Letters from HINDENBURG (fwd)
Tom Holloway (xuegx@CSV.WARWICK.AC.UK)
Fri, 2 Feb 1996 11:47:58 +0000
Dear Tom,
we tried to give a contribution to the discussion that is going on at the
moment.
We dont know why we werent accepted and what was wrong with the address.
Can you help us? If so, please forward our message.
Thanks in advance
Guenter Reichardt
============================================================
Manny Karbelnig said...
> Still, I know
>these people (I use the term generically), and dread what they will
>certainly do in the future. Keep hoping, it's a wonderful quality.
Dear Manny, dear colleague,
I apologise for addressing you in this familiar way and I
hope you're not offended.
When I studied your first letter (1/14/96) I was astonished
to read the line
> what Germans are capable of
and I thought you might have chosen the wrong tense. So,
why should I tell you that Germans are capable of reading
and understanding English?
To be honest I was shocked and disappointed when I read your
answer to Don's letter. The different lines have already
been quoted several times so I'm not going to distribute
them once again.
As a young student I experienced such reactions in the
sixties when in the discos we meet GIs who were stationed at
Baumholder. Within the first months of their stay some of
them were extremely cautious and full of prejudices. The
longer you got to know them the more they confessed that
their knowledge about Europe and Germany was incomplete. In
the seventies I paid several visits to England and in a very
few cases I was confronted with similar reactions. In all
these situations we were able to discuss our opinions and at
least it was possible to exchange, alter and accept
different attitudes.
Now, 50 years after the war, you made me think of these
events again. How is it possible that in the nineties one
hasn't realised that Germany has developed a new image.
Being situated in the heart of Europe, sorry, perhaps we
should say, the centre of Europe, we might be seen as the
bullseye for an atomic attack but alas how are you going to
explain to the families of the Polish truck driver on his
way to France, the Swedish tourist going to Austria and the
Frenchmen on business in Frankfort that they were hit by
accident (not mentioning the American tourists on a Rhine
river cruise).
We have opened our borders and are taking part in a process
that might result in a united Europe. And immediately the
traditional fear wells up: 'They are trying to take over
the leadership in Europe again.' By the way, the term
'oberleute' doesn't exist in the German language. Where did
you pick it up? I hope it wasn't used in one of the
American series about the Second World War.
Well, what's to be done to convince people that the Huns are
a product of war propaganda and that the new generation of
Germans has not inherited a malicious gene but has been
educated in a democratic system and taught to be critical?
I'm a teacher at a grammar school in the south-west of
Germany (on the border to France and Luxembourg). In one of
the courses we were doing a project on the EU and the role
of the Commonwealth and got into contact with Tom Holloway
who asked us to take part in Memories of 1945. We have been
studying most of the contributions of the recent months and
have collected several reports by elderly people which we
intended to translate into English.
The members of the course are all about 18 years old. One
of them has a Swedish mother, a girl an American father,
another one was born in Australia and several of them have
been to the United States (one student stayed there for a
year).
I distributed your letter and, ad hoc, they decided to write
an answer to you. These answers have not been censored nor
altered by me and I have added two of them to this letter in
order to show you in what way young people reacted.
---------------------------------------------------------
Manny Karbelnig, we are a group of young German students and
we're pretty shocked about your statement. The facts you
have mentioned are just a few you've picked out of the
whole of the German history. Didn't you see in the news
that there are many people in Germany who are protesting
against the terror of the Nazis. You are just seeing the
negative side of Germany, but what about America?
1. Hiroshima 2. Vietnam 3. Ku Klux Klan 4. Oppression of the
Blacks 5. Martin Luther King 6. Rodney King who was killed
by white policemen
Another example is the Gulf-War. You probably wouldn' t
come to Germany because of your opinion. And we here in
Germany get so many prejudices about the USA from series
shown on TV. America seems to be full of crime, but a lot
of Germans love America and are there on their holidays.
Verena, Marco, Steffi, Gerit and Sascha
------------------------------------------------------------
- News from the front -
Hello!
We, German Nazi-cockroaches, are trying to justify ourselves
against those bad, bad prejudices. Of course, fascist
attitudes still exist in our country, but this is only a
very small minority (2% of the youth, concerning older
people, we don't know any numbers, but we don't expect them
to be much higher. The terror and graffities only come from
young people anyway). We cannot justify this minority of
silly youngsters, but can you justify the Ku-Klux-Klan?
You asked where Hassam Hussein got his poison-gas from. We
don't know who this is, but we're sure you mean Saddam
Hussein. He got it, !partly!, from persons who worked for
big German chemical plants, but what can the politicians do
against that? It's too difficult to control. Further, this
hasn't got anything to do with the 'war-making psyche', but
with the greed of firms. We don't know who ferments the
conflict in the Middle East. Are we naive? No, because we
believe that American interests played an essential role in
the Gulf War.
Please come to Germany again and look at every man and woman
in the street. Ask yourself if the majority of them has got
a Nazi-psyche - if you think that, yes, YOU are the fascist.
Finally, we would like to request from you more tolerance
and respect to us poor little cockroaches, crawling in the
dust of the Reich.
Think it over, and learn who could be YOUR friend.
Sven and Mathias
------------------------------------------------------------
You should keep in mind that the students have had
difficulties to express their thoughts and feelings in
English but from the above reactions you can undoubtedly see
that they were offended by your letter and that Zvonko's
statement that your attitude is extremely dangerous from an
educational point of view is right: the pupils were
provoked and willing to write back. Tom's, Peter's and
Zvonko's reactions to your letter have incited a discussion
within the class and we have decided to deal with your
letter in a more rational way. Your letter is a very
emotional one and it probably wasn't a gut reaction. There
must be reasons or experiences that have caused this
reaction. Will you be able to explain them to us? We would
like to find out what your motives are.
We have to admit that you will be able to find graffiti,
swastikas and even reactions that might remind oneself of
the disastrous past. The media tend to give these events a
special consideration. But from your letters we weren't
able to guess what could have caused your strong reactions.
You only seem to have been in Germany in combat or as a
tourist. As you are able to read and speak the German
language we would like to invite you to an exchange of views
and to spend some time in Germany to 'brush up' your
knowledge of our country which has become one of the most
reliable partners of the American Nation. Perhaps we can
learn together not to see enemies where there aren't any.
As we wouldn't like to put a further strain on Tom's project
we add our e-mail address so that you can contact us
directly:
hgt@uni-trier.de
We have been smiling when deciding on ending this letter
with....
The surviving cockroaches
(because it's the insects that have best chances to survive
the mushroom cloud.)
LET EDUCATION BE OUR TARGET !
Heinz-Guenter Reichardt