Lack of terminological clarity is a problem inherent to political discourse, no doubt because so much of it is manipulative rather than communicative in intention. The word “nationalism” is a case in point. To many it still evokes the revanchisme of a France humiliated by the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, or Hitler’s various territorial demands of the 1930s: i.e., demands on behalf of particular nations that could only be satisfied at the expense of other nations. (more…)
Audio version: To listen in a player, use the one above or click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save link as” or “save target as.” To subscribe to the CC podcast RSS feed, click here. (more…)
What does the teaching of Auschwitz actually consist of? That man, when he finds the opportunity, is capable of the worst? If anyone needs Auschwitz to learn this, let him learn it from Auschwitz. Or that in technological modernity modern technology can be used for mass murder? (more…)
At regular intervals, the practiced television viewer can watch a presentation that runs approximately as follows: The Federal President delivers a historical sermon before the assembled parliamentarians in which he conjures up the spirits of the undead and announces a truth which everybody knows and all believe in. (more…)
There are still myths and there are still taboos. Nudity and sexual practices of all sorts are no longer among them, any more than good old-fashioned blasphemy. The Christian God, for example, can be abused at pleasure without the slightest consequences. One taboo, however, remains immoveable: anti-Semitism. (more…)
Rolf Peter Sieferle (1949–2016) was a German historical scholar whose posthumously published book Finis Germania set off a moral panic in the summer of 2017.
A member of the generation of ’68, he was a radical in his youth, writing his doctoral dissertation on the Marxian concept of revolution. He became a trailblazer in the field of environmental history, (more…)
Finis Germania is a very different book from the carefully referenced scholarly works which established Sieferle’s academic reputation. It is a collection of brief personal meditations on what the Germans call Vergangenheitsbewältigung: “overcoming (or coping with) the past,” (more…)
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