Blank Generation? – Der amerikanische Punk als Reflexionsmedium jüdischer Geschichte

Is Punk Jewish? Numerous references to Jewish culture and history in the American Punk of the 1970s suggest so. But how should we interpret the widespread use of National Socialist symbols on the Punk scene? This article traces this ambivalent relationship against the background of Critical Theory and hypothesizes that this particular reinterpretation of the swastika is the American punks’ attempt to point to a danger foreseen by Adorno – that the memory of the Shoah is meaningless when frozen in rituals.