Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stood side by side last week at Platform 17, a memorial at a Berlin train station which marks the spot from which thousands of Jews were deported from the city to their deaths by the Nazis.
In his short address, Netanyahu emphasized the mutual ties and commitment of Germany to Israel's security, stating "We also welcome the friendship of those who share our concern, our values and our desire to prevent these rogue regimes and these crazy ideologies from destroying our world. It is a trusted alliance, and one that I think is expressed in our standing here today."
In the aftermath of the Holocaust, German-Israeli ties have mostly been strong, but, recent events suggest there are deep concerns about just how shared the much lauded “shared values” between the two countries now are.
A changed tone, was heard in German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier's recent comments on the Netanyahu government’s plans for a radical overhaul of the Supreme Court, which would reduce it’s power in favor of the legislature, which would transform the country, some argue, into a dictatorship .
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock echoed some of those sentiments recently, saying she was specifically concerned about an Israeli bill that would institute the death penalty for terrorists.
But it would be a mistake to read this trend of discord between Israel and Germany as something entirely new.
It’s been percolating since Netanyahu first returned as prime minister in 2009. Netanyahu's brand of hardline politics have also strained relations with the European Union.
One example: In April 2017, Netanyahu refused to meet with Germany's foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel in Jerusalem, citing Gabriel's refusal to cancel talks with left-wing Israeli groups during his visit to Israel.
Berlin protested but stayed relatively calm. Gabriel noted: “Certainly, Israel can never be just another country for Germany. Special consideration for the past is required, and, until today, also special diplomatic sensitivity. But historical guilt cannot lead Germany to accept an Israeli government moving away from certain values that we have always shared.”
We also evidence of this shift in Chancellor Angela Merkel's remarks during her October 2021 visit to Jerusalem. "It is a mistake to base relations between Israel and Germany only on the memory of the Holocaust,” she said.
Merkel's statement was particularly noteworthy as it seemed to foreshadow the current tension between Scholz and Netanyahu’s coalition.
If the Israeli government succeeds in pushing through the contentious legislation, Germany would find it more difficult to defend Israel based on the universalist lessons of the Holocaust which champion human and minority rights and warn of of the peril of ignoring them, when Netanyahu’s government is seeking to undermine them.
The Holocaust was most methodical and deadly genocide in human history and a defining moment in Jewish and global history. That’s why, the memory of the Holocaust has two main, but not exclusive, memory trajectories. Memory trajectories are the way in which a particular memory or event is remembered, interpreted, and transmitted over time. There’s the Israeli definition in which Israel vows not just “Never Again” but specifically “never again for us”. i.e. that, after World War II, the murder of 6 million European Jews was evidence that it was essential that Israel be established as a Jewish sanctuary.
The notion of "Holocaust uniqueness" is defined as a narrow understanding of the Holocaust that focuses exclusively on the experiences of Jewish victims in Europe during World War II.
This approach began with the work of survivor-scholars such as Israel Gutman, Shalom Cholawsky and Aharon Weiss, who shaped the Israeli realm of memory and set the initial research priorities. The survivors did not simply establish archives and databases, but in the late 1950s also laid the foundation for Holocaust education in Israeli universities and Zionist curricula. It was the dominant approach to the study of the Holocaust in Israel from the 1950s, and especially during the 1970s and 1980s.
Furthermore, the Eichmann trial in 1961, deepened Israeli awareness of the trauma of European Jews and infused the suffering of Holocaust victims into mainstream culture and politics. Even more pivotal to this process was the 1967 Six-Day War. This war not only changed the geography of young state of Israel, but also led to a perception that it was a triumph that prevented “another Holocaust”, providing an associated sense of weaponization of Holocaust memory for Israeli territorial expansion and occupation in the Palestinian territories.
The broader conception of Holocaust memory culture takes into account the experiences of other marginalized groups (such as Romani people, and people with disabilities), as well as the ways in which colonialism, racism, and nationalism contributed to the rise of fascism and the genocide of millions of people during World War II, including the Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
However, in Israel, this approach has usually been rejected. even though by the 1980s when there was more engagement with the Holocaust as a way to educate people on human rights and genocide prevention.
It was then in the United States that the Holocaust was included in high school history curricula and classes and seminars on the Holocaust at colleges and universities were introduced.
Public events were held by American Jewish organizations about the Holocaust and academic conferences were organized to discuss the historical and cultural impact of the Holocaust. Additionally, new institutions such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) were established to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and educate future generations of its lessons.
The 1990s and the end of the Cold War had an impact on the view of the Holocaust as a global memory that is not only ''unique’' and particular to Israel and the Jewish people, but also a symbolic lesson on human rights and the protection of minorities. The first steps towards the “internationalization of Holocaust memory” began with a conference on the Holocaust held in Stockholm in January 2000, attended by representatives of 46 governments.
The globalization of Holocaust memory aligns with Germany’s need to commemorate the Holocaust as a “unique’ event” and to honor its historical responsibility as the perpetrator of the genocide that murdered six million European Jews.
It's important to note that the reparation agreement (Wiedergutmachung, ‘Shilumim’ in Hebrew) signed in September 1952 between Israel and West Germany played a crucial role in polarizing the Arab-Israeli conflict. That’s because it was very much colored by the Cold War considerations of the time in which the Soviet Union and by extension, East Germany sided with Arab nations and the U.S and its allies more with Israel.
Under the terms of this agreement, West Germany provided compensation and restitution to survivors of the Holocaust through both direct payments to Israel and through the efforts of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany. The conference played a key role in securing payments from Germany, Austria, and other governments as well as recovering unclaimed German Jewish property. From 1945 to 2018, the German government paid approximately $86.8 billion in restitution and compensation to Holocaust victims and survivors.
However, the ghosts of the Nazi regime were not forgotten on a regional level after the reparation agreement was signed, nor even after reparations were paid to the Holocaust survivors.
From 1952 onwards, this agreement put Israel in a favorable position in regards to the Arab-Israeli conflict, helping it to build its military capacity and economy as a young state. Most importantly, while the reparations gave West Germany the chance to rebuild its international reputation after World War II, it also planted the seeds of German guilt about its responsibility of arming one side of the conflicts in the Middle East.
Therefore, the local and global trajectories of Holocaust memory have enabled Germany, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, to navigate a path that balances its commitment to human rights education, its role as a moral beacon and a supporter its commitment to Israel's security, but also of European integration - the process of political, economic, social, and cultural integration among the countries of Europe. Its the gradual breaking down of national boundaries and the creation of a supranational entity that transcends individual nation-states. which have established the European Union and its various institutions.
Despite Germany's longstanding concerns regarding Israel's settlement building programs, Germany has always managed to stay committed to Israel's security while also protesting Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and its lack of commitment to a two-state solution.
Ultimately, if Israel were to adopt policies that erode its democratic institutions and undermine its commitment to minority rights, it could weaken Germany's ability to defend Israel's actions on the world stage which until now has been an essential tool of Israeli diplomacy.
Eldad Ben Aharon is an historian of international relations who works primarily on the Middle East in the 20th Century. He is an associate researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). Twitter: @EldadBenAharon
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