Henryk Broder. A Jew in the New Germany. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004. xvi + 145 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-252-02856-4.

Reviewed by Anthony Kauders (Department of Jewish History and Culture, University of Munich)
Published on H-German (November, 2004)

Caustic Cultural Commentary

"There is a public literary tradition in German writing," Sander Gilman explains in his introduction, "that can be called 'caustic cultural commentary,'" a form of writing that "has civic betterment as its goal and satire as its literary tool" (p. ix). There are many temptations to resort to caustic commentary in response to this book. But before the reviewer succumbs to these temptations, some background information.

Most Jews, most friends and foes of Jews, and most Spiegel readers in Germany have consumed at least one of Henryk Broder's many essays. Born in Poland in 1946, Broder and his family left the country for Austria in 1957, only to end up in the Rhenish city of Cologne one year later. Aside from a brief stint in Israel, he has lived in Germany ever since. Broder is the author of countless articles and several books. Many of the latter contain striking titles likeI love Karstadt and other Eulogies, Pity with the Germans, Volk and Mania, or The Lunatics of Zion. Most of his articles deal with Germany, its Nazi past, its attempts "to come to terms" with this past, its self-proclaimed philo-Semites, its unrepentant anti-Semites, and its Jewish "elites." In the 1970s and 1980s, Broder's role of agent provocateur corresponded well with the reality of the old Federal Republic. At the time, his missives annoyed the staid representatives of German Jewry, irritated the hapless spokespeople of German-Jewish reconciliation, flabbergasted left-wing anti-Zionists, and exposed lingering Jew-hatred in society. Today, representatives have become slick, spokespeople have turned professional, left wing anti-fascists visit Israel, and anti-Semitism is acknowledged as a ubiquitous phenomenon. Not surprisingly, Broder has remained a public figure but rarely provokes. He can be terribly funny but has assumed a grandfatherly air. And his home page (at www.henryk-broder.com) is a site for those who bemoan the passing of a bygone age.

In theory, there is nothing wrong with publishing a collection of Broder's essays in English. In practice, numerous impediments make such an endeavor a difficult feat. In our case, the feat seems all the more formidable given that the editors have chosen to include essays spanning four decades. The first contribution, entitled "Why I Would Rather Not Be a Jew--and if I Must, Then Rather Not in Germany," appeared in 1979. It is justly famous for castigating conservative politicians and equally stubborn bureaucrats for their anti-Jewish proclivities. It is famous, too, for condemning well-known German Jews such as the game show host Hans Rosenthal for currying favor with the non-Jewish German public. Today, it reads a bit odd, for at least two reasons. The first is one of content, for Broder repeatedly maintains that Germany has not changed. This contention is somewhat outdated, as it was back then. The second is one of style, for in his early pieces the author had the tendency to produce long lists of anti-Semitic incidents that reminded the reader of police reports from earlier periods. What could be shocking in 1979 (and I, a Jew living in Germany at the time, was shocked) is rather boring today. The final contribution, entitled "Just in Time: A Catholic Casuist on the Front in the War on Terror," was published in 2002. Here Broder takes to task a prominent non-conformist theologian who speculated on the causes and repercussions of September 11 only hours after the Twin Towers had collapsed. Similar to voices in other countries, Eugen Drewermann was wont to blame the United States for planting hatred in the Arab world, and in so doing, not only ignored the heinous crime of the day, but subscribed to an unfortunately all-too familiar notion of cause and effect. Nevertheless, despite his justified anger, Broder's causticity simply no longer moves.

These two examples may suffice to indicate the difficulties of the enterprise. First, Broder's German is such that his sarcasm seldom surfaces in the English translations. John in Cleveland or Rivka in Brooklyn will, it seems likely, miss the meanness of it all. Second, the present-day reader is not properly introduced to the subject at hand. While a German reader of a certain age will immediately recognize the figure of Hans Rosenthal, an American will not understand the impact of Broder's critique. Rosenthal was a sacrosanct figure at the time, but the editors fail to provide that kind of information. Third, when information is forthcoming, it is often faulty or unspecific. To write that Roland Freisler "was a notorious cruel judge in Nazi Germany" (p. 35) is an understatement. To describe the symbol of West Germany's economic miracle, Ludwig Erhard, as someone who played a "significant role in right-wing politics" (p. 35) upon his resignation as chancellor in 1966 is to have a pretty flawed conception of right-wing politics.

More seriously still, one may wonder who should benefit from this book. For one, the title suggests that we may learn about the Jews in West Germany after 1945 ("A Jew in the New Germany") or about the Jews in a reunited Germany after 1990 ("A Jew in the New Germany"), yet Broder often writes about Israel (three articles) or issues unrelated to Jews or "Jewish" concerns (on the GDR, for example). Thus, the book might interest historians researching the 1970s and 1980s, but hardly anyone who wishes to comprehend Jewish life in Germany today. Similarly, Broder is not West Germany's Heinrich Heine, Alfred Kerr, or Kurt Tucholsky, as Sander Gilman appears to suggest (p. x). Unlike these, his writings do not stand for an epoch. Instead, Broder's best pieces allow important insights into the mindset of Jews and non-Jews during the chancellorships of Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl. It may have been preferable, therefore, to focus on this period rather than furnish a cross-section of Broder's work in the hope of presenting his oeuvre. For another, the book is part of a series called "the humanities laboratory." Now, not only is the reader left confused as to what that may mean, it is patent that, of all people, Henryk Broder would neither be happy to find himself in a laboratory (to analyze? to be analyzed?) nor particularly proud to be in the company of Geisteswissenschaftler, whom he habitually spurns. But then, on second thought and in line with Broder's spirit, caustic cultural commentary need not be consistent anyway.

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Citation: Anthony Kauders. Review of Broder, Henryk, A Jew in the New Germany. H-German, H-Net Reviews. November, 2004.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9930

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