GDry Germany, we are taught to believe that we have done better. Better than the generation of our grandparents, who ruin their complication under a thick rag in silence. Better even with our parents, whose uprising In the late 1960s rarely brought any serious count of Holocaust heritage.
Born in the late 1980s, my generation learned about Auschwitz earlier. We visited former concentration camps and studied the Nazi regime not as a foreign aberration, but as a warning: This is the death of democrats. Now, with away right AFD and Ethno-Chauvinism to climbThat warning never feels more urgent.
In German run-up General Election in FebruaryTen thousand marchs against the AFD. The domestic intelligence agency in Germany Classified the party as extremely extremist, and the new government promised to continue its cooperation A minimum minimum.
And yet most resistance feels have a hole. Germany’s care against revisionism is to choose the best. This week, the winners of the best granted Germany Journalism Award – Herbert Quandt Media Prize – Office has partnered. The award Clearly celebrated the heritage of Herbert QuandtA first SS supporter playing an important role in Nazi Economy of war. Quandt Oversaw battery plants where thousands are abused, exploited – and killed.
With his father, Günther Quandt, Herbert Quandt subjected to 57,500 people to the labor of the slave to battery factories. The Family of the Quandt family was built on these crimes. Günther Quandt earned the Jewish-owned companies after leaving Nazi (So called Aryanization). Herbert Qandat helps ensure some of the deals and management of planning a camp concentration camp in Poland. Occupied by Poland. After the war, he continued to work with the hardline before Nazi from Joseph Goeebbels’ Paganda.
Quands “digged” through a superficial process that in effect is protected from any serious accountability. In 1960, Herbert Quandt became the largest shareholder of BMW. Now, his heirs, the richest family, control Germany, mini and rolls-royce, and hold large stakes in the country’s chemical and tech sectors.
In 2007, a TV documentary exposes the width of the Nazi-Ra-era of the family. Quands responded by commissioning An independent study That reveals even deeper collisions with the Nazi regime. Gabriele Quandt, Apo by Günther Quandt, he later said The “wrong” family To avoid dealing with the truth about the Nazi past for a long time.
But the reporter from time, Spiegel and Germany broadcaster Continue to line up for prize – in effect Help Whitewash the heritage In a shape, even in the war, that conforms to himself with former Nazi propagandists used to be reverent in silence in free press. What does this say about German media organizations? About stories explained by self-stories about himself – and those who refuse to speak?
The annual award, built in 1986, comes with a € 50,000 prize fund. This year, it goes to Die Zeit and three public broadcasters, picked up from 230 submissions. That’s 230 journalists who apply for an award named someone – in any reasonable world – want to be judged for war crimes. If contenders have errors, they obviously insufficient to prevent them from applying.
Neither the quandt prize appears to carry any reputation in Germany, with progressive outlets to see the cash prize as reception in quality journalism. It is not the AFD-style style revision, but it is a form of Amnesia, who is injured in liberal respect. The jury includes some leading media numbers in Germany from prominent titles as Handelsblatt and Axel Springer’s Bild and Will.
But this is not a story about quands. It targets a wider German refusal to deal with the underworlds of society obtained with state and genocide violence. Some of the rich family in Germany – including Fly,, Porsche,, Bahlsen and Stoschek – Nazi collaboration empires built and compulsory work. As Dutch journalist David De Jong already written In his book, Nazi billionaires, most of them have no trust in West Germany’s So called the miracle of the economy. Many defend their legio on this day – or, like quands, uses prizes in burned their modern philanthropicic standing.
This type of amnesia is not limited to boardrooms. Streets across Germany still brings names to the Colonial Administrators. In many cities, you can walk in Lüdititzstraße or Wissmannstraße – Street names that respect Germany genocide in other parts of Africa. The German government refused to pay reparations To the descendants of Hero and the victims, the victims before the Genocide of Namibia – offered by Namibia instead of “improving” packages with the help of victims, but in the state of Namibian.
After the war, Germany was rebuilt international reputation in its policy to official recognition of its past crimes. But that counts well cortated – occupied if it flattered in own image of Germany, ignored when personal interests threatened.
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The German foreign minister, Johann Wadadephul, put a wreath In Yad Vashem this month and request the legacy of Surnocor Surnicivor Margot Friedländer. A few hours ago, Wadadapul stands on a press conference in Jerusalem and Declared “understanding” To block Israel from human help in Gaza. Friedländer, who died in days before the age of 103, spent his last years warned against the work. The difference that is hardly stressful.
It’s easy to judge the past if it doesn’t cost. Talking about the endurance of injustice or cruelty to your allies takes more courage.
The present method of Germany to remember culture is to choose and contradict. The government relies on “history responsibility” that does not challenge the government of Israel for its abuses in Gaza. However at home, the political and media class as refusal about the cultural patronage produced by fortune generated by Nazi-era crimes.
My argument is not about changing an individual media award. It is about the continued collective lack of accountability and transparency to arrive at Nazi’s Era. In the current political climate it is also about asking if “not again” in the proverbial postwar Germany has maintained its meaning, or being deprived of a slogan, observed only if convenient.
Hanno Huuenstein is Berlin-based seller. He worked as a senior editor of the Berliner Zeitung culture department, specialized in Contemporary Art and Politics
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