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Undeclared Wars on Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left 1967-1981: An Interview with Jeffrey Herf


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Undeclared Wars on Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left 1967-1981: An Interview with Jeffrey Herf

by Jeffrey Herf

Jeffery Herf is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Maryland. His books include Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust, Divided Memory: the Nazi Past and the Two Germanys, and Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich. He spoke to Fathom editor Alan Johnson about his new book Undeclared Wars with Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left 1967-81.

 

Alan Johnson: What have been the most important influences upon your work?

Jeffrey Herf: The personal influences began in my family. My father was fortunate to be able to get out of Nazi Germany in 1937 and come to the United States so Nazi Germany and the Holocaust something I heard a lot about when I was young. My mother was a teacher in the Milwaukee public schools who cared a lot about issues of racial equality. My reform Jewish family with a deep appreciation for intellectual work and so since I was young I’ve thought of myself as a Jewish intellectual. Second, two historians left a deep impression long ago. George Mosse awakened my scholarly interest in modern German intellectual and political history. Reading Karl Bracher’s work on Nazi Germany was also key. Both took the causal impact of ideas more seriously than was fashionable in the historical profession at the time. For many years, as a historian, I have felt a particular responsibility to address ‘the Jewish question’ Scissors-32x32.png

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