Jewish Claims against East Germany
Moral Obligations and Pragmatic Policy
Angelika Timm, Humboldt University, Berlin
"I know of no other study that addresses this theme
in this depth and in this impartial and fair fashion.
Indeed, no other study comes close."
- Stephen Kalberg, Boston University
"Timm fills the vacuum with a detailed, well-written
account of negotiations over several decades on restitution
to Jewish victims of Nazi persecution - a first-rate
work of historical research."
- Choice
This is the first comprehensive history of Jewish negotiations
with East Germany regarding restitution and reparations
for Nazi war crimes. Angelika Timm analyzes the politics
of old and new anti-Semitism and the context in which
they grew under the officially propagated ideology of
antifascism.
Investigating the mass of unpublished, newly available
archival data from the United States, Israel, and the
former German Democratic Republic, and more than forty
personal interviews, Timm fills a critical gap in the
scholarship on postwar Germany. She analyzes the role
of the Holocaust and the image of Jews in the historical
consciousness and political culture of East Germany
and chronicles the efforts of Jewish organizations,
especially the Conference on Jewish Material Claims
Against Germany, to negotiate reparations with the East
German state. The unique relationship between ideology
and Realpolitik defined the manner in which East Germany
confronted the crimes of its past and allowed anti-Semitism
to reemerge.
1998
280 pages
ISBN 978-963-9116-04-71 cloth $49.95/ €42.95 / £33.00
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