Anti-Semitism and the New Right

In recent years, radical right-wing, racist and anti-Semitic movements and initiatives have gained new space in Europe. In the Federal Republic of Germany, too, this development has found prominent expression with the entry of the “Alternative for Germany” into the German Bundestag, whose representatives are calling, for example, for a radical reversal of Germany’s culture of remembrance and for recognition of the achievements of German soldiers in World War II. Increasing proportions of the German population not only reject the value orientations and political institutions established in the postwar decades, but also sympathize with a violent overthrow of conditions. The “National Socialist Underground,” which claimed 10 lives, as well as the attack on the synagogue in Halle on October 9, 2019, represent a murderous terror that extremism experts have long since ceased to recognize as the result of lone perpetrators. It is preceded by a broad field of cultural and social propaganda that today reaches far into the so-called middle class.

This “Leonardo” lecture series aims to acquaint listeners from all disciplines with the latest research findings of renowned scholars who are investigating this multifaceted field. The focus of the event is therefore not on the centuries-old history of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, but on some of the most current manifestations of anti-Semitism as well as völkisch and new-right thinking, which at first glance often have no connection to the National Socialism of the 1930s and 40s or even to the extermination of European Jews by Germans. In addition to lectures that provide an overview of the New Right, its organizations and their activities, or inform about anti-Semitism against Israel, a special focus is on the most diverse cultural forms in which anti-Semitism and New Right thought are expressed today. In addition to Jew-hatred on the Internet and less conspicuous but all the more widespread manifestations of racist stereotypes, such as in the Harry Potter novels, so-called ‘high culture’ is also a focus: In lectures on new-right ‘cultural broadcasts’ on YouTube or anti-Semitic dispositives in examples of contemporary literature, such as Botho Strauß or Peter Handke, it will be impressively demonstrated that new-right ideas are by no means limited to a ‘clientele with Springer boots’, but have found access to all social strata.