A Topic Too Hot to Handle

Johannes Schneider Johannes.Schneider at gmx.net
Tue Feb 6 02:00:18 PST 2001


Today most German papers are carrying lengthy articles on Finkelstein in their cultural section.

Die Welt is giving almost a whole side to three articles, including an interview with Finkelstein. Finkelstein. Certainly he says a lot of correct things (e.g. about remembering and compensating US, British and French crimes in the respective countries), but reading a setence in a conservative German paper like: "Der Holocaust ist eine ideologische Keule, mit der Deutschland in Schach gehalten wird" ("The holocaust is the ideological club to keep Germany in check") makes me shiver. It shows that Finkelstein knows very littles about present-day Germany. Such a remark can be found in Germany only in neo-nazi publications today. To note such a conotation does nothing have to do with a wrong 'political correctness', but it is just simply wrong on an empirical level. If their is something like the exploitation of the holocaust for selfish political interests it works differently here: For the German state counterposing today's 'democratic' Germany to the Nazi holocaust is a sort of self-legitimation. This is even more evident since the 'class of '68' is in government. E.g. the German participation in the bombing of Yugoslavia was justified withb the argument to prevent another Auschwitz (mainly by minister of defence Scharping and foreign minister Fischer) Full interview (in German): http://www.welt.de/daten/2001/02/06/0206ku220599.htx

Other articles from Die Welt: http://www.welt.de/daten/2001/02/06/0206kfi220598.htx http://www.welt.de/daten/2001/02/06/0206ku220600.htx http://www.welt.de/daten/2001/02/06/0206fo220658.htx

Sueddeutsche Zeitung: Peter Novick on Finkelstein: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/aktuell/?section=feuill&myTM=full&id=981404885.24 041&myTime=981451740 http://www.sueddeutsche.de/aktuell/?section=ferns&myTM=full&id=981404894.515 58&myTime=981434271

Tagesspiegel: Interview with Peter Novick http://www2.tagesspiegel.de/archiv/2001/02/05/ak-ku-15829.html

Frankfurter Rundschau http://www.fr-aktuell.de/fr/aktuell/t0000008L.htm

Stuttgarter Nachrichten: http://www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de/dc1/html/news-stn/20010206kult0005.sht ml

Hannoversche Allgemeine http://news.haz.de/HOME/KULTUR/story44644.html

Johannes



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