Language:
English
Year of publication:
1999
Titel der Quelle:
German Life and Letters
Angaben zur Quelle:
52,1 (1999) 85-96
Keywords:
Heine, Heinrich,
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence
Abstract:
Heine, as a "revolutionary" poet and a friend of Marx, was an ideal candidate for inclusion in the literary pantheon of the GDR. However, his Jewishness was, in varying degrees, downplayed by East German critics. Before 1952 the critics were relatively open to the issue of Heine's Jewishness. After the antisemitic Slansky trial in Prague in 1952, however, this issue was largely excluded from GDR publications. At the end of the 1950s, the wave of attacks on Jewish cemeteries in West Germany provided the GDR with an opportunity to claim that it was the only German state in which antisemitism had been eradicated. East Germany liberalized its attitude toward Jewishness and the issue of Heine's Jewishness was reopened.
DOI:
10.1111/1468-0483.00121
URL:
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