“eternal guilt”? Michael Wolfson on Germany and Israel. – Politics

A few days ago, Israel celebrated it He founded the state 75 years ago. A good reason for Michael Wolfson, 35 years after the publication of the first Eternal Guilt? to submit a new edition of his article, almost twice as large as the first. Is it “self-loving self-reflection” or “self-criticism” when he has the audacity to take his book out to the public again after three and a half decades? For him, the new edition is a “scientific rational adventure,” and the German-Jewish-Israeli topic is more “controversial and polarizing” than ever—a seismograph.

Typographical additions are highlighted in blue to give the reader an opportunity, writes Wolfson, to examine the “meaning and nonsense” of his 1988 analyses, assessments, and predictions. Without criticism and self-criticism, science reveals itself “as anxiety or propaganda.” A bona fide scientific claim. what Educated Michael Wolfson He must say that it seems to come from the inner circle of the German government’s Jewish policy.

Rituals of oppression and atonement do not help

Michael Wolfson, born in Tel Aviv in 1947, roughly one year before the day of the founding of the State of Israel, is a world-educated historian, publisher, and activist as a cultural politician who creates identity and creates memories. If he subjects German-Israeli relations to a critical inventory, then He also describes his own story. Wolfson describes himself as a “German-Jewish cosmopolitan patriot with strong ties to Israel” and advocates a relaxed approach to history: Neither repression nor routine penance rites help those born later, he says, only insight into the special nature of the past, which binds both sides together—in Weal and woe.

The existence of Israel is a disruptive factor in German foreign policy, and German policy par excellence. It confronts the Germans with their National Socialist history. With this axiom, Wolfson began the main part of his essay in 1988, which he also did not change in 2023. The policy of ordinary interest, that is, the policy of pragmatic specific state interests, has become more difficult today because of the present, not to transcend yesterday, and sometimes even impossible . However, German foreign policy – beyond the Merkel doctrine, according to which Israel’s security is the German cause of state, apart from the outrageous vocabulary and wreath-laying ceremonies at Yad Vashem – has done away with this confounding factor: last but not least, the participation of Germany in the UN anti-Israel vote on this development.

Adenauer shied away from a public admission of guilt

It all started in 1949 with the question of what was known as compensation. The willingness to penance or repentance on the German side was not particularly evident. Chancellor Adenauer wanted compensation, but without a public admission of guilt, as demanded by Ben-Gurion’s government. The phrase “collective guilt” demanded by Israel did not escape Adenauer’s lips.

And soon it was said: rearmament instead of reparations! The cabinet said the payments to the state of Israel carried “the risk of a new anti-Semitism emerging”. It has been there again for a long time or is still there: even after Auschwitz, anti-Semitism in the Federal Republic never became obsolete. In the first nationwide pilot survey in 1949, a quarter of the German population described themselves as anti-Semitic; And two years later, in 1952, the number was even a third.

On July 11, 1952, the Cabinet approved the sum of 500 million marks for Jewish organizations in the Diaspora by a vote of five to only four. And from when Luxembourg Compensation Agreement Two months later, when the Israeli representative wanted to give a speech after the signing, Adenauer demanded changes – he found these changes “Old Testament-like”. Wolfson testifies that the opponents of the Compensation Agreement within the government were neither ready for conciliation nor even anti-Semitic. To him, they were not “frequently historically insensitive”, but were “Wilhelm-braggers, German-centered at least”.

The optimism that inspired the first edition of “Eternal Guilt?” 1988. Still reigning with the author now has given way to a realistic consideration. From “compensation” Wolfson draws on the deceptive normal we live in today A Critical Appraisal of German-Jewish-Israeli Relations. The “tender little plant” of which he spoke 35 years ago in terms of “relaxation” has not developed into a stately growth.

Germany’s image in Israel is becoming brighter and brighter

On the contrary: more spasm – albeit multidimensional. Anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist extremism on the right and left, not least imported Islamic extremism, is still on the rise. Not to forget the “good old stakes” from the middle of society. It’s strange: Israel, according to Wolfson, remains one of the most unpopular countries in Germany – while the Israelis’ image of Germany is becoming brighter and brighter. Germany maintains good relations with Israel, both verbally and “partly factually” – but not in critical situations. Berlin regards its relationship with the Jewish state as a “cause of state”, for Wolfson this seems almost to the point of a miracle. Apparently, not as it seems.

Michael Wolfson put a question mark after the title of his book and at the same time mentioned a joint German-Jewish-Israeli “demonization”. According to Wolfson, the Israeli side had “completely removed” its reservations and taboos towards Germany and the Germans. On the other hand, for many Germans the word “friendship” is nothing more than ritualistic speech.

Ludger Hyde is a modern historian. Lives in Duisburg.

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