Afro-Germans, multidirectional memory and French colonial aphasia: The legacy of the First World War in Galadio by Didier Daeninckx

This article offers an analysis of mnemonic traces in Galadio, Didier Daeninckx’s 2010 novel. I demonstrate that by fictionalizing the history of the persecution of Afro-Germans under National Socialism, the novel exposes antiblackness as a neglected phenomenon of the Third Reich. Synchronously, applying Michael Rothberg’s theoretical framework, the article discusses the dialogue between Jewish and Afro-German legacies of violence in the novel, as well as the intricate relation between colony, camp and what Paul Gilroy defines as camp mentality. Furthermore, I argue that Daeninckx engages with French colonial aphasia: in my interpretation, his oblique approach to the French imperial past conveys its simultaneous presence and absence, which is key to disabled memory. Finally, I focus on the ethics of commemoration in Galadio, which claims space for black soldiers in French collective memory of the two world wars, yet at the same time challenges imperial loyalties and homogeneous approaches to French national identity.

Hitler, for Example: Registers of National Socialist Exemplarity in Contemporary Germany

This article examines whether and how the figure of Adolf Hitler in particular, and National Socialism more generally, operate as moral exemplars in today’s Germany. In conversation with similar studies about Mosely in England, Franco in Spain, and Mussolini in Italy, it seeks to advance our comparative understanding of neofascism in Europe and beyond. In Germany, legal and discursive constraints limit what can be said about the Third Reich period, while even far-right nationalists often condemn Hitler, for either the Holocaust or his military failure. Here I revise the concept of moral exemplarity as elaborated by Caroline Humphry to argue that Hitler and National Socialism do nevertheless work as contemporary exemplars, in at least three fashions: negativity, substitution, and extension. First, they stand as the most extreme markers of negative exemplarity for broad publics that understand them as illustrations of absolute moral depravity. Second, while Hitler himself is widely unpopular, Führer-substitutes such as Rudolf Hess provide alternative figures that German nationalists admire and seek to emulate. Finally, by extension to the realm of the ordinary, National Socialism introduces a cast of exemplars in the figures of loving grandfathers or anonymous fallen soldiers. The moral values for which they stand, I show, appear to be particularly significant for young nationalists. An extended, more open-ended notion of exemplarity, I conclude, can offer important insights about the lingering afterlife of fascist figures in the moral life of European nationalists today.

Christopher Isherwood's "Right" and "Wrong" Anti-Semitism: A Political Reading

There are numerous references to Christopher Isherwood’s prejudices against Jews in scholarly literature; however, this subject has not yet been approached in depth. This study aims to fill that void by dissecting the author’s bias against Jews: its origin and nature. The article discusses the references to Jews in the writer’s novels, memoirs and diaries within the frame of reference of Tajfel and Turner’s social identity theory which holds that humans innately derogate those who are perceived as being opposed. A close reading reveals that Isherwood, in a specific social and political context, considered Jews alien to him and —in accordance with social identity theory predictions— he instinctually derogated them. Before his stay in Berlin, Judaism did not interest him and he disliked Jews because he regarded them as ‘exotic’. During the rise and rule of Nazism, the writer felt compelled to support Jews —although reticently— because they had become the main target of persecution of national socialism. Later, once in America, Isherwood distinguished between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ anti-Semitism and stated that Jewish politics were whining and belligerent. Even though he had Jewish friends, his diaries show a persistent instinctual dislike of Jews. Ironically, the anti-prejudice fighter could not help having his own prejudices.

Die schwarzen Hefte: ihre Rezeption, ihr Einfluss auf die Wirkungsgeschichte des Denkens Martin Heideggers und ihre Sachgemäße Auslegungsweise

A few months before their publication in 2014, the first Martin Heidegger’s Black Notebooks already introduced a new phase of the debate about Heidegger’s supposed National Socialism and Antisemitism, since they contain questionable references to Jewish people. As of yet, most of the interpretations come down to five theses. Whilst several interpreters assert that the whole Heideggeran thought is anti-Semitic, others refer this ‘‘accusation’’ to a brief period in Heidegger’s life or rather attribute to this thinker an anti-Judaism inherited from the Christian tradition. Some scholars classify Heidegger’s sentences as a general critique of civilisation, whereas others pretend that the Heideggerian philosophical thought was untouched by whichever issues related to politics and race. Ascertaining the flaws in the approach of many interpreters of Heidegger’s Black Notebooks, the necessity of reading them by means of the hermeneutical method in order to reach an appropriate contextualisation is to be stressed. Only in this way can the various themes of the Notebooks be unveiled, as well as the limits and the magnitude of the Heideggerian thought. Keywords: Interpretation, relationship between Philosophy and Politics, critique of modernity, Judaism, question of Being

Hört zu!

Artikelbeginn:[English title and abstract below] Die Mediengeschichte zeigt, dass mit dem Aufkommen neuer Medien immer auch literarische Stoffe von ihnen aufgegriffen wurden, sei es in Form von traditionellen, neu erschienenen oder eigens für sie geschriebenen Texten. In Deutschland trifft diese Feststellung auch auf den Rundfunk zu, der flächendeckend ab 1923 in Form von dezentralen Rundfunkgesellschaften aufgebaut wurde (vgl. Halefeldt 1997), die ab 1924 ein Programm für Kinder und Jugendliche anboten. Hört zu! lautete der an sie gerichtete Aufruf. Listen!Children's and Youth Literature on the Radio during the Weimar Republic and the Era of National Socialism This article presents some results from a research project on German-language children‘s and young people‘s literature in the media network from 1900 to 1945, focussing on radio programmes, from 1924 on, that engaged with this literature. The sources of information about the programmes were radio magazines, which were only published until 1941 due to the constraints of the Second World War. In the initial phase, readings of fairy tales and legends dominated; from the early 1930s on, more and more fairy tale radio plays were produced. Punch and Judy radio plays by Liesel Simon, for instance, were broadcast regularly from 1926. Book recommendations aimed at parents and young people also played an important role as did readings by contemporary authors such as Felix Salten, Lisa Tetzner, Erich Kästner, Irmgard von Faber du Faur and Will Vesper. While the new political and social start with the Weimar Republic in 1918/1919 did not result in a caesura in the market for children’s literature, because authors who had been successful up to that point continued to be published, it did introduce several innovations, for which there was little room after Hitler came to power in 1933.

Beethoven und Mozart als Helden der Jugend?

Artikelbeginn:[English title and abstract below] Детская литература как одно из средств пропаганды сталинизма способствовала господству номенклатуры, относительно длительному сохранению тех форм общества и государства, которые сложились после »термидора« 1929 года. [Die Kinderliteratur als eines der Propagandamittel des Stalinismus trug zur Herrschaft der Nomenklatura und zur relativ langen Erhaltung derjenigen Gesellschafts und Staatsformen bei, die nach dem »Thermidor« von 1929 entstanden waren.](Fateev 2007, S. 300) Wie Andrej Fateev in dieser Aussage als eines der Ergebnisse seiner Studie zu Kinderliteratur und Stalinismus konstatiert, hatte die Literatur für Kinder und Jugendliche in der Sowjetunion ein besonderes Gewicht als Propagandainstrument. Nachvollziehbar wird dies nicht nur an dem Aufkommen neuer Themen und Inhalte in der Jugendliteratur, sondern vor allem auch an der breiten Diskussion und der Gründung neuer Institutionen. Beethoven and Mozart as Heroes for the Young?Composer Biographies in Soviet Youth Literature Starting with a discussion of the development of children’s and youth literature in the Soviet Union and its integration into ideological educational systems, this article then looks at a specific field of interest: composer biographies for a young readership published between the 1930s and the late 1960s. In general, in the Soviet Union, the medium of biography was seen as having potential for heroic historiography in the socialist sense, and one which could provide role models and concrete images of thought formulated in Marxist-Leninist terms. The widespread distribution of biographies for young readers in the course of intensified ideological educational work in the Soviet Union contrasts greatly to the situation in the Federal Republic of Germany where after 1945, as a reaction to the ideologisation and portrayal of heroes under National Socialism, biographies were quasi taboo. But how do composers become heroes of books for children and young adults? Mozart and Beethoven are particularly suitable examples, since their biographies have been subject to a long tradition of heroisation and reinterpretation. These composers were also assigned new attributes in the Soviet Union: Beethoven was elevated to the status of an exemplary revolutionary and Mozart likewise to that of a fighter for freedom and against feudalistic oppression.

Pedology and applied psychology in Russia in the first third of the XX century

The article examines the formation and liquidation of pedology and psychotechnics in Russia in the 1920s–1930s. The general and the different in practical tasks and scientific problems of pedology, psychotechnics and general psychology are discussed the position of L.S. Vygotsky on the relationship between pedology and psychotechnics.The crisis of pedology and psychotechnics and their elimination after the Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) on pedology (1936) correlates with the mistakes of the representatives of these disciplines, as well as the change in the socio-economic and ideological-political conditions of society in the USSR during the reconstruction period, as well as with the aggravation political confrontation between communism and national socialism in pre-war Europe.Conclusions are drawn about the responsibility of applied psychology to society when it intervenes in the tasks of social practice.