Free PDF

Author : Connors Michael F.
Title : Dealing in Hate The Development of Anti-German Propaganda
Year : 1966

Link download : Connors_Michael_F_-_Dealing_in_Hate.zip

The Germanophobic fallacy. It is widely conceded today that the kind of thinking which presents any ethnic or national group in terms of a crude, unflattering caricature is undesirable and sloppy at the very least. Conversely, acceptance of others on the basis of individual merit, without reference to racial or national background is regarded as one of the distinguishing marks of the truly educated man. One of the most widely publicized reason, offered in explanation of our opposition to the regime of the late Adolf Hitler was its severe policy directed at Jews and other enemies of the regime. By some curious irony, however, many of the same Americans who were so quick to attack the Nazi racial doctrines have been the worst offenders in spreading abroad a fantastic myth of singular German wickedness. As a consequence of this Germanophobic myth, the very word German conjures up in all too many minds an uncomfortable, if vague, image of robot-like, goose-stepping legions of glassy-eyed storm troopers set in motion by the harshly barked commands of an Erich von Stroheim type "Prussian" officer. Furthermore, "militarism," "aggressiveness," and a marked preference for "authoritarian" over democracy have well-nigh universally been regarded as "typically German" national traits. Germanophobia in the thirties and forties had for the "educated" classes in the West an appeal which could never have been held for such concepts as "white supremacy" or anti-Semitism. It is precisely this academic and intellectual respectability of the notion of unique German wickedness, on the basis of specious racial and historical arguments, that has made of it such a dangerous fallacy. ...