Between Private Tastes and Public Influence ? Private Art Collections in Germany

Never before have there been so many private collectors making extensive acquisitions of contemporary art. Are they the real key figures of a global art business?... more more

GoetheInstitute

03/05/2005

World War II Special

A pick of the signandsight archives, on the 60th anniversary of the end of World War Two

Stalin for president
Sixty years after the end of World War Two, Russia is seeing a dramatic re-Stalinisation under President Putin's leadership. As hopes for prosperity dwindle, "Uncle Joe's" star is on the rise again. By Sonja Margolina
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As many wars as nations
May the 8th is the anniversary of the end of WW II, but was it really a liberation? Each European country has a different memory of the war, and there is no real consensus on the Holocaust either. With the EU entry of the Eastern European countries the competing myths will no longer exist in isolation, but will have to be contested with the neighbours. By Adam Krzeminski
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The Mongol devastations
The Americans and British practised the systematic annihilation of entire cities and their populations in the Second World War. Their main goal was to impress Stalin. The burning of Dresden was the first act of the Cold War. By Jörg Friedrich
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The woes of Berlin's memorials
The monuments to the victims of the Nazi era are in a miserable state. Götz Aly has made himself very unpopular in making this very clear.
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I am the people
In response to the furore caused by Oliver Hirschbiegel's film "The Downfall", historian Götz Aly describes how many Germans were seduced by National Socialism's heady mix of generous state handouts and high-speed history making.
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Musicology and mass execution

Wednesday 6 January, 2010

Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht was one of Germany's most influential musicologists. His magnum opus "Music in the Occident" sits on the shelves of many a music lover. Ten years after his death, historian Boris von Haken has now revealed that Eggebrecht was involved in mass shootings of Jews during the Second World War.
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The element of madness

Monday 7 December, 2009

The history of German terrorism was also the story of the amour fou between Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader. But this affair caused the breakup of Ensslin's relationship with Bernward Vesper, who was also the father of her child. Their letters, dating from 1968/69, while Ensslin was in Stammheim, offer profound insights into the political pathology of the time. By Gerd Koenen.
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The starting gun for a student movement

Monday 8 June, 2009

The death of student Benno Ohnesorg saw the birth of the West German '68 movement. Now evidence has emerged that Karl-Heinz Kurras, the West German police officer who shot him during a demonstration against the Shah, was a Stasi spy. Wolfgang Kraushaar, an acclaimed chronicler of '68, asks whether the killing was an unofficial East German act of state.
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The black marketeers of Bahnhof Zoo

Tuesday 24 March 2009

TeaserPicThe idea that 1989 came out of thin air speaks volumes about historical insensitivities and limited horizons. The fall of the Berlin Wall was preceded by years of erosion and attrition. Historian Karl Schlögel looks at the molecular movements on the margins of history that are much more powerful than any deeds of "great men".
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Beyond the war hero

Tuesday 17 February, 2009

TeaserPicBernard-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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Unmasking the July 20 plot

Friday 13 February, 2009

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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Why did Stauffenberg plant the bomb?

Tuesday 10 February, 2009

TeaserPicWas 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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Evil and the upright citizen

Monday 4 February, 2008

A large-scale and long-overdue project has begun. German historians are documenting the persecution and extermination of the Jews in 16 volumes of primary source texts where metal merchants and budgie lovers all have their say - with no recourse to hindsight. By Eckhard Fuhr
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Waking a Polish demon

Monday 21 January, 2008

"Fear" is the punchy title of book about Polish anti-Semitism whose recent publication in Poland has sparked an emotional debate. Very few people have come to the defence of its author, Jan Tomasz Gross, who has taken on the difficult task of making uncomfortable facts known to a wider audience and removing blind spots in Polish history. By Jakub Kloc-Konkolowicz
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Back to Rudi Dutschke's pram

Monday 7 January, 2008

So what was 1968? It was when the children of German mass murderers ran after mass murderer Mao Tsedong, says historian and ex-Maoist Götz Aly. Absolutely not, says educationalist and author Katharina Rutschky: The practice of dispelling fascism in the kindergarten was far more important than ideology. Stefan Reinecke and Jan Feddersen preside over a full-blown row.
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The universal spirit takes a walk

Monday 5 November, 2007

Thuringia and Saxony Anhalt are two of Germany's most neglected states today, yet they make up the country's cultural heart. Gustav Seibt drives two hundred kilometres south of Berlin to the land of Bach, Goethe and Hegel that brought forth Bauhaus, Protestantism and the German Enlightenment.
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Good comrades

Monday 29 October, 2007

Last week the 1945 Rechnitz massacre hit the headlines after British journalist David Litchfield maintained that Countess Margit von Batthyany, partial heir to the Thyssen industrial family, had taken part in the atrocity. But such speculations belong to the boulevard press. The real issue is the scandalous role of the German postwar criminal justice system in letting the perpetrators escape Germany unharmed. By Stefan Klemp
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Under the sign of half truth

Monday 10 September, 2007

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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"Being high, being free, terrorism's gotta be"

Thursday 6 September, 2007

Thirty years ago, the kidnapping of German industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer by the Red Army Faction signalled the beginning of the Deutscher Herbst, the highpoint of German terrorism. Arno Widmann looks back on the culture of violence in the 1970s.
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Shooting down the system

Wednesday 22 August, 2007

A document recently made public testifies that the secret police of the GDR were instructed to shoot anyone attempting to escape over the border to West Germany. While the fact is already widely known, the publication has unleashed a new debate about the shootings at the wall. East German author Reinhard Jirgl explains why. (Image © Peter-Andreas Hassiepen)
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