Beware of antisemitism in corona conspiracies, warns educator

The appropriation of antisemitic tropes, including by protestors against government policies to fight COVID-19, needs to be taken seriously, says Holocaust educator Dr Matthias Haß.

“When looking at our world today, don’t look for the big, horrific crimes, look at the smaller events and the smaller crimes. That’s why current forms of antisemitism and conspiracy narratives are so troubling,” said Haß, who serves as the educational director of Wannsee House in Berlin. This estate is the location where Nazi officials met on 20 January 1942 to agree to the co-ordinated mass murder of European Jewry. It now serves as an educational centre.

Haß was speaking in an online webinar about this meeting and its relevance, hosted recently by the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre in partnership with the Memorial and Educational Site House of the Wannsee Conference.

He cited the example of recent demonstrations against anti-corona measures by the German government as containing troubling antisemitic elements.

“Some people, who feared mandatory vaccinations by the government opposed it by marking themselves with the yellow star [originally used by the Nazi regime to identify Jews],” said Haß, who is a political scientist by training. “The protestors added in the inscription ‘ungeimpft’ [unvaccinated], very clearly minimising historical events by putting themselves in the role of the victim.”

He mentioned another situation where an anti-lockdown protestor compared herself to Sophie Scholl – a German resistance fighter who was executed for her work against the Nazi regime.

“There have been other strange and disturbing comparisons. Something is going on here where current events are directly linked to the Nazi past. Antisemitism is at the ideological centre of many of these issues, no matter how constructed, absurd, and crazy the arguments are.

“To be honest, a few years ago, I would never have thought that the kind of antisemitism and conspiracy narratives that we are facing today still existed.”

It’s a “painful learning experience” to see this reality, and contemplate what it means for the work of the Wannsee House centre, said Haß.

He said he had issued a warning about seemingly “small incidents” of antisemitism precisely because of the extreme outcome of the Wannsee House meeting. This outcome was possible only because of decades of antisemitic propaganda that had seeped into German society long before the Nazi regime came into power.

As crucial as what was discussed at the meeting was that which wasn’t seen as necessary to debate. “There was no longer a need to argue why the Jews are the enemy. It was a common understanding at all levels of society. Clarity about hatred of Jews didn’t come suddenly or surprisingly, but grew over time, and was deeply engraved in the minds of these men [at the meeting] and in the minds of millions of ordinary Germans.”

Haß evoked the chilling ordinariness of the proceedings, organised by the head of the Reich Main Security Office, Reinhard Heydrich, at the luxurious villa on the lake.

“Heydrich wanted to dominate the meeting. That’s why he chose a place outside Berlin where he could show off. He served food; he served drink; it was a loose atmosphere.”

At the time, the Nazis believe they were winning the war and as such, saw the need to plan for a “racial new order of Europe. It’s not about finding compromise or a peaceful solution. [It was about] creating a new world,” Haß said.

The 15 Nazi bureaucrats who gathered discussed mass murder as a “logistical issue”.

“These weren’t people on the political level of the regime, they were the permanent secretaries in the ministry, the ones who were competent and really running the show.”

While mass shootings had already been carried out under their jurisdiction, the meeting was designed to co-ordinate these efforts into standardised practices.

“What filled their minds [when it comes to the killings] were issues of efficiency, money, time, the use of one bullet per person, the procedure after arrival [of deported Jews], and what to do with the bodies. The Nazis wanted the killings done in an orderly way.

“What do these men have in common?” pondered Haß, in detailing that the officials gathered had an average age of 42, that 10 of them had been to university, and eight had doctorates.

“What we saw was that they were pretty average, they were very young, they were well educated, and they were convinced of Nazi ideology. Other than that, there was nothing special about them.”

A year and a half ago, it was also established that a secretary attended in order to take notes. “This gave us insight into the fact that this entire procedure wasn’t something completely different. It was a secret meeting but this wasn’t so unusual. It was part of the daily work routine.”

All in all, it took just 90 minutes for the officials to agree decisively to kill the 11 million Jews that they believed to be alive in Europe at the time.

“Everybody was willing to co-operate, nobody hesitated and looked for a way not to participate in the genocide.”

Haß said that while they couldn’t openly object to the “final solution” proposal, if they had any misgivings, they could have played on notions of a lack of capacity or overworked staff. Instead, “they were all happy to be part of this”.

The language used by Adolf Eichmann in drawing up the final-protocol document of the meeting is “coded” in its euphemistic summary of the results of the discussion. Terms such as “parallelising procedures” are used in reference to extending mass murder across the continent and “natural reduction” when it comes to ensuring that they work the Jews to death.

It reflected how bureaucracies allowed perpetrators to distance themselves through language, suggested Haß. “Here, it was present in the most extreme way.”

The use of language as a key tool of power, in the case of the Wannsee House meeting, ignited a genocide. Yet language, even in very different contemporary situations, continues to play a role in prejudice and oppression, said Haß.

“Words matter. Public discourse matters. The few that start spreading hatred and lies need bystanders and enablers – those who remain silent. If nobody speaks out, their ideology can spread and conspiracy narratives gain ground.

“To engage in public debate; to call out the liars’ ideology cannot start early enough. It’s not enough to call them fools and lies. As we see in our world, there is a risk of the nonsense, the hatred, divisions, and violence becoming powerful forces in our societies.”