Volume 13

Israel und die Geister von '68

In his essay on the phenomenology of the ghosts of '68, Christoph Schmidt investigates the displacements and codifications of the guilt and historical burden of Auschwitz. He is here less concerned with the political events of that iconic year and its aftermath than with the subjective mentalities of its main protagonists. Here, he encounters elements of messianic theology and political psychology that seemed to suit the spirit of the time and which continue to echo into the present day. The excessive rhetorical identification with the Jewish victims of National Socialism that became visible in this milieu he interprets as a testament to a predilection in which a despair of history and rejection of guilt merged with one another.