslim minorities.  His probable successor, Joachim Gauk, has not exhibited this type of courage so far. 

Beate Klarsfeld - The Nazi Hunter

In July of 1968 a young woman waltked up to the Chancellor of West Germany, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, shouted "Nazi!" and slapped him the face.  In fact, Kiesinger had been a member of the Nazi Party in good standing.  The young woman - Beate Klarsfeld - was sentenced that very evening to one year in prison (later reduced) and Kiesinger received a standing ovation. 

But that was not the last tine we would hear from Beate Klarsfeld.  Far from it!  She and her husband, Serge, single handedly sought out Nazi criminals in hiding and brought them to justice. Her most spectacular coup was finding in Bolivia the "Butcher of Lyon" - Klaus Barbie.  But there were others as well, including former Gestapo chief Kurt Lischka, who ordered the deportation (and subsequent murder) of 76,000 Jews from France.

None of these Nazis would have been brought to justice without the activism of the Klarsfelds. The West German government at the time - as well as most Germans - wanted to "let sleeping dogs lie" and forget this chapter in history had ever happened.  Beate Klarsfeld was hated for her activism, and has lived in France ever since.  Now the left-wing party Die Linke has nominated Beated Klarsfeld for the office of President of the Federal Republic of Germany.  She won't win; it is a foregone conclusion that the consensus candidate Joachim Gauk will win the vote. But Der Freitag writes the following about the choice of Beate Klarsfeld: 

Vor allem aus diesem Grund wäre Klarsfeld als Bundespräsidentin eine gute Wahl: Die Erinnerung an die DDR wird noch lange lebendig bleiben. Aber die Zeitzeugen des Nazi-Regime – Täter, Opfer, Widerstandskämpfer – sterben aus. Bald wird niemand mehr leben, der aus erster Hand aus dem gefährlich dummen, fürchterlichen „Deutschland“ berichten kann, das es einmal gab. In Zeiten, da der braune Terror in Gestalt des „Nationalsozialistischen Untergrunds“ wieder grassiert und kein Mensch weiß, welcher Gesinnung Staatsbeamte in ihren undurchsichtigen Verfassungsschutz-Institutionen anhängen, könnte Beate Klarsfeld für Deutschland sprechen. Aber am 18. März wird es, davon kann man ausgehen, anders kommen.

(The choice of Klarsfeld as president would be good for this reason: memory of the GDR will persist for a long time. But the witnesses to the Nazi regime - criminals, victims, resistance fighters - are dying out. Soon no one will be alive to report from first hand experience about that terrible, stupid, terrifying "Germany" that once existed.  Today, as the brown terror in the form of the "National Socialist Underground" again raises its head and no one knows for sure which side the officials of the state are on, Beate Klarsfeld could speak for Germany.  But we know that the outcome on March 18 will be different.)

The neo-fascist weekly Junge Freiheit hates the choice of Klarsfeld.  The editors are still angry that she never spent time in prison for slapping Kiesinger, who was a stalwart party member and "never did anything bad."  And how dare she go after these good men, who after all, were just doing their duty for the glory of the fatherland.  It reminds me of my landlady in Freiburg who, when the subject of the Holocaust ever came up, always used to say: "It takes two to tango!""

Bonus:  Beate Klarsfeld is not entirely unknown to Americans.  In 1986 a TV movie - The Nazi Hunter - was made with Farrah Fawcett terrific in the role of Beate.

 

Review: Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen's American Nietzsche

In his 1987 best-selling book The Closing of the American Mind, Alan Bloom sounded the alarm that moral relativism had infected America's great universities and was "impoverishing the souls of today's students". And it was Friedrich Nietzsche who first introduced this destructive philosophy to America's shores.  Nietzsche has been an intellectual force in American culture since the beginning of the 20th century, and his influence is still felt today.  In the current presidential campaign American higher education has come under attack for indoctrinating students with (Nietzschean) moral relativism and robbing impressionable youth of their faith with (Nietzsche's) God is Dead atheism. 

In her lively book American Nietzsche Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen traces Nietzsche's profound influence on both academic thought and popular culture from H.L.Mencken to Alan Bloom and beyond.  Chapter after chapter she shows how Nietzsche became a lens for Americans to attempt to make sense of the modern world - a place where the foundations had crumbled and Americans searched for meaning in a world without clear moral signposts. 

Ratner-Rosenhagen shows that there has always been something of a symbiotic relationship between Nietzsche and America, for it was his reading of Ralph Waldo Emerson that gave Nietzsche the courage to embark on his journey as an independent writer and thinker.  And it was Emerson who showed the young Nietzsche a path - Ratner-Rosenhagen calls it "anti-foundationalism" - beyond the good and evil of Christian piety, culminating in Zarathustra.  And, while Nietzsche was more or less shunned by the academic establishment in Germany, he received early enthusiastic praise from readers in America (where German was still widely spoken and read in academic circles). 

After Nietzsche's death, the first English translations appeared, and the myth of the suffering  genius captured the imagination of American intellectuals.  The arrival of Nietzsche's work coincided with a new era in America, where the authority of religion was beginning to wane. Yet theologians and Christian writers knew they had to engage with the texts of the German philosopher; here was a force to be reckoned with.  Liberal protestants found much to admire in Nietzsche's pragmatism, even as they rejected his moral relativism. Catholic thinkers found in Nietzsche a "bitter tonic", and embraced his attack on pious, "feminized" protestantism.  Anarchists such as Emma Goldman were inspired by his "transvaluation of all values" (Umwertung aller Werte) which upended the old, unjust, order, while social critics such as H.L.Mencken used Nietzsche as a weapon against the philistine "booboisie" who ruled the American establishment.

But it was with Nietzsche's concept of the Übermensch that his work caught on with the broader American public.  In 1924 two University of Chicago students, Loeb & Leopold, believing themselves to be Nietzschean "Supermen" committed the "perfect crime" in murdering a 14-year old boy.  At the murder trial the famous defense lawyer Clarence Darrow may well have saved the young men from the electric chair by invoking the "Nietzsche defense" - the German philosopher had poisoned their minds with his amoral teachings. 

What is rather astonishing is that Nietzsche's hold on America remained relatively undiminished despite two wars with Germany where the philosopher was cast as a supporting actor.  The Great War was seen by many as the "Euro-Nietzschean War", with Germany attempting to embody the Übermensch on a national scale. Things were much worse during the Third Reich as the Nazi's attempted to appropriate Nietzsche as one of their own, with the perverse assistance of Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth Foerster Nietzsche.

After World War II, Nietzsche was rehabilitated in America thanks to the unflagging efforts of one professor at Princeton University - the German-American scholar Walter Kaufmann.  Thanks to Kaufmann's popular interpretations of Nietzche's works, the philosopher was cast as a proto-existentialist thinker.  Nietzsche became the filter for Sartre, Camus, and later, the Structuralists such as Foucault for American audiences. 

Towards the end of American Nietzsche, Ratner-Rosenhagen shows how the reception of Nietzsche in America had come full circle by the 1980s and 1990s, with thinkers such as Richard Rorty and Stanley Cavell finding through Nietzsche their way back to the American Pragmatists and to Emerson. 

Are we Americans done with Friedrich Nietzsche?  I think not. Just last summer the right-wing blogosphere erupted in an anti-Nietzsche frenzy after Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez told the press he was reading Zarathustra, while undergoing cancer treatment in Havana.