Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Language and Revolution, by Igal Halfin. 2002. Routledge, Oxfordshire

Comparing Communism and Nazism. Both Were Forward-Looking and “Progressive”

This anthology brings up many concepts and ideas, and I mention only a few of them. Nowadays, Nazism is commonly misrepresented as extreme conservatism (no doubt mainly by those who dislike modern conservatives), but Halfin rejects this: “There are additional affinities between Communism and Nazism. Thus it is not easy to uphold the dichotomy between the future-oriented Communists and the backward-oriented Nazis: Hitler’s regime was forward-looking in so far as it denounced the old Germany, despised Wilhelmine conservatives and constantly called for a transformative movement forward…Much to the consternation of many twentieth-century leftist radicals, Goebbels, too, prided himself on being a revolutionary.” (p. 6). So Nazism was leftwing, not rightwing.

Nazism was progressive in various other ways, as pointed out by Peter Fritzche (p. 163, 177): “Indeed, fascists explicitly characterized their project as one of creating new men and new women who would meet the exigencies and opportunities of the post-war period…The Nazi New Man put great value on mechanical ability; building instruments, repairing a motorcycle or car, or joining a glider team…” (p. 177).

DO NOT EQUATE FASCISM AND NAZISM WITH NATIONALISM

Nor were fascism and Nazism manifestations of extreme nationalism. They instead constituted a radical, racialist form of identity: “This was anything but pre-war nationalism, hurrah patriotism, or imperial nostalgia. Rather, this rebirth depended on the perceived violence of the war’s break with the past, the scope of mobilization the war entailed, and the collective and national nature of the efforts the war demanded.” (Fritzche, p. 170).

POLISH HISTORICAL MEMORIES

Dan Diner has an interesting perspective on historical memories: “The Irish, the Poles, the Serbs and the Jews, for example, are generally reckoned to possess significantly long historical memory spans. The British, the French, and the Germans, on the other hand, are blessed with shorter memories.” (p. 383). [Diner’s bias aside, why is short historical memory a blessing?]

DO NOT RETROJECT THE GERMAN-MADE HOLOCAUST INTO EARLIER (AND COMPLETELY UNRELATED) POLISH ANTISEMITISM

Dan Diner also criticizes Heller’s (anti-Polish) ON THE EDGE OF DESTRUCTION for reading the Holocaust backwards into time, in effect fusing pre-Holocaust events in prewar Poland with Holocaust ones under Nazi German rule–a phenomenon which he previously termed “compressed time”. (p. 385).

For my review of Heller’s Polonophobic screed, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/jewish-disloyalty-1920-war-heller/