ABSTRACT
Stereotypes are cognitive structures containing socially shared knowledge relating to the characteristic attributes of members of various social categories and permitting simplified processing and judgment. A prejudice of considerable longevity, which has long dominated Polish-German relations is the 18th-century perception of "Polish slackers", expressed in German with the startling and offensive identification of a characteristically "Polish Economy". This stereotype functioned as the mirror image of German self-perception. Denmark sharing a common border with Germany, and it has had a number of disagreeable experiences with its larger Southern neighbor. The 'new' anti-Semitism of the 21st century contends the existence of a worldwide 'Jewish lobby', pulling the strings of globalization, economic and political modernization, and even new global wars. Still this new anti-Semitism makes use of old stereotypes, which remain latent in cumulative cultural memory and are activated by allusions, mutable ciphers, and codes.
