November 22. The show Hitler and the Germans, in German
History Museum in Berlin is really a unique opportunity to reflect. First of all, the title, which must be taken literally, is an exhibition for the Germans, which does not mean it is not for everyone, indeed, it is molto di più proprio per questo. L’edificio che l’ospita si trova nell’isola dei Musei, un complesso monumentale della città che oggi mi appare meno veccho e vetusto di quando vi misi piede la prima volta, diversi anni fa. Al piano superiore si trova la mostra delle opere di Begas, l’architetto scultore autore dei progetti urbanistici più importanti risalenti al periodo bismarkiano. Molti dei palazzi più antichi di Berlino (città che - è bene ricordarlo - antica non è), sono suoi, insieme ad alcune sculture e busti che ritraggono il cancelliere di ferro. Distribuito fra piano terra e un altro inferiore, si trova il Museo di storia tedesca dalle origini a oggi e, in quel contesto, Hitler e i tedeschi, un titolo semplice. Anche le didascalie in inglese, solitamente abbondanti e anche l’apparato di depliant e pubblicazioni connesse, sono questa volta in larga misura, nella sola lingua tedesca. Insomma, una mostra per ragionare come popolo tedesco intorno una domanda che si ripropone a distanza di decenni: perchè è stato possibile un Hitler? Da quando, nel 1968, la Germania ha iniziato a emanciparsi dalla rimozione (comprensibile), che aveva accompagnato gli anni immediatamente successivi la catastrofe bellica, la riflessione sul Terzo Reich è stata profonda e incessante.
Nella mostra non vi è nessuna sopravvalutazione di una resistenza che non c’è stata, se non in esigui ambienti protestanti, nessuna sopravvalutazione Valkyrie of the Plan, the attempted coup and assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944, a gesture, however belated and failed. No discount short, but a bare list of facts after some premises, with a wide range of newspapers, other publications, posters, pamphlets of political propaganda, all the images, symbols, the choreography that accompanied the events of the scheme. And of course the pictures, not many, however, unusual and without the voice of Hitler, except that in the end where some of his speeches were broadcast by loudspeakers at a level low enough to sound.
The effect on a non-German, at least for me, was very strong. I realized (it's trivial to say, but there we think) that I quell'armamentario infuse everything I had seen from afar, sometimes bad in period films and appeared in black and white where the same images. Being in direct contact, being able to touch the flags, banners, see first-hand the black swastika on a red field, the fabric of the uniforms, their color is not the same as seeing them from afar. Sure, this show was lacking in the representation of the giant ocean of mass mobilizations, apart from the photograph of the band of light created by the torches during the parade on Unter den Linden, right after the election of Hitler as Chancellor. The view from near the regimer Nazi symbols piùnoti made me feel unlike many respects, dwell on details that escape when viewed from a distance and the first thought that I immediately jumped to mind was that in the choreography and also the use of color was this an absolutely kitsch that belongs to the German culture (the term originated here). This element is also present today in the German culture, and fable takes on aspects harmless, pathetically ironic and self-ironic (some television broadcasts on Saturday night I missed assolutametne to fully understand the German mind). The kitsch factor, the depictions in some sculpted busts of the Führer by mediocre artists, but not only, in some of his close-up pictures, mask becomes grotesque, sometimes reaching effects of unintentional comedy.
Chaplin took a really deep and not superficial caricature mask this effect. The Hitler mustache who always seem to hairpieces, or as if constantly colasse blood from the nose, the hair parted so precise and pointed out (as if a mother's sculpted the line every day before leaving him out of the house), are irresistibly comic , or the eye that looks suspicious on camera, with a look that ranges from dementia botched imitation of Buster Keeton.
While other leaders will prevail in a heavy and tragic aspect (terrible to hear the voice of Joseph Goebbels, his tone isterico e forzato fino al parossismo, più che non quella di Hitler stesso, capace talvolta di usare toni pacati), la comicità involontaria è quasi sempre presente nel Führer. Naturalmente si sa che il comico ha un rapporto assai contiguo con il tragico e basta poco per scivolare da una parte o dall’altra della lama fine rasoio che le separa.
Per i greci non era ovviamente così e neppure per gli antichi dei germanici, cui Hitler ha preteso d’ispirarsi, ma prendendoli alla lettera e non come metafor. Il nazismo fu anche rappresentazione teatrale che dalla scena ha preteso di andare prima per le strade e poi nella vita di ogni giorni. Pretendere la letterale trasposizione delle antiche mitologie nel mondo moderno, infatti, significa also give a reappresentazione immediately grotesque caricature, but the idea of \u200b\u200bturning them into practical politician produces monsters.
November 24. From the show to the music of Wagner is a short step. Chosen by the Nazis as their prophet music, too many people still consider it a predestined to Nazism, even a sort of Nazi before its time. Poor Wagner died in 1901, would do well to remember from time to time. Of course, the Nazis thought that the equation is simple to establish, as simple (and simplistic) you need to ask why it has also had good luck with that many Nazis were not and are not. Apart from the question that Wagner was a convinced anti-Semite (though many were to be in Europe and not only in Germany), the cult of power is what the Nazis thought they heard or felt in his music and of course the theme constant reference to Germanic mythology and its grandeur warrior, who was the second term of a 'addition, the sum Wagner created the myth that we know. Even Wagner, unparalleled master of the sublime, the pathetic but sometimes creeps, or an exaggerated tone that takes his hand. His excesses are felt immediately and forcing a play surface and there is not much more poternza in the sense that the Nazis ascribed to Wagner, the musical piece by Richard Strauss Thus Spake Zarathustra, or nell'assolutismo Carmina Burana by Orff's music, which is not much fanfare in Wagner, where the excess ends to overwhelm everything, even the power, becoming unintentional caricature.
November 28. A special notation to return to the show, they deserve the three watercolors by Hitler on display. Tiny little paintings, depictions of rural scenes always simple, as thumbnails. Hitler loved a rural area where this is not the human being: there are houses, barns, but most of all strikes lindezza a manic, a perfect order, not available in any country if only one set foot there sometimes. It is anonymous campaign in its squares, while we are accustomed to associate l’anonimia alla città moderna e tentacolare che Hitler voleva teatro di progetti faraonici, di una grandiosità smisurata. Anche Walter Speer (l’architetto del regime, le cui realizzazioni sono state così acutamente analizzate da Elias Canetti), che cercò di concretizzare i deliri architettonici del suo capo, scambia la potenza con la forza bruta, che vive tuttalpiù di accumuli tecnologici: niente a che vedere con le piramidi egizie o azteche, tirate su da uomini a braccia, ma la pura rappresentazione di una potenza tragicamente travisata e dunque senza vera tragicità; solo vuoto gigantismo, horror vacui, che apre le porte alla distruzione e all’autodistruzione.
