Historical understanding of the Holocaust requires prior linguistic study of Nazi language

Evidence

Writing in the first issue of Yad Vashem Studies (Jerusalem, 1957), Nahman Blumenthal attends to the words of the Holocaust. He attends to the Holocaust as a linguistic event and argues that an inquiry into the “language of the Nazis” is “far from being a matter unto itself, nor is it a question of linguistic inquiry.” Rather, Blumenthal continues, “a historical understanding of the period is contingent upon an understanding of the language of the Nazis.” Blumenthal suggests, therefore, that this “inquiry into language” is not simply a matter of linguistics, not simply a matter of a narrow academic discipline. Instead, insofar as understanding is “contingent” upon such an inquiry into language, it takes place, must take place, prior to any historical work and as a condition of this work: “an inquiry into language must serve as a preamble to historical inquiry” (55). — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 564

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to my soundscape/noise work themes about how language and perception shape the apprehension of historical events; also to the library/communication-history material on how media of expression condition thought. — connects to: Nazi-era speech patterns survive Hitler’s downfall as popular communicative forms — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 993; Modern common sense is linguistically and functionally linked to Nazi Volksempfinden — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1238