Frank Knopfelmacher (

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, 3 February 1923 –

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, 17 May 1995) was a Czech Jew who migrated to Australia in 1955 and became a

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...

lecturer and

anticommunist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...

political commentator A pundit is a person who offers mass media opinion or commentary on a particular subject area (most typically politics, the social sciences, technology or sport). Origins The term originates from the Sanskrit term ('' '' ), meaning "knowledg ...

at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

. He engaged in vigorous polemics with many members of the left-wing intelligentsia from the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

period onwards, and through his teaching had a formative impact on many Australian postwar thinkers and writers such as

Raimond Gaita Raimond Gaita (born Raimund Gaita; 14 May 1946) is a German-born Australian philosopher and award-winning writer. He was, until 2011, foundation professor of philosophy at the Australian Catholic University and professor of moral philosophy at ...

and Robert Manne.

Early life

Knopfelmacher was born into an upper-middle-class Czech Jewish family in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and enjoyed a happy childhood until the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

, the annexation of Austria in 1938. Recognizing that his life was in danger, he fled the country in November 1939 with other members of a

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

youth group and joined a kibbutz in Palestine. In January 1942, he joined the Communist Party and spent the remainder of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

as a member of the Free Czech Forces, attached to the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

. Every member of his family in Vienna perished in the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

, where he had returned in 1945, had been taken over by the Communists. Reading

Arthur Koestler Arthur Koestler, (, ; ; hu, Kösztler Artúr; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was a Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria. In 1931, Koestler join ...

's ''

Darkness at Noon ''Darkness at Noon'' (german: link=no, Sonnenfinsternis) is a novel by Hungarian-born novelist Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940. His best known work, it is the tale of Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik who is arrested, imprisoned, and tried ...

'' had soured his opinion of them, and he used money from his family estate to bribe officials into letting him flee to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. He thereafter detested the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

, while continuing to revere

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

as a man, whom, as late as July 1983, he defended, in a '' Quadrant'' article).

Academic career

Knopfelmacher completed a doctorate in philosophy and psychology at the

University of Bristol , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

. In 1955, he moved to Melbourne and took up a lectureship at University of Melbourne's Psychology Department. Few outside professional circles had heard of him until 1965, when he applied and was approved for a post in political philosophy at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's ...

but had his appointment blocked, in what became a front-page ''cause célèbre'', by the University Senate. The Senate considered Knopfelmacher's published criticisms of

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

, and its apologists, to be unduly strong meat. He had written of Melbourne leftists that "like rats, they wish to operate in the dark" (''Twentieth Century'' magazine, Volume 18, 1964). Those firmly supporting him included Sydney philosopher

David Malet Armstrong David Malet Armstrong (8 July 1926 – 13 May 2014), often D. M. Armstrong, was an Australian philosopher. He is well known for his work on metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, and for his defence of a factualist ontology, a functiona ...

, who called Knopfelmacher "a man fatally ahead of his time by a few years. A short time afterwards academic rebels were saying pretty much anything they liked, how they liked, about their opponents. If anyone tried to censure them or impede their careers as a result of this, the shouts that their academic freedom had been violated were deafening. To Knopfelmacher, however...

Saki Hector Hugh Munro (18 December 1870 – 14 November 1916), better known by the pen name Saki and also frequently as H. H. Munro, was a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirize Edwardian society and cultu ...

's saying applied: it is the first Christian martyr who gets the hungriest lion."

Association with right-wing figures

Catholic activist

B.A. Santamaria Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria, usually known as B. A. Santamaria (14 August 1915 – 25 February 1998), was an Australian Roman Catholic anti-Communist political activist and journalist. He was a guiding influence in the founding of the Demo ...

stated (in his 1969 book ''Point of View'') that, compared with Knopfelmacher's opponents, "

Pontius Pilate Pontius Pilate (; grc-gre, Πόντιος Πιλᾶτος, ) was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 AD. He is best known for being the official who presided over the trial of ...

was an amateur!". During the late 1960s Knopfelmacher (still lecturing at Melbourne University) became de facto academic leader of those usually associated with the Santamaria-controlled Peace With Freedom group, who favoured continuing Australian military involvement in the

. He became a strong proponent of the controversial drive for

Australian conscription Conscription in Australia, also called mandatory military service or National Service, has a controversial history dating back to the first years of nationhood. Military conscription was abolished by Australian law in 1972. Australia currently h ...

and the method of conscription by lottery. When, in 1972, Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War ended (with the election of the Whitlam government), Knopfelmacher's long-standing intellectual unpredictability became more pronounced. He turned vehemently against Santamaria. In ''

The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory ...

'' on 7 April 1984, he likened Santamaria's treatment of trade-union opponents to

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

's treatment of

Trotskyists Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a re ...

; this assertion was clearly libellous, but Santamaria refused to press charges. The previous year (''Quadrant'', October 1983), Knopfelmacher had directed some of his most sarcastic prose against Santamaria's supporters among conservative Catholic activists. His self-contradictions did not end there. In 1977, he had proclaimed, in an article in the short lived Sydney magazine '' Nation Review'', that "Australia is a deeply racist nation" and lauded Indochinese refugee arrivals, viewing their acceptance by the immigration authorities as a debt of honour that Australia owed to its defeated allies. Within five years he executed a complete ''volte-face'' in condemning

multiculturalism The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for " ethnic pluralism", with the two terms often used interchang ...

in sharp terms and calling it an "ethnic cauldron" (''The Bulletin'', 24 March 1981) and "a banana republic of squabbling and mutually resentful expatriated mini-cultures, each with its own special bunch of ethnic ... führers" ( Robert Manne d. ''The New Conservatism in Australia'', St Lucia, Queensland, 1982). Elsewhere he described multiculturalism as a racket, an industry scrambling for government grants.Norman Abjorensen, (1995), A key figure in a puzzling era
''The Canberra Times'', 19 May 1995, p.13.
Accessed 16 March 2018. From 1979, he denounced (especially in letters to

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

's ''

Encounter Encounter or Encounters may refer to: Film *''Encounter'', a 1997 Indian film by Nimmala Shankar * ''Encounter'' (2013 film), a Bengali film * ''Encounter'' (2018 film), an American sci-fi film * ''Encounter'' (2021 film), a British sci-fi film * ...

'' magazine) John Bennett, the secretary of the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties, for disseminating

Holocaust denial Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: ...

literature. Yet by 1989 he was arguing vituperatively with Jews who publicly advocated a national war crimes statute. For all his admiration of Koestler and George Orwell, Knopfelmacher wrote far less than either man, and his hardcover bibliography amounted to one 1968 reflection, ''Intellectuals and Politics''. (A promised full-length memoir remains in manuscript, but a brief account of his political education appeared in the 1981 anthology ''Twenty-Five Years of Quadrant''.) In his last years Knopfelmacher mended fences with Santamaria, who, from the early 1990s, deliberately sought reconciliations with ex-Cabinet Minister

Clyde Cameron Clyde Robert Cameron, (11 February 191314 March 2008), was an Australian politician. He was a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and served in the House of Representatives from 1949 to 1980, representing the Division of Hindmarsh. He wa ...

and other erstwhile foes.Bill Guy, ''A Life on the Left: A Biography of Clyde Cameron'' (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 1999), pp. 154-157

Personal life

Knopfelmacher married fellow refugee Jarmila "Jacka" Pick in 1944. She succumbed in 1968 to an especially cruel and protracted form of multiple sclerosis. In 1970, Knopfelmacher wed Australian teacher Susan Robinson; the couple had two children. His protracted, usually free-wheeling, invariably slanderous late-night telephone monologues (visited alike upon associates and, more often, antagonists) retained a mythic status for decades among Australian intellectuals, not least for their superabundant four-letter words, which evoked the heyday of

Kenneth Tynan Kenneth Peacock Tynan (2 April 1927 – 26 July 1980) was an English theatre critic and writer. Making his initial impact as a critic at ''The Observer'', he praised Osborne's ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956), and encouraged the emerging wave of ...

and Berkeley's

Filthy Speech Movement Alliance of Libertarian Activists (ALA) was a libertarian student organization primarily located in the San Francisco Bay area, mostly active at University of California, Berkeley, established in 1965–1966, and considered the first campus group t ...

. He died on 17 May 1995 after incurring severe injuries in a road accident following a meeting with

Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and former dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then ...

. In his obituary Robert Manne wrote that Knopfelmacher was "one of the most brilliant and influential political writers and teachers in the postwar history of Melbourne University".Robert Manne, "A life of Right over wrong", ''

'', 19 May 1995, p. 14.

References

Selected bibliography

*Knopfelmacher, F. (1958) Paths to peace ook Review ''Quadrant'' 2, 93-96. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1958) The threat to academic freedom. ''Quadrant'' 2, 17-26. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1959) On tolerance. Q''uadrant'' 3, 5-13. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1959) The poverty of historicism ook Review ''Quadrant'' 3, 104. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1960) The causes of world war three ook Review ''Quadrant'' 4, 87-88. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1962) Conscience and freedom. ''Quadrant'' 6, 29-36. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1967) The consequences of Israel. ''Quadrant'' 11, 55-64. *Knopfelmacher, F (1967) The most important problems. ''Quadrant'' 11, 57-63. *Knopfelmacher, F (1967) My political education. ''Quadrant'' 11, 17-33. *Knopfelmacher, F (1968) There are no youth movements. ''Quadrant'' 12, 27-30. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1968) ''Intellectuals and Politics: And Other Essays'', Thomas Nelson, Melbourne *Knopfelmacher, F. (1969) The fourth world. ''Quadrant'' 13, 38-45. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1969) University reform. ''Quadrant'' 13, 41-50. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1973) The rise and fall of Anti-communism. ''Quadrant'' 17, 66-79. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1976) Koestler at 70. ''Quadrant'' 20, 41-46. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1978) Among the fleshpots - Solzhenitsyn and the west. ''Quadrant'' 22, 9-10. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1978) The coming madness (Book review). ''Quadrant'' 22, 74-75. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1979) Keeping the great in Britain. ''Bulletin'' (Sydney) 92,94,96. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1981) Migrants: beware of the cauldron. ''Bulletin'' (Sydney) 38,40. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1982) Arthur Koestler: The mole of god. ''Quadrant'' 26, 11-19. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1982) The case against multi-culturalism. The New Conservatism in Australia. 40-64. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1983) As I please: Black propaganda in Australia. ''Quadrant'' 27, 7-8. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1983) As I please: In (mild) defence of Karl Marx. ''Quadrant'' 27, 7-8. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1983) As I please: Our central weakness. ''Quadrant'' 27, 8-10. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1983) As I please: Social emancipation of women of Australia. ''Quadrant'' 27, 9-11. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1983) As I please: The Hawke Regime. ''Quadrant'' 27, 6-7. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1983) As I please: Traitor Burchett. ''Quadrant'' 27, 7-8. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1984) The banality of evil. -Book review. ''Quadrant'' 28, 64-66. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1984) Boring for women (with apologies to Malcolm Muggeridge). -The possible effects of Jewish neo conservatism on the feminist debate. ''Quadrant'' 28, 65-66. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1984) Has America recovered?. -Has America's defeat in Indochina shaken both power and morale? ''Quadrant'' 28, 67-68. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1984) The multicultural enterprise and its consequences. ''Quadrant'' 28, 9-11. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1984) The new model subversives. ''Quadrant'' 28, 15-16. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1984l) Nineteen eighty-four. ''Quadrant'' 28, 5-7. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1984) Pilatology. -Pontius Pilate. ''Quadrant'' 28, 8-10. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1984) What Moscow wants. ''Quadrant'' 28, 7-8. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1985) Against forgetting. -Discussion of ideas in John P. Roche's 'The history and impact of Marxist Leninist organizational theory' and their implications for the United States and Australia. ''Quadrant'' 29, 73-75. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1985) Bitburg: a very personal comment. -on Jews who capitalise on the Holocaust but weren't directly involved. ''Quadrant'' 29, 38-39. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1985) For whom the bell tolls. ''Quadrant'' 29, 75-76. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1985) For whom the bell tolls: South Africa, Australia and Israel. ''Quadrant'' 29, 75-76. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1985) Gulag fields. ''Quadrant'' 29, 59. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1985) It can't happen here?: Defecting from the free world. ''Quadrant'' 29, 51-52. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1985) Oceania, tis for thee. ''Quadrant'' 29, 36-37. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1985) Peace with freedom. ''Quadrant'' 29, 55-56. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1985) Stalin's daughter. ''Quadrant'' 29, 84-85. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1985) Wilfred Burchett's treason. ''Quadrant'' 29, 32. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1986) After the Geneva summit. ''Quadrant'' 30, 88-90. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1987) The unquiet life of Sidney Hook. ''Quadrant'' 31, 8-14. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1989) The Vietnam debate revisited: a perspective from the 1990s. ''Quadrant'' 33, 14-17. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1990) Bangs and whimpers: The Soviet crisis. ''Quadrant'' 34, 25-28. *Knopfelmacher, F. (1997) The threat to academic freedom. In 'The Oxford Book of Australian Essays.' (ed) Imre Salusinszky, OUP, Melbourne () pp. 150–155.

Early life

Academic career

Association with right-wing figures

Personal life

References

Selected bibliography

Further reading