Jeffrey Herf

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Jeffrey C. Herf (born April 24, 1947) is an American historian of modern Europe, particularly modern Germany. He is Distinguished University Professor, of modern European history, Emeritus at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Contents

Biography

He was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Herf's father escaped from Nazi Germany in 1937 and immigrated to the United States. His mother's parents left Ukraine to came to the United States before World War I. He grew up in a Reform Jewish family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. [1]

Herf graduated in history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1969 and received his PhD in sociology from Brandeis University in 1981. Before joining the faculty at the University of Maryland, he taught at Harvard University, Ohio University, and Emory University.

In his 1984 book, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich , drawing on critical theory, in particular ideology critique, Herf coined the term "reactionary modernism" to describe the mixture of robust modernity and an affirmative stance toward progress combined with dreams of the past, a highly technological romanticism, which was a current in the thinking of ideologues of Weimar's "conservative revolution" and of currents in the Nazi Party and Nazi regime.

His subsequent books examine the political culture of West Germany before and during the battle over Euromissiles in the 1980s; memory and politics regarding the Holocaust in East and West Germany; Nazi Germany's domestic antisemitic propaganda; and Nazi propaganda aimed at North Africa and the Middle East; and the history of antagonism to Israel by the East German regime and West German leftist organizations from the Six Day War in 1967 to the Revolutions of 1989, and the collapse of the European Communist states and the German reunification in 1990; international support for and opposition to establishing the state of Israel, 1945-1949; and an essay collection in 2024, Three Faces of Antisemitism: Right, Left, and Islamist.

Herf has had a variety of fellowships including at Harvard University, the University of Chicago, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the German Historical Institute in Washington, the Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies in Tel Aviv, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., and at the American Academy in Berlin in Fall 2007.

He reviews, and his essays on contemporary history and politics have been published in American Interest, American Purpose, Commentary, Fathom Journal, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, History News Network, The Jewish Review of Books, The New Republic, Partisan Review, Quillette, The Washington Post, Die Welt, and Die Zeit,

He is married to the historian and artist Sonya Michel. [1]

Awards and honors

Published works

Edited books

Anthony McElligott and Jeffrey Herf, eds., Antisemitism Before and Since the Holocaust: Altered Contexts and Recent Perspectives (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

Jeffrey Herf, ed., Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in Historical Perspectives: Convergence and Divergence (New York: Routledge, 2007).>

Translations

Articles

Essays and reviews on contemporary history, ideas and politics in American Interest, American Purpose, Commentary, Fathom Journal, Frankfurther Allgemeine Zeitung, History News Network, New German Critique, The New Republic, Partisan Review, Quillette, The Tablet Magazine, Telos,Times of Israel, Washington Post, Die Welt, and Die Zeit.

Related Research Articles

Antisemitism has increased greatly in the Arab world since the beginning of the 20th century, for several reasons: the dissolution and breakdown of the Ottoman Empire and traditional Islamic society; European influence, brought about by Western imperialism and Arab Christians; Nazi propaganda and relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world; resentment over Jewish nationalism; the rise of Arab nationalism; and the widespread proliferation of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Racial policy of Nazi Germany</span> Set of laws implemented in Nazi Germany

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<i>The Jewish Enemy</i> 2006 book by Jeffrey Herf

The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust is a 2006 book by University of Maryland professor Jeffrey Herf, in which the author postulates that the Nazi government maintained its hold on the German people by controlling the press and claiming that Germans were already being attacked by an international Jewish conspiracy. Herf offers in the book a thorough study of the propaganda material disseminated by the National Socialist regime.

<i>Das Reich</i> (newspaper) Nazi newspaper

Das Reich was a weekly newspaper founded by Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister of Nazi Germany, in May 1940. It was published by Deutscher Verlag.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aftermath of the Holocaust</span>

The Holocaust had a deep effect on society both in Europe and the rest of the world, and today its consequences are still being felt, both by children and adults whose ancestors were victims of this genocide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reactionary modernism</span> Political ideology characterized by embrace of technology and anti-Enlightenment thought

Reactionary modernism is a term first coined by Jeffrey Herf in the 1980s to describe the mixture of "great enthusiasm for modern technology with a rejection of the Enlightenment and the values and institutions of liberal democracy" that was characteristic of the German Conservative Revolutionary movement and Nazism. In turn, this ideology of reactionary modernism was closely linked to the original, positive view of the Sonderweg, which saw Germany as the great Central European power, neither of the West nor of the East.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world</span> Aspect of the World War II period

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<i>Mein Kampf</i> in Arabic

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hitler's prophecy</span> Adolf Hitlers speech on 30 January 1939

During a speech at the Reichstag on 30 January 1939, German Führer Adolf Hitler threatened "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe" in the event of war:

If international finance Jewry inside and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, the result will be not the Bolshevization of the earth and thereby the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.

<i>Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East</i> Book by Wolfgang G. Schwanitz and Barry Rubin

Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East is a controversial 2014 Yale University Press book by German historian Wolfgang G. Schwanitz and Israeli historian Barry Rubin. The authors argue that there is a high degree of similarity in the ideologies of Nazism, radical Arab nationalism, and Islamism. The book received a mixed reception, with some historians criticizing the authors' methodology and conclusions.

<i>Undeclared Wars with Israel</i>

Undeclared Wars with Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left, 1967–1989 is a book by Jeffrey Herf, published by Cambridge University Press in 2015. The book argues that East Germany in particular was extremely hostile to Israel and waged "undeclared wars" against it by funding Arab militant groups and other anti-Israel actions. The book received positive reviews for being well researched and uncovering new information on East Germany's relationship with Israel.

<i>Parole der Woche</i> Nazi propaganda wall newspaper

Parole der Woche was a wall newspaper published by the Reichspropagandaleitung der NSDAP from 1937 to 1943. Historian Jeffrey Herf describes Parole der Woche as "the most ubiquitous and intrusive aspect of Nazism's visual offensive ... no form of Nazi visual propaganda made so crucial a contribution to the regime's presentation of ongoing events".

The claim that there was a Jewish war against Nazi Germany is an antisemitic conspiracy theory promoted in Nazi propaganda which asserts that the Jews, framed within the theory as a single historical actor, started World War II and sought the destruction of Germany. Alleging that war was declared in 1939 by Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, Nazis used this false notion to justify the persecution of Jews under German control on the grounds that the Holocaust was justified self-defense. Since the end of World War II, the conspiracy theory has been popular among neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers.

The international Jewish conspiracy or the world Jewish conspiracy has been described as "the most widespread and durable conspiracy theory of the twentieth century" and "one of the most widespread and long-running conspiracy theories". Although it typically claims that a malevolent, usually global Jewish circle, referred to as International Jewry, conspires for world domination, the conspiracy theory's content is extremely variable, which helps explain its wide distribution and long duration. It was popularized in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century especially by the antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Among the beliefs that posit an international Jewish conspiracy are Jewish Bolshevism, Cultural Marxism, Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory, White genocide conspiracy theory and Holocaust denial. The Nazi leadership's belief in an international Jewish conspiracy that it blamed for starting World War II and controlling the Allied powers was key to their decision to launch the Final Solution.

References