German Jews and American Realism

Lebow, Richard Ned

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-40024-2_4

Richard Ned Lebow³

Part of the book series: Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice ((PAHSEP,volume 5))

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Abstract

From about 1950 until the end of the Cold War realism was the dominant paradigm in international relations in the United States and widely influential abroad. It never went unchallenged and other paradigms have made considerable inroads. Within the realist paradigm there is now considerable diversity. Realism is unusual in being one of the few developments in international relations theory that has had significant impact in the wider world. Policymakers, military officers, intelligence officials and journalists, and not just in the United States, tend to be far more accepting of the so-called verities of realism than most scholars.

What it means to be a refugee cannot be described in the simple terms of finding a job and adjusting to foreign customs. It is a way of being, constantly lingering between arrival and departure.

Henry Pachter (Henry Pachter, “On Being an Exile,” Salamagundi, nos. 10–111 (Fall, Winter 1969–70), 12–51.)

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Notes

1.
This text was published originally as: “German Jews and American Realism,” Constellations, 18, no 4 (2011), pp. 545–66, reprinted in Felix Roesch, ed. European Emigré Scholarship and International Relations (London: Palgrave, forthcoming). The permission to republish this text was granted on 2 July 2016 by Ertug Tombus, Ph.D., Managing Editor, Constellations.
2.
Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1948). The sixth edition, revised by Kenneth W. Thompson, appeared in 1985.
3.
John H. Herz, “Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 12 (1950), 157–80; Political Realism and Political Idealism: A Study in Theories and Realities. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951); International Politics in the Nuclear Age (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959); “The Security Dilemma in International Relations: Background and Present Problems,” International Relations (2003), 411–16.
4.
William T. R. Fox, The Super-Powers (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1944).
5.
For a provocative study of the American influence on Germany, see Alexander Stephan, ed., The Americanization and Anti-Americanization: The German Encounter with American Culture after 1945 (Providence: Berghahn Books, 2007).
6.
An notable exception is Peter Suedfeld, ed., Light from the Ashes: Social Science Careers of Young Holocaust Refugees and Survivors (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001).
7.
Claus-Dieter Krohn, Intellectuals in Exile: Refugee Scholars and the New School for Social Research, trans. Rita and Robert Kimber (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993), 12–13.
8.
Pachter, “On Being an Exile.”
9.
Ibid., 114.
10.
Charles Weiner, “A New Site for the Seminar: The Refugees and American Physics in the Thirties,” in Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn, eds., The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 1930–1960 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969, 190–254.
11.
Lewis A. Coser, Refugee Scholars in America: Their Impact and Their Experience (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 63–68.
12.
Christoph Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau: An Intellectual Biography (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001), 62–65.
13.
John H. Herz, Vom Uberleben: Wie ein Weltbild entstand Autobiographie (Diisseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1984), 119–20.
14.
Ibid.
15.
Ibid., 127.
16.
Ibid., 135–42, 146; Frank Schale, “The Government Advisor: John H. Herz and the Office of Strategic Services,” International Relations 22, no. 4 (December 2008), 411–18.
17.
Quoted in Andrew field, Nabokov: His Life in Part (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977), 249–50.
18.
Herz, Vom Uberleben, 35–46; Conversation with Karl W. Deutsch, May 1964.
19.
Pachter, “On Being an Exile.”
20.
HansBethe, Oral History Collection, American Institute of Physics, 17 November 1967, interview conducted by Charles Wiener. In Weiner, “A New Site for the Seminar.”
21.
Henri Peyre, “The Study of Literature,” in Michael G. Ash and Alfons Söllner, eds., Forced Migration and Scientific Change: Emigre German-Speaking Scientists and Scholars after 1933 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 27–81.
22.
Erwin Panofsky, “The History of Art,” in Ash and Söllner, Forced Migration and Scientific Change, 82–111; Coser, Refugee Scholars in America, 255–60.
23.
Theodor W. Adorno, “Scientific Experiences of a European Scholar in America,” in Fleming and Bailyn, The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 338–70.
24.
Franz Neumann, “The Social Sciences,” in Ash and Söllner, Forced Migration and Scientific Change, 4–26.
25.
Ibid.
26.
Klaus Dieter-Krohn, “Dismissal of German Speaking Economists after 1933,” in Ash and Shllner, Forced Migration and Scientific Change, 175–97.
27.
Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “An Episode in the History of Social Research: A Memoir”; Jennifer Platt and Paul K. Hoch, “The Vienna Circle in the United States and Empirical Research Methods in Sociology,” in Fleming and Bailyn, The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 224–45 and 270–337.
28.
Edith Kurzweil, “Psychoanalytic Science: From Oedipus to Culture,” in Ibid, 139–55; Coser, Refugee Scholars, 42–54.
29.
Ibid.
30.
Irma Thompson, private journal., cited in Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau, 66.
31.
Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau, 66–67.
32.
Anthony Heilbut, Exiled in Paradise: German Refugee Artists and Intellectuals in America, From the 1930s to the Present (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 50.
33.
Joseph Schumpeter to W. C. Mitchell, 22 April 1933, Schumpeter Papers, Harvard University, quoted in Krohn, Intellectuals in Exile, 23.
34.
Krohn, Intellectuals in Exile, 24.
35.
Ibid., 199–203.
36.
Pachter, “On Being an Exile.”
37.
Krohn, Intellectuals in Exile, 176.
38.
Ibid., Intellectuals in Exile, 180.
39.
Henry Pachter, Weimar Etudes (New York: 1982), 116.
40.
Herz, Vom Uberleben, 85–88.
41.
Paul Tillich, “Mind and Migration,” quoted in Krohn, Intellectuals in Exile, 179.
42.
Cited in Ibid, 179.
43.
Hans Speier, “The Social Conditions of the Intellectual in Exile,” Social Research 4 (1937), reprinted in Hans Speier, Social Order and the Risks of War (New York: Stewart, 1952), 86–94.
44.
Louis Wirth, cited in Krohn, Intellectuals in Exile, 179.
45.
Krohn, Intellectuals in Exile, 15.
46.
Herz, Vom Uberleben, 75.
47.
Coser, Refugee Scholars in America, 208–13; Alfons Söllner, “From Public Law to Political Science? The Emigration of German Scholars after 1933 and the Influence on the Transformation of a Discipline,” in Ash and Söllner, Forced Migration and Scientific Change, 246–72.
48.
Franz Neumann et al., The Cultural Migration: The European Scholar in America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1953); Fleming and Bernard Bailyn, The Intellectual Migration. See also, Coser, Refugee Scholars in America. Later works, specifically on political scientists, are cited elsewhere in these notes.
49.
Krohn, Intellectuals in Exile, 181–82.
50.
Franz Neumann, “The Social Sciences,” Fleming and Bailyn, The Intellectual Migration, 4–26, suggest something similar.
51.
Coser, Refugee Scholars, 11.
52.
Pachter, “On Being an Exile.”
53.
Krohn, Intellectuals in Exile, 182.
54.
Hermann Broch quoted in Coser, Refugee Scholars in America, 237.
55.
Coser, Refugee Scholars in America, 241.
56.
Ibid., 61.
57.
Theodor W. Adorno with Max Horkheimer. Dialectic of Enlightenment. trans. Edmund Jephcott. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), for the standard English edition.
58.
Max Horkheimer to Friedrich Pollack, 27 May 1934; Horkheimer to Adolph Lowe, 28 January 1935. Horkheimer Papers. Cited in Krohn, Intellectuals in Exile, 193.
59.
Henry Pachter, The Cuban Missile Missile Crisis: Crisis and Coexistence (New York: Praeger, 1963).
60.
Lazarsfeld, “An Episode in the History of Social Research”; Friedrich Fiirstenberg, “Knowledge and Action. Lazarsfeld’s foundation of social research,” in Jacques Lautman and Bernard-Pierre Lecuyer, Paul eds., Paul Lazarsfeld (1901–1976). La sociologie de Vienne a New York (Paris: Editions’ Harmattan, 1998), 423–432.
61.
Ibid; Wilbur Schramm, The Beginnings of Communication Study in America: A Personal Memoir ed. Steven H. Chaffee and Everett M. Rogers (Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage Publications, 1997), 43–65.
62.
Richard L. Merritt, Bruce M. Russett and Robert A. Dahl, Karl Wolfgang Deutsch, July 21, 1912-November 1,1992, National Academies Press.
63.
Marie Jahoda, Hans Zeissel and Paul Lazarsfeld, Die Arbeitslosen von Marienthal: ein Soziographischer Versuch uber die Wirkungen langdauernder Arbeitslosigkeit (Leipzig: S. Hirtzel, 1933).
64.
Coser, Refugee Scholars in America, 208–13.
65.
Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1953).
66.
Karl W. Deutsch et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957).
67.
Karl W. Deutsch, The Nerves of Government (New York: Free Press, 1963).
68.
Edward Shils, The Calling of Sociology and Other Essays on the Pursuit of Learning (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 110.
69.
For recent treatments, see the relevant essays in Michael C. Williams, Realism Reconsidered: The Legacy of Hans Morgenthau in International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), and the William E. Scheuerman, Hans Morgenthau: Realism and Beyond (Cambridge: Polity, 2009).
70.
Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau, chs. 5–8.
71.
Jan Willem Honig, “Totalitarianism and Realism: Hans Morgenthau’s German Years,” in Benjamin Frankel, ed., Roots of Realism (New York: Routledge, 1996), 283–313; William E. Scheuerman, “Carl Schmitt and Hans Morgenthau: Realism and Beyond,” in Williams, Realism Reconsidered, 62–92, and Hans Morgenthau, 32–39.
72.
Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law, 1870–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 459–65.
73.
Andreas Söllner, “Hans J. Morgenthau: ein deutscher Konservativer in Amerika?,” in Rainer Erb and Michael Schmidt, eds., Antisemitismus und judische Geschichte: Studien zu Ehren von Herbert A. Strauss (Berlin: Wissenschaftlicher Autorenverlag, 1987), 243–66.
74.
Niels Amstrup, “The ‘Early’ Morgenthau: A Comment on the Intellectual Origins of Realism,” Cooperation and Conflict 13 (1978), 163–75; personal communication with the author.
75.
Richard Ned Lebow, The Tragic Vision of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 216–56; Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau, 145–77; Chris Brown, “’The Twilight of International Morality’? Hans J. Morgenthau and Carl Schmitt on the end of the Jus Publicum Europaeum,” in Williams, Realism Reconsidered, 18–41; Scheuerman, Hans Morgenthau, 45–48.
76.
Hans J. Morgenthau, La notion du “politique” et la theorie des differends internationaux (Paris: Sirey, 1933).
77.
See also Scheuerman, Hans Morgenthau, 14–15, 18–32.
78.
Ernst Fraenkel, “Hugo Sinzheimer,” in Falk Esche and Frank Grube, eds. Reforismus und Plural- ismus: Materialen zu einer ungeschriebenen politischen Autobiographie (Hamburg: Hoffmann and Campe, 1973), 131–42; Scheuerman, Hans Morgenthau, 14–24.
79.
Ibid., 9–10.
80.
Ibid., 9–12.
81.
Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau, 95–113.
82.
Hans J. Morgenthau, “Fragments of an Intellectual Autobiography: 1904–1932,” in Kenneth Thompson and Robert J. Myers, eds., A Tribute to Hans Morgenthau (Washington, D.C.: New Republic Book Company, 1977), 1–20.
83.
Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau, chs. 5–7; Honig, “Totalitarianism and Realism”; Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations, 440–65.
84.
Hans. J. Morgenthau, Die internationale Rechtspflege, ihr Wesen und ihre Grenzen (Leipzig: Noske, 1929). Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (Cambridge: M. I. T. Press, 1966.
85.
Morgenthau, Die internationale Rechtspflege, 73–84.
86.
Hans J. Morgenthau, La notion du “politique; Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau, chs. 5–6; Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations, 453–55.
87.
Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau, 45–49.
88.
Hans J. Morgenthau, “Positivism, Functionalism and International Law,” American Journal of International Law 34 (1940), 261–84.
89.
Lebow, Tragic Vision of Politics, 236–37, 246–49; Scheuerman, Hans Morgenthau, 40–69.
90.
Lebow, Tragic Vision of Politics, 242–46; Scheuerman, Hans Morgenthau, 137–61.
91.
Hans J. Morgenthau, The Purpose of American Politics (New York: Knopf, 1960).
92.
Hans J. Morgenthau, “The Coming Test of Democracy,” Commentary, (January 1964), 61–63.
93.
Conversations with Morgenthau, 1970–1974; Lebow, Tragic Vision of Politics, 236–42; Scheuer-man, Hans Morgenthau, 165–95.
94.
Morgenthau belonged to Academic Committee on Soviet Jewry, the Kurdish-American Society, Americans for Democratic Action, Council for a Livable World, National Council for Civic responsibility, Turn Toward Peace.
95.
“Philosophy of International Relations,” Lecture notes, 1952, 55–58. Morgenthau papers, container 81.
96.
Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics. 183.
97.
Herz, Political Realism and Political Idealism, v. The best secondary treatment of Herz is Jana Puglierin, John H. Herz: An Intellectual Autobiography, Ph.D. dissertation, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, February 2009. On Herz’s blend of realism and idealism, see also Casper Sylvest, “John H. Herz and the Resurrection of Classical Realism,” International Relations 22, no. 4 (December 2008), 441–56.
98.
Hans Kelsen, Pure Theory of Law, trans. From the 2nd rev. German ed. By Max Knight (Berkeley, University of California Press, [1934] 1967). The first German edition appeared in 1934.
99.
Eduard Bristler [John Herz], Die Volkerrechtlehre des Nationalsozialismus (Zurich: Europa-Verlag, 1938); Puglierin, John H. Herz, 27–63; Peter M. R. Stirk, “John H. Herz and the International Law of the Third Reich,” International Relations 22, no. 4 (December 2008), 427–40.
100.
Herz, Vom Uberleben, 96–100; Puglierin, JohnH. Herz, 64–78.
101.
Herz, Vom Überleben, 109–115, 120–21, 124–25.
102.
Herz, Vom Überleben, 121–22. The author’s conversations with John Herz, 1965–1978; Christian Hacke and Jana Puglierin, “Balancing Utopia and Reality,” International Relations, 21, no. 3 (September 2007), 367–382; Puglierin, John H. Herz, 148–94.
103.
Herz, Vom Überleben, 123; John H. Herz, “Politische Theorie in amerikanischer Sicht,” Neue politische Literatur, 2 (1957), 850–69, and “Relevancies and Irrelevancies in the Study of International Relations,” Polity, 4, no. 1 (Fall 1971), 26–47.
104.
John H. Herz, International Politics in the Atomic Age (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959).
105.
Herz, “Politische Theorie in amerikanischer Sicht.” This point is nicely made by Jana Puglierin, “Towards Being a ‘Traveler between ‘All Worlds’,” International Relations, 22, no. 4 (December 2007), 419–26. See also Ken Booth, “Navigating the ‘Absolute Novum’: John H. Herz’s Political Realism and Political Idealism, in International Relations,” 22, no. 4 (December 2007), 510–26.
106.
Ibid., quoted in Puglierin, “Towards Being a ‘Traveler between ‘All Worlds’.”
107.
Herz, Political Realism and Political Idealism, ch. 1, and “The Security Dilemma in International Relations: Background and Present Problems,” International Relations 17, no. 4 (December 2003), 411–16; Hacke and Puglierin, “Balancing Utopia and Reality”; Ken Booth and Nicholas J. Wheeler, The Security Dilemma: Fear, Cooperation and Trust in World Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Nicholas J. Wheeler, “To Put Oneself into the Other Fellow’s Place.”
108.
John H. Herz, “Technology, Ethics, and International Relations,” Social Research 41, no. 3 (1976), 98–113, and “On Human Survival: Reflections on Survival Research and Survival Policies,” World Futures 59, nos. 3/4 (2003), 135–43. Kennedy Graham, “‘Survival Research’ and the ‘Planetary Interest’: Carrying Forward the Thoughts of John Herz,” International Relations, 21, no. 3 (September 2007), 457–72.
109.
Child Holocaust survivors who became social scientists also stress this connection. See the autobiographical essays in Suedfeld, Light from the Ashes.
110.
Pachter, “On Being an Exile.”
111.
Franz Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1942); Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Holt, 1941). Coser, Refugee Scholars in America, 197–201.
112.
Theodor W. Adorno et al., The Authoritarian Personality (New York: Harper, 1950); Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951).
113.
Morgenthau, “Fragment of an Intellectual Biography”; Herz, Vom Überleben, 1–8.
114.
Ibid., 2. Quotation from the German original, “Was ich von meiner Zukunft erhoffe, und worauf sich diese Hoffnung gründet,” September 1922.
115.
Hans J. Morgenthau, “The Tragedy of German-Jewish Liberalism,” originally given as The Leo Baeck Memorial Lecture in 1961. Decline of Democratic Politics, 247–56, quote on 249.
116.
Morgenthau, “Fragment of an Intellectual Autobiography,” 8–9.
117.
Ibid., 25–34.
118.
Ibid, 142, 150–56.
119.
Jana Puglierin interview with John Herz, 21 March 2005, Scarsdale, New York. Quoted in Puglierin, “Towards being ‘A Traveler between All Worlds’.”

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Lebow, R.N. (2016). German Jews and American Realism. In: Lebow, R. (eds) Richard Ned Lebow: Essential Texts on Classics, History, Ethics, and International Relations. Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40024-2_4

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