At 05:20 PM 10/6/00 +0200, Paul wrote:
> One interesting lead one could follow up with your students might be
>Nazi attitudes to the prehistory of the nations of "untermenschen" which
>they conquered. I am thinking in particular of Poland, where Hitler's
>doctrine "no nation will survive longer than its culture" was put into
>operation. The initial act was the removal of archaeological material of a
>"Germanic" type from The State Archaeological Museum, the archaeologist in
>SS uniform Ernst Petersen telling the Director of the Museum that "The
>German Reich has no obligation to Polish prehistory". The newly-published
>archaeological journal Wiadomości Archeologiczne for 1939 was almost
>totally destroyed as it contained interpretations of the archaeological
>material uncomfortable for the Nazi doctrine that Poland was an urheimat
>of the German peoples. The process culminated in the mining and demolition
>of the historic quarter of Warsaw which was almost totally destroyed and
>was reconstructed from the ruins in the 1950s to 1960s (and these
>reconstructed houses and churches are now on the UNESCO World heritage
>List).
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the Nazis also mess with Biskupin? How
much was altered/destroyed there? It would be interesting to know, since
Biskupin was treated as a showcase of "early Slavic" history. On the other
hand, it must have been the Ostpolitik, for no comparable destruction was
inflicted in the West (e.g., in Belgium).
Florin
_____________________________________________________________
Florin Curta
Department of History
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
University of Florida
4411 Turlington Hall
P.O. Box 117320
Gainesville, FL 32611-7320
Phone: (352) 392-0271
FAX: (352) 392-6927
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/fcurta
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