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In the House of the Hangman: The Agonies of German Defeat, 1943-1949

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This is a difficult, scholarly, specialist book analyzing the question of the "collective guilt" of the Germans in a western "guilt culture". Schwartz's review above and on the dust cover is overblown, Erikson mises the point, and Teitel sounds good, but likewise tends to obfuscate the treatise. I wonder if any of the three actually read the book.

The author divides his book into essentially four parts: the attitude of the Allies, their statemen and influential individuals calling for severe penalties on the Germans (collectively and individually); The Germans themselves, history to 1948 (excluding the DDR), survival techniques during the 3rd Reich, roles of the churches, "inner immigrants", exiles, and the political leaders who built the three party system in the Federal Republic; the questions of collective guilt versus individual guilt, the cultures of guilt versus shame; and lastly the presentation of the formulations of various leading writers from various disciplines in coping with the crimes of the 3rd Reich and building a new Germany on whatever basis. It is in this last part that the author develops the construction of memory, both individual and collective, and how the equating of the oppression of the Germans after the war should not be equated to the victimhood of the Jews by the 3rd Reich.

This is an extremely complex subject, probably worthy of several scholarly volumes, but the author attempts to handle it in 340 pages. At times his discussion is excellent, even brilliant, but he glosses over or omits many crucial facts and intellectual approaches. For example, focusing on Adenauer, Schumacher and Heuss to define the political formation of democracy in the Federal Republic is far too simplistic. Nor is the development of guilt versus shame cultures anywhere near complete, although he does given a good, short rendition. He states that the West was and is in a state of decline, but then fails to use Weber's concept of a "charismatic leader" rising above the Lilliputian politicians to give the common people hope and a chance for revival. Had this been written in 2008 instead of 2005 I would have said he did this deliberately to avoid casting suspicion on Obama and the similarity of his role and timing to that of Hitler's (but without the same politics.)

After discussing Jung (putatively the coiner of "collective guilt") and others, the author opts for the use of Karl Jaspers' writings, particularly the Die Schuldfrage (Guilt Question) as the defining philosophy of guilt although it does come in for a minor share of criticism. Jaspers' table of guilt, private and public, individual and collective, of course is far too simplistic for use today. Jaspers is then used to elucidate the writings and attitudes of Heidegger, Juenger and Schmitt, whom the author presents in a seemingly fair discourse, but slanted with pejorative adjectives. Using the term "subterranean" world of radical conservatism hardly advances scholarship.

Of interest was the author's presentation of a triangle in which, "The triangle is thus complete: communists group liberalism and fascism together as outgrowths of capitalism; liberals group communism and fascism together as varieties of totalitarianism; and conservatives group communism and liberalism together as corrupt humanisms." This is far too simplistic, but a useful departure point for further discussion. It also tends to equate conservatives to fascists, something found today only among far-left ideologues. Did the author have to do this to satisfy his academic colleagues?

The title of the book comes from the famous statement, "In the house of the hanged one does not mention the noose" by changing it to, "In the house of the hangman one does not mention the noose." This is a polemical statement with which the author attempts to put all what he describes as revisionist work on the collective memory of the crimes in the 3rd Reich into proper context. The question of collective guilt is thus raised in the title -- a question which the author dances around but finally comes down on the side that there is indeed collective guilt. Although he never actually states this conclusion, he uses Marx, whom he describes as the "preeminent theorist of both revolutions and restoration" to point out the crushing burden that subsequent generations of a people carry for the sins of their forefathers.

One wonders how long this collective guilt must be accepted and punished. Certainly today, 2008, no Germans below the age of 78 can be considered guilty of Nazi crimes or even any wrongdoing by not opposing Nazis or their policies before the war ended. Do the sins of the fathers fall on their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and down the line for centuries?

Are all Russians currently living guilty under the principle of collective guilt for Stalin's mass executions, deaths in the Gulag, and oppression of millions? Woops, that's beyond the author's brief. But the case can be made that Stalin killed more people than Hitler. Evidently that memory is being erased in the former Soviet Union and the successor states to the Soviet Union are being rehabilitated much more rapidly than Germany. Why? And this is going on today, not sixty years ago. Does this blindness perhaps have something to do with the leftist orientation in American Universities or the power held by Jews in this milieu? Why don't we have a Holocaust museum for the Kulaks, Tartars, and other exterminated Russian minorities in Washington. Are the Kulaks less deserving than those who died in the Holocaust? How about the Armenians slaughtered by the Turks during World War I? Further back, one could make the case of the decimation of American Indians by the Europeans and Americans. Are we to make reparations forever collectively for this collective guilt? Or is it collective shame? Are the whites in the US today to make reparations for black slavery of 145 years ago? And the Japanese have very successfully evaded any notion of guilt the World War II, and their young people have been institutionally protected from knowledge of Japanese war crimes and their individual and collective shame (or guilt.) What happened to their guilt, collectively or individually? Of course all this is beyond the author's scope, but not beside the point. That's why the volume is incomplete.

In short, this is an important work that will most probably be read by few. I noted that my review in December, 2008 was the first review written on this book published in 2005. That is not a good sign. Maybe the people in general do not want to address these questions of guilt. Maybe we're all living in the house of the hangman and cannot mention the noose. Or even read about it.

Oh, oh -- I just restated Ernst Juenger's point.

Buy & read this book -- you'll learn something.