Vor kurzem haben wir auf der Achse zwei Auszüge aus dem neuen Buch des amerikanischen Historikers Jeff Herf veröffentlicht: „Unerklärte Kriege gegen Israel. Die DDR und die westdeutsche radikale Linke, 1967–1989“, natürlich mit Wissen und Zustimmung des Verlages und von ihm selbst. Umso überraschter waren wir, als uns eine E-Mail von Jeff Herf erreichte, in der er uns wissen ließ, dass er der Veröffentlichung nie zugestimmt hätte, wenn ihm bekannt gewesen wäre, dass wir seine "gute Freundin" Anetta Kahane mehrmals angegriffen haben (Siehe etwa hier). Herf zeigte sich auch "surprised and disappointed", also überrascht und enttäuscht, darüber, dass ich mich nicht so entwickelt habe, wie er es von mir erwartet hatte. Was soll man dazu sagen? Sorry Jeff, it's not going to happen again!
So kam es zu dem folgenden Briefwechsel, den wir im O-Ton und vollem Umfang hier wiedergeben. Davon unabhängig ist Herfs Buch, im Wallstein Verlag erschienen, nicht nur eine Fleißarbeit von über 500 Seiten, sondern auch ein ungemein wichtiger Beitrag zum Verständnis der jüngeren deutschen Geschichte und einer von Heuchelei und Verlogenheit gezeichneten Gegenwart. Well done, Jeff!
Dear Henryk,
When I agreed to have an excerpt from Unerklaerte Kriege gegen Israel published in the Achse der Guten, I was not aware that the website has published a series of attacks on my good friend, Anetta Kahane. Had I known this was the case, I would not have granted permission to do so. Learning of these attacks saddens and surprises me. I have not followed your recent writings but recall your earlier work on antisemitism in the West German left. So I had assumed that you and Anetta would be kindred spirits in fighting against a hatred that aims at all of us Jews. I am surprised and disappointed that you have chosen not to take that path. I am copying this note to Anetta Kahane and am appealing to you to stop the attacks on her and on the Antionio Amadeu Stiftung.
As a condition for continuing to leave the excerpt on your website, I also request that you publish the following statement of mine on the website.
To the Readers of Achse der Guten:
As I am not a regular reader of this website, I was not aware that it has published a number of attacks on my good friend Anetta Kahane, the Director of the Antonio Amadeu Stiftung. I assume that there are readers of this website who take a strong interest in the history of the antagonism of the East German dictatorship to the state of Israel and to the elements of antisemitism that accompanied that antagonism. In the thirty years since the revolution of 1989-1990, there are few people in German public life who have done more to focus attention on these issues than Ms. Kahane.
She did so in organizing the 2009 exhibit "Das hat's bei uns nicht gegeben: Der Antisemitismus in der DDR." Anetta Kahane expressed strong interest in my 1997 work Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Harvard University Press, 1997; deutsch, Zweierlei Erinnerung: Die NS Vergangenheit im geteilten Deutschland (Ullstein Verlag, 1998), a work that dealt with the antisemitic "anti-cosmopolitan purges" in the DDR in the 1950s, purges that were part of the early stages of the DDR's antagonism to Israel. In 2017, Anetta Kahane organized a lecture at the Antonio Amadeu Stiftung at which I spoke about the then just published English original Undeclared Wars with Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left, 1967-1989 (Cambridge University Press, 2016), the work that has just been published by Wallstein Verlag in German.
In spring and summer 1990, members of the Volkskammer, the first democratically elected parliament in East Germany, passed resolutions that rejected the DDR's policy of antagonism to Israel. The decades long work of Antetta Kahane at the Antonio Amadeu Stiftung about this issue has continued and deepened the spirit of those resolutions. Especially in this period of rising antisemitism, I urge readers of Achse der Guten to support the Antonio Amadeu Stiftung and to give credit to Anetta Kahane for the excellent work she has done in fighting against antisemitism and racism of all kinds, and in supporting the values of liberal democratic institutions."
Sincerely,
Jeffrey Herf, author of Unerklaerte Kreige gegen Israel: Die DDR und die westdeutsche Linke, 1967-1989 (Wallstein Verlag, 2019) and Distinguished University Professor
dear jeffrey,
i will be more than happy to publish your statement if you will send me a handwritten statement saying that you will not hold me liable for harming your reputation as a distinguished professor of history.
and just in case: what will you do if we do not publish your statement? will you take us to court or report to Anetta Kahane and her Stasi-friends?
happy new year, h
Dear Henryk,
Clearly we don’t agree about Anetta Kahane. Of course, I appreciate your willingness to publish an excerpt from Unerklaerte Kriege gegen Israel. As we both know, it is a work that brings long overdue evidence and interpretation into the German discussion, a discussion you have done much to stimulate. Rather than escalate this matter, I think the best thing to do is to leave things as they are. I will consider making a public statement elsewhere to express my high regard for what Anetta Kahane has accomplished as Director of the Antonio Amadeu Stiftung.
Jeffrey
yes, professor,
please feel free to express your high regard for what Anetta Kahane has accomplished as Director of the Antonio Amadeu Stiftung, do not forget her accomplishments for what she has done as a spitzel for the famous human rights NGO called Stasi. and do also honestly acknowledge her willingness to denounce people for crimes they did not commit.
sorry to say, Jeff, you are a jerk, the laughingstock of the last days of 2019.
looking forward to you book presentation. please, keep a seat for me in the first row.
sincerely, henryk
Jeffrey Herf wird sein Buch auf Einladung der Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED Diktatur am 13. Januar in Berlin vorstellen.
Von Henryk M. Broder erschien am 8. November 2019 das Buch „Wer, wenn nicht ich – Henryk M. Broder“. Der Autor befasst sich darin mit „Deutschen, Deppen, Dichtern und Denkern auf dem Egotrip“. Das Buch kann im Achgut.com-Shop bestellt werden. Die zweite Auflage ist ab sofort lieferbar.