Zweierlei Zugehörigkeit

This book focuses on the political conversions of the Jewish lawyer and high-ranking SED party functionary Leo Zuckermann (1908–1985), who committed himself to Jewish collective rights in the short period between World War II and the onset of the East-West conflict. Zuckermann supported both the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine and the restitution of property robbed by the Nazis. He had been motivated in this endeavor by the discussions provoked during his time in exile in Mexico by the news of the annihilation of European Jews. This allowed for Marxist thinking to become temporarily more open and receptive to the integration of Jewish self-conceptions. On the basis of Zuckermann’s activities, this study explains why the Holocaust was hardly given any attention in the political memory of the German-speaking workers’ and union movement.