De l'Allemagne et de la France

 As I'm still trying to remember and make progress in German, I'm watching a lot of ARTE programmes. (I just searched for ARTE in my ROKU device and it appeared! It's not however the live television programme that you get in France or Germany) and I watched the documentary "Stockholm 1975 terror at the embassy" about an assault made by the RAF (Red Army Faction) on the West German embassy. They took embassy staff hostage and asked for the liberation of all RAF members.

I was 6 years old then but I do remember my mum speaking about 'la bande à Baader'. Terrible events, terrible violence. Two embassy staff murdered and two terrorists blown by their own explosives. One remained alive, Karl-Heinz Dellwo, served his time I suppose, and is now in charge of an art gallery in Hamburg. How strange.  

But Karl-Heinz Dellwo puts the blame on having been raised in a nazi environment, that West Germany, after the war, did not do enough to purge itself from its nazi past. He explains this in an interview for Eurozine:

     I was born in 1952 in West Germany and I grew up in a society which was totally permeated with Nazi ideology. Of course, the country wasn’t officially Nazi, but there were still many people, in very important positions, who were closely connected with the former Nazi régime and who were not punished or even forced to reflect upon their past. 

I profondly think that does not explain and will not excuse being a terrorist but there is certainly a bit of truth in that. 

Katja Hoyer in her book on the GDR Beyond the wall and I'm sure many others, distinguish the two Germanies in that respect. The GDR welcomed back the German communists, many having taken refuge in Russia during the war, it is unlikely that there were many ex-Nazis in power there. 

In West Germany however, it is more complex. There was, of course, a huge work on collective guilt followed by financial contributions (notably to Israel). I'm currently reading Frank Trentmann's Out of the Darkness: the Germans 1942-2022 which I'm sure will develop this in great details. There are good reflections about guilt there and the author presents many points of views. 

There were also many ex-Nazis who managed to continue to have a good life. It was not so good a life for German soldiers who had deserted, as another documentary from ARTE shows: the fate of the Germans who joined the Italian resistance....("Bella ciao! German soldiers in the Italian resistance")

In France also there were collaborators who survived pretty well. Yes of course there were purges, and many can see I'm sure images of women having their head shaved and men killed by mobs (nice to be precise here and state that some 'collaborators' were innocent, they only had a good business someone else wanted...). You can still easily buy a book on the history of classical music by a French fascist as the book continues to be republished in the Editions Bouquins... I only suggest you do NOT buy the book but read the entry of any Jewish composer you know...warning: you may need a bucket as you could get sick) or you can still buy and enjoy listening to Bach's cello suites played by someone who denounced Jewish musicians at the Paris conversatoire (and I have always wondered if my violin teacher, Denise Soriano-Boucherit was denounced by him... having said that, I'm sure there were many sub-humans at the time... I also heard that the lover of a famous cellist was also denounced and sent to a death camp, but I am not sure of this, sorry).

Having said all this, and needing a bucket in which to vomit, good to think about musicians who had courage: the cellist Maurice Gendron who refused to play for the Germans and joined the resistance, and the violinist Jules Boucherit who protected many Jewish musicians, including Denise Soriano he later married. He was named Righteous Among the Nations after his death. 

 

French violinist Jules Boucherit (1877-1962). Photography by Henri Manuel, domaine public