Antisemitism without Jews: the Impact of Redemptive Antisemitism in Norway before the Nazi Occupation

Abstract

ABSTRACT In his magnus opus Nazi Germany and the Jews (1997), Saul Friedländer identifies redemptive antisemitism as a model of world explanation, which offers a universal answer to all alleged problems of modern society, such as capitalism, communism, liberalism and cultural, social and biological decline. Its core element is the perception of history and politics as a struggle against the Jews and their alleged world conspiracy. Consequently, Friedländer considers redemptive antisemitism the major ideological precondition for the Holocaust. Apart from the local arrangements of the Norwegian occupation regime (1940–1945), we argue that it was the specifically aggressive form of redemptive antisemitism that provided the ideological basis for the Holocaust. Building on Friedländer’s conceptualization, we define the phenomenon as consisting of three main elements: 1) Dualism and Demonisation, 2) Conspiracism and Intentionalism and 3) Apocalypticism and Palingenesis. By using three Norwegian case studies – articles and books of the radical antisemites Eivind Saxlund, Mikael Sylten and Halldis Neegaard Østbye – we demonstrate how a marginal phenomenon, due to changed circumstances and its transferability, became crucial during the German occupation. Our source material shows the potential for violence and the totality of redemptive antisemitism and underscores the impact of conspiracy beliefs on society.