AND ANOTHER THING
The Jew Rifkind and a dangerous old Parsifal in a hurry
PAUL JOHNSON
The affair of 'the Jew Rifkind' is disturb- ing but not for the reasons which have been advanced. It is not evidence of a revival of German anti-Semitism. As a matter of histor- ical fact, the Germans, particularly the Prus- sians and the Rhinelanders, were not all that prone to anti-Semitism — compared to the French, for example, or the Bavarians or, above all, the Austrians. The Jews were well- adjusted to life in Germany, because they could identify so completely with its scholar- ly, pernickety culture. Nazi anti-Semitism was essentially an import from Austria. Not only Hitler himself but the infamous Eiclunann, the exterminator-in-chief, and the head of the Gestapo, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, were Austrians. It is significant that, out of a total population of seven million, no less than 550,000 Austrians were members of the Nazi Party, and they played a role out of all pro- portion to their numbers in the Holocaust.
Austrians provided one third of the per- sonnel of the SS extermination units, com- manded four out of the six main death- camps and killed almost half Hitler's Jewish victims. In the Netherlands, two Austrians, Arthur Seyss-Inquart and Hanns Rauter, directed the killing of the Jews, and in Yugoslavia, out of 5,090 war criminals, 2,499 were Austrian. I recall these details because there is a tendency to see the Holocaust as exclusively a German phe- nomenon. We ought also to remember that, whereas the Germans were properly de-Nazified (by us and the Americans), have paid vast sums in compensation and have taken all kinds of steps to eradicate any lingering vestiges of organised anti- Semitism, Austria has gone through none of these processes, has paid virtually noth- ing in compensation and still harbours anti- Semitism in its murky political entrails.
No, what worries me about the episode is what it tells us about German nationalism, the temper of the German elite today. There is no doubt that Malcolm Rifkind annoyed his German audience, not just by his Euroscepticism but by his suggestion that the Germans have not yet learned how to do things democratically. The chairman of the meeting, Jurgen Rufus, former ambassador here, was upset and, in his summing up, attempted a clumsy joke: `How curious that the Jewish Britisher should quote our German Protestant Luther!' This theme was taken up by the young lady reporter from the Frankfurter Allgemeine, a Harvard graduate called Michaelangela Wiegel, who comes from the new generation said to have 'no hang- ups and no guilt' about the Holocaust.
On the Allgemeine, the former culture editor Marcel Reich-Ranicki, himself a Jewish survivor of the Warsaw ghetto, had laid it down that nervous genteelisms like referring to someone as 'of Jewish extrac- tion' were to be avoided. A man should be called 'the Jew' if he was one. And that of course was the old German tradition. Thus Bismarck, praising Disraeli's conduct at the Berlin Conference, said: 'Der alte Jude, das ist der Mann' (The old Jew, he's the man!'). So Frnulein Wiegel comes out with `der Jude Rifkind'.
All that is understandable, once explained. What cannot be condoned is the sullen, almost defiant refusal either of the newspa- per itself or of anyone else in authority in Germany to make a prompt, complete and ungrudging apology. It is as though the Ger- mans were saying, quite openly, 'We are not in the apologising mood any more. We have done all the apologising we are ever going to do, for our existence, our past, our so-called crimes. We have drawn a firm line under it all, and now we are just Germans.' But that is the trouble. They are indeed Germans. They say they were deeply hurt by Rifkind's speech, and the implication is that he ought to do the apologising. So we are back again to the thin-skinned Germans of old, so hypersensitive about any criticism of them- selves, so like rhinos when it comes to deal- ing with others.
There will be no reversion to Nazi Ger- many. That indeed was a historical aberra- tion. But we are back in some ways to the atmosphere of Wilhelmine Germany, the superstate created by Bismarck on Hegelian lines, run by an elite who saw themselves as the strongest, most civilised, most 'scientific' and well-organised force in Europe, and expected everyone else to jump to attention and 'behave sensibly'. If people did or said things Germany's rulers did not like — such as criticising them for building an enormous ocean-going navy — then they were `encir- cling Germany'. If Germany did something others found annoying, then Germany was, `misunderstood'. The German elite believed that Germany was, almost by definition, hon- ourable, unselfish, altruistic and working for the good of all. And behind this illusion was a bottomless morass of self-pity, itself a breeding-ground for rage. It is worrying that this mood has returned among the elite of what is, once again, the most powerful country in Europe. Chancel' for Kohl sees himself as a heroic, embattled figure, using all Germany's political and eeo' nomic resources to bring about, in the imme- diate future, a federal superstate which will be 'for the good of all Europe'. He, and the Germany he speaks for, are disinterested, thinking truly in supranational terms, willing, to submerge all Germany's wealth and strength in a common enterprise. The fact that others fear Germany will dominate the enterprise and oppose the idea accordingly '5 an outrageous slur on Germany's bottomless generosity and good nature. How dare theY impugn our honourable motives! We are as magnanimous as Siegfried, as pure as BrCumhilde! And what impudence that this Rifkind, this Britisher, this Jew, should quote our beloved Martin Luther, our German Luther, in our own innocent faces! It is an outrage. We demand satisfaction. Our patience is exhausted. Well, it will not come to a crisis, I dare saY. The fuss will die down. But it is a portent an the same, a little reminder of where we are heading. In Germany's pursuit of the Holy Grail of the common currency and instant federalism, these Parsifals have landed them- selves with an economic and social malatse of a very dangerous kind: the worst unem- ployment since 1933, much of it long-terni, jobs being exported as capital flees, unlawful- ly underpaid `guest workers' flooding in to take what jobs remain, a huge social securitY bill which is wrecking German competitive; ness, and a growing hatred of foreigners °' every kind. Without having any remedy for these ills, Chancellor Kohl is determined to push on headlong for the promised land, Ger' tain that it is now or never, that one last push will get him there and that, unless he inakes„ it — whatever the cost — his whole life WI° be a failure, and the future of Europe a nightmare. This is getting close to paranoia and is the very reverse of statesmanship. I (10 . not like this Old Man in a Hurry, and 1t would seem to me madness for Britain to gc`, into bed with him.
Previous page
