Suchergebnisse

This paper addresses the vicious remarks in one of Karl Marx's letters, which have been frequently used to denounce Marx as a committed anti-Semite. In contrast, the paper points out, firstly, that the letter in question combines two racisms (directed against Jewishness and black-ness). Secondly, it is emphasized that Marx always took a principally emancipatory position. He did not however subject the two racisms to critical scrutiny. As a result, he neither conceptually penetrated nor intellectually superated the codes of anti-Semitism and colonial racism current in his day, but rather reproduced them, at least in part, as is, thirdly, documented. Fourthly and finally, it is concluded that this analytic deficit has proved an obstacle for the development of a Marxist theory of racism and has a negative impact on Marxist discussions of racism to this day.

In the context of her bicentenary in 2021, Amalie Dietrich will again be celebrated as a feminist paragon or condemned as a racist culprit. Her stay in Australia will be central to these contrasting approaches to her biography. There, she gathered a remarkable amount of native plants, animals, ethnological everyday objects – and human remains. In this context, she was subjected to suspicions of incitement in murder early on and to allegedly critical investigations concerning her role in the anthropological desecration of corpses in recent times. In this paper, we contribute some arguments to the clarification of this controversial subject. It focuses on the treatment of image of Amalie Dietrich in the German discourse from the Kaiserreich via the Weimar Republic, the fascist 'Reich', the Federal Republic as well as the Democratic Republic to reunited Germany. As a result, we argue that a critical biography of Amalie Dietrich must integrate the appreciation of her contribution to botany and zoology with a critique of her role in the racist history of anthropological grave robbery and desecration of human remains.