Werner Bergmann

143 pages ; 18 cm

Notes that while international pressure and political and moral correctness obliged the German postwar press and public institutions to abstain from antisemitism, the change in personal attitudes proceeded more slowly. Antisemitism declined with the new generations, the distance from the perpetrators and from direct contacts with Jews, the introduction of Holocaust studies in the schools, and increased treatment of the Holocaust in the media. The nature, intensity, and direction of antisemitism also changed, in accordance with the issues uppermost in public attention at any given time (e.g. denazification, the East-West conflict, war crimes trials, relations with Israel). Analyzes the reflection over the years in the press and in public institutions of antisemitic events or those with a bearing on antisemitism, and their impact on public opinion as measured in polls.

Coherent and well-focused, this collection of essays deals with the issue of antisemitic pogroms in modern German history from the Hep Hep riots of 1819 to Reichskristallnacht and the prelude to the Holocaust.

Since unification, Germany has experienced profound changes, including a wave of xenophobic hate crime, antisemitic incidents, and violence in the early 1990's. In Antisemitism and Xenophobia in Germany after Unification, the editors present the most recent research conducted about postunification developments in antisemitism and xenophobia and its remedies. Eleven distinguished American and German experts in the fields of political science, sociology, mass communication, and history analyze the degree of antisemitism, xenophobia, remembrance, and Holocaust knowledge in German public opinion; the groups and organizations that propagate prejudice and hate; and German, American, and Jewish perceptions of, and reactions to, these phenomena.