Germany chairs International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
March 3, 2020
Germany has taken the rotating lead of the IHRA Holocaust remembrance intergovernmental body, 75 years after the end of World War II. Sweden's former Prime Minister Goran Persson initiated the alliance in 1998.
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The chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) passed Tuesday to Germany for one year, with the aim of countering acts and perpetrators of Holocaust denial and falsification.
Germany's assumption of the IHRA chair from Luxembourg — at an evening ceremony in Berlin — will overlap in July with Germany assuming the six-month presidency of the EU Council of Ministers.
Two IHRA assemblies are planned this year in Germany: one in Berlin in June, and the second in Leipzig in November, with a focus on creating a "Global Task Force against Holocaust falsification."
Heading Germany's IHRA team is ambassador Michaela Küchler, who is the German Foreign Office's special commissioner for relations with Jewish organizations. Since 2008, the IHRA's permanent office is located in Berlin.
Germany bears 'special responsibility'
The Central Council of Jews in Germany said the post-war Federal Republic of Germany bore "special responsibility" in the battle against "forgetting" the murder of six million Jews under the 12-year Nazi Hitler regime that was defeated in 1945.
The council also welcomed the intention of Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government to promote definition updates, help evolve IHRA teaching materials, and make anti-Semitism a more severe crime.
Central focus: Definitions
Küchler said the aim was to "do more" in defining Holocaust denial and falsification as well as anti-Semitism, adopted by 19 IHRA members in 2013 and 2016.
Paragraph 130 of Germany's Penal Code already makes Holocaust denial punishable with up to five years' imprisonment. Similar laws exist in 18 other European nations.
The agenda of the 34-nation IHRA — comprising mostly of EU nations (but excluding Malta and Cyprus), as well as the US, Canada, Argentina, Australia, Britain and Switzerland — also includes antiziganism, or hostility towards Sinti and Roma, and an early warning system for potential future genocides.
Persson's 1998 initiative resulted in the Stockholm Declaration of 2000 that stressed the singularity or exceptional character of the Holocaust; obligations to educate younger generations; and to ensure a future "world without genocide."
In the past, critics of Germany's adoption of the IHRA definition had asserted that it potentially blurred the line between anti-Semitism, so defined, and criticism of Israel.
'Parade of hate and intolerance'
Among 50 heads of state who in late-January attended Israel's Yad Vashem remembrance of the 1945 liberation of the Auschwitz death camp by Soviet troops, French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the resurgence of anti-Semitism worldwide, calling it a "parade of hate and intolerance."
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin urged the world to adopt the IHRA's updated definitions, describing anti-Semitism as a "chronic" scourge from the political right and left that throughout history had taken on various guises.
Chairing a German integration summit in Berlin Monday, 12 days after racist shooting attacks in Hanau, Chancellor Merkel said the country's fight against racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia was a matter of "deepest concern" for her grand coalition government — which has been in office since early 2018.
How the Nazis promoted anti-Semitism through film
The Nazis wove anti-Semitism into their films, often quite subtly, as part of their propaganda scheme. How should these films be treated today?
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Hitler's favorite director
Leni Riefenstahl was among the Nazi filmmakers who tried to redeem their reputations after 1945. She was responsible for filming the Nazi party's massive rallies and was an integral part of the propaganda machine. Anti-Semitism was inseparable from the party's ideology.
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Retelling history with anti-Semitic twist
"Jud Süss," one of the Nazis' most famous propaganda films, which is restricted today, was directed by Viet Harlan in 1940. Harlan tells the historical tale of 18th-century German-Jewish banker Joseph Süss Oppenheimer and places it in the context of anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda. "Jud Süss" was seen by millions of Germans when it was first released.
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Mixing anti-Semitism with 'art'
In Harlan's film, anti-Semitic prejudices are underlined by the plot and the way the characters are portrayed. The writer Ralph Giordano said, "Jud Süss" was the "most mean-spirited, cruel and refined form of 'artistic anti-Semitism.'" Michael Töteberg wrote, "The film openly mobilizes sexual fears and aggression and instrumentalizes them for anti-Semitic incitement."
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'The devil's director'
His biographer once called Veit Harlan "the devil's director," due to his unabashed service to Nazi ideology. Harlan had "qualified" himself to make "Jud Süss" after making his own films with anti-Semitic tendencies in the 1930s. After 1945, the director was able to continue working after going on trial and serving a temporary occupational ban.
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Dealing with propaganda films - in film
Much was written and said about Viet Harlan and his anti-Semitic film "Jud Süss" after the war. At least one response to Harlan's work was uttered in film form. Director Oskar Roehler dealt with the origin and effect of the propaganda film in his melodramatic, controversial film "Jud Suss: Rise and Fall" (2010).
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Concorde Filmverleih
Joseph Goebbels pulled the strings
The Nazis were quick to recognize that cinema could have a powerful effect in swaying the people. Joseph Goebbels and his Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda used the medium to promote their ideologies, including anti-Semitism. Besides feature films like "Jud Süss," cultural and educational films were also made.
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A so-called documentary
Another Nazi-made anti-Semitic film was "The Eternal Jew," released just a few months after "Jud Süss" in 1940. The film, made by Fritz Hippler, shows well-known Jewish artists, scenes from the Warsaw Ghetto and images of Jewish religious practices, combining them in a deceitful manner with excerpts from Hitler's speeches and SS marches. The propaganda work was billed as a documentary.
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Devil in the details
Most of the propaganda films the Nazis made between 1933 and 1945 used smaller doses of anti-Semitism and were not as overt as "Jud Süss." Some films were even toned down during production. The historical film "Bismarck" (1940) was originally planned as a much more aggressive anti-Semitic propaganda film.
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Anti-Semitism from the perspective of Charlie Chaplin
During the war, Hollywood produced a number of anti-Nazi films that condemned anti-Semitism. Charlie Chaplin humorously portrayed Hitler in "The Great Dictator" in 1940. After the war, Chaplin said he would have acted differently, had he been aware of the extent of the Nazis' extermination policy against the Jews.
