Book Review: Alan Steinweis' 'Studying the Jew'

A Book Review of Alan E. Steinweis, 2008, ‘Studying the Jew: Scholarly Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany’, 2nd Edition, Harvard University Press: Cambridge

Serious studies of National Socialism are rare, but serious studies of National Socialist scholarship, especially as it relates to the most emotional topic that is associated with it and the Third Reich - the jews - are even rarer. Most studies that claim to be ‘serious studies’ of this topic are afflicted with the kind of suffocating and smarmy postscript that has evolved into the mythos of - i.e., the justification - the era in which we live. This Steinweis - who is the Rosenberg Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln - correctly notes is due to the automatic presumption on the part of the authors concerned that everything that was associated with National Socialist ideology was simply irrational and lacking in any substance what-so-ever.

What Steinweis in introducing the subject area does not state is that this presumption has allowed whole theoretical castles in the sky to be build around the policies and concepts that make up National Socialism - which at their best do not do it justice to it as a credible political ideology - because they assume it has no rational basis where-as it most certainly did and does and at their worst deliberately misrepresent the Third Reich and National Socialism and make them out to be completely evil in some cases this has been taken further quite literally into the realms of demonic.

In writing a book on National Socialist scholarship regarding the jewish question Steinweis moves - as he himself notes - into an understudied area that really has not been generally covered since 1946 because of this simple presumption of irrationality. There have - as Steinweis informs us - been several specific studies of some parts of the subject area and some of the scholars who contributed to the National Socialist critique of jews in the Third Reich. However, the literature is still very sparse with much opportunity for further study.

Steinweis is certainly to be commended for writing such an accessible and quite enjoyable work and writing it in a relatively unemotional and factual manner, while not engaging in too much condemnation and manipulation of the facts to suit his personal bias in the issue due to his being of jewish origin. Steinweis has commendably done his research and concentrates on what he – rightly - considers to be the key scholars who created the rational anti-Semitism that Adolf Hitler had long called for as a counter to the almost purely jewish domination of the study of jews.

It is noteworthy that Steinweis recognises that Adolf Hitler in the earliest days of the NSDAP and during his own political awakening recognised that the traditional anti-Semitic materials - such as those the anti-Semitic movement’s own titans like Theodor Fritsch, Adolf Stoecker and Eduard Drumont - were not sufficient and that in addition to the traditional low to medium brow literature, which sought to condemn the jews but which did not provide a scholarly case against them. What was required was a scholarly inter-disciplinary collaboration to create what Steinweis refers to as a ‘Nazi Jewish Studies’ field with its own reference literature and standard works. This is precisely what - as Steinweis records - a number of eminent scholars from a variety of different fields set out to do.

However: despite doing an excellent job of presenting the general history of anti-jewish scholarship in the Third Reich. Steinweis does not give much credit to National Socialist scholarship regarding the jewish question. Although Steinweis has certainly - as I have stated - done his research; he refuses to give credit where credit is due. Instead of a realistic and scholarly appraisal of the works of the Third Reich and whether there was a basis for their general contentions.

Steinweis simply ignores the possibility that ‘Nazi anti-Semitism’ may have been correct in whole or in part in its condemnation of the jews. This is despite his declaration at the start of ‘Studying the Jew’ that National Socialist scholarship in the Third Reich has been summarily dismissed as propaganda but should be looked at on the basis of it being scholarship rather than as ‘regime propaganda’.

Hence Steinweis proceeds to commit exactly the same error he noted was unfortunate in his introduction: he simply presumes that such scholarship was/is ‘pseudo-scientific’ and ‘fallacious’ rather than make a balanced critique of such work. What is particularly notable is that Steinweis takes any opportunity to find one objection - often quite slight - to a work and to infer that this makes the work invalid in terms of scholarship. If we were to apply Steinweis’ own standard here to his own work then he would be equally if not more fallacious than the scholars he is writing about.

An example of this can be found in his comments concerning Hans Guenther which make up the second chapter - ‘Racializing the Jew’ - of ‘Studying the Jew’. Steinweis is at his most specific here in his analysis of Guenther’s middle-brow study of the jews as a race. Guenther cites a variety of different authors - including jews such as Maurice Fishberg - whom argued against the concept of race both in its application to jews and as a lens for understanding humanity. Steinweis notes that these authors disagreed with Guenther and hence Steinweis claims Guenther was being disingenuous in citing their work, the thrust of which Steinweis rightly notes disagreed with Guenther.

However, what Steinweis - in his anxiousness to discredit Guenther - omits to mention is that Guenther is making very specific points and is noting that others have found specific evidence to which he adds his own interpretation in the light of other evidence to. This is hardly being disingenuous or unscholarly as Steinweis claims, but rather it is the normal practice of scholars across the many disciplines that make up academe. For example, if one disagrees with the conclusions and thrust of another scholar’s argument but agrees with a specific interpretation on one point that is relevant to your own work; it is not misrepresenting the other scholar to cite that one point from their work in support of your own even if the arguments made are completely opposed to one another. Since Guenther was not suggesting that the jewish scholars in question actually supported either his interpretation or conclusion, but rather that they made a point - or a series of points - which were worth noting in terms of his own interpretation: hence Steinweis’ argument cannot be considered as valid.

However not all Steinweis’ negative criticism is unjustified in that he briefly cites and discusses the work of Johann von Leers - who besides writing a lot of middlebrow works on jews in general - wrote some notable scholarly work concerning jews and criminality where he argued that jews were inherently (i.e., biologically) predisposed towards crime. Steinweis correctly notes that for one particular figure von Leers drew on a 1927 Polish anti-Semitic pamphlet: this is of course problematic but hardly worth of the emphasis Steinweis places on it. Steinweis himself does not cite or analyze the publication which von Leers is citing but simply dismisses it presumably because it is anti-Semitic and therefore irrational in Steinweis’ eyes. We must opine that in this it is Steinweis who is being irrational and unscholarly and not von Leers for he has made not attempt to analyse von Leers’ work but merely has sought to find something which can be arguably objected to in order to dismiss von Leers entire book as so much anti-Semitic rubbish.

Steinweis makes another - perhaps more cogent - general criticism of von Leers’ work in that he notes that von Leers left out some figures that might have counted against his general thesis. However, this later criticism relies upon on a problematic understanding of von Leers’ argument concerning jewish criminality. Where von Leers is arguing quite specifically that jews are fundamentally disposed towards crime, but this does not equate that jews must have more incidences of all types of crime but merely that they must show significant incidence of crime across socio-economic boundaries. This is what von Leers sets out to prove. Steinweis’ objection - although valid - does not discount von Leers’ thesis as Steinweis claims, but rather von Leers’ thesis simply requires further clarification and the refining of the original argument. It is also important to state that von Leers’ use of one bad reference does not negate his work either being scholarly or his thesis being valid. Hence it is reasonable to suggest that Steinweis is looking for a reason - however trivial - to call into question the scholarship and integrity of scholars in the Third Reich researching and writing about the jewish question.

Steinweis’ negative assessment of all the academic work of the scholars who forged the inter-disciplinary field of ‘Nazi Jewish Studies’ has only one minor exception where he notes as to the work of Volkmar Eichstaedt. Who researched and wrote a meticulous bibliography of works - ‘Bibliography on the History of the Jewish Question’ - relevant to the jewish question with precise cross-referencing from numerous different catalogues. Eichstaedt also notably added in an asterisk next to each author’s name who was known to have been a jew by religious profession and/or by birth/lineage. He further adds in a question mark next to each author’s name who may have been a jew, but whose status was indeterminate. Steinweis pays Eichstaedt the grudging compliment that this work became the standard index on the subject and was used well after the defeat and occupation of Germany as a standard reference work in the philo-Semitic study of jews.

That Steinweis doesn’t see fit to actually praise any of this work is notable because it carries on the assumption that Steinweis distances himself from in his introduction. Steinweis himself appears to be suffering from a problem that he traduces the main scholars in the Third Reich involved in developing the field of ‘Nazi Jewish Studies’ for. Steinweis notes that the specialists on the jewish question in the Third Reich attacked what they – correctly - saw as the problem of inherent bias in the domination of the scholarly study of jews by jews. In that jews were very unlikely to produce a balanced and accurate depiction of their own history due to the racial perception and interests of the jews as a race.

Steinweis’ objection to this is an ostensibly correct one: in that if the logic of racialism holds then racialist thinking contradicts the assertion of the Third Reich scholars on the jewish question that their own works were in the objective spirit (since they are biased against the jews due to being of Aryan biological origin). However, what Steinweis misunderstands is that different races have - and will always - think that their approach to a subject is objective when in fact in terms of racialism it is subjective. It is not that the scholars concerned were objective, because they - like their jewish counterparts - were actually writing from a subjective racial viewpoint, but rather that they felt that they were being objective, because they were looking at the issue as members of the Aryan race. Likewise, the jewish scholars whom they cited thought they were objective when they were actually racially subjective as members of the jewish sub-racial/ethnic group.

Steinweis himself fits within this paradigm since he maintains that he is objective, but as we have pointed out above with reference to two examples, but he is not and consistently interprets points to best suit his jewish heritage and on similar presumptions to those he criticises. Hence Steinweis’ argument that there is a contradiction in terms of these claims is quite incorrect.

This isn’t to say that Steinweis’ study is without considerable value, because it does give the reader an excellent historiographic picture of scholarly anti-jewish writing in the Third Reich citing all the major authors and giving some background to them as well as allowing the reader to begin to engage with the literature and thought that Steinweis is describing. However, Steinweis’ analysis and refusal to give credit - when it is due - does not give the scholars he is discussing a fair and honest appraisal and gives the impression of ‘pseudo-scholarship’ that contradicts Steinweis’ earlier professions to treat the scholars concerning with honesty and consideration in terms of their academic work.

It is obvious throughout Steinweis’ description and analysis that there is an overt agenda present in ‘Studying the Jew’. In that in addition to describing the Third Reich studies on the jewish question. Steinweis in the case of nearly all the individuals he discusses goes onto describe the post-Third Reich careers of the scholars concerned. This is meant to - as Steinweis states in his conclusion - highlight the ‘lack of justice’ and ‘Nazi influence’ in post-Third Reich German scholarship. Hence becoming more fodder for the jewish guilt-industry that surrounds the Second World War and re-enforcing the notion that jews are ‘victims’ and that Germany hasn’t done ‘enough’ to ‘remove Nazi influence’. This is the jewish agenda that ‘Studying the Jew’ is riddled with and hence it must be pointed out that in reading ‘Studying the Jew’ one must be wary of this further disingenuous attempt to claim that anti-Semitism has no rational basis and that jews should be ‘compensated’ because they suffered ‘discrimination’ at the hands of National Socialism. The irony of course is bitter but in today’s topsy-turvy world it is to be expected most of all from the cause of that state: the jews of which Steinweis is but one of many.

Hence although ‘Studying the Jew’ is of value as a general historiographic guide to scholarship on - and scholars who addressed - the jewish question in the Third Reich: the work is so beset with problems as to make its analysis problematic at best and all but worthless at worst.

References

(1) The same can be said for the popular view of the Second World War, which ascribed as a ‘German war of aggression’ and that Britain was clueless as to the ‘evils and irrationality’ of ‘Nazism’ only ‘standing her ground’ many years after popular (i.e., the jewish) postscript maintains it should have. Of course: this, as with many a popular conception in the current era, is almost entirely poppycock built around a slim and selective propaganda foundation. The actual facts of the lead up to and the beginning of hostilities are essentially the inverse of the popular version of events with a campaign of propaganda of such a scale as to be on the scale of the Roman demonization of the Germanic and Gallic tribes and comparable in extent to modern ‘holocaust’ propaganda combined with an aggressively hostile diplomatic game played by France and Great Britain, with the support of the Roosevelt administration, ending in these powers giving a blank cheque guarantee to Poland to do ‘what thou wilt’, which presaged the attempted genocide of those perceived to be of Germanic stock in Western Poland by murderous Slavic mobs.

(2) For if Marxism must be admitted as a credible ideology, then so must National Socialism: the reason the former is considered as a credible alternative and the latter is considered an irrational aberration is due to their alleged treatment of jews. Who dominate, and have dominated, Anglo-American culture for the last century and who have turned all their energies into opposing critique of jews and arguing that the jews being critiqued for their involvement in anything equates anti-Semitism.

(3) This study was by Max Weinreich in his 1946, ‘Hitler’s Professors: The Part of Scholarship in Hitler’s Crimes against the Jewish People’, 1st Edition, YIVO: New York.

(4) Cf. Hans Guenther, 1930, ‘Rassenkunde des juedischen Volkes’, 1st Edition, Lehmann: Munich.

(5) Guenther cites Fishberg’s then well-known work on the physical anthropology and physiology of the jews, that was heavily influenced by Franz Boas whose measurements have been recently discovered to have been falsified (although neither Fishberg or Guenther could have known this): ‘Jews, Race and Environment’ [2006, [1911], 1st Edition, Transaction: New York].

(6) Johann von Leers, 1944, ‘Die Verbrechernatur der Juden’, 1st Edition, Hochmuth: Berlin.

(7) This was concerning the domination of the prostitution trade in Poland by jews.

(8) These figures related to violent crime.