The German philosopher Robert Kurz about Auschwitz

[KXX4493553 at aol.com]

The German philosopher and "critic of economic value" Robert Kurz in the 
magazine "Konkret 6/2000" about the specific German antisemitism, and what 
separates it from other antisemite ideologies. His essay has the title 
"Auschwitz as an alibi?" Last year he published a 800-pages-book called 
"Schwarzbuch Kapitalismus" (Black Book Capitalism)(Eichborn 1999). The 
undertitle is called "An abgesang on the market economy". The title 
"Schwarzbuch Kapitalismus" can certainly be connected with the "Black Book 
Communism", published two or three years before. Kurz said to that "I 
originally had the intention to call my book >Satan's mill< but the publisher 
said it would be better to call it >Schwarzbuch Kapitalismus<." It's the most 
radical book I read in the last ten or fifteen years. And it can give you an 
impression at the contemporary discussion about the holocaust in Germany.  
Not representative but heavily discussed.
I translate  a passage the best as I can (he isn't easily to translate - like 
Luhmann, but I try).

Robert Kurz in "Auschwitz as an alibi":
"In the sense of a radical criticism which doesn't concretize the (economic) 
value as a "theory of economy", but explains it as a general form of 
subjectivism, antisemite ideology and the Holocaust can be explained 
historically at all. The modern antisemitic ideology (like racism) as such 
can be proved since the "aufklärung" (enlightment) in the bourgeois society, 
and insofar it is an universal capitalist phenomenon. The Nazis integrated 
not only the social-darwinist ideology of Anglo-Saxon liberalism, but also 
several repressive elements of modernization (for example the concentration 
camps). Insofar Auschwitz is a part of the whole capitalist history. But only 
in Germany antisemitism became an eliminatoric one - in the context of nation 
building, legitimized by the "ideology of blood". Insofar Auschwitz is a main 
part of the specific German history. The eliminatoric German antisemitism 
didn't change into the real "state-programmatic" practice in the 19th 
century, but in the context of World Economy Crisis and Nazi-fordism. Insofar 
Auschwitz is part of the Second industrial revolution, too." 

In "Schwarzbuch Kapitalismus" Kurz defines Auschwitz as a "negative factory" 
which is the "other side" of "good" abstract work and labour.

Best, kwp