Language:
German
Year of publication:
1999
Titel der Quelle:
Aschkenas; Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der Juden
Angaben zur Quelle:
9,2 (1999) 447-487
Keywords:
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Jews Medicine
;
Jews Science
Abstract:
Analyzes references to the fate of the Jews, especially of Jewish colleagues, in letters to and from the chemist Hermann Staudinger (Freiburg) and to the physicists Walther Gerlach and Arnold Sommerfeld (both in Munich). These were chosen because of the extensiveness of their correspondence and because they were not Nazis, so that their friends could express their true opinions (even if cautiously worded for the censor). Concludes that what is striking is the extreme rarity of references to the Jews' fate, except in letters by the Jewish colleagues themselves; this seems to indicate indifference. Letters by Jews who lost their posts express their deep identification with Germany and their pain at the thought of leaving it. After the war, former relations with Jews are cited by non-Jews as mitigating evidence in denazification proceedings; but there is little awareness in the letters of the hardships of exile and the horror of the concentration camps.
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