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PARTISAN REVIEW
towards it. Instead the assertion of distance is accompanied by an
eagerness to minimize the significance of the period and the extent of
the Nazis' misdeeds. Any guilt associated with the Nazis is seen as a
burden which the West Germans must cast off if they are to have a
normal identity like any other nation. In this view, a normal identity
includes a citizenry willing to trust in the state, to enjoy national
emblems, and to sacrifice for the good of the community. Minimiz–
ing the significance of the Nazis is a means of reaching these goals.
One way to minimize the significance of the Nazis is to com–
pare as many other things to them as possible . Hence, in an inter–
view granted to
Newsweek,
Kohl, following his ominous declaration
that "I'm not a fool," declared that the Soviet General Secretary
Gorbachev and the Nazi Minister Goebbels both understood
"public relations ." The Soviet Union loudly protested the state–
ment, and Kohl himself compounded his woes by claiming that he
had been misquoted . Once
Newsweek
produced a copy of the tape
recording of the conversation which showed that the Chancellor was
not misquoted, Kohl explained that he had not intended to offend
Gorbachev . What is not to be overlooked is that Kohl qualified as
public relations the work of the man who oversaw the censuring of
nearly every word publicly written or spoken in the Third Reich;
who prepared the public for the Holocaust not only with racist films
and books but with the burning of synagogues; and who brought the
German public into a frenzy of hate in 1943 in preparation for "total
war.
"
Normally, public relations means the activities an organization
undertakes to promote a good relationship with the public and not
an incitement to mass murder and war. Kohl dilutes the crimes of
the Nazis first by calling the work of Goebbels "public relations"
and then by putting the activities of Gorbachev on the same plane .
While Gorbachev did not become Soviet General Secretary as a
result of an interest in human rights, comparing him to Hitler's
propaganda minister is simplistic.
Loose comparisons with the Nazis, which have the effect of
weakening the importance of their crimes, also can be the result of
shabby domestic politics. An example of this tendency is a remark
concerning the Greens, the leftist environmental party, made by
Franz Josef Strauss, the head of the Christian Social Union. The
Greens, Strauss has said, are "not one hair better than the Nazis
were in their time."
If
the Greens are not better than the Nazis, it
suggests that the Nazis were not worse than the Greens. Members of
