Der Standard, May 25, 2021
German original: https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000126895654/michael-brenner-juedische-geschichte-so-schreiben-wie-jede-andere-geschichte
Brenner receives the first Baron Prize from the University of Vienna. The historian reminds us: Jewish history after the Holocaust must not become cleaned history.
Interview by Sebastian Plumberger
Michael Brenner does not want to be an academic in an ivory tower. He injects himself, positions himself against anti-Semitism, criticizes the AfD, and views historiography also with a contemporary eye. The historian, who focuses on Jewish history of the 19th and 20th centuries, will be awarded the Salo-W-and-Jeanette-M.-Baron-Prize on Tuesday. The prize was awarded for the first time this year by the University of Vienna and the Knapp Family Foundation. It is designed to remember Salo Wittmayer Baron, who is considered one of the founding fathers of Jewish Studies in the United States. In addition to the main prize, two prizes for young academics will also be awarded every two years in the future.
Baron, born in 1895 in Tarnów, then in the Habsburg Monarchy, studied in Vienna, emigrated to the United States and taught at Columbia University beginning in 1930. Brenner’s academic “grandfather,” whose doctoral advisor earned his doctorate himself under Baron’s supervision. The transatlantic academic career of Michael Brenner, who grew up in Weiden in der Oberpfalz, has come full circle. Brenner teaches in Munich as well as at American University in Washington, DC and focuses on European Jewish culture and intensively on the history of the state of Israel as well.
STANDARD: “The proverbial suitcases, long unpacked, are still in the attics of many Jews in Germany. We should get them down.” This is what you wrote two years ago, shortly after the attack in Halle. How do you see the situation today?
Brenner: I think that nothing substantial has changed. The surveys show that anti-Semitism continues to be present in society. Due to Corona, the whole field of conspiracy theories has been added. Even if those are not always explicitly anti-Semitic, one knows that in most cases they have something to do with Jews, because they are the oldest available bogeyman. The legend that the Jews poisoned the wells exists since the middle ages, and in addition, probably the most notorious, are the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, who assume a Jewish world conspiracy. This shows up in conspiracy theories over and over again.
STANDARD: With regards to ani-Semitism you wrote in a article in 2019: “Were we wrong?” Where were you wrong in the course of your historical research?
Brenner: I think that historians change their perspective in a way that society changes. This applies to me as well. Ten or twenty years ago, I did not think that we will have to face such a massive resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. I was more optimistic in evaluating the present.
STANDARD: You teach in the United States and also in Germany: Do you see a difference?
Brenner: Unfortunately I noticed an increase of these irrational theses during the four years of the Trump Administration, in addition to many anti-democratic theses. When you hear those, anti-Semitism is not far away. But there is a difference between the United States and Europe. It is rooted in the fact that anti-Semitism historically is not as manifested in U.S. society. At the same time, there exists a much bigger Jewish community, interactions with each other are more natural due to the absence of the Shoah and the centuries-old history of persecution in Europe.
STANDARD: You also publish current pieces for debate on a regular basis. Is this your approach to telling history?
Brenner: Yes, but it is also difficult for a historian who deals with Jewish history of the 20th century to say that the present does not concern me. The view into the past always originates from your own standpoint. At the least, historians are not less qualified as others to write about the present and to apply certain lessons from the past.
STANDARD: Jewish history of the past 200 years is also a history of constant legitimization. What does writing about constant struggle do to historiography?
Brenner: This is already relevant in the 19th century. Back then, the emerging science of Judaism was thinking about how to deal with issues in order not to lose the struggle for emancipation. They did not want to weaponize their opponents with their research. I tried to describe that in my book Propheten des Vergangenen. We still ask the question today: how do you phrase certain theses so that they are not misunderstood by a wider public? This is a big challenge, indeed.
STANDARD: What are the consequences of this evaluation?
Brenner: In such instances, science is always in a precarious position. We want to write Jewish history like we write any other history. This means if there were Jewish gangsters in 20th century America, then we should describe that. Jews were no angels, they were not better and also not worse.
STANDARD: You are being awarded the newly created Baron Prize. Baron began to teach in the United States during the 1920s. What is the greatest difference between Jewish historiography before and after the Holocaust?
Brenner: The big challenge is not to turn Jewish history after the Holocaust into a cleaned history. We want to portray all the good and bad in Jewish history; that is of course not easy after such a chapter. We do not want all of Jewish history to be seen solely through the lens of the Holocaust.
STANDARD: You have met Salo Baron. How did he tell the story?
Brenner: When I had the pleasure to meet Salo Baron he was already over 90 years old. As a young historian he wrote the paper “Ghetto and Emancipation:” In it, he argued against many things that were considered self-evident in Jewish history. Ghetto for him is a term for pre-modern Jewry. The Ghetto wasn’t as dark as it has been perceived, but emancipation is not as bright either. During the middle ages and in early modernity, Jewish history was not just a history of persecution. Jews often were better off than others, like for example farming communities. There were of course expulsions and persecution, but not all the time and not everywhere. Baron opposed what could maybe be labelled as whiny history. Jewish history is full of both joy and suffering.
STANDARD: And in the area of emancipation – how does Baron judge here?
Brenner: In the second part of his paper he argues that it is wrong to believe that Jewish history is shined on by a bright light ever since the beginning of emancipation, that it has been one positive history of integration. He had already noticed in 1928 that the modern state is the bigger threat to the Jewish minority, bigger than middle age- or early modernist societies or the church have ever been. Modern nationalism harbors dangers that did not exist before.
STANDARD: Emancipation led to the state itself becoming more of a threat to the Jewish population.
Brenner: Jews needed emancipation less than the state did, they often did not want emancipation. They had to pay a price, had to assimilate, change their name, their clothing, their professions. Since the beginning of the 19th century they were partly recognized as a “race” in the newly burgeoning racism. As of that moment, there was no more escape via a baptism.
STANDARD: The question that I gathered from your last book, but also from your contributions to debate is: how does one recognize the beginnings, or can they only be recognized once they are no longer the beginnings?
Brenner: The problem is that the beginnings cannot be recognized. In 1930 it was also not clear that Hitler would become Reich Chancellor in 1933. History could have taken a different turn. One sees things brewing and as a politically active human one has to react to it. Not because one is sure, but because something could develop. It is historically wrong to accuse German Jews of not having seen it in 1933. The Holocaust could also not be predicted in 1935, also because it was not planned. We always say “nip it in the bud!” (Wehret den Anfängen). And that has a certain meaning because certain developments are troubling. But there must not necessarily be any further development. It also depends on how many take a stand against anti-democratic movements. Had a bigger portion of the German population stood against it in 1933 things could have developed in a different direction.
STANDARD: We are approaching the end of the pandemic, and we also do not know in what direction society will develop and if it will end well.
Brenner: I can only speak from the perspective of a historian. Hypothetically, if Hitler hadn’t come to power in 1933 and the Holocaust had never happened – how would we tell the history of 1920s Jews today? Also, if the history of Jews in the 1920s would not have been any different, as it had already happened, we would still tell it differently. Maybe we would have written a history of successful emancipation. We always tell history from the viewpoints that are available to us.
Standard: Holocaust history is also told via contemporary witnesses. There are fewer and fewer Survivors. Will this change research and also commemoration?
Brenner: There are hardly any contemporary witnesses that can tell what they experiences as at least halfway adults. I experienced myself how impressive that can be. My mother herself did visit schools as a Holocaust Survivor, sometimes I joined her. There, I noticed that it is not just the words alone that have an effect, it is the gestures, too. She added humor at times when it was not expected. This really freed the mood in the classrooms. You can only understand that if you experienced it yourself. I know her history inside and out. But that of course does not come across like that. Insofar this loss is indeed irreplaceable. With this loss this era moves into the past a little further.
Michael Brenner, born 1964, studied in Heidelberg and at Columbia University in the United States. Today, the historian teaches at the University of Munich and at American University in Washington, DC. Brenner is also International President of the Leo Baeck Institute.