Jews and Germans at the Turn of the Century

In: Telos, Volume 28, p. 167-173

Abstract

It has been argued by the Frankfurt school that the Nazi holocaust was a special case of capitalism's obliteration of particularity in the effort to make reality into a system of commodities. This may, however, have been characteristic not of monopoly capitalism, but of the transition phase from entrepreneurial capitalism. A variety of perspectives on the relation between Jews & Germans at the turn of the century, which gave rise to this transitional situation, were presented at a conference held in St. Louis, Mo on 7-9 April 1976. Statements of participants are briefly summarized. The conference produced no definition of Jews, & was disturbing in its unwillingness to see the holocaust as other than a historical aberration. W. H. Stoddard.