Archive for Germany

HHhH

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , on 27 May 2012 by delclem

“HHhH is Reinhard Heydrich, the ‘butcher of Prague’, a man who physically and ideologically embodied the Nazi regime. His immediate superior was Heinrich Himmler, and rumours were whispered in the shadows of the Third Reich that ‘Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich’ – in German, Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich, or HHhH.

The book traces the planning, execution and aftermath of Operation Anthropoid, the resistance’s successful plot to assassinate Heydrich in Prague, the city he commanded as Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia. The two heroes of the novel are Jozef Gabcik and Jan Kubis, the almost unbearably brave assassins, but Heydrich, in all his horror, is the central character. “All the characters are real. All the events depicted are true,” asserts the book’s cover. And hence Binet’s dilemma.” Read the full review in THE IRISH TIMES, 2012

PS. Heydrich was assassinated exactly 70 years ago.
>Another review (guardian.co.uk)

The 1942 “Death Match”

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , on 24 May 2012 by delclem

Image

“The aftermath of the so-called ‘death match’ between the Kiev football team ‘Start’ and a team of Nazi soldiers during World War Two has been hotly debated for decades. Continue reading

Continent of Corruption

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , on 17 April 2012 by delclem

Bribes as the Lubricant of Neoliberal Central Europe

Let’s be honest: the center of Europe is not just the region of phony Habsburg nostalgia and a shared cuisine. It is also the place where experienced patients hand over a box of chocolates (with a creatively hidden banknote) to the treating doctor and/or the nurse. Continue reading

“The Holocaust Is German Family History”

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , on 12 April 2012 by delclem

German historian Moritz Pfeiffer asked his granddad what he did in World War II, and then fact-checked the testimony. His findings in a new book shed light on a dying generation that remains outwardly unrepentant, but is increasingly willing to break decades of silence on how, and why, it followed Hitler.”

> Article & photo abum (c) DER SPIEGEL, 2012

> The notion of cultural memory (c) Goethe Institut

PS. On the problematic function of family memroy, also see
> Harald Welzer, Grandpa wasn’t a Nazi (c) AJC

A German poem that caused global turmoil

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , on 7 April 2012 by delclem

“During his long literary career, Günter Grass has been many things. Author, playwright, sculptor and, unquestionably, Germany’s most famous living writer. There is the 1999 Nobel prize and Grass’s broader postwar role as the country’s moral conscience – albeit a claim badly undermined in 2006 when it emerged that the teenage Grass had served in the Waffen SS. But at the ripe old age of 84, Grass has triggered a furious row with a poem criticising Israel.”

Article and English translation of the poem (c) THE GUARDIAN, 2012

Photo: Graeme Robertson

Original version of the poem (in German) (c) SZ, 2012

The Khatyn Massacre in Belorussia Revisited

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , on 5 April 2012 by delclem

The brutal March 1943 massacre in the Belorussian village of Khatyn, commemorated in a 1969 memorial, has come to symbolize the horrors of the German occupation. Given the continuing centrality of the massacre to Belarusian memory politics, the details of the event remain under-studied. For political reasons, Soviet authorities and Ukrainian diaspora nationalists alike had an interest in de-emphasizing the central role of collaborators in carrying out the massacre. Using German military records, Soviet partisan diaries, and materials from Belorussian and Canadian legal cases, the author of this article revisits one of the most infamous, yet least understood war crimes committed on Soviet territory. > Article by Per Anders Rudling. Photo: statue of Iosif Kaminskii at Khatyn memorial site, Belorussia, ca. 1981. (c) Michael Gelb.

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , on 23 March 2012 by delclem

The rocket pioneer & Nazi collaborator Wernher von Braun would turn 100 today.

Gauck rules?

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , on 18 March 2012 by delclem

Eventually, Germany got the president it has wanted for years. From now on, two “Ossis” rule the country.

A good choice in times when people are asking for more German “leadership” in Europe and others are spooked by it?

Analysis (c) NYT, 2012; photo by AP.

New film

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , on 1 February 2012 by delclem

Adaptation of W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn.

Nazism as cheap turn-on?

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , on 29 January 2012 by delclem

“From Ilsa, the She-Wolf of the SS to Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, cinema has long been fascinated by the Nazis – and their link to ‘deviant’ sexuality.”

Article by John Byrne (c) THE IRISH TIMES, 2012 Continue reading