Despite flaws of technique and selection, the West German television series on the Third Reich is “a solid achievement” in putting the story of the Nazi era before a huge German public, the Guardian of Manchester reported today in an evaluation from Bonn.
“Psychological difficulties” were blamed by the Bonn correspondent of the British daily for the shortcomings. A basic one was the refusal of the producers of the television series to associate the Nazi regime with the German people as a whole.
However, he added, there was no attempt to gloss over the horrors of the camps and of the Nazi persecution as a whole. “Some of the shots of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising are unforgettable,” he reported. “Charts and diagrams have been used to emphasize the cold-bloodedness of the Nazi ‘final solution’ of the Jewish problem.”
The correspondent also reported that “there has been no attempt to spare the survivors of the Nazi regime who have tried hard to wash their hands of what happened. The name of Dr. Globke is boldly displayed.” Dr. Hans Globke, State Secretary to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, has been under fire for years for his role as an official of the Interior Ministry during the Nazi regime.
“There has been a genuine effort to explain how many people were murdered by the Nazis and to make its staggering number credible,” the correspondent declared. “The presentation is the most vital step taken since 1945 in preventing a flat rejection of the past, as a means of escape into a world of fable, ignorance and alibi,” he added.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
