Language:
German
Year of publication:
2005
Titel der Quelle:
Kwartalnik Historii Żydów
Angaben zur Quelle:
213 (2005) 11-29
Keywords:
Seraphim, Peter-Heinz,
;
Sociologists History 20th century
;
Antisemitism History 1933-1945
;
Jews, East European Migrations
;
History
Abstract:
Seraphim was a German sociologist specializing in Eastern Europe. During the Nazi period he was the director of several research institutes and the editor of "Weltkampf", the journal of the Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage, in Frankfurt. He was the author of "Das Judentum im osteuropäischen Raum" (1938), which was based on the data of Jewish scholars, but Seraphim interpreted them in the light of his own antisemitic stereotypes. Thus, for instance, he attributed the migration of Jews eastward not to persecutions and expulsions, but to an inborn "urge to wander"; their supposed attraction to Bolshevism to their innate materialism, intellectualism, and ruthlessness; and their disproportionate share in the population of cities to their lack of roots, their foreignness everywhere. He contended that the demographic problem required removing these strangers. Seraphim claimed scientific objectivity, but argued that this objectivity must be grounded in "Volkstum". His book was not only influential during the Nazi period but was recognized well beyond it as the basic "objective" work on the subject.
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