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Well written Alison, some small notes... Simon Schama in his enjoyable Landscape and Memory opens with this Herman Denkmal and Kiefer critique, but what i want to say follows the irony of the nazi's taking Tacitus at his word (from Alison's) "the opinions of those who hold that in >the peoples of Germany there have been given to the world a race unmixed >by intermarriage with other races, a peculiar people and pure, like no >one but themselves" when, and I cannot remember where I heard this, the german languages contain the most non-indo-european words in their vocab which has lead some to speculate that "german" was/is a creole of indo-europeans and some baltic group now disappeared, of course this hybridity would also mean they would be like no one but themselves... arh! the quest to be special! to be ancient! to be righteous and pure! who can resist this determination? meika