The Rosenberg executions alarmed European intellectuals as a foretaste of fascism

Evidence

In 1951, the naive couple Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were sentenced to death for handing atomic secrets to the Russians. The executions, carried out in 1953, shocked many inside and outside the country. Sartre fired off an angry article for the newspaper Libération. In the States, Hannah Arendt wrote to Jaspers that she feared such incidents portended a national catastrophe comparable to the one seen in Germany. ‘An unimaginable stupidity must have taken hold in the USA. It frightens us because we are familiar with it.’ — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 770

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Arendt’s ‘banality of evil’ and her broader fear of totalitarian patterns emerging in the US — resonates with her Origins of Totalitarianism argument. — connects to: Fascist regimes stage trials to eliminate intellectuals rather than to establish guilt; European fascism returned colonial violence back upon the European bourgeoisie — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 20; Killings began with cultural elites to erase communal memory — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and…, 97 (+1 more)
• SHARE: The poignant detail that Arendt said the US ‘frightens us because we are familiar with it’ is worth sending to anyone interested in Cold War intellectual history.

Broader Connections

• Fascist regimes stage trials to eliminate intellectuals rather than to establish guilt #expands (0.82)
• European fascism returned colonial violence back upon the European bourgeoisie #complicates (0.75) — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 20
• Killings began with cultural elites to erase communal memory #exemplifies (0.75) — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, 97