Dramaturgie im zeitgenössischen Tanz ist ? positiv gemeint ? ein heißes Eisen. Idealerweise sind Dramaturginnen und Dramaturgen während der Erarbeitung eines Stücks die besten Freunde der Choreografen.
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On what would have been Romanian philosopher E.M. Cioran's 100th birthday, Suhrkamp has published a volume of his essays from the 1930s, "Über Deutschland". Effervescing with enthusiasm for Hitler and fascist ideas, they cast a dark shadow over his later writing. Fritz Raddatz wishes he'd never had to read such abominations and bids a former companion a bitter farewell. Photo: E.M. Cioran © Surhrkamp Verlag
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The trial of SS officer Adolf Eichmann began fifty years ago. Research continues to show that many of the perpetrators were not just bureaucrats and cretins but educated men who acted out of intellectual conviction - Eichmann, contrary to what Hannah Arendt said, included. An interview with Holocaust historian Ulrich Herbert by Stefan Reinecke and Christian Semler. (Photo: Adolf Eichmann during his trial in Jerusalem)
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As rector of the Albert Ludwig University in the winter of 1933/34, Martin Heidegger gave a seminar which was said to contain decisive evidence of the total identification of his teachings with the principles of Hitlerism. Now, thanks to his son Hermann Heidegger, the secret transcripts of this seminar "On the Essence and Concepts of Nature, History and the State" have been published for the first time. By Alexander Kissler
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Bernard-Henri Levy looks at some of the problems posed by the film "Valkyrie" which are too complex and delicate to be resolved within Hollywood logic. First on the list: the Scientology question.
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To deny Stauffenberg and the other conspirators any moral and cultural relevance is blinkered and consitutes intellectual bigotry. Even if their ideas seem politically anachronistic today, these men showed the sort of noblesse and strength of character of which today’s politicians and other bureaucratic elites can only dream. Karl Heinz Bohrer responds to the thesis of British historian Richard J. Evans.
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Was it because Hitler was losing the war? Was it to put an end to the mass murder of the Jews. Or was it to save Germany's honour? Whatever his motives, he was no role model for future generations, says British historian Richard Evans. (Photo: Deutsches Historisches Museum)
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An SS man reflects on mass murder - and there's a pigeon hole for every vile deed. Novelist Georg Klein on the Holocaust and the enlightened harmony of trivial realism in Jonathan Littell's novel "The Kindly Ones".
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The 400-page German translation of Jonathan Littell's corpse-littered SS novel, "The Kindly Ones," has put the German-language feuilletons into a critical frenzy, despite the general consensus that the book is bad. We have compiled a selection of the accusations hurled.
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Kurt von Hammerstein was head of the Reichswehr, a grand seigneur, and an implacable opponent of National Socialism. In his new book "Hammerstein oder Der Eigensinn" (Hammerstein or idiosycrasy), Hans Magnus Enzensberger engages in dialogues with the dead to deliver a literary and lunatic precipitate of German history.
By Ina Hartwig
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The dawn of a new era in Central Eastern Europe means confronting the legacy of communism and fascism. While there is no lack of advice and admonition from Western Europe, or coarse dressing-downs from Moscow, these nations must be given the time they need to unravel their complicated history. Romanian-German writer Richard Wagner guides us through some of the thorniest issues. (Photo © Lothar Deus)
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Baden-Württemberg's premier Günther Oettinger made a few off comments in his speech at the funeral of his predecessor Hans Filbinger last week. Namely that Filbinger, who had worked as a judge for the National Socialist regime, had opposed the Nazis. Having been rapped on the knuckles by Angela Merkel, Oettinger recanted, as little as possible. Then he granted himself an apology. Arno Widmann is not impressed.
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Historian Norbert Frei invited specialists of the National Socialist era to Jena for a kind of family reunion. At debate was the history of the historians of National Socialism and the question of when, and if, the notion of objectivity begins to apply. By Stefan Reinecke
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Some people will think: "Not another book on the Holocaust!" But historian Saul Friedländer depicts the "Years of Extermination" with tremendous power and drama. His narrative style is much like that of a film director, elegantly combining individual stories with world events. By Dan Diner
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Historian Joachim Fest's memoirs of his youth, "Ich Nicht," document an elitism that seeks to distance itself from petty-bourgeois National Socialism, and form a counterpoint to the prevailing culture of memory in the Federal Republic of Germany. Although the historical establishment tended to view Fest askance, his recollections document a genuinely cultivated German bourgeoisie. By Jens Bisky
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Having claimed for sixty years that he was no more than a conscripted flak helper in World War Two, Günter Grass now admits that he actually served with the Waffen SS. He also explains that his first exposure to "real racism" came after the war, in an American prisoner of war camp, where the black soldiers were treated as second class citizens. Roman Bucheli finds the Nobel Prize laureate's recent revelations a little hard to swallow.
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