Language:
German
Year of publication:
1993
Titel der Quelle:
Neue Gesellschaft - Frankfurter Hefte
Angaben zur Quelle:
40,4 (1993) 359-365
Keywords:
Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
;
Nazi concentration camps
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Antisemitism
;
Weimar (Thuringia, Germany)
Abstract:
An address delivered at the memorial site at Buchenwald, November 1992. Discusses Goethe's Faust as representative of a German "Sonderweg" of amoral activism (whose danger Goethe himself realized). Points out that the Nazis cultivated Weimar as the city of German culture. Its citizens prided themselves on their German racial consciousness, expressed in the exclusion of Jews from public places even before this issue became law. Argues that Weimar was thus a logical location for the Buchenwald concentration camp, even though after the Nazi defeat its citizens tried to dissociate themselves from it. Cites the letters of the psychiatrist Friedrich Mennecke who, while carrying out selections in Buchenwald, was very interested in Weimar culture.
Note:
Appeared also in "Pogromnacht und Holocaust; Frankfurt, Weimar, Buchenwald..." (1994) 20-31.
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink