Publisher's Synopsis
"This book argues that in the wake of the Holocaust, Austrians, Germans, and others often turned to a figural Antisemite to come to terms with their altered political, economic, and cultural circumstances and to shape new national and moral self-understandings. This spectral figure of the Antisemite came into being immediately after the Holocaust, when Nazi atrocities made explicit expressions of antisemitism taboo. As a readily recognizable and easily adaptable figure of evil, the Antisemite loomed large as a powerful and persistent trope in a wide range of artistic and cultural narratives created by Jews and non-Jews, including trials, films, and literature, allowing audiences and readers to avoid facing the implications of crimes committed by the Nazis and to deny the persistence of widespread prejudices. By examining trials, films, novels, and other texts, The Postwar Antisemite: Culture and Complicity after the Holocaust examines h
