Walter Laqueur

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Walter (Zeev) Laqueur (born May 26, 1921 in Breslau , German Reich ; died September 30, 2018 in Washington, DC ) was an American historian and publicist of German-Jewish origin.

Life

Weimar Republic and Nazi dictatorship

Laqueur attended a primary school in Breslau , where he was with students from rich aristocratic families and from the Jewish upper middle class. In this rather elitist environment, he quickly felt out of place. The school management gave him the opportunity to complete four years of elementary school in just three years, which probably saved his life during the Nazi era , as it enabled him to obtain his Abitur before the pogrom night of 1938. Later he attended the Johannesgymnasium Breslau , where he a. a. Willy Cohn taught. The first major events Laqueur remembered were the sight of the Graf Zeppelin airship hovering over his hometown and the 1930 Reichstag election , which made the National Socialists the second largest party.

From a young age, Laqueur was, as he wrote in his autobiography, a passionate newspaper reader. Since he could not afford to buy many newspapers every day, he went into the editorial building and asked for sample copies. There was literature, concerts, museums and the cinema in his youth. To distract himself, Laqueur did sports, e.g. B. athletics, soccer, handball and boxing. Laqueur sympathized with the KPO underground and read Marxist literature, such as Karl Korsch or Fritz Sternberg . In 1935 or 1936, encouraged by his parents, he realized the need to leave the country. At that time half of his Jewish friends had emigrated. Laqueur tried to find relatives abroad, but without success. He turned down an offer to study engineering in Czechoslovakia . Finally, at the age of 17, he emigrated to Palestine .

The memories of his youth in Germany were of the greatest importance for his work as a historian and his thinking as a political commentator. Looking back, he asked himself the following questions: Why did the Weimar Republic fail ? How did Hitler and the NSDAP manage their rapid ascent? Would the NSDAP have been successful without Hitler? And why did the Germans and other European countries fail to recognize the dangers that Hitler presented?

In the kibbutz

Once in Palestine, thanks to a coincidence and the generosity of an uncle, Laqueur was able to enroll at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem . Fortunately for him, the administration overlooked the fact that he was still a minor and should therefore not have been enrolled. However, he did not stay long at this university because he was unable to study medicine there and history, which he had chosen as an alternative, did not promise him any prospects.

Laqueur set out on a tour of kibbutzim, mainly in the Jordan Valley and the Jezreel plain , and at the beginning of 1939 decided to work in the kibbutz Hasorea, which was founded by workers . As the youngest there, however, he felt like an outsider and therefore joined a group in Kibbutz Sha'ar HaGolan in the Jordan Valley in March 1939 .

At his new place of work, Laqueur was not only confronted with the cultural differences between the various Jewish immigrant groups and the frequent rejection of Jews from Germany, but also had the opportunity to acquire Arabic language skills. But his trek through the kibbutzim continued. In the autumn of 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II, he and his group moved to the Ein Shemer kibbutz, which is closer to Haifa , where he stayed for about a year. Here he also met his future wife, Barbara Koch (1920–1995) from Frankfurt am Main, who later called herself Naomi. The daughter of the physician Richard Koch came to the children's and youth village Ben Shemen via Haifa in November 1936 and then also joined the kibbutz movement.

In the late summer of 1940, he and Naomi became members of Kibbutz Shamir , which, however, soon split up. The two of them went back to Hasorea in early 1942. "My kibbutz life began there and was to end in the same place in 1944."

Among other things, Laqueur worked as a guard in Hasorea, which gave him a lot of time to think on lonely nights, “and it was during those long hours in a landscape that I had come to love that I came to the conclusion that kibbutz life was not made for me. [..] I longed for the time to study. ”At the same time, however, the Second World War also took its toll. Laqueur became a member of the Hagana and wanted to join the British Army in early 1943. Having already arrived at the place of recruitment, he had to spend a night there before enrolling.

“That gave me the opportunity to reconsider my decision. On the one hand, there was the moral duty to do more for warfare; on the other hand, almost the certainty that 'colonial units' recruited in Palestine would at best be used as pioneers in Egypt or perhaps in Persia - which made the categorical imperative appear less compelling. So I left Sarafend the next morning and returned to the kibbutz without having signed up and accepted the King's Shilling. "

- Walter Laqueur : Wanderer against Wilen , p. 232

In the summer of 1944, Laqueur finally left Hasorea and moved to Jerusalem. When he applied for a visa for the USA for the first time in the mid-1950s, he was initially refused on the grounds that he had been a member of a communist settlement and had never publicly renounced the kibbutz. Only a positive review by Walter Lippmann of Laqueur's first book published in English brought about the turning point. But he had fond memories of kibbutz life.

“Of all the alternative models of modern life, the kibbutz was the most successful and enduring, and it was - at least for me - a privilege to have been there almost at the beginning. [..] Even in Israel the general trend has moved away from the ideals of the kibbutz - albeit not for the better. Perhaps the kibbutz experiment will go down in the annals of mankind as a merely utopian interlude with local significance. But what would the story be without the occasional appearance of a group like the old Argonauts who dared to break into unknown waters? "

- Walter Laqueur : Wanderer against Wilen , p. 237

In Jerusalem, Laqueur saw the end of World War II and the Israeli War of Independence (1948). The living conditions and the need to secure a livelihood did not allow him to receive an academic education. He earned his living first in Ulrich Salingré's antiquarian bookshop and bookstore Heatid (Die Zukunft) , then from spring 1946 to 1953 as a journalist , before the autodidact gained a reputation as a historian through his publications. He started his journalistic career as the Jerusalem correspondent of the Hamishmar newspaper, founded in 1943 by the Hashomer Hatzair movement .

Laqueur's parents, who were already over fifty and did not trust themselves to start over, as well as numerous other relatives were killed in the Holocaust .

Fascination Russia

From a young age, Laqueur was fascinated by Russia. He was already familiar with Soviet politics and the history of the CPSU , but the history of Russia in the 19th and early 20th centuries interested him more than the present. After a broken leg in Hasorea's washroom, he learned Russian for up to eight hours a day from a former teacher in 1942. Besides her, his work colleagues were other sources of inspiration and information, mostly Jews from Russia and Siberia, who taught him songs - and curses. Laqueur visited the Soviet Union for the first time in his thirties and has since traveled to the country almost every year, be it for private reasons, e.g. B. to visit the family of his late wife Naomi in the Caucasus, or for professional reasons, when he went on extensive trips through the Soviet Union on behalf of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung . His knowledge of the country made him distance himself from revisionist interpretations of the Cold War and Isaac Deutscher's interpretation of Stalin . So he agreed with John Lewis Gaddis . However, his interest in the Soviet Union died out when party leader Brezhnev entered a phase of stagnation, although the Soviet Union continued to be an important player in world politics. It was only when Gorbachev became head of the CPSU that his interest reawakened.

In the book Putinism: Where is Russia Going? (2015) he calls Russia a “dictatorship with great popular support”. After writing about Russian patriotism in the 1990s, he found the assumption that it would go in the direction of the authoritarian right, but could not foresee that this development would - in his own words - “go so far and would go so quickly ” . He described the fact that the left abroad did not want to notice this as “ludicrous”.

Grand Tour

In the early 1950s he began his Grand Tour through Europe with stops in Paris , Berlin and London . When Laqueur toured Europe after World War II, he not only studied European history, but also regularly followed the British, French and German press; he was therefore well informed about current international politics. He had written commentaries on European politics for a number of years, but he always relied on second-hand knowledge and information because he had no own relevant experience. In Paris, he visited the office of the Congress for Cultural Freedom in May 1953. For the Congress, which fell out of favor in the 1960s for being financially supported by the CIA , Laqueur wrote a monthly circular with a circulation of several hundred copies . At first it was not accepted by the Congress as an integral part of the program, but after a while the volume of the circular grew. Gradually it evolved into a quarterly journal - the name was changed from Soviet Culture to Soviet Survey and was eventually just called Survey. The survey was a journal for history, politics and sociology as well as for cultural trends and appeared regularly for almost a quarter of a century thereafter. Laqueur's participation in Congress lasted about ten years, but he was never permanently employed. Laqueur then founded the Journal of Contemporary History together with George Mosse in 1966 , for which he won leading historians as authors for important articles, such as: B. Klaus Epstein , Wolfgang J. Mommsen , Eugen Weber and others. The Journal of Contemporary History has been published quarterly to this day. Laqueur's second stop was the destroyed Berlin, where the rubble had been cleared away, but many neighborhoods had not been rehabilitated. Then there was the division of the city. His third stop was London. What was originally intended as a longer visit turned into a stay of fifteen years.

Since the 1950s, Walter Laqueur lived mainly in Washington, DC and London . He has held professorships at Brandeis and Georgetown Universities and has held numerous visiting professorships at renowned universities in the United States and Israel . From 1965 to 1994 he was director of the Institute of Contemporary History in London.

Interests and work

In his work, Walter Laqueur dealt in particular with the history of Europe - a. a. with the “Euro-optimism”, which he found exaggerated - or with Finland's special path , with the history of Russia in the 20th century - here v. a. with Stalin, with the structure and prospects of the existence of the Soviet Union as well as with prognoses for today's Russia - and more recently with the political situation in the Middle East . In addition, Laqueur is considered to be an important founder of the academic study of political violence and terrorism .

In 2006 Laqueur published “The last days of Europe - A continent is changing its face”, a controversial essay in which he prophesied that the European continent would sink into political insignificance. At the same time, the increased immigration, especially from the Islamic area, is changing the face of the continent.

Terrorism and guerrilla wars

Laqueur had his first personal experience with terrorism after the Second World War in Jerusalem , when he involuntarily witnessed a bank robbery. The event itself made little impression on him, but it prepared him for the confrontation with acts of terrorism that were then being carried out across the region. He had already recognized in the 1970s that a definition of terrorism was impossible because its nature is constantly changing and it is always shaped by its political and cultural environment. As he himself noted 30 years later, there is still no clear definition of terrorism. In addition to terrorism, Laqueur was also interested in guerrilla wars , such as the wars waged by Mao in China or by Castro in Cuba . To this end, he published his studies History of Terrorism and Guerrilla - for years they were the second most cited books.

near and Middle East

In the early 1950s, Laqueur wanted to become an expert on the Near and Middle East for a while. But he found it depressing not to see any solutions to the innumerable conflicts that ruled this region, which after the Second World War now consisted of independent countries. Instead, he dealt with the new tendencies that were gradually emerging here: the growth of Arab nationalism , the emergence of radical Islam as a political factor and, in isolated cases, even state socialism . He also dealt with the state of Israel and its economic dependence on foreign countries after the state was founded, but also with the later conflicts and wars with its neighboring countries.

In 2008, Laqueur wrote an essay on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel: “Disraelia. A Counterfactual History 1848–2008 “ about a fictional history of Israel: What would the situation look like in the Middle East today if a charismatic leader had appeared in the 19th century and explained to his fellow believers that there was no future for the Jews in Europe, but there was a tempting opportunity for them in the Middle East? What if this project had been supported by several European royal families, states and the Church and had received financial support for it? Would the Holocaust have happened at all and would Israel today live in peace with its neighboring countries? What rank would this country have in the world today?

In a newspaper article about Eurabia in 2010, Laqueur characterized Islamic radicalism less as religious fundamentalism than as frustration at failed integration.

19th century

If Laqueur had been able to start all over again, he would, by his own admission, probably not have dealt with history and politics. If he had had a choice, he would have chosen the 19th century rather than the previous century. According to his taste, the 20th century had “too much politics”, too many events of historical importance and too little culture, entertainment, joie de vivre . The 19th century was certainly not the most glorious in human history, although the New York Times described the 19th century as the prime of all centuries in a 15-part series. Wars, censorship, depression, economic ups and downs overshadowed the course of time, but at the same time there was a dynamic optimism about the future - an optimism that Laqueur, despite all modern technological achievements, cannot share for the 21st century. In the last lines of his biography My 20th Century. Stations of a political life of the author comes to the cautious advice back, he wants to give his descendants: You should not make too much hope for the foreseeable future. Of course, he concludes, they should have come to this conclusion long ago even without his advice.

Works (selection)

as an author

  • The Middle East in Transition. 1958.
  • The German youth movement. A historical study. (Young Germany). Science & Politics, Cologne 1962.
  • Anti-Comintern , in: Survey - A Journal of Soviet and East European Studies , No. 48, July 1963, pp. 145-162
  • Homecoming. Travel back in time . Propylaea, Berlin 1964.
  • New wave in the Soviet Union. Persistence and progress in literature and art . Europa, Vienna 1964. (Adapted from: the same In: Survey. London, H. 46, 1963)
  • The State of Soviet Studies. MIT Press, 1965.
  • Germany and Russia. (Russia and Germany). Translation by Karl Heinz Abshagen . Propylaea, Berlin 1965.
  • Myth of the Revolution. (The fate of revolution). Fischer, Frankfurt 1967.
  • Middle East before the storm. (The road to war). Fischer, Frankfurt 1968.
  • Left intellectuals between the two world wars (Leftwing intellectuals between the wars). Nymphenburger, Munich 1969.
  • The way to the State of Israel. History of zionism . (A history of zionism). Europe, Vienna 1975, ISBN 3-203-50560-6 .
  • Weimar. The culture of the republic. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1977, ISBN 3-548-03383-0 .
  • Guerrilla warfare. A historical and critical study. 5th edition. New Brunswick, NJ 2006, ISBN 0-7658-0406-9 .
  • Terrorism. London 1977. (German translation: Terrorism. Athenaeum, Kronberg / Ts 1977, ISBN 3-7610-8500-1 )
  • Europe before the decision. (A continent of stray). Kindler, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-463-00736-3 .
  • What nobody wanted to know. The suppression of news about Hitler's final solution . Ullstein, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-548-33027-4 . (via the Riegner telegram )
  • Looking forward, looking back. A Decade of World Politics. Washington Papers, Greenwood 1983.
  • Years on demand. Novel about the survival of a Jewish doctor in Berlin during the Third Reich. (The missing years). Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1984, ISBN 3-404-10383-1 .
  • Europe from the ashes. History since 1945 (Europe since Hitler). Juncker, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-7796-8004-1 .
  • Terrorism. The global challenge. (The age of terrorism). Ullstein, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-550-07985-0 .
  • What's wrong with the Germans? (Germany today). Ullstein, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-548-34439-9 .
  • with Richard Breitman: The man who broke the silence. How the world found out about the Holocaust. (Breaking the silence). Ullstein, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-548-33092-4 . (About Eduard Schulte )
  • The long way to freedom. Russia under Gorbachev. (The long way to freedom). Ullstein, Frankfurt 1989, ISBN 3-550-07650-9 .
  • Stalin. Billing under the sign of glasnost. (Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations). Kindler, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-463-40136-3 .
  • Europe on the way to becoming a world power 1945–1992. (Europe in our time). Kindler, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-463-40202-5 .
  • The womb is still fertile. The militant nationalism of the Russian right. (Black Hundred). Droemer Knaur, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-426-80055-1 .
  • Reluctant hikers. Memories 1921–1951. (Thursday's Child Has Far to Go. A Memoir of the Journeying Years). Quintessenz, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-86124-270-2 .
  • The Dream That Failed: Reflections on the Soviet Union. Oxford UP, 1996.
  • Fascism: Past, Present, Future. Oxford UP, 1997.
    • German: Fascism: yesterday, today, tomorrow. Ullstein, Frankfurt 2000, ISBN 3-548-26570-7 .
  • The Arendt cult. Hannah Arendt as a political commentator. In: European Rundschau. Quarterly magazine for politics, business and current affairs. H. 4, 1998 (autumn), Vienna ISSN  0304-2782 pp. 111-125.
  • with Walter Reich: Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind. Johns Hopkins UP, Baltimore 1998.
  • The New Terrorism. Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction. Oxford UP, 1999.
  • Born in Germany. The exodus of the Jewish youth after 1933. (Generation exodus. The fate of young Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany). Propylaea, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-549-07122-1 .
  • Voices of terror. Manifestos, writings, and manuals of Al-Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorists from around the world and throughout the ages , New York, NY (Reed Press) 2004. ISBN 978-1-59429-035-0
  • The global threat. New threats of terrorism. (Dawn of Armageddon). Econ, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-548-70089-6 .
  • War on the west. Terrorism in the 21st Century . Ullstein, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-548-36678-3 .
  • Faces of Anti-Semitism. From the beginnings till now. (The changing face of anti-semitism). Propylaea, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-549-07336-0 .
  • Jerusalem. Jewish dream and Israeli reality. (Jerusalem beyond zionism). Ullstein, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-548-36807-7 .
  • The last days of Europe. A continent is changing its face. (The last days of Europe). Translated by Henning Thies. Propylaen, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-549-07300-3 (extended new edition 2016).
  • My 20th century. Stations of a political life. Propylaea, Berlin 2009.
  • After the Fall: The End of the European Dream and the Decline of a Continent. Macmillan, 2012.
  • Europe after the fall . Translated from the English by Klaus Pemsel. Herbig, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-7766-2699-5 .
  • Putinism. Where is Russia going? Propylaea, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-549-07461-9 .
  • The last days of Europe . LIT, Berlin 2018 ISBN 978-3-643-13351-9 .

as editor

  • Outbreak of war in 1914 (Dialog 44 Collection). Nymphenburger, Munich 1970.
  • Evidence of political violence. Documents on the history of terrorism. (Terrorism Reader). Athenaeum, Kronberg 1978, ISBN 3-7610-8501-X .
  • with Judith Tydor Baumel: The Holocaust encyclopedia . Yale UP, New Haven 2001, ISBN 0-300-08432-3 .
  • Arthur Koestler : Scum of the Earth . Reprint. Eland Press, 2006, ISBN 0-907871-49-6 .

literature

  • Andreas Mink: Shouts from a lost city. Conversation with Walter Laqueur . In: Structure . The Jewish monthly magazine . Vol. 72 (2007), pp. 23-25.
  • Jehuda Reinharz u. a. (Ed.): The impact of Western nationalisms. Essays dedicated to Walter Z. Laqueur on the occasion of his 70th. birthday . Sage Publ, London 1992, ISBN 0-8039-8766-8 .
  • Laqueur Walter: My 20th Century. Stations of a political life. Propylaea, Berlin 2009.
  • Andreas W. Daum : Refugees from Nazi Germany as Historians. Origins and Migrations, Interests and Identities . In: Daum u. a. (Ed.): The Second Generation: Émigrés from Nazi Germany as Historians. Berghahn Books, New York 2016, ISBN 978-1-78238-985-9 , pp. 1–52.
  • Barbara Stambolis : Walter Laqueur (1921-2018). In: Historical magazine . 309, 2019, pp. 377-381.

Movie

  • In the film We Are Jews from Breslau (2016) by Karin Kaper and Dirk Szuszies, Walter Laqueur speaks in detail as a contemporary witness.

Web links

Individual evidence

  • ( L ) Walter Laqueur: My 20th century. Stations of a political life. Propylaea, Berlin 2009.
  1. p. 29.
  2. p. 18.
  3. p. 30f.
  4. p. 39.
  5. pp. 54-57.
  6. pp. 74-77.
  7. pp. 100-102.
  8. p. 316.
  9. pp. 104-107.
  10. p. 316.
  11. p. 273.
  12. p. 297.
  13. p. 166.
  14. pp. 175-181.
  15. p. 10.
  16. p. 344.

  1. ^ A b Emily Langer: Walter Laqueur, eminent scholar who probed the 20th century, dies at 97. In: The Washington Post . September 30, 2018, accessed October 1, 2018 .
  2. ^ Wanderer against Wilen , pp. 191–192
  3. Wanderer against Wilen , pp. 205–206
  4. ^ Wanderer against Wilen , pp. 200–201
  5. There is an article about him in the English WIKIPEDIA: en: Ein Shemer
  6. Guide to the Richard Koch Family Collection 1890s-1993 (bulk 1935-1970) & Walter Laqueur: Wanderer against Will , 211-213 & Walter Laqueur: Born in Germany , p. 196 ff.
  7. There is only one article on him in the English WIKIPEDIA: en: Shamir, Israel
  8. Wanderer against Wilen , p. 213. The description of kibbutz life takes up a large space in this book and should be an indication of how much this life shaped him.
  9. ^ Wanderer against Wilen , p. 225
  10. ^ Wanderer against Wilen , pp. 232–233
  11. ^ Walter Laqueur: A Wanderer Between Several Worlds . In: Andreas W. Daum et al. (Ed.): The Second Generation. Émigrés from Nazi Germany as Historians . Berghahn Books, New York 2016, ISBN 978-1-78238-985-9 , pp. 59 .
  12. Wanderer against Wilen , p. 251 ff.
  13. Wanderer against Wilen , pp. 260–261. For the newspaper see the article in the English WIKIPEDIA: en: Al HaMishmar
  14. ^ Wanderer against Wilen , p. 229
  15. ^ Walter Laqueur: Putinism: Where is Russia drifting? , Verlag Ullstein, 2015 ISBN 978-3-843-71100-5 ; introduction
  16. ^ Walter Laqueur: A Wanderer Between Several Worlds . In: Andreas W. Daum, Hartmut Lehmann, James J. Sheehan (eds.): The Second Generation. Émigrés from Nazi Germany as Historians . Berghahn, New York 2016, ISBN 978-1-78238-985-9 , pp. 59-71 .
  17. Jacques Schuster : The European Disease - Walter Laqueur: "The last days of Europe". In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur . January 5, 2007, accessed October 1, 2018 (review).
  18. ^ Walter Laqueur: Europe's long way to the mosque. In: DiePresse.com . July 3, 2010, accessed January 12, 2018 .