Nazi "Ethic," Nazi Weltanschauung, and the Holocaust
In showing that the Holocaust was perpetrated by ordinary jobholders and, more characteristically still, "idealists," Peter Haas makes his readers (as he did his own students) face up to the fact that the crime cannot be "tamed" as merely a work of sadists or barbarians (or more...
| Published in: | The Jewish quarterly review |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Review |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Penn Press
1992
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| In: |
The Jewish quarterly review
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| Review of: | Morality after Auschwitz (Philadelphia : Fortress Press, 1992) (Fackenheim, Emil L.)
Morality after Auschwitz (Philadelphia, Pa. : Fortress Press, 1988) (Fackenheim, Emil L.) Morality after Auschwitz (Philadelphia, Pa. : Fortress Press, 1988) (Fackenheim, Emil L.) |
| Further subjects: | B
Book review
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In showing that the Holocaust was perpetrated by ordinary jobholders and, more characteristically still, "idealists," Peter Haas makes his readers (as he did his own students) face up to the fact that the crime cannot be "tamed" as merely a work of sadists or barbarians (or more "philosophically," be flattened out into man's inhumanity to man in general). Shockingly, the Nazis were inspired by an "ethic" of their own, and those tolerating it had, to varying degrees, yielded to it. That ethic's success, he argues, is an unprecedented challenge to morality after Auschwitz. To a degree but unwittingly, the author himself trivializes the Holocaust by viewing the "ethic" which inspired it as a specimen of the species ethic, when in fact it can be understood only as flowing from the Nazi Weltanschauung. Like traditional religion and metaphysics, a Weltanschauung (in its original German meaning) must be coherent and comprehensive, but unlike these it cannot be put forward as being, but can only be made true. Hence if in the Nazi Weltanschauung Jews were vermin to be exterminated, it would only be half true so long as some Jews in the Welt were still permitted to be human and alive, and still were human and alive. Even within the Nazi Weltanschauung the Holocaust--no "mere" genocide but planned extermination--boggles the mind. Divorce the "ethic" from the Weltanschauung and it becomes incomprehensible. |
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| ISSN: | 1553-0604 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The Jewish quarterly review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/1455112 |