Letter from Munich – 035
Letter from Munich – the Joseph Affair – 35
EINE DEUTSCHE FASSUNG STEHT WEITER UNTEN.
7 September 2001
Dear Mr. Graf, dear friends,
A continuation of the letter of last week:
In short, even the western part of Germany is in many ways still not what Americans think of as an “open society.” Some might say that the eastern part is in every way still not an open society.
Many people appear to believe that it is better not to see these things, that these problems will correct themselves somehow if they are simply ignored, if only one speaks positively about Germany, if only one will stop reminding Germans their country was once a “bad boy,” as one commentator recently termed it.
I know few people will ever believe what I have written here about what is supposed to be the most powerful country in Europe, at least not until the situation here becomes so bad that it can no longer be overlooked. I know that it is extremely unlikely that anyone will be fair to the Kantelberg-Abdullas and interview them in depth, instead of simply obtaining information about them from others, as so many journalists appear to have done. And yet truth cannot be silenced – at least not with a greater effort than those who oppose the truth in this case have so far made.
I am not familiar with the techniques of journalistic research, but I did make a round trip of fourteen hours by train between Munich and the Dresden area, when the Kantelberg-Abdullas still lived there, and I did speak with them. I did hear their side of their story. I have also obtained documents that support their side, and these documents I will present in these letters in the coming weeks and months and years – until I am silenced.
I also want to add that I am a man no longer young – and therefore, and because my means are limited, I am an excellent target for any reprisals that Kurt Biedenkopf and the CDU wish to direct against me. I am sure these reprisals will come. In Germany today, I have learned, criticism of superiors does not go unpunished. (Most Germans, unfortunately, are courageous in this respect, only when they can criticize or attack in groups. The dissident as an individual is still almost completely unheard of in Germany.) However, I have decided to try to provide the information this letter contains, and to run the very real risk of retribution for only one reason. I have often in my life seen talented and even gifted young people destroyed, without anyone having to suffer the consequences for that destruction. At my age I simply cannot stand to see such a thing happen one more time – certainly not to a child — without at least making some small effort to correct the situation.
For some reason I think of a woman who was interviewed on German television recently as a group of neo-Nazis marched through the small town she lived in. She was asked if the presence of the marchers was a cause of concern to her, and she replied that it was not, because “they’ve never done anything to me personally.”
The comment almost took my breath away and I heard once again in my mind the words a German social democrat is supposed to have spoken after the war, and which I quoted in somewhat different form at the beginning of this letter:
They came for the foreigners, but I wasn’t a foreigner,
so I said nothing.
They came for the leftists, but I wasn’t a leftist,
so I didn’t say a word.
They came for the handicapped, but I wasn’t handicapped
so I kept quiet,
because I didn’t want to make trouble.
Then they came for the loners and the misfits,
but I wasn’t a loner or a misfits,
so I just stood and watched.
Then they came for the Jews, but I wasn’t Jewish,
so still I said nothing.
And then finally they came for me.
This letter will be continued next week.
Sincerely yours,
Robert John Bennett
Mauerkircherstrasse 68
81925 Germany
Telephone: +49.89.981.0208
