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Wehrmachtsausstellung: Those fake photos (again)

 

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Author: Peter Witte

Sun, 24 Oct 1999

Prof. Hans Moeller, director of the renowned Institut für Zeitgeschichte München, crushingly criticized the "Wehrmachts-Ausstellung" as being full of blunders and faults. Moeller thinks it irresponsible to show the exhibition in the USA. - (dpa) Merkur, 23.10.1999 

Prof. Moeller and other historians responded to a just-published article by the German-Polish historian Dr. Bogdan Musial: Bilder einer Ausstellung. Kritische Anmerkungen zur Wanderausstellung "Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941 bis 1944" in: Vierteljahreshefte fuer Zeitgeschichte 4 (1999), pp. 563-591.

Musial, who wrote his thesis on the German administration in the Generalgouverment and their most active role in the murder of the Jews (with special reference to the district of Lublin), documents in his thorough and careful study on the "Pictures of an exhibition" that almost all pictures showing German soldiers together with masses of corpses are wrongly ascribed to the Wehrmacht: in fact the pictures show victims of the Soviet secret police NKVD, who shot Ukrainian, Polish and some Jewish political prisoners before the Wehrmacht conquered the places in question in East Galicia.

The bodies were exhumed, and photographs were taken of them by soldiers. If the "Hamburger Institut fuer Sozialforschung" (HSI), who made the exhibition, were right with their interpretation of the pictures in question, then, Musial logically deduces, soldiers of the Wehrmacht had killed the people at first, then buried, next exhumed, and finally taken photos of the exhumed corpses -- which would be an absurdity in itself.

Rejudging the pictures on grounds of convincing evidence by new found pictures and new testimonies of witnesses and survivors Musial comes to the conclusion that the essential pictures of the exhibition, which were intended to prove acts of murder committed by the Wehrmacht, in fact document assassinations by the NKVD.

The people shown were not killed by the Wehrmacht because they were Jews, as is suggested by the context of the exhibition, they were Ukrainian, Polish and some Jewish political prisoners killed by the Soviets before.

"Rejudging the pictures on grounds of convincing evidence by new found pictures and new testimonies of witnesses and survivors Musial comes to the conclusion that the essential pictures of the exhibition, which were intended to prove acts of murder committed by the Wehrmacht, in fact document assassinations by the NKVD".

The mass killing of the Jews in these places by Germans took place after the exhumations. But this cannot be documented by pictures showing the Wehrmacht as active perpetrators, as the organizers of the exhibition had wished to demonstrate.

It is essential to emphasize that Dr. Musial neither denies the role of the Wehrmacht in the murder of the Jews, which is an established historical fact for him, although further research on this topic is strongly advocated. Nor is Musial a right-winger who indulges in downplaying the part of the German Wehrmacht, as some "alte Kameraden" are wrongly assuming now in Germany. Musial's concern is nothing but historical truth.

It will be interesting to learn in which way or if at all the "HSI" will correct their exhibition for New York. The damage the Hamburgers have caused by their sloppy work (Prof. Moeller and others) by using wrong photos (purposefully?) for a imo [in my opinion] mainly correct thesis concerning the Wehrmacht, is hotly debated in all leading German newspapers.

The HSI have learned criticism both by renowned historians and countless visitors of the exhibition referring to some photos long before Musial's article appeared. They did not feel any need to react, but worse, they simply tried to sue critics like Musial, which might remind some people of D.J. Goldhagen and the way he tried to get rid of his critic Bettina Birn. Now we have it after Musial's article: the reputation of the HSI is at stake. Let's wait and see.

Peter Witte

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