Being confronted by a gang of skinheads before a visit to Buchenwald amplified the horror of the camp. It was also a reminder of how the fragmentation of 21st century media strengthens the case for making internet platforms responsible for the material they transmit.
The Skinheads of Buchenwald
We leave Berlin in an embassy car, before dawn. The drive to Buchenwald will take us around three-and-a-half hours.
Past Weimar, we stop for a spot of breakfast. I enter the cafe alone, to find myself face-to-face with a gang of a dozen German skinheads, festooned with right-wing paraphernalia, occupying the space. They glare at me – a middle-aged man in a suit and tie – as I order a couple of coffees. I feel threatened and exposed. Back at the car, I suggest we drive a bit further and drink our coffees somewhere else.
A visit to Buchenwald
In my forthcoming book “Lessons in Diplomacy“, I describe a visit to the former Buchenwald concentration camp, near Weimar in eastern Germany. One element of the visit I don’t mention is my encounter with a bunch of skinheads on the way there.
Many diplomats lay wreaths. For a British diplomat, doing so at concentration camps is both a sombre duty and an education. One November I went, alone, to commemorate British Commandos murdered at Buchenwald. The site is a horrific indictment of humankind’s capacity for inhumanity.
Corpses found at Buchenwald after liberation, 1945, US National Archives, Public Domain
On a bleak, cold day, a local guide showed me around, describing the atrocities that had taken place.
Buchenwald: shifting paradigms
Afterwards, the guide told me she had lived near the camp for years. “When I was growing up in the DDR,” she said (referring to the former East Germany, occupied by the Soviet Union) “they told us that this had been a camp where communists and Soviet troops were murdered. Later, we learned that thousands of Jews and others had died here. Finally, after 1989, we learned that the Soviets themselves interned people here from 1945 to 1950 – many of them died, also. I sometimes wonder what we will discover next.”
I left Buchenwald chilled at the horrors experienced by those imprisoned and murdered there. My guide’s comments also unsettled me. She had lived through a gut-wrenching shift of historical paradigms. I had been unaware before my visit that the camp had been used by the NKVD (a predecessor of the KGB) to intern over 28,000 former Nazis and enemies of communism, over 7,000 of whom died. We should all bear in mind that our understanding of past – or current – events may not be as accurate, or objective, as we believe.
I thought back to the skinheads in the cafe. Seeing adherents of right-wing ideology so close to a place where such an ideology had caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people amplified the horror of the Buchenwald camp itself.
The skinheads of Buchenwald: lessons
The pernicious tenacity of political views that condone, or deny, past atrocities highlights the importance of education. What had the skinheads of Buchenwald learned about the war? What kind of Germany did they want to see in the twenty-first century? Their presence almost at the gates of the camp highlighted the challenges facing our societies.
Unfortunately, the way the internet works – by magnifying extremist views and the voices of those who shout loudest – encourages the proliferation of extremism. The result is that all of us risk constructing our private reality, based on our own personal internet bubble. In this environment, three things are needed. First, a concerted approach by educators. Second, a way to hold social media platforms responsible for the material they transmit – as broadcasters are. Third, support for trusted sources at arm’s length from governments.
Otherwise, the prospects for humankind gaining a better grip on reality, and maintaining any kind of stable democratic system in the decades ahead, look bleak.
Lessons in Diplomacy
You can pre-order Lessons in Diplomacy from Bristol University Press, from other bookshops such as Waterstones, or from Amazon.
6 Responses
Pete Seeger’s lyric, When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn? (1961) was a fitting refrain for “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” but also about how people perpetually ignore history.
Your encounter with German Neo-Nazi Skinheads and the story about the “re-cycling” of Buchenwald by the NKVD for the own cruel purpose prompted me to quote the above refrain.
Thank you for that blog.
Thanks Wolfgang! I agree.
The Pete Seeger lyric illuminates the essence of some troubles we are currently facing. Also a famous quote concerning the situations we are encountering helps explain a certain irony: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.
A famous quote concerning the situations we are encountering helps explain a certain irony: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.
Quite right.
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