Frederick Pollack wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robin Hamilton"
> <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2005 10:32 PM
> Subject: Re: help! tidal piano
>
>
>>> "Whenever I hear the word Culture I reach for my
>>
>>
>> I think in the original (and was this was uttered by either Goebels
>> or the
>> leader of the then Hitler Youth Movement) the term in was "luger".
>>
>> But it may have lost something in translation.
>>
>
> No. The remark
["Wenn ich Kultur höre, entsichere ich meinen Browning"] - mjw
> is erroneously attributed to Goering; sometimes to Goebbels. But its
> real source was a play, Schlageter, by the Nazi playwright Hans
> Johst. It was performed in late 1933 or early '34, and was based on
> the life of Albert Leo Schlageter, a Stalhelm or early Nazi fighter
> shot by French soldiers in the occupied Rhineland after WWI. The
> character based on him speaks the line in the play. Johst (and his
> audiences) approved.
Yes, thank you for pointing this out; I did not know the source. This is
what I have found out: he dedicated the play to Hitler and it was
premiered on the latter's birthday in 1933. He became the President of
the Reichsschrifttumkammer in 1935 and was able to help his friend
Gottfried Benn while denouncing others. After the war he was
"entnazifiziert", slowly at first - he had after all accompanied his
good friend "Heini" Himmler on a visit to the occupied zones of Central
Eastern Europe and had, as SS Gruppenführer, taken part in the Führer
conference in Posen at which Himmler informed the faithful about the
extermination of the Jews - but then Benn (now highly respected), among
others, spoke up for him. He himself claimed to be a "humanist" and
"pacifist"; friends' testimonials intended to absolve him of involvement
in the regime compared him with Büchner & Ernst Toller (!!!). So much
for the poisonous climate of self-serving lies that infected West
Germany in the post-war period, while the general idea of the American
occupiers was to go along with any institutionally sanctioned cover-up
that helped to create "order" and suppress signs of radical or "Red"
unrest among the populace or in the (strictly censored) press and
broadcasting corporations. Of course, the GDR ("Ostzone") was much
worse, no doubt of it.
mj
--
M.J.Walker - no blog - no webpage - no idea
Nous ne faisons que nous entregloser. - Montaigne
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