German Jews in the Era of the "Final Solution"

Essays on Jewish and Universal History

Otto Dov Kulka

• Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9783110671438
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Holocaust History
• Index: History

These essays, written in the course of half a century of research and thought on German and Jewish history, deal with the uniqueness of a phenomenon in its historical and philosophical context. Applying the "classical" empirical tools to this unprecedented historical chapter, Kulka strives to incorporate it into the continuum of Jewish and universal history. At the same time he endeavors to fathom the meaning of the ideologically motivated mass murder and incalculable suffering. The author presents a multifaceted, integrative history, encompassing the German society, its attitudes toward the Jews and toward the anti-Jewish policy of the Nazi regime; as well as the Jewish society, its self-perception and its leadership.

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Editorial Note
• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Reflections on Jewish Studies, the Jerusalem School and the Research on the Era of the “Final Solution”
• I. German Jewry under the National Socialism in Historical Perspective
• 1. German Jewry under the National Socialism in Historical Perspective
• 2. History and Historical Consciousness. Similarities and Dissimilarities in the History of German and Czech Jews 1918–1945
• II. Modern Antisemitism and the Ideology of the “Final Solution”
• 3. Critique of Judaism in European Thought. On the Historical Meaning of Modern Antisemitism
• 4. Richard Wagner and the Origins of the Redemptive Antisemitism
• 5. Uniqueness in Context. Review of Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914–1949
• III. German Society and the Jews under the Nazi Regime
• 6. Popular Opinion in Nazi Germany and the “Jewish Question”
• 7. German Population in Nazi Germany as a Factor in the Policy of the “Solution of the Jewish Question”: The Nuremberg Laws and the Reichskristallnacht
• 8. German Population and the “Solution of the Jewish Question” at the Time of the Wannsee Conference
• IV. Jewish Society and its Leadership in Nazi Germany
• 9. Jewish Society in Germany as Reflected in Secret Nazi Reports on Popular Opinion 1933–1943
• 10. The Reichsvereinigung and the Fate of the Jews. Continuity or Discontinuity in German- Jewish History in the Third Reich
• 11. Ghetto in an Annihilation Camp. Jewish Social History in the Years of the “Final Solution” and its Ultimate Limits
• V. Historiography of the National Socialism and the “Final Solution”
• 12. Major Trends and Tendencies in German Historiography on National Socialism and the “Final Solution” 1924–1984
• 13. Singularity and its Relativization. Changing Views in German Historiography on National Socialism and the “Final Solution”
• 14. The Historikerstreit from a Personal Retrospective. On the “Case Nolte” and his Generation
• VI. In Search of History and Memory
• 15. In Search of History and Memory. Excerpts from Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death
• Annotated References
• Index of Names and Places