The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred Read Online Free PDF Page A

across ethnic barriers rose to unprecedented heights. By the later 1920s, nearly one in every three marriages involving a German Jew was to a Gentile. The rate rose as high as one in two in some big cities. The trend was similar, with only minor degrees of variation, in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary, parts of Poland, Romania and Russia (see Table I.1 ). This could, of course, be interpreted as an indicator of successful assimilation and integration. Yet it was in precisely these places that some of the worst ethnic violence occurred in the 1940s. One hypothesis explored below is that there was some kind of backlash against assimilation, and particularly against miscegenation, in the mid-twentieth century.
    This possibility should disturb but not surprise us. We have, after all, seen instances of such backlashes in our own time. Horrific violence between Tutsis and Hutus occurred in Rwanda in the 1990s, even though intermarriage between Tutsi men and Hutu women used to be quite common. Ethnic conflict also exploded in Bosnia, despite high rates of inter-ethnic marriage in previous decades. These episodes also serve to remind us that there is no linear spectrum of inter-ethnic behaviour, with peaceful mingling at one end and bloody genocide at the other. The most murderous racial violence can have a sexual dimension to it, as in 1992, when Serbian forces were accused of a systematic campaign of rape directed against Bosnian Muslim women, with the aim of forcing them to conceive and give birth to ‘Little Ĉetniks’. Was this merely one of many forms of violence designed to terrorize Muslim families into fleeing from their homes? Or was it perhaps a manifestation of the primitive impulse described above – to eradicate ‘the Other’ by impregnating females as well as murdering males? It would certainly be simplistic to regard raping women as a form of violence indistinguishable in its intent from shooting men. Sexual violence directed against members of ethnic minorities has often been inspired by erotic, albeit sadistic, fantasies as much as by ‘eliminationist’ racism. The key point to grasp from the outset is thatthe ‘hatred’ so often blamed for ethnic conflict is not a straightforward emotion. Rather, we encounter time and again that volatile ambivalence, that mixture of aversion and attraction, which has for so long characterized relations between white Americans and African-Americans. In calling the period from 1904 to 1953 the Age of Hatred, I hope to draw attention to the very complexity of that most dangerous of human emotions.
    Table I.1. Mixed marriages as a percentage of all marriages involving one or two Jewish partners, selected European countries, regions and cities in the 1920s
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Percentage of mixed marriages per 100 couples
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Luxembourg
15.5
Basel
16.1
Strasbourg
21.2
Germany
35.1
Prussia
35.9
Bavaria
35.9
Hessen
19.9
Württemberg
38.1
Baden
26.4
Saxony
43.5
Berlin
42.7
Magdeburg
58.4
Munich
47.3
Frankfurt am Main
30.4
Hamburg
49.1
Austria
20.9
Vienna
19.8
Czechoslovakia
17.2
Bohemia
36.3
Moravia-Silesia
27.6
Slovakia
  7.9
Carpatho-Russia
  1.3
Hungary
20.5
Budapest
28.5
Trieste
59.2
Poland
  0.2
Posen/Poznan
39.2
Breslau/Wroclaw
23.8
Lemberg/Lwòw
  0.5
Bucharest
10.9
Soviet Union (European)
12.7
Russia (European)
34.7
Leningrad
32.1
Kirovograd
 8.8
Ukraine
 9.6
Byelorussia
 6.1
Latvia
 3.3
Lithuania
 0.2
Estonia
13.5
Vilna
  1.2
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    Note: All data are for the period 1926 to 1929 or 1930 except Trieste (1921–1927), Poland (1927), Lemberg/Lwów (1922–1925), Soviet Union (1924–1926), Russia (1926), Leningrad (1919–1920), Kirovograd (1921–1924), Ukraine (1926), Byelorussia (1926), Lithuania (1928–1930), Estonia (1923) and Vilna (1929–1931).
THE RACE MEME
    If it can plausibly be argued that ‘race’ is not a genetically meaningful concept, the question the historian must address is why it has nevertheless been such a powerful and violent