Thursday, October 16, 2003 :::
Frankfurt Book Fair promotes Germans as Victims
After attending Frankfurt's annual book fair this year, Anne Applebaum reports on two trends in German book reading.
The first is that there are many conspiracy theory books about 9/11, blaming the Bush administration for the attack. "Unlike those [books] in the United States, many of them also argue that the Bush administration was responsible for Sept. 11. One book, by a former German government minister, argues that the planes that hit the World Trade Center may have been secretly steered from the ground. Another — translated from the French and titled "The Appalling Lie" — says that the Pentagon was never hit by a plane at all but was instead deliberately blown up with a bomb. Germany's establishment press has studiously debunked these theories, to little avail: Recently, an opinion poll showed that one in five Germans believe them."
The other book trend is for Germans to see themselves as the victims in World War II. "Not one but two books have become popular through their descriptions of the Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945, which resulted in fires that caused tens of thousands of deaths. One of the authors used the word "crematoria" to describe the burning buildings, described the Allied bomber pilots as the equivalents of Nazi police units that murdered Jews and concluded by wondering whether Winston Churchill, who ordered the bombings, ought to have been condemned as a war criminal. These books have also been effective: According to another opinion poll, more than a third of the Germans now think of themselves as "victims" of the Second World War — just like the Jews."
Those silly Germans, rewriting history. I don't think it's so odd that there are a few books like this out there. We certainly get our share of conspiracy theory books here. But the fact that polls show so many people believing them is what is scary. I'm curious to see what Lilli Marlene has to say.
::: posted by Melissa at 10/16/2003 02:19:00 PM
