Fighting for Defeat": Jewish Identity in Postwar Germany and Austria

Abstract

alte Krieg hat die Brucken zwischen uns gesprengt, und wir hocken auf den Pfeilern, die in unsere Hauser ragen (Kluger 110). This is Ruth Kluger's metaphor for present state of communication between Jewish and non-Jewish Germans and Austrians. It describes dialogue between German-speaking Jews and gentile Germans and Austrians of her own generation, that is, those who lived through German fascism, and of postwar generation. She calls it the old to indicate that fifty years after its end it remains dominant factor in this dialogue. The ruins war left have not been integrated into what has been built since. Rather, new structures have been superimposed over rugged landscape of a dialogue destroyed by war. Like indestructible concrete and steel reminders in many German cities, these pillars that once served to connect now tear apart. What is worse, Kluger's metaphor suggests both absence of dialogue and effects of this absence: silence, resentment simmering beneath surface, and worst of all, ignorance about what is happening on other side of destroyed bridge – quite opposite of what Kluger and other Jewish writers would like to see. Werdet streitsuchtig, sucht die Auseinandersetzung.[...] Lasst euch doch mindestens reizen, verschanzt euch nicht (30) is what Kluger would like to see in place of that silence and as reaction of gentile Germans and Austrians to her book. In 1995 Rafael Seligmann similarly demanded in Der Spiegel (66): Die deutsch-judischen Verkrustungen mussen mit dem Hammer des Streits zertrummert werden. It might seem impossible to treat relationship of Jews and gentiles in both East and West Germany and Austria in one essay. However, a pattern will emerge from sources cited here: dialogue between gentiles and Jews is shaped not so much by different historical development in each of two countries, but rather by shared National-Socialist past. In this regard, problem still presents itself in geographical context of period that created it: grosdeutsch. Uncertainty and issues left unresolved by war influence