German Guilt Diffusion Bought From Jews Assmann

Memory and Political Change (Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies), by Aleida Assmann (Editor), Linda Shortt (Editor). 2011

German Guilt Diffusion: Did the Germans Effectively Buy the Favor of Jews?

This book touches on many different aspects of victimhood. My review focuses exclusively on the Holocaust.

The author has much to say about German guilt after the Shoah. Perhaps without intending to, she draws attention to the stereotype of Jews being vindictive, as well as the reasoning behind the premise that Jews have been soft-peddling German guilt, and commonly shifting the blame for the Holocaust to Christianity and to Poles, because they had been paid off by the Germans. All this started with the Israeli-German Luxemburg Agreement of 1952. It has since become known as the Holocaust Industry, along with its ever-increasing set of “perpetrators” (now: Poland) from whom to demand never-ending financial “restitution”.

DID GERMANS EFFECTIVELY BUY THE FORGIVENESS OF JEWS?

Let the author speak for herself. She writes, “This emphatic and persistent commitment to the future is illustrated by an episode which occurred in May 1966 when Adenauer was on a visit to Israel. During the course of this visit, he was received by the Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in Tel Aviv. On this occasion, Eshkol emphasized the long powers of recollection of the Israeli people, a consequence of their protracted history of persecution. [Editorial comment: What about all the times Jews lived in peace and prosperity among the nations? And what about the many other peoples that also had undergone a protracted history of persecution?]

Noting that his people remember their enemies just as they remember their friends, Eshkol placed Adenauer amongst his friends, NOT LEAST BECAUSE OF HIS CONTRIBUTION TO THE REPARATION CONTRACTS OF 1952.” (p. 59; Emphasis added).

Evidently there is no business like Shoah business.