Word: wissen
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...rational ideal had scarcely been erected before dismantling began. Schorske describes this process as both a siege and a mutiny. Disaffected peasants, artisans and Slavs, among others, began massing politically, demanding certainties and absolutes. Taking to the streets, they cared nothing for the hallowed liberal creed: "Wissen macht frei" (Knowledge makes us free). Poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal saw what was happening: "Politics is magic. He who knows how to summon the forces from the deep, him will they follow." All too soon Wissen macht frei was degraded into the cruelly deceptive slogan of Nazi death camps: Arbeit [work] macht frei...
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