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Freiheit und Wahn deutscher Arbeit : zur historischen Aktualität einer folgenreichen antisemitischen Projektion

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Freiheit und Wahn deutscher Arbeit : zur historischen Aktualität einer folgenreichen antisemitischen Projektion / Holger Schatz, Andrea Woeldike.

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Status	Format	Access	Call number	Item location
Status Request for on-site use Request scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	FormatText	AccessUse in library	Call numberHD8448 .S23 2001	Item locationOff-site

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Describes the evolution, from Luther onwards, of a specifically German ideal of work as a vocation, carried out freely and joyfully not for individual profit but for the sake of the nation. This ideal was opposed to capitalism, personified in the Jews, who were always seen as averse to labor and living at the expense of their host nation. The Nazis radicalized this ideology; they could do so because it was already ingrained in the German mentality and did not even need to be made explicit. On this basis, reinforced by projections of censured wishes of their own, Germans cooperated willingly in the exclusion and then extermination of groups "averse to labor": "asocial" Aryans, gypsies, and first and foremost the Jews. Analyzes the dynamics of this process by means of the "critical theory" of the Frankfurt School. After the war, Germans continued to cling to their ideal of work; in the GDR, it was propagated by the communist government and was still connected with antisemitism (in the form of anti-Zionism). In the current economic crisis, the identification of Jews with international finance and globalization has led to a reawakening of antisemitism.

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