CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2010
| Author | Fielden, Gene Matthew |
|---|---|
| Title | "Never Again Germany, Solidarity with Israel!": Origins of the Anti-Anti-Semitic Current Among the German Far Left, 1989-2010 |
| Summary | The curious phenomenon of the Anti-Germans – a splinter group within the German far left, opposed to the reunification of their country and offering unconditional support to the state of Israel – has received scant attention outside of its political milieu. The intellectual current, springing into existence only with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, denounces any manifestation of German nationalism on the basis of the country’s National Socialist past and urges a deeper examination of latent anti-Semitism within the fabric of the nation. Simultaneously, they take fellow leftists to task for their perennial support for Palestinian self-determination while decrying the same for Israelis and Jews. This thesis explores the origins and evolution of the Anti-Germans as a paradigm, with an eye towards their fixation upon Israel, their emergence as a subculture and their development of a new form of anti-fascist identity. Through examination of anti-German journals and periodicals – their primary mode of idea-dissemination to the wider world – as well as scholarly discourse surrounding them over the past twenty years, this thesis delves into a few key aspects of the movement. It argues that the internal critique of the German radical left has served to broaden the terms of debate over Israel / Palestine and forced a greater degree of self-scrutiny regarding antipathy to Jews through anti-capitalist worldviews. A feat unknown within other European leftist settings, the Anti-Germans have singularly shaken up the comfortable consensus of fundamental opposition to the foreign policies, if not the right to exist, of the modern state of Israel. |
| Supervisor | Karady, Victor |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2010/fielden_gene-matthew.pdf |
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