Schoolboys at Auschwitz
Imagine a school field trip in which a class of sixteen year-olds is taken to visit the fossil filled coastal cliffs of Dorset near Lulworth and Kimmeridge. As the group of students explore the rock strata composing the cliffs, many of them discover the shells of extinct molluscs and some even find belemnites and ammonites, all of which are labelled and placed in specimen bags to be taken back to their class rooms for further…
Is it Time for the Rehabilitation of National Socialism?
There are many forms of nationalism that have evolved to meet a variety of needs throughout history and depending upon one’s perspective and the circumstances prevailing at the time, they have been variously viewed as: heroic liberating movements, at one end of the scale; as movements of oppression and genocide at the other extreme; and every shade in between. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say. In Germany during the 1930s,…
‘Paperboy of Auschwitz’ to be Prosecuted?
By Max Musson: Following the recent prosecution and conviction of 94 year old, ex-SS clerical worker, Oskar Gröning, the so-called ‘Bookkeeper of Auschwitz’, and the announcement of the impending prosecution by German authorities of a 91 year old German woman who worked as a radio operator for the SS at Auschwitz during World War Two, we can announce that two further prosecutions are also currently being considered. The first is of 87 year old Fritz…
The Liberation of Auschwitz
By Max Musson: This article is perhaps a day late, but it will be some time before talk of the Holocaust subsides in the mainstream press, especially now that we are to have a vast new Holocaust Memorial Centre built with £50 million of taxpayers money in central London, to replace the rather unimpressive one that already exists in Hyde Park. In the various concentration camps liberated by the Allies towards the end of World…
Encountering Antisemitism
By Max Musson: Since the Charlie Hebdo shootings and the siege of the kosher supermarket in Paris, the authorities on both side of the Channel have gone into overdrive in pandering to Jewish sensibilities, as if the issue of security in the face of Islamic terrorism revolves solely around the security needs of Jews and so much so, that the needs of the rest of us don’t really warrant attention. We have seen the Prime Minister, David…
Was Hitler a Nationalist?
By Kasredin: I have hesitated before now to write anything about Nazi Germany, not least because I am sure that many readers of this site will be better informed on that subject than I am. The story effectively begins in 1918 when Germany agreed an armistice with its enemies, thereby bringing the combatant phase of the Great War to an end. On paper however the war continued until the following year when the major players…
Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter
By Max Musson: There has been a mixed reaction to the recent broadcast on German TV of a three-part series entitled ‘Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter’ (‘Our Mothers, our Fathers’), depicting the effect that the Second World War conflict had on the lives of ordinary German citizens, and on the lives of five young Germans in particular. The five young friends are; brothers Wilhelm and Friedhelm; a young nurse Charly; aspiring singer Greta; and her Jewish…