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Submitted by: Thomas Reimer
ycrtmr@ix.netcom.com
Good, balanced reviews can be found in the FAZ of 26 February
(Leitartikel von Friedrich Karl Fromme), and 3 March ("Die Austellung
taugt nichts, ebenso ihre Kritiker") by Roswin Finkenzeller. Both
stress that the expo is biased and propagates the collective guilt
thesis, (CGT), while accepting that German soldiers at the time
(serving under a horrible dictatorship not of their chosing), of course
in many cases were participants in acts of horrible warfare. In _Die
Welt_ of 5 March, Thomas Loeffelholz in "Bilder einer Austellung"
agrees; so does Prof. Franz W. Seidler in the Focus of 3 March, p. 82.
It is important to read their arguments.
Also, a picture of German reactions based solely on media such as the
_Spiegel_, _Sueddeutsche_ etc, so far the only ones cited, might be
misleading because of their bias, especially about the way the debate is
construed in Germany. Its not simply a debate between Nazis and
neudeutsche Gutmenschen a la Reemstma. But the expo is just another avatar
of the old debate about German CGT (itself a totalitarian concept);
H-German went through this debate already several times. There seems
little point in another cycle, for those who want to hate Germans will
hate them anyhow, no matter what the argument.
Thomas Riemer
 Humanities & Social Sciences Online 
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