(no subject)
I am currently reading bits and pieces of "Cultural Amnesia" by Clive James. Kind of a bed time story for me since I never managed more than one title per evening. The list of people who have contributed to the cultural history of our time is quite interesting. A long list of Mann family is followed by Lewis Namier and than Grigory Ordzhonikidze. But tonight was Adolf Hitler's turn. The four pages long article on him begins with half a page prelude where a variabillia of curious facts about him is gathered (such as, for instance, his admiration of Wagner and Menzel that later was considered a suffucient reason for dismissing both the composer and the painter from history). But then funny facts end and the rest of the article is being dedicated to the dispute between Moeller, Jünger and Julius Stahl on the subject of conservative revolution. And this is how it goes till the end! As absurd as it sounds I think this is actually the right approach to the subject. Hitler definitely heard about both "The Third Reich" and "Der Arbeiter" but he never read a single line because of his all-embrasing Philistertum. And that's why if an author of the cultural history handbook feels obliged to mention him amongst the other prominent figures of the past it would make much more sense to talk about what was meant to be done right (by Jünger, Moeller, Niekisch and the others) rather than what Hitler and his thugs eventually did wrong. And at the end of the day we can always entrust Russian artillery to deal with the main character.