Hannes Heer – författare

How do democratic and pluralistic societies cope with traumatic events in their past? This interdisciplinary volume analyzes in detail for the first time the history and image of the German 'Wehrmacht' and the debates in Austria and Germany surrounding two highly contested exhibitions about the war crimes of the 'Wehrmacht' during World War II.

Among the many myths about the relationship of Nazism to the mass of the German population, few proved more powerful in postwar West Germany than the notion that the Wehrmacht had not been involved in the crimes of the Third Reich. Former generals were particularly effective in spreading, through memoirs and speeches, the legend that millions of German soldiers had fought an honest and "clean" war and that mass murder, especially in the East, was entirely the work of Himmler's SS. This volume contains the most important contributions by distinguished historians who have thoroughly demolished this Wehrmacht myth. The picture that emerges from this collection is a depressing one and raises many questions about why "ordinary men" got involved as perpetrators and bystanders in an unprecedented program of extermination of "racially inferior" men, women, and children in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the Second World War. Those who have seen these terrible photos of mass executions and other atrocities, currently on show in an exhibition in Germany and soon to be in the United States, will find this volume most enlightening.

Among the many myths about the relationship of Nazism to the mass of the German population, few proved more powerful in postwar West Germany than the notion that the Wehrmacht had not been involved in the crimes of the Third Reich. Former generals were particularly effective in spreading, through memoirs and speeches, the legend that millions of German soldiers had fought an honest and "clean" war and that mass murder, especially in the East, was entirely the work of Himmler's SS. This volume contains the most important contributions by distinguished historians who have thoroughly demolished this Wehrmacht myth. The picture that emerges from this collection is a depressing one and raises many questions about why "ordinary men" got involved as perpetrators and bystanders in an unprecedented program of extermination of "racially inferior" men, women, and children in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the Second World War. Those who have seen these terrible photos of mass executions and other atrocities, currently on show in an exhibition in Germany and soon to be in the United States, will find this volume most enlightening.

Gezeigt wird die Person Richard Wagners als eine die Wiener Gesellschaft - siehe die Wagner-Vereine - magnetisch anziehende oder - siehe die Presse-Fehden - aufs äußerste abstoßende Figur. Das Ereignis von Wagners politischer Radikalisierung in Wien wird dabei als ein Amalgam unterschiedlichster Erfahrungen und Motive erklärt: wiederholte und bitter erlebte Abweisung, ein auch der Durchsetzung seines Werks dienender Abgrenzungsfuror und zunehmend wahnhafte Untergangs- und Vernichtungsszenarien. Man begegnet den Gegenfiguren Eduard Hanslick, der in der Person Wagner auch konträre Konzepte von Musik und Ästhetik bekämpfte und Gustav Mahler, der Wagners Werke kongenial verstanden und aufgeführt und zugleich dessen bösen Spott in den "Judenkarikaturen" mit den eigenen Symphonien musikalisch beantwortet hat. Aufgerufen wird auch die Erinnerung an den von Georg von Schönerer begründeten österreichischen "Deutschnationalismus", der auch viele sich als Deutsche fühlende Juden angezogen und dann ausgestoßen hat und der nach Wagners Tod zum festen Bestandteil des von Graz und Wien getragenen Wagnerismus wurde.Beiträge von Carolin Bahr | Barbara Boisits | Sven Fritz | Wolfgang Fuhrmann | Werner Hanak-Lettner | Hannes Heer | Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen | Clemens Höslinger | Richard Klein | Malou Löffelhardt | Oliver Rathkolb | Gerhard Scheit | Fritz Trümpi | Michael Wladika