Germans still don't get it

[Richard Romeo]

November 5, 1999


          New York Opening of Exhibition on Nazi
          Atrocities Is Delayed

          By ROGER COHEN

               ERLIN -- The planned opening in New York next month of an
               exhibition linking ordinary German soldiers to Nazi war 
crimes has
          been postponed as a result of a dispute over whether some of the
          photographs may be misleading.

          The exhibition, called "The German Army and Genocide," has been
          fiercely contentious since it opened in Germany four years ago 
because it
          challenges the view widely held here that Nazi atrocities were not 
the
          work of army but of Hitler's elite SS and fanatical death squads.

          Having traveled to 34 cities in Germany, the exhibition was to 
have
          opened in New York at the Cooper Union on Dec. 2. It has provoked
          rancorous dissent from right-wing groups that say the army was 
relatively
          untainted by the atrocities. The controversy culminated in a 
bombing
          attack in the western city of Saarbrücken in March.

          Jan Philipp Reemtsma, a wealthy industrialist and art patron who
          sponsored the exhibition, said today that the New York opening 
would
          be delayed for a three-month review of the exhibits by historians. 
"The
          exhibition has suffered an extraordinary loss of credibility," he 
said.

          In recent months, a Polish historian, Bogdan Musial, has argued 
that at
          least 9 of the 801 photographs do not belong in the show.

          For instance, he has contended that a photograph called "Pogrom at
          Ternopol," purporting to show German soldiers at a mass grave in
          Ukraine, in fact captures a massacre by the Soviet secret police.

          Another disputed photograph shows a German firing squad shooting
          youths in Yugoslavia in 1941. Musial and other historians have 
suggested
          that soldiers involved were not German but Hungarian.

          Such dissent has fueled an outcry over the exhibition, organized 
by the
          Hamburg Institute for Social Research and visited by nearly a 
million
          Germans. The show was shocking to many Germans who believed that
          the army remained detached from the worst of Nazi crimes.

          Because 20 million men served in the army during World War II, the
          challenge posed by the exhibition was particularly intimate and
          widespread, touching many German families that previously thought 
of
          themselves as relatively unsullied by Hitler's genocide.

          The exhibition prompted a debate in Parliament, where some 
deputies
          broke down in tears as they told of their families' suffering 
during the war.
          Erika Steinbach, a member of the conservative Bavarian party, the
          Christian Democratic Union, proposed a counter-exhibition to 
restore the
          reputation of the army, the Wehrmacht.

          But the weight of the evidence -- most of it in the form of 
gruesome
          photographs taken by soldiers at the front and sent to their 
families or
          friends at home -- appeared overwhelming until the credibility of 
the
          exhibition was undermined by the doubts over a few photographs.

          Most serious historians believe that, as Germany's top cultural 
official,
          Michael Naumann, has put it, "the Wehrmacht was responsible for 
the
          logistics of the Holocaust." Whatever the pockets of 
professionalism, and
          however limited the access of ordinary soldiers to Hitler's 
murderous
          designs, the Wehrmacht was in essence a tool of the Nazis.

          In an interview in Stern magazine published before Thursday's
          announcement of the postponement, Reemstsma, the sponsor, said: 
"Our
          exhibition is not the only one to contain mistakes, but it is the 
only one
          where errors make such large waves. And that is because the 
exhibition
          is so provocative to so many people."

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com