Missachtung und Tabu : eine Streitschrift zur Frage: "Wie antisemitisch war die Gruppe 47?"

The "Gruppe 47" was a group of young writers in postwar Germany who met to read from their work in progress and undergo brutal criticism from the group. They saw themselves as anti-Nazis, but obeyed a taboo imposed by their leader, Hans Werner Richter, on discussion of controversial political issues, especially the crimes of the recent past. In this they shared, and perhaps reinforced, the deliberate blindness of the mass of Germans to the Holocaust. Jews were tolerated as members if they abided by the taboo. The group resented returning refugees and were wary of Holocaust survivors, who by their very presence were a reminder of German crimes. Paul Celan was a victim of this attitude. In 1952, invited by a reluctant Richter, he read from his poetry for the first and last time, and was laughed at for his dramatic intonation. Thereafter he remained on the periphery. In Celan's crisis after antisemitically-colored accusations of plagiarism, he felt that the group defended him out of a false philosemitism and not true solidarity. The group spirit persisted, e.g. in Günter Grass's insensitivity during the Gulf War to Israeli fear of German gas in Iraqi bombs, or Martin Walser's demand to stop confronting Germans with guilt for the Holocaust and his antisemitic novel "Tod eines Kritikers"; both men were members of Gruppe 47. Includes bibliographical references (pages 301-315). 323 pages ; 21 cm