„Schrei ins Leere“. Anmerkungen über den historischen Finalismus

The wrong question is being asked if we are considering whether 19th/20th-century Liberal German Jews brought their extermination upon themselves by integrating into German majority society. This view is based on a finalistic notion of history whose inadequacy this article wants to show. Today‘s historical knowledge does not entitle us to demand that the victims should have known better in the first place, and thus arrogantly question whole lifeworlds.