Jerome S. Legge, Jr. Jews, Turks and Other Strangers: The Roots of Prejudice in Modern Germany. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003. xvi + 205 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-299-18400-1.

Reviewed by Jennifer Petzen (Department of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Washington)
Published on H-German (March, 2006)

A Missed Opportunity

Jerome Legge opens this volume with a description of a "violent racist incident" in which three skinheads murdered an African by beating him and kicking him to death. At sentencing, the judge in the case remarked that in eastern Germany "90% of far-Rightists [sic] are unemployed youths from deprived backgrounds" (p. 3). Legge's main goal is to prove that antisemitism and racism cannot be empirically linked to the existence of unfavorable economic conditions--a rationale commonly cited to explain violent xenophobic and antisemitic acts. One can commend the author's earnestness in proving this point because he offers hard statistical evidence to those who might not otherwise be convinced that racism is a rational response to "foreigners." Legge concludes that "the most persuasive explanation of the prejudice is a traditional racism against foreigners or Jews that has little to do with economic resentment" (p. 4). But is it enough to say merely that? More pertinent questions would be to ask: how are foreigners defined? What is traditional racism? Why do political leaders continue to use "economic resentment" as a justification for racism? How does this case parallel other histories of racism and why have most political leaders not shown moral leadership in responding to racism, antisemitism and immigration? In short, the judge's statement is not a mere misunderstanding of the motivations for racism. It gives credence to racism and therefore should be plainly named as racist discourse. At a moment when the "violent incident" should have been unconditionally condemned as a murder, the judge essentially legitimated a justification for the killing. Unfortunately, Legge's approach does little to illustrate the Complicated ways in which racist discourses like these are invoked by political leaders, journalists and other public figures to legitimate structural, institutional and everyday racism in Germany. As such, the book does not live up to the promises of the title.

Two weaknesses are likely to limit the usefulness of this text for disciplinary specialists. First, the quantitative methods Legge uses to prove his arguments are highly technical, readily accessible only to those comfortable with advanced statistical methods. This method makes the book inappropriate for use by most students and many researchers in the field. Second, Legge makes the argument that "anti-minority prejudice" exists due to "traditional racism" (p. 4). His argument thus becomes tautological. Legge does not sufficiently historicize the concepts of antisemitism and racism, nor does he make use of established literature on the history of racism in Germany or Europe, such as George Mosse's classic works or critical race theory in German.[1] Legge refers only to the historical context of reunification; he does not consider the effects of colonization and the history of antisemitism. This lack of overview would make these complex histories difficult to grasp for readers who are trying to pin down the development of racism in contemporary Germany. In addition, the book does not deal with the state's and civil society's roles in propounding structural racism and inequality. In this sense, Legge does not further a theoretical understanding of what racism is, how it developed or how it operates in a specific time and place, and how it affects people living in contemporary Germany. Instead, the book can only make the claim that racism is not dependent on economic factors. As this conclusion should not be a surprise to scholars working on critical race theory or contemporary German studies, the book will probably not be a very useful tool in advancing knowledge in these fields.

In the introduction to the book, Legge forwards three possible causes of racism: economic resentment, symbolic racism and traditional racism. Legge finds the term symbolic racism not very useful and discards it, preferring to root racism in Germany in the concept of "traditional racism." Legge relies on a definition from scholars working in the US context that characterizes racism as a systematic negative response to attitude objects (p. 11). This definition is problematic in that it addresses white Americans and their attitudes about race equality policies. Legge adopts it without any discussion as to how it might be appropriate for post-reunification Germany. In addition to its lack of historicity, the definition does not address issues of structural power in racism. Defining racism as "traditional racism" is, in fact, no definition at all.

In chapter 1, entitled "The German Economy, 'Foreigners,' and Jews," Legge states that his book's purpose is "to describe and explain the major causes of anti-foreign prejudice and anti-Semitism in contemporary Germany" (p. 14). In the opening section of the chapter, other variables are listed as being more important than economic factors: contact with foreigners, political and ideological alignment, German chauvinism and racism toward ethnic groups, socioeconomic characteristics and psychological predisposition. However, Legge primarily uses this chapter to give a historical overview of Germany's economic development after World War II; he considers the refugee problem, the implementation of the Basic Law, the Marshall Plan, the economic "miracle" and guest workers and immigrants. A few pages are devoted to the "economic problems of the postwar period," although discriminatory attitudes are not discussed until the end of the section, when Legge asserts that "the 1990s witnessed a rising tide of resentment and violence against this [immigrant] community" (p. 30). Here Legge takes a formalistic approach to West German economic and political developments and overlooks discussions of national identity and race that would have shed more light on the roots of racism.

The second chapter discusses reunification and the ensuing influx of refugees, many of whom were ethnic Germans from the former USSR. Disappointingly, Legge does not discuss the unique legal status of these Aussiedler, who were entitled to German citizenship while the children and grandchildren of guest workers were denied it. This ethnic conception of citizenship, prescribed and enforced by the legal and institutional frameworks of the country, explains how German racial identity emerged fairly unchallenged in the postwar era and continued to promote racialization and racism at the expense of minority Germans. Indeed, Legge adopts the discourse of German politicians and others when he repeatedly describes the migration as "a problem" (pp. 36, 40).

Chapters 4 and 5 use a bewildering methodology of LISREL statistical models to measure xenophobic and antisemitic sentiment in Germany several years after reunification. Legge used the 1996 ALLBUS survey regarding public attitudes on foreigners and Jews and then developed multivariate models for testing the link between antisemitism and economically disadvantaged groups. For the non-specialist, these statistical models will be difficult to follow. While Legge "proves" with statistical models that economic resentment cannot be a cause for racism, for the specialist on contemporary Germany this conclusion is nothing new. Any analysis of media and political actors and the institutional/bureaucratic treatment of minority Germans would be enough to show that xenophobia and racism are widespread throughout the country, regardless of economic standing, educational level or religion. Legge's assumptions when dealing with control variables is another concern. One hypothesis is that those with a higher degree of education "would be less likely to be anti-foreign and consequently would have less negative perceptions of Jews" (p. 125). Considering postwar education efforts, discussions regarding Germany's treatment of Jews and the country's lack of introspection about discrimination against "guest workers," I find this claim to be a serious leap of logic. Another questionable hypothesis is that men are more antisemitic than women (who are also deemed to be less militaristic and nationalistic than men). Another variable measured church attendance; churchgoers are presumed to be more antisemitic than non-churchgoers (p. 125).

In chapter 6, entitled "Antisemitism in Germany at the Millennium," the author jumps from the discussions surrounding the ill-planned Holocaust memorial in Berlin to the worthiness of Daniel Goldhagen's arguments about police battalion participation in the killing of civilians during World War II. It might have been more keeping with the theme of the chapter if Legge had focused on the reception of Goldhagen's book in Germany when it was released, instead of focusing on arguments dealing with antisemitism during the war, since at this point the reader understands that the book does not deal with the roots of prejudice in modern Germany, but rather antisemitism and xenophobia in post-reunification Germany. Legge also summarizes the Walser and Bubis arguments, the Historikerstreit and the ALLBUS survey on antisemitism.

Throughout the book, Legge casts the debate in terms of Germans vs. Jews and foreigners without problematizing how they are defined. The book's arguments do not acknowledge the very complex ways in which antisemitism and xenophobia are related to each other and also to national and racial identity. In addition, important works that deal with whiteness and national identity are absent from the bibliography, as are other theoretical works on forms of European racism.[2] Recent theories of racism as a move from biological to cultural reasoning are crucial for understanding how many educated, secular and middle-class Germans--not just the working class--can hide their racism behind claims about "cultural differences." This lack of familiarity with the literature allows Legge to embark on a long but unnecessary journey of statistical analysis to prove that economic disadvantage cannot be an empirical cause of racism.

Notes

[1]. George Mosse, Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism (London: Dent and Son, 1978); Katherine Oguntoye, May Opitz and Dagmar Schultz, eds., Farbe bekennen. Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Orlanda, 1991); Uli Linke, German Bodies: Race and Representation after Hitler (New York: Routledge, 1999); Ursula Wachendorfer, "Weiss-Sein in Deutschland. Zur Unsichtbarkeit einer hersschenden Normalitaet, in AfrikaBilder: Studien zu Rassismus in Deutschland_, ed. Susan Arndt (Münster: Unrast, 2001), pp. 87-101.

[2]. Avtar Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities (Routledge: London, 1996).

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Citation: Jennifer Petzen. Review of Legge, Jerome S., Jr., Jews, Turks and Other Strangers: The Roots of Prejudice in Modern Germany. H-German, H-Net Reviews. March, 2006.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11592

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