American Views Abroad

 
There has been a lot written about Hitler recently and Cicero, a monthly magazine here, is no exception. The cover of its October issue highlights the centerpiece of Otto Dix's 1933 work of art, The Seven Deadly Sins, which is Envy as a dwarf with Hitler's features. The lead article, Brother Hitler - You Can't Pick Your Relatives, begins with the question if Germans are obsessed with Hitler. This is, of course, a lead-in to a discussion on whether or not the latest film about his last days has any advantage or benefit. It claims Hitler has received so much attention in the last few years that it is as if a tidal wave has hit, yet hardly any new facts about Germans and their relationship to him have been found. The article includes two rather large photos of Hitler, taken out-of-uniform, in 1923 and 1933 and is followed by Thomas Mann's 1938 essay, written in exile, Bruder Hitler.

Paging through the latest issue of The New York Review of Books, there is a nuanced review of Der Brand: Deutschland in Bombenkrieg 1940 - 1945 by Ian Buruma. Entitled The Destruction of Germany, it includes a photo of Dresden after the Allied bombing on February 1, 1945. It talks about the 'Hamburgerization' of Berlin, i.e., the two years of daily destruction it took to flatten much of Berlin. It states how by the end of the war in the spring of 1945, up to 600,000 people had been burned or choked or boiled to death in the firestorms that raged with the force of typhoons after the bombings. It mentions Thomas Mann declaring in exile how the Germans were reaping what they had sowed and discusses if all the victims of WW II are equal in their suffering. One point noted --- and interesting in view of the debate on Iraq between Kerry and Bush --- is how there were those back then in Washington and London who believed 'that Germans had to be taught a lesson once and for all.' One US Air Force general was convinced 'that Germany's wholesale destruction would be passed on from father to son, and then on to the grandchildren which would suffice to stop Germans from ever going to war again.' The article is worth reading, but in order to read it online, one has to purchase it at www.nybooks.com. However, another thing struck me yesterday. In The Myth of the Olympics which reviews five books on the history of the games, the only photo in the article is of Hitler at the opening ceremony of the 1936 games in Berlin. Further on, in What Was Fascism? there are two photos of him. One taken in 1923 and in 1938 with Mussolini. Just as the film on his last days was opening, the two part BBC series on the rise of Hitler was being shown for the first time on German TV. This was aired on US TV in 2003.

There is the war in Iraq and there is the so-called cultural debate on Vietnam. But there are the demons of an even larger war looming in the background, still present.

- posted by Gloria @ 4:55 PM