Yule Heibel’s Post Studio © 2003-2009

Through a glass darkly

November 10, 2003 at 8:57 pm | In yulelogStories | 5 Comments

Last night was the 65th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Victoria’s Jewish community had a special commemorative event at the main synagogue (at Blanshard & Pandora). Perhaps I should have made the effort, but I didn’t go because I’m so lazy about evening events. It’s nearly impossible to pry me out of my house after dark, I don’t like gatherings or congregations of whatever variety, and I especially avoid religious ones — going to any place of worship usually distresses me, and I don’t do it unless I have to (for a funeral, say). This aversion undoubtedly has its basis in my total ignorance of religious practice — I have never gone to any church or temple or anything in my life (except for a funeral or two, and maybe one wedding) — and it’s getting worse as I age since I feel increasingly uncharitable toward both the worshippers and their leaders. Therefore, if I can’t feel at home intellectually in a community, how could I possibly subscribe to it as a community? This is my dilemma. No church, no coven, no temple, no groovy nuttin’, not for me, mater. And I’m not even off to play the grand piano… I just don’t join. But enough about me. Even though I didn’t go to Victoria’s little service, I checked Google News. I am virtually keeping on top of things, and some of what I see is ugly indeed. The Jerusalem Post reports on a brawl breaking out in Vienna (Vienna!, ha!, why am I not surprised?) between observers of a Kristallnacht commemoration and pro-Palestinian-rights protesters. There’s mention of Martin Hohmann’s recent benighted — and possibly evil — remarks in Germany about the alleged role of Jews in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. There wasn’t a whole lot in the US press about Hohmann. Too bad, really, because he’s a young guy actively bowdlerising history, and it behooves us to keep track of this kind of stuff and to shine some light on it. Hohmann used language in a particularly German way. His remarks hinged on the word Taetervolk. A Tat is a deed, an act. A Taeter is a person who does a deed, and it usually has pejorative meaning: a murderer, for example, is a Taeter, a culprit, a criminal, a perpetrator. As for Volk, well, everyone knows that one: a people. Hohmann said that Jews could be considered a Taetervolk in the sense that Germans could be considered a Taetervolk, but only because neither one is really a Taetervolk and it’s silly to think of them in those terms. Huh? In other words, let’s get Germans off the “collective guilt” hook by showing how inappropriate it is to ascribe the word Taetervolk to anyone …while at the same time conveniently slurring the allegedly non-Taetervolk with the epithet of the …well, of the Taeter. What’s troubling about Hohmann’s use of the word Taetervolk is that it’s a typical German omnibus word, the kind exploited so well by the Nazis: like Sippenhaft or Endloesung or any number of German words — Schadenfreude, anyone? — it’s the coupling of two or more words to create one, a coupling which produces a short-circuit in thinking. If you have a convenient word like Endloesung (Final solution), you’re tempted not to think about its full implications. You’re not asked to take it apart, to deconstruct it. It is in a sense a perfect “1984″-type language, orwellian in its easyspeak. In that sense, to my mind, Martin Hohmann was showing his deep Nazi roots by using that one little word. At least he was censured, and the German army general who praised his speech was fired outright. And then there are things I find amidst all the downers that cheer me up.
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Meanwhile, googling Kristallnacht, I came across an article describing a petition to Britain’s Homes & Gardens not to withdraw from internet access a 1938 article showcasing Hitler’s private residence. As a shelter-magazine slut, I naturally had to check this out. The entire Homes & Gardens article is posted on The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies website, and it’s a doozy. What’s really horrifying is how little the language has changed — chronicles of the homes of today’s rich & famous still feature the same breathless prose.
The article starts here as follows:

It is over twelve years since Herr Hitler fixed on the site of his one and only home. It had to be close to the Austrian border, barely ten miles from Mozart’s own medieval Salzburg.

English can be so much more “civilised” than German, can’t it? No omnibus words here. But it’s still a load of crap.

More:

A life-long vegetarian at table, Hitler’s kitchen plots are both varied and heavy on produce. Even in his meatless diet, Hitler is something of a gourmet – as Sir John Simon and Mr. Anthony Eden were surprised to note when they dined with him at the Presidial Palace at Berlin. His Bavarian chef, Herr Kannenberg, contrives an imposing array of vegetarian dishes, savoury and rich, pleasing to the eye as well as to the palate, and all conforming to the dietic standards which Hitler exacts. But at Haus Wachenfeld he keeps a generous table for guests of normal tastes. Here bons viceteurs like Field-Marshals G�ring and von Blumberg and Joachim von Ribbentrop will forgather at dinner. Elaborate dishes like …[illegible] and …[trout dish] will then be served with fine wine and liquors of von Ribbentrop’s expert choosing. Cigars and cigarettes are duly lighted at this terrace feast – though Hitler himself never smokes, nor does he take alcohol in any form.
All visitors are shown their host’s model kennels, where he breeds magnificent Alsatians. Some of his pedigree pets are allowed the run of the house, especially on days when Herr Hitler gives a “Fun Fair” to the local children. On such a day, when State affairs are over, the Squire himself, attended by some of his guests, will stroll through the woods into hamlets above and below. There rustics sit at cottage doors, carving trinkets and toys in wood, ivory and bone. It is then the little ones are invited to the house. Coffee, cakes, fruits and sweets are laid out for them on trestle tables in the grassy orchards. The Frauen Goebbels and G�ring, in dainty Bavarian dress, arrange dances and folk-songs while the bolder spirits are given joy-rides in Herr Hitler’s private aeroplane.

No doubt the tables were always laid with fine crystal…