Nazism

• These are three of the central themes of Thomas Bernhard’s rarely performed play The President.
• The Austrian is one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, best known in the English-speaking world as a novelist.
• By the same token – and this is something Felski neglects to mention – his writing can be extremely funny.

A complex writer

• Through childhood and adolescence he was unhappy and suffered from a host of life-threatening lung ailments.
• Eventually, his tuberculous-damaged lungs put paid to his youthful musical aspirations of being an opera singer, so he turned to writing.
• Throughout his career, Bernhard’s feelings about his homeland were complex and fraught.
• He was repeatedly attacked for being a Nestbeschmutzer, which roughly translates as “one who fouls their own nest”.

The political landscape of 1975

The President was Bernhard’s response to the volatile political climate in Europe of the time. The president of Bernhard’s demanding play – a fascist dictator in all but name – has just survived an attempt on his life. Anarchists are responsible. There is a possibility the president’s son, who has disappeared, pulled the trigger.

• It was no coincidence the original production opened at the Stuttgart State Theatre on May 21 1975: the same date and city where the key members of the Red Army Faction went on trial.
• The Red Army Faction was also vocal and scathing about Germany’s unwillingness to properly confront its Nazi past.

‘Uncomfortable truths’

The creative team behind this version of The President clearly know their history. In his directorial program notes, Creed acknowledges the violent actions of the Red Army Faction would have loomed large in the imagination of audiences in 1975.

• Similarly, Weaving has spoken approvingly of Bernhard’s willingness to speak “a lot of uncomfortable truths to his own country”.
• In equal measure, however, both Creed and Weaving believe Bernhard’s historically timestamped play can tell us something about the here and now.

Alexander Howard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• NEW YORK, March 18, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Anne Frank Center USA, an organization dedicated to transformative education honoring the legacy of Anne Frank, is pleased to announce six new recipients of saplings grown from the horse chestnut tree that towered behind the Secret Annex in Amsterdam.
• Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center, White Plains, NY
  Anne Frank Center USA will plant saplings at key locations for each recipient in the spring of 2024, with plans to launch an extension of the program, the Anne Frank Garden Initiative, in 2025.
• With each sapling planted, Anne Frank Center USA is sharing Anne Frank's love of nature with organizations across its coalition that have a common commitment to honoring Anne Frank's memory through education, free expression, and belief in humanity.
• The Sapling Project began in 2009 with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam's efforts to preserve the original chestnut tree by gathering and germinating chestnuts and donating the saplings to organizations dedicated to Anne Frank's memory.

• Pope Francis has provoked fury by suggesting in a television interview that Ukraine should find “the courage to raise the white flag”.
• As Pope Pius XII, Eugenio Pacelli led the Catholic Church throughout the second world war.
• However, while Hitler’s determination to eliminate the Jewish people was brought to his attention, he did not publicly condemn it.
• Though he admired the authoritarian regimes of Franco in Spain and Salazar in Portugal, Pius XII was not pro Nazi.

‘Catholics will be loyal’

• He told the German chancellor:
  I am certain that if peace between Church and state is restored, everyone will be pleased.
• The German people are united in their love for the Fatherland.
• I am certain that if peace between Church and state is restored, everyone will be pleased.

• He feared that criticism of Hitler’s regime would provoke harm to German Catholics.
• In August 1942 Pius XII received a letter from Andrej Septyckj, a Ukrainian Cleric, bearing news of the massacre of 200,000 Jews in Ukraine.
• Pius XII flirted with public criticism of Nazi inhumanity in his 1942 Christmas Eve broadcast.

Evil then and now

• As I discovered while researching my book, Reporting the Second World War - The Press and the People 1939-1945, he could have learned as much by reading British newspapers.
• In autumn 1942, titles including The Times and Daily Mail reported the World Jewish Congress’s belief that a million Jews had already died.
• Today, his successor might contemplate the damage inflicted on his wartime predecessor’s reputation by his meek collusion with the wrong side.
• Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba responded caustically to Pope Francis’s crass comments with: “Our flag is a yellow and blue one.

Tim Luckhurst has received funding from News UK and Ireland Ltd. He is a member of the Free Speech Union and the Society of Editors

• During his much-publicized recent interview with American right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson, Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined his perception of Russian history as the second anniversary of his invasion of Ukraine approaches.
• During his interview with Carlson, Putin traced Russian history to the ninth century.

Putin: Russia saved Europe from Nazis

• Russia’s identity today is closely connected to the Second World War, or to use Russian parlance, the Great Patriotic War.
• The fact that 4.5 million Ukrainians fought in the Red Army is largely ignored as Russia argues it alone saved Europe from the Nazis.

Neo-Nazi takeover?

• News outlets link the war to the invasion of Ukraine, alleging the country was taken over by neo-Nazis in 2014.
• At the behest of the West, so goes the allegation, Ukrainian protesters overthrew the elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, and installed a neo-Nazi regime.

‘Cleansing’ Ukraine

• Lavrov recently claimed the Russian invasion of Ukraine has “cleansed” Ukrainian society of those “who do not feel they belong to Russia history and culture.” Medinsky, who authored the Grade 10 history textbook for Russian high school students, has advanced a new interpretation of the Second World War that focuses on the “genocide of the Soviet people.” New graves of Russian victims have suddenly been discovered and excavated, and Soviet losses continue to be counted.
• As for the Holocaust in neighbouring Belarus — a subject several western scholars are studying — Jews and other minorities are now subsumed under the term “Soviet people.” Just as history is continually being rewritten and propagated in Russian schools, it’s happening in Belarus, too.
• The two countries will soon produce a common textbook featuring new theories about the “genocide of the Belarusian people.” The memory of the Second World War is alive and well in both nations.

Justifying authoritarianism

• If it did, why did Putin refrain from denouncing Sweden and Finland when they joined the alliance?
• They lie in the past, in a narrow, distorted perception of Russian history and Russia’s claims to lands it once ruled.
• Read more:
  The legacy of the Euromaidan Revolution lives on in the Ukrainian-Russian war

A return to colonialism?

• Carlson provided Putin with a forum to outline his imperialist dreams.
• Carlson failed to call out the facile nature of Putin’s claims during the interview.
• We are a peaceful and free nation.” Mongolia may be.

David Roger Marples does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.