Cool view of ‘diaries’

Press, 27 April 1983, Page 8

Cool view of ‘diaries’

By Hal Piper of the “Baltimore Sun,” (through NZPA) Let the rest of the world be fascinated by the supposed discovery of Adolf Hitler’s personal diaries. The Germans have their own concerns.

For all the interest the papers have stirred up in Germany, they might as well be a new text from Aristotle — something to excite scholars, but nothing very interesting to the general public.

On the day the announcement was made, it did not even rate a mention on West German television’s late-news wrap-up. On newspaper front pages the big news was bickering between the Right-wingers and the Centrists in Dr Helmut Kohl’s coalition Cabinet — a daily event for the last six months. News of the alleged Hitler diaries was confined to brief wireservice dispatches on inside pages, featuring the doubts expressed by German historians about the authentic-

ity of the documents. Several Germans asked at random about them during the week-end knew little about the diaries, and appeared to care less. “Let them prove that it’s true at all, and then I’ll start worrying about it,” said one woman. “Right now it looks like hot air to me.” She doubted that she would read the diaries, even if their authenticity was proved. This coolness contrasts sharply with the wave of soul-searching that swept West Germany earlier this year in connection with the fiftieth anniversary of Hitler’s rise to power. Then there were television documentaries and magazine commentaries — even art exhibitions and public lectures.

Nobody, it was said then, could accuse Germans of sweeping the past under the

rug. Now, though... “Will we ever be rid of him?” a woman asked.