Signes et insignes de la catastrophe : de la swastika à la Shoah

230 pages ; 22 cm

A linguistic and philosophical study of how the fantasy of a definitive disappearance of the Jews, which actually culminated in the Shoah, spread in Europe from the 1850s on. Examines the process through which "minimum antisemitism" progressed as a technique of acclimatization to a persistant rumor hinting (from the Kishinev pogrom on) at the idea of a world without Jews. The history of the swastika shows how this idea was disclosed in pre-Nazi German literary circles promoting "minimum antisemitism" in the form of paganism and esoteric teachings, and how it crossed over into the political sphere. Argues that the following characters were necessary for the rumor to turn into action: the prophet of doom, who pronounces invectives and death wishes; the forger, who blurs the phrases of the prophet; the double agent, who spreads the phrases while masking them; the executioner, whose phrases are acts; and the quartermaster, who allows these functions to operate in the same time and space. Argues that Alfred Schuler, Hans Blüher, Stefan George, Ludwig Klages, and Elsa Bruckmann served as these characters, or "phrases", which evolved into the decision to cause the death of the Jews. The "maximum antisemitism" of the Nazis incorporated theses concocted by these adepts of "minimum antisemitism", which pitched the Jews against the Germans as a rival race.

Includes bibliographical references.