Alfred Grosser
Encyclopedia
Alfred Grosser is a German-French writer, sociologist and political scientist. He is known for his contribution to the Franco-German cooperation
after World War II and for criticising Israel.
; died 1934 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye
, France) was director of a child hospital in Frankfurt am Main, socialist and freemason. Because he was Jewish, the family immigrated to France in 1933. Through a decree by the Minister of Justice Vincent Auriol
, in 1937 his widowed mother Lily Rosenthal and Alfred had to be given French citizenship. this prevented being interned in a camp in September 1939, when the government of Daladier, as perceived enemy of the French.
in Paris. In 1992 he retired being director of studies and research at the "Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques".
From 1965 Grosser was contributing to many newspapers and broadcasts, like La Croix
and Ouest-France
. He was very involved in improving the Franco-German cooperation
.
With Joseph Rovan
(1918–2004) Grosser was an outstanding French intellectual with German-Jewish background. After the war until these current times he worked improving the German-French relationship, and paved the road intellectually for the Élysée Treaty
(1963).
In multiple travels and presentations in Germany and France he helped and built the reconciliation between the two neighbouring countries.
. In 1998, when a Walser speech created huge controversy, he had publicly sided with Walser.
Grosser also holds the opinion that Israels politics invokes antisemitism. Because of its unbalanced reporting on the Middle East, in 2003 Grosser left the board of magazine L’Express. He stated that the editor had reluctantly published his positive critique on a book that criticized Israel, while later printing multiple readers letters attacking Grosser.
Alfred Grosser criticized honouring the Ludwig-Börne-Prize
2007 to Henryk M. Broder through Focus
-publisher Helmut Markwort
, both not worthy the prize nor the handing in the Paulskirche.
Grosser was invited by the city of Frankfurt to give the main speech at a Kristallnacht
commemorative meeting on November 9, 2010, in the Paulskirche. Mayor Roth was criticized for inviting him by members of the Zentralrat der Juden in Germany and others, but she stood by her invitation. They threatened to walk out should Grosser "fail regarding Israel". In the end the speech was delivered without disturbance.
In Bad Bergzabern
a school centre was named after him.
Franco-German cooperation
The relations between France and Germany is embodied in a cooperation called Franco-German Friendship . This came about after 1945, when a French-German enmity between the two countries ended....
after World War II and for criticising Israel.
Early life
His father Paul Grosser (born 1880 in BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
; died 1934 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Saint-Germain-en-Laye is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris from the centre.Inhabitants are called Saint-Germanois...
, France) was director of a child hospital in Frankfurt am Main, socialist and freemason. Because he was Jewish, the family immigrated to France in 1933. Through a decree by the Minister of Justice Vincent Auriol
Vincent Auriol
Vincent Jules Auriol was a French politician who served as the first President of the Fourth Republic from 1947 to 1954. He also served as interim President of the Provisional Government from November to December 1946, making him one of only three people who were heads of state of the French...
, in 1937 his widowed mother Lily Rosenthal and Alfred had to be given French citizenship. this prevented being interned in a camp in September 1939, when the government of Daladier, as perceived enemy of the French.
Career
Alfred studied political science and German. After 1955 he became a professor at the Institut d'études politiques de ParisInstitut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris
The Institut d'études politiques de Paris , simply referred to as Sciences Po , is a public research and higher education institution in Paris, France, specialised in the social sciences. It has the status of grand établissement, which allows its admissions process to be highly selective...
in Paris. In 1992 he retired being director of studies and research at the "Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques".
From 1965 Grosser was contributing to many newspapers and broadcasts, like La Croix
La Croix
La Croix is a daily French general-interest Roman Catholic newspaper. It is published in Paris and distributed throughout the country, with a circulation of just under 110,000 as of 2009...
and Ouest-France
Ouest-France
Ouest-France is a provincial daily French newspaper known for its emphasis on local news and events. The paper is produced in 47 different editions covering events in different French départments within the régions of Brittany, Lower Normandy and Pays de la Loire...
. He was very involved in improving the Franco-German cooperation
Franco-German cooperation
The relations between France and Germany is embodied in a cooperation called Franco-German Friendship . This came about after 1945, when a French-German enmity between the two countries ended....
.
With Joseph Rovan
Joseph Rovan
Joseph Adolph Rovan , was a French philosopher and politician, and is considered a spiritual father of post-war Europe...
(1918–2004) Grosser was an outstanding French intellectual with German-Jewish background. After the war until these current times he worked improving the German-French relationship, and paved the road intellectually for the Élysée Treaty
Élysée Treaty
Élysée Treaty also known as the Treaty of Friendship, was concluded by Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer in 1963. It set the seal on reconciliation between the two countries...
(1963).
In multiple travels and presentations in Germany and France he helped and built the reconciliation between the two neighbouring countries.
Political opinions
Grosser is known to oppose the Israeli and partly the French government policies. In describing the way his statements are received, he refers to the "Moral club" (Moralkeule, as a stick), which was coined by writer Martin WalserMartin Walser
At first the speech did not cause a great stir. Indeed, the audience present in Church of St. Paul received the speech with applause, though Walser's critic Ignatz Bubis did not applaud, as confirmed by television footage of the event...
. In 1998, when a Walser speech created huge controversy, he had publicly sided with Walser.
Grosser also holds the opinion that Israels politics invokes antisemitism. Because of its unbalanced reporting on the Middle East, in 2003 Grosser left the board of magazine L’Express. He stated that the editor had reluctantly published his positive critique on a book that criticized Israel, while later printing multiple readers letters attacking Grosser.
Alfred Grosser criticized honouring the Ludwig-Börne-Prize
Ludwig Börne
Karl Ludwig Börne was a German political writer and satirist.-Early life:Karl Ludwig Börne was born Loeb Baruch on May 6, 1786, at Frankfurt am Main, son of Jakob Baruch, a banker. His grandfather had been a government bureaucrat.-Education:Börne and his brothers were privately tutored by Jacob...
2007 to Henryk M. Broder through Focus
Focus (German magazine)
Focus is a German weekly news magazine published in Munich and distributed throughout Germany. It is the third-largest weekly news magazine in Germany. It is considered conservative and leaned towards economic liberalism.- Overview :...
-publisher Helmut Markwort
Helmut Markwort
Helmut Markwort is a German journalist and since 1993 Editor-in-Chief of the weekly newsmagazine Focus. He is a member of the liberal Free Democratic Party of Germany....
, both not worthy the prize nor the handing in the Paulskirche.
Grosser was invited by the city of Frankfurt to give the main speech at a Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...
commemorative meeting on November 9, 2010, in the Paulskirche. Mayor Roth was criticized for inviting him by members of the Zentralrat der Juden in Germany and others, but she stood by her invitation. They threatened to walk out should Grosser "fail regarding Israel". In the end the speech was delivered without disturbance.
Publications (selection)
- Deutschlandbilanz. Geschichte Deutschlands seit 1945, 1970 (Germany in Our Time- a Political History of the Postwar Years, 1974)
- Das Bündnis, 1981
- Versuchte Beeinflussung, 1981
- Der schmale Grat der Freiheit, 1981
- Western Alliance V815 (1982, from French)
- Das Deutschland im Westen, Carl Hanser Verlag, München 1985, ISBN 3-446-12619-8
- Frankreich und seine Außenpolitik, 1986
- Mit Deutschen streiten, 1987
- Mein Deutschland, 1993
- Deutschland in Europa, 1998
- Was ich denke., November 2000
- Wie anders sind die Deutschen?, 2002
- Wie anders ist Frankreich, 2005
- Die Früchte ihres Baumes. Ein atheistischer Blick auf die Christen, September 2005
- Der Begriff Rache ist mir völlig fremd in: Martin Doerry (editor): Nirgendwo und überall zu Haus. Gespräche mit Überlebenden des Holocaust (Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt), München 2006 ISBN 3-421-04207-1 (also on CD) pp. 120 – 129
- Von Auschwitz nach Jerusalem (Über Deutschland und Israel), Rowohlt-Verlag 2009, ISBN 978-3-498-02515-1
Honours
Especially for his fraternalizing efforts Grosser received honours.- 1975 Peace Prize of the German Book TradePeace Prize of the German Book TradeThe Peace Prize of the German Book Trade is an international peace prize given yearly at the Frankfurt Book Fair in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt am Main, Germany...
, Laudator Paul Frank, diplomat., for his role as "middle man between French and Germans, non-believers and believers, Europeans and people from other continents"; this gave him an earlier opportunity to speech in the Paulskirche. - 1978 Theodor-Heuss-PrizeTheodor HeussTheodor Heuss was a liberal German politician who served as the first President of the Federal Republic of Germany after World War II from 1949 to 1959...
- 1995 Cicero Redner prize (rhetoric)
- 1996 Schiller-PrizeFriedrich SchillerJohann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
by the city of MannheimMannheimMannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart.... - 1998 Grand Prix de l'Académie des Sciences morales et politiques
- 2002 Humanism-Prize of the union of Classical philology in Germany
- 2004 Abraham Geiger-Prize of Abraham-Geiger-KollegAbraham-Geiger-KollegAbraham Geiger Kolleg is a rabbinic seminary in Potsdam, Germany. The school was founded 1999 as the only seminary in Germany since the Holocaust, when the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin was shut down by the Gestapo...
, University of PotsdamUniversity of PotsdamThe University of Potsdam is a German university, situated across four campuses in Potsdam, Brandenburg, including the New Palace of Sanssouci and the Park Babelsberg.- Profile :... - Grand Cross, Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
- Grand Officier de la Légion d'Honneur
- 2009 Creation of the Alfred-Grosser-chair for guest professor at the Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main
In Bad Bergzabern
Bad Bergzabern
Bad Bergzabern is a municipality in the Südliche Weinstraße district, on the German Wine Route in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated near the border with France, on the south-eastern edge of the Palatinate forest, approximately southwest of Landau....
a school centre was named after him.
Interviews
- Israels Politik fördert den Antisemitismus Martina Doering interviews Alfred Grosser, Berliner Zeitung, August 15, 2006. German
- Ich muss als Jude nicht für Israel sein Interview by Stefan Reinecke and Daniel Bax with Alfred Grosser in Die TageszeitungDie tageszeitungdie tageszeitung , was founded in 1978 in Berlin. It is a cooperative-owned German daily newspaper which is administrated by a workers' self-management...
, April 4, 2007. German - Sofort heißt es: Antisemitismus! Tobias Kaufman interviews Alfred Grosser, following his new book "Von Auschwitz nach Jerusalem" (From Auschwitz to Jerusalem), September 18, 2009. German
- "Ich bin genetisch optimistisch": Talk about "Von Auschwitz nach Jerusalem" with Moritz Reininghaus, Die TageszeitungDie tageszeitungdie tageszeitung , was founded in 1978 in Berlin. It is a cooperative-owned German daily newspaper which is administrated by a workers' self-management...
September 28, 2009. German - I have always wanted Europe": Interview by Euronews (May 12, 2010; retrieved November 13, 2010). English
- TV-interview, November 4, 2010 about his upcoming speech in the Paulskirche on November 9, 2010. 3sat3sat3sat is the name of a public, advertising-free, television network in Central Europe. The programming is in German and is broadcast primarily within Germany, Austria and Switzerland .3sat was established for cultural...
"Kulturzeit": Kritik an Grosser. Zentralrat lehnt Politologen als Redner ab. German. - Author Alfred Grosser is controversial choice for Kristallnacht speech, Deutsche Welle (interview November 8, 2010, retrieved November 13, 2010). English.
Reviews
- über das Buch Deutschland in Europa, Autor nicht genannt
- Michael Hereth Alfred Grosser at his best über das Buch Wie anders ist Frankreich.
- Ursula Homann Hinwendung zur Welt Warum Alfred Grosser nicht an Gott glaubt über das Buch Die Früchte ihres Baumes. Ein atheistischer Blick auf die Christen.
External links
- Richtig denken, das heißt: gerecht denken Artikel at his 80th birthday in Die Welt, February 1, 2005.
- Presentation in Stuttgart city hall June 1, 2005.
- Talk with Alfred Grosser June 18, 2008 in Paris.
- Before the Kristallnacht commemory of November 9, 2010 in Frankfurt Die WeltDie WeltDie Welt is a German national daily newspaper published by the Axel Springer AG company.It was founded in Hamburg in 1946 by the British occupying forces, aiming to provide a "quality newspaper" modelled on The Times...
: Ist die Meinungsfreiheit für Israelkritiker wirklich bedroht? November 4, 2010. Discussion about Grosser's support for Martin WalserMartin WalserAt first the speech did not cause a great stir. Indeed, the audience present in Church of St. Paul received the speech with applause, though Walser's critic Ignatz Bubis did not applaud, as confirmed by television footage of the event...
and the "Moralkeule" (moral club). Includes precize quotes.