Word: anti-nazi
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After a week-long probe, the authorities dropped their investigation, having decided that, as a work of art, Hörl's gnome is exempt from the law. But the fact that there was an investigation at all is proof of how seriously Germany takes its anti-Nazi laws. More than 60 years after the end of World War II, the horrors of fascism and the Holocaust remain etched in Germany's collective consciousness. (See pictures of Hitler's rise to power...
...Nuremberg, the gnome's gesture touched a particularly raw nerve. The city played a key role in Hitler's rise to power, hosting the Nazi Party's annual rallies. In 1935 it gave its name to the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws, and later witnessed trials of war criminals. Now the gnome incident has some Germans questioning whether the country's strict anti-Nazi laws remain relevant in 2009. Germans have long understood that their country's constant struggle to distance itself from its past might mean it is doomed never to escape it. But what, some people are asking, does...
...question of how authorities should interpret Germany's anti-Nazi laws is increasingly complicated. In the past, courts have banned everything from model airplanes bearing swastikas to postcards showing Hitler's picture. Even anti-Nazi symbols have been considered criminal: two years ago, the owner of a mail-order business faced a fine for selling T shirts and buttons with crossed-out swastikas on them, until a federal court overturned the ruling...
Another argument for keeping the laws is that they serve as a sign of respect for Holocaust victims, allowing survivors in Germany to live their lives without having to confront Nazi symbols or reprints of Mein Kampf. Some Germans are also still uneasy about simply lifting the anti-Nazi laws and moving on - not just because of lingering guilt, but because of the resurgence of far-right groups and political parties. "We need to keep the current strict anti-Nazi laws to protect people and their basic rights," says Hajo Funke, professor of political science at Berlin's Free University...
...apparent that the Pope views the Holocaust with a sense of personal remorse. Wolfgang Benz, head of the Center for Research on Anti-Semitism in Berlin, notes that generalized remorseful feelings "started with [Germans] about 10 years younger" than the 82-year-old Pope. Members of Benedict's generation tend to judge themselves strictly on the grounds of personal culpability. Moreover, the Pope identifies heavily with his church, which he sees as having played a heroic anti-Nazi role. (History is far more ambiguous, although institutional Catholicism acquitted itself better than Protestantism.) As Catholicism's longtime philosophical enforcer, he holds...