Michael Perelman wrote:
> Does Tariq Ali really believe that Gertrude Stein supported Hitler???
He's not the only one, Michael. Goggle "Gertrude Stein" and "Hitler" (or "Vichy") and see.
Remember, the Time magazine quote Ali cites is from 1934, before the Jewish laws in 1936, and before the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. Neville Chamberlain made his "Peace in our time speech" after meeting Hitler in Munich in 1938. Normally this speech is paraded as an icon of stupidity and appeasement, which it was. But it also meant that the PM of a major country still considered Hitler a man of peace, *even at that late date*. Because without that belief, he couldn't be so proud of what he'd accomplished, nor expect most of the international audience to agree.
So it shouldn't be such a surprise that a basically apolitical head-in-the-clouds poetess could think the same thing four years earlier.
The basis for her idea that the separation of Jews and Germans might lead to peace and a better world seems to be that Stein was an essentialist about Jewishness, something she shared with Zionists of the era.
Essentially it sounds like she was as clueless and opinionated as a pundit when it came to international relations.
Although it might go deeper. She did live safe and above ground in Vichy France throughout its duration despite being a prominent Jew (under the Nuremberg definition, which is the one that counted in that situation). She wrote several articles strongly praising Petain when he came to power. And after the war she campaigned for the release from jail of at least one of her close frends who was convicted as a collaborator.
PS -- I'm not a Stein hater. I'm a big fan of her plays and operas, though not her books.
Michael