#2 Genocide and Staatsräson - with Dirk Moses

In our second episode, we switch from German to English and talk
with Dirk Moses, Professor of International Relations at the City
College of New York, CUNY. Dirk is one of the world’s leading
experts on genocide, as well as a long-term observer and sharp
critic of German memory politics.


The Israeli state is currently being accused of the crime of
genocide against the Palestinian people before the International
Court of Justice. In our conversation with Dirk, we take a step
back and ask when and how the idea of “genocide” originated, in
order to better understand how it is used today. How can
genocide, as a concept and a law, help us identify and stop mass
violence? Dirk identifies, as the title of his recent book puts
it, “The Problems of Genocide” and proposes a new framework to
better understand why states destroy entire groups of people.


The German state has made the remembrance of the genocide against
the Jewish people - as a unique crime, and the corresponding
support for Israel, a cornerstone of its post-war identity. We
ask Dirk why he thinks the Holocaust is not a
Zivilisationsbruch—a rupture in an otherwise progressive
civilization—but rather part of a broader history of Western
racism and colonialism that has targeted a variety of different
groups. Dirk argues that because German memory politics does not
include this broader history, certain elements of the Nazi past
remain unaddressed and continue to resonate in the present.


The Interview was recorded in September 2024.


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Throughout our conversation, we refer to various books and
articles. If you’re interested, you can find a compiled list
here:


- Dirk Moses: The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and
the Language of Transgression. Cambridge University Press, 2021


- Dirk Moses: The German Catechism, Geschichte der Gegenwart,
2021.


- Dirk Moses (Hrsg.): Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier
Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History.
New York: Berghahn Books, 2004


- Dirk Moses: German Intellectuals and the Nazi Past, Cambridge
University Press, 2007.


- Hans Kundnani: Joschka Fischer und die deutsche Beteiligung am
Krieg gegen Serbien, in: Kriegerische Tauben, 2019, S. 141-157.


- Michael Burleigh, and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State,
Cambridge University Press, 1991.- Jürgen Habermas:
Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit: Untersuchungen zu einer
Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, Hermann Luchterhand
Verlag, 1962.


- Michael Rothberg: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of
Decolonization, Stanford University Press, 2020.


- Michael Rothberg, Jürgen Zimmerer: Enttabuisiert den
Vergleich!, in: Die Zeit, 2021,
https://www.zeit.de/2021/14/erinnerungskultur-gedenken-pluralisieren-holocaust-vergleich-globalisierung-geschichte.


- Jürgen Zimmerer (Hrsg.): Erinnerungskämpfe: Neues deutsches
Geschichtsbewusstsein, Reclam, 2023.


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