Soundbite-Hooks and Foreign Policy

This chapter investigates the extent to which the struggle against the anti-German Spirit is German in origin. Kraus's “Prayer to the Sun of Gibeon,” misinterpreted when it appeared in 1916, highlights the absurdity of a world of power politics in which the pan-German present uncannily converged with an Old Testament narrative fraught with atrocities. The reflection “On the Sinai Front” of 1917 pointed to the concurrence of two ethnicities. This was expressed by Schopenhauer's definition of a nation that “worships a God who promises it the lands of its neighbours.” During the World War, the Old Testament and modern German ideologies of being “chosen peoples” had already reached a point of convergence—of alignment before the event.

Poets and Barbarians

This chapter illustrates the professional competence of a programmatic purge that reflects the anti-Semitism of Adolf Bartels, whose discontent with the modern era is reciprocated. There are sensational developments in every economic sector of the Nazi movement. But the rule of law by decree tolerates other arbitrary instances of metaphor coalescing with hard facts. In literature, too, there have been reported cases of unscrupulous competition ending in bloodshed. Authors who use their elbows, sometimes quite literally, to thrust aside Jews have defined themselves as the “Kampfbund” (Fighting Unit). The new order operates as violently as the seismic force in Walpurgis Night.

Murder with Mendacity

This chapter criticises the public's habit of ignoring or outright deceiving themselves with regard to the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Here, using certain set phrases as a form of exorcism satisfies the social needs arising from impoverished imaginations, never blaming the perpetrators but rather the victims and invariably those who report the deeds. Unshakeable credit is given to people travelling through Germany who conclude from the fact that they have “seen nothing wrong”—that nothing has occurred and everything is in order. Moments free of violence have been witnessed by many a traveller who is then able to give plausible eyewitness testimony, and that they have seen nothing can be confirmed by others who were in the same position. In times like these, people disregard the most basic logical question: whether that which is happening must always be visible everywhere or even visible at all. And there is also the ethical question: whether it might not on the contrary be more correct deliberately to multiply a single case by a factor of ten, if this is the only way to draw attention and to arouse people's conscience.

Turning Headlines into Lies

This chapter criticises the Neue Freie Presse. Unlike its liberal colleagues in Berlin, it does not want to be taken by surprise. Being one of the old guard, it surrenders but never dies—surrendering even before the battle has begun. It was the Neue Freie Presse which assured its readers in print that “tranquillity and order prevail” in the Third Reich and that “every German citizen of the Jewish faith can go about his business” at any time and even after the exclusion of Jewish doctors and lawyers from public office. On the eve of the boycott, the Neue Freie Presse even printed the announcement by one firm that in their sphere of operations, there has been no incidence of persecutions against Jews and other targets of the Nazi regime.

Prophets of Doom and the Triumph of Aryan Teutonism

This chapter returns to the witch imagery from Faust and Macbeth in exploring Nazi Germany's atrocities against the Jews. It reflects on how the German language—the author's language—was led astray by the hypocritical urgings of a mischievous will o' the wisp; stumbling over roots and snags even more treacherous than the linguistic minefield of the World War. Posing such questions is to query in the same breath the moral justification of questioning the Nazi seizure of power, an event of elemental force whose workings provide a link between the press and Kraus's bias against it. Moral justification would come not only from the desire to reject this link. The author goes about this with a greater degree of responsibility and with insight into the connection between both evils.

Where Lawlessness Makes Law Its Instrument

This chapter talks about how certain irregularities appear in a different light the moment they are weighed against the administration of justice. According to guidelines established by the chief judge of a regional court and published in the Deutsche Juristenzeitung, a series of actions such as bodily harm, wrongful detention, and manslaughter are to be “determined by the national interest.” Consequently, these are exempt a priori from presumption of culpability, whereas hitherto the criminal proceedings first had to be quashed. There will be no repetition of the devious stratagem applied in the case of the Potempa murderers, whose lives hung by a thread while their official careers were set back by several months. What is required of judges is a certain independence when interpreting the law, to prevent them from going astray on such an important matter.

Sexual Hatred, “Unforced” Conversation, and an act of Defiance

This chapter reveals a venomous witch's brew of sexual hatred and extorted confessions. Such things were spewed out between Nuremberg, Ingolstadt, Mannheim, Worms, and Cassel, and out of this journalistic filth a pillory has been erected day by day “to rehabilitate the race and cleanse nature of its pollution.” Everywhere one could read, with names and addresses supplied, were announcements which denigrated Germans for having relations with Jews. The chapter also returns to the plight of the detainees under protective custody from the previous chapter. Kraus had heard “unforced conversational exchanges with detainees in protective custody,” who personally gave all the information one could ask for—the programme actually bore this title, in itself enough to dispel any suspicion of something done under duress.

Austrian Independence and the Innocent Aggressor

This chapter shows that the Nazi leadership has adopted the strategy of protesting against “Austrian atrocities.” Against the way their agent inspecteur has been treated there. Against the trivial penalties imposed on their loyal servants. They adduce photographic evidence of real, not just alleged, arrests. And that was why they had no alternative but to close the border, issue travel permits to would-be assassins, set up an Austrian Legion, and foment revolt in the country. The armed incursion into Austria was an internal German matter and “the deterioration of the mood in England can be attributed to the English public's inability to understand Germany's intentions towards Austria”; consequently, there was an alleged conflict between Germany and Austria and alleged interference of Germany in Austrian affairs by the alleged dropping of leaflets on Austrian soil, while the real dropping of leaflets on German soil had contributed to alleged aerial rearmament in Germany, which accounts for the alleged démarche of the powers.

“When Jewish Blood …”

This chapter argues that the only difference lies in the “ethical instrumentation” of criminal actions—something unknown at the time when Macbeth murdered sleep. Our world, which still retains certain established modes of thinking, feels shocked and apprehensive as it follows the contest between words and deeds, deeds and words, and anxiously awaits the outcome. If it attends more to the words and their bellicose meaning, it is told to judge the Reich by its deeds. If it refers to deeds, Hitler's conciliatory Reichstag speech is cited in refutation. Point out this contradiction, and they dismiss it as a side issue which bears no relation to the kernel of the revolution, legally invested with power.

Verbal Imperialism: “Germany, Awaken! …”

This chapter recognises that, in the journalism and rhetoric of the new creed, there has not been a single German verbal expression that has not belied its purported content. Among the many neologisms inspired by the upheaval, this is already indicated by “Nazi,” the concept on which a revelation of the World Spirit is supposedly based, together with other phrases that could never have been conceived or formulated before the onset of the new order. What is exceptional, however, is the ability to continue in this creative spirit with true-to-type neologisms that adapt language to the needs of the regime's profound duplicity and accentuate its sanctimonious bent, the tendency to draw a veil over ignominious actions. Virtually every communiqué adds further examples of violence disguised as the norm, as when forcible entry into someone's home is described as “rehabilitation.” Or when failure is presented as imminent success and someone stretches the facts by reporting that a rival militia has been “deconstructed.”