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Dear H-German Subscribers,
There is a new message below concerning the continuing controversy over
the Wehrmacht exhibition. We are happy our subscribers think that we are
a worthy forum for their efforts.
As editors, we often find ourselves in a difficult position once such
discussions start, and we thought that if we explained our situation,
perhaps you could all help us out. Namely, we would prefer a minimum of
editorial interference and a maximum of scholarly discourse. But can
both be done simultaneously? Every lengthy discussion thread we have
experienced on H-German has led to cries of "enough already!", and we
are certain there are already those who feel this way about the
Wehrmacht exhibit in Munich. We can withstand such complaints easily
enough (despite having the normal range of human emotions, we are a bit
tougher concerning H-German mail). But we do want to insure that if we
allow a discussion to continue, it truly adds to our historical
understanding.
What do we understand by this phrase "add to our historical
understanding?" Is it another case of "can't define it, but I know it
when I see it?" Well, to us, at the very least, it means making some
reference to historical work already undertaken (in the case of the
posting below, reference to historical monuments/exhibitions). Beyond
that, it gets murky and makes our job as editors very tricky. To the
extent that subscribers can carefully construct longer messages and can
rely on historical work already undertaken by themselves or by others, we
will pass their messages on. If you do send something to H-German, and we
contact you privately to ask you to consider adding to or revising your
submission, we hope you will be willing to work with us in this spirit.
Thanks for helping us out in this dilemma. And now to the Wehrmacht
exhibit...
Submitted by: Thomans Schmitz
a2816ce@sunmail.lrz-muenchen.de
Last Saturday Thomas Riemer wrote:
> 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. [...]
Good, balanced expositions on the German Wehrmacht can be found in the Bad
Toelz town hall and in the Bayern-barracks in Munich: While reading the
neudeutsch-gutmenschliche "Sueddeutsche Zeitung", I gathered from a
letter-to-the editor (SZ, March 10, 1997, p. 8) that there has been in
existence for more than 25 years an "(erbauliche) Dauerausstellung im
Rathaus von Bad Toelz, die ein makelloses Bild des deutschen Soldaten im
Russland-Feldzug vermittelt.... Wer - beeindruckt von Ausruestung und
Aufgabe der deutschen Wehrmacht - gesenkten Hauptes das Rathaus und die
Stadt verlaesst, wird auf gepflegten Kurwegen durch gruenweisse
Hinweistafeln zum 'Ehrenmal der Spielhahnjaeger' geleitet. Da ist die Welt
noch in Ordnung!" - (Und kein Spielhahn, sei es Fromme, Loeffelholz,
Seidler oder Finkenzeller, hat bis heute ueber einen Bias gekraeht).
Also, another alternative picture to the one-sided Reemtsma-tobacco
sponsored CGT-exposition in the Munich town hall might be got by visiting
the "Traditionssammlung in der Bayern-Kaserne Muenchen", commemorating the
history of the German Gebirgsbattallions. There one can learn, how in WW
II the German troops were doing "still and namenlos bis zum letzten Tag
ihre Pflicht" - i.e. defending the German Volk - : e.g. defended Schwabing
in Narvik, Dachau in Finland, Duesseldorf in the Caucasian mountains, and
Nymphenburg on the hills of Monte Cassino. That should more than
counterbalance the CGT-biased, but short-lived one-room Munich town-hall
exhibit.
Thomas Schmitz
<a2816ce@sunmail.lrz-muenchen.de>
 Humanities & Social Sciences Online 
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