Tag Archives: Nazi

Non-fiction

Is Evil Merely Banal or Profound?

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Douglas Murray discusses the success of Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” and its failure of as both a concept and a conclusion from the trail of Adolf Eichmann.

“Together with Eichmann’s contemporary attempts at memoir-writing—which were known about by the time of the trial—an Eichmann entirely different from Arendt’s emerges. Wonder of wonders, it is the Eichmann that the world knew existed until Hannah Arendt came along.”

He wasn’t “a mere bureaucrat” but a man who was proud to be a part of the murder of six million Jews. Nazis in Argentina wanted to believe the Holocaust was a hateful lie. “To Eichmann, these efforts to minimize the Holocaust were offensive—something like spitting on his life’s work. Eichmann knew that the six-million figure was accurate, and he seems to have only realized gradually that his audience was hoping for something quite different from him.”

Murray then describes the use of evil banality by contemporary journalists as a way to wave away the acts of terrorists.

“Pure evil. Terrible evil. Unfathomable evil—all of these things for sure. But ‘banal’? No—nothing could be further from the truth. And yet today, the idea of pure evil seems unavailable to many cultured minds. Perhaps it is too theological. Or perhaps we think such terms come from a metaphysics that we have abandoned as insufficiently subtle for our more enlightened times.”

(Photo of Eichmann trail by Israeli GPO photographer/ Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)

Non-fiction

Distorting History

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Justin Taylor interviews Sir Richard J. Evans, a historian and expert witness in David Irving v. Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt, which is the subject of a new movie called Denial. The trial dealt with a lawsuit by the British Hitler apologist David Irving against American historian Deborah Lipstadt and her UK publisher. In her book and public speaking, Lipstadt said Irving had manipulated evidence and misrepresented facts in favor of the Third Reich. She believed he was the most dangerous Holocaust denier in the world, because he had some level of respect among historians at that time.

Evans has written on European history, and perhaps more to the point, he has written on the concept of historical knowledge. The trial could easily have been framed as an issue of freedom of speech. Could anyone say or claim anything? Is it actually possible to establish historical facts?

Even though it was Irving who sued Lipstadt, some people defended Irving’s right for free speech as if he were the victim or the one on trial. How could the public have been so confused about the nature of this well-publicized case?

This is because the defence’s tactic was to focus on Irving, repeat Lipstadt’s accusations at much greater length, and back them up with overwhelming evidence.

Had he won, the freedom of speech would have been seriously damaged in the UK. Even though he lost, I still had major problems publishing my book on the case because publishers were afraid he would sue them. The movie makes it clear what was at stake.

A similarly skewed perspective of history appears to be on display today at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, where you can learn that Anita Hill was a major figure in the twentieth century and Justice Clarence Thomas was an also ran.  But maybe, looking on the bright side, the museum plans a major exhibit on Thomas next year.

Uncategorized

Nazi Resort Finally Opens Though Unfinished

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Hitler had the vision for a grand seaside resort on Rügen, an island in the Baltic Sea. He spent three years building it but did not complete it before turning his attention to war efforts. For years, Germans have argued about destroying vs. preserving it for history. Now, a design company has developed most of the complex into luxury condos and will preserve a portion of it as a historic memorial.

Metropole’s Manfred Hartwig told the Daily Mail, “The past is the past. Prora may have been built by the Nazis , but it was never used by them or their soldiers. Now the place is so lovely, visitors want to get back to nature and enjoy its beauty.”

NPR explains:

The resort was owned and run by the Nazis’ Kraft Durch Freude or “Strength Through Joy” leisure movement, a state-run organization designed to promote the advantages of National Socialism to the German working class. . . .

[Developer Ulrich] Busch has opened a hotel called Prora Solitaire in one of the buildings, which also includes 150 individually owned condominiums.

Busch says even in its unfinished state, the hotel boasted an 89 percent occupancy rate this past summer. The resort, he says, appeals to Germans curious about the Nazi past and those seeking to vacation closer to home, following recent terrorist attacks elsewhere in Europe.