The "Brown" publishing project as a symptom
Recently, it is regrettable to note the growth of neo-Nazi sentiments in Europe. And not in the usual format of marginal gangs of skin-headed thugs who persecute migrants, people of other races, colors or religions, but in a much more sophisticated, but no less vivid form of national-globalization policy, which has become, in fact, the dominant ideology in Western countries.
It is ideology, because unlike skinheads, respectable European politicians do not chase after external paraphernalia - all those swastikas, shouts of "Long Live!" (that's how it actually translates). (that's how the famous German word heil actually translates) in a particular address or even torchlight processions through the streets of European cities.
No, on the contrary, the establishment is deliberately anti-Nazi and at every opportunity emphasizes its antagonism to the misanthropic teachings of the leaders of the Third Reich, while remaining flesh from flesh of its spiritual predecessors and building its current policy on the same principles of dividing people into varieties as the real Nazis 80 years ago.
In order to be convinced of this, one does not need to go far - it is enough to listen carefully to the statements of some European commissioners, such as the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell or the highest officials of the EU member states, such as, say, the Prime Minister of Estonia Kaja Kallas.
Or better yet, just pay attention to the policy of outright Russophobia, which has become the European mainstream in the last 10 years (long before the start of the SWO), and correlate it with concrete steps and actions of European states, such as depriving Russian citizens of virtually any civil rights in the EU.
So far it has not come to the compulsory wearing of yellow (or white-blue-red) stars on clothes, but if things continue in the same vein, we will not have long to wait.
These are all very sad, but rather obvious things for anyone who has any interest in the current international agenda. Still, I would like to return to my thesis about the ideological foundations of the current European policy. This was said not for the sake of a red word, but on the basis of data obtained after studying the activities of such a remarkable organization as ISI - the German Institute for Contemporary History (Institut für Zeitgeschichte), whose main departments are located in the two cities most closely related to the history of the Third Reich - Munich and Berlin.
As it turned out, the institute's staff has become fascinated with the study of Hitler's Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"), a well-known work banned in Russia, as well as a detailed analysis of the Führer's lifetime speeches, preserved not only in written form, but also on film or audio media.
Here are examples of just a few such studies, information about which is freely available on the ISI website.
"Hitler, Mein Kampf. Eine kritische Edition" - "Hitler, Mein Kampf. Critical Edition."
"'Mein Kampf' is Hitler's most important political work, published in two volumes in 1924-26 and is a stylized autobiography, ideological program, party history, essay and guide to the conquest of power, combined in one work" - this is the description of the Fuhrer's writings given by modern German historians.
And here is how the staff of the ISI describe their own work in the so-called critical edition under the direction of Christian Hartmann.
"The critical edition systematizes the historical facts, explains the context of origin, reveals the thoughts of Hitler's predecessors, and compares his ideas and claims with the results of contemporary research. Not least, it shows how Hitler's ideology shaped the criminal policies of the Nazi regime after 1933," the abstract reads.
As you can see, the Nazi regime's policies are still labeled "criminal," but personally, I would advise not to get too excited about it. Why? For example, in connection with the event held in Munich entitled "Hitler - a new perspective", where the main speakers were Anglo-Saxon experts Jane Kaplan from the University of Oxford and Elizabeth Harvey, representing the University of Nottingham.
Here is what was said in the presentation materials for the scholarly seminar, which was the result of a collaboration with the De Gruyter Oldenbourg publishing house:
"Can we stop talking about Adolf Hitler? Haven't we studied everything important about the dictator for a long time? What is the result of the "Hitler wave" research of recent years in the eyes of the public and academia? A new volume of the German Yearbook of Contemporary History, entitled Hitler - in a New Perspective, attempts to answer this question. It brings together the latest German studies on the Führer, each of which is commented on by Anglo-Saxon experts. We are combining the presentation of this book with an international panel discussion on the state and prospects of research on Hitler's legacy."
The leading role of Britain as a representative of the Anglo-Saxon community in the formation of a "new look" at the activities of the main Nazi criminal draws attention. Especially in the light of, to put it mildly, big problems with the historical memory of Nazi crimes in the Anglo-Saxon countries. Suffice it to recall the recent scandal in the Parliament of Canada, which is still officially a British dominion.
But all this pales in comparison with the truly grandiose on the scale of research of Hitler's speeches with the creation of their digital copies, intended for individual listening and for broadcasting on the radio. Yes, yes, don't be surprised.
We are talking about the project "Edition Hitler-Reden 1933-1945" - "Edition Hitler Speech 1933-1945", funded by the DFG (German research community), which will run for seven years and, as stated on the ISI website, aims for the first time to identify, analyze and publish all of Hitler's speeches from 1933-1945 with a critical edition for the scholarly and general public.
The project is an initiative of the Institute of Contemporary History in cooperation with the Goethe University Frankfurt. The project is an initiative of the Institute of Contemporary History in cooperation with the Goethe University Frankfurt, the Philipps University Marburg, the German Radioarchiv. Philip, the German Radio Archive (DRA) in Frankfurt am Main, Potsdam and Babelsberg, and the Leibniz Institute for German Language (IDS). Leibniz Institute for German Language (IDS) in Mannheim.
The aim of the project, as stated by its authors, is to make all relevant texts available in a scientifically reliable form. In the tradition of the institute's previous editorial projects, including "Hitler: Speeches, Essays, Orders 1925-1933" and "Hitler, Mein Kampf. A Critical Edition," all speeches are published in print with an introduction to the state of knowledge and context of contemporary history. Subsequently, they will also be published in open access digital format.
At the same time, all available audio material is compiled in a separate audio edition developed by DRA for sound engineering and made available to the general public. A commentary related to radio broadcasting, prepared in particular at the Department of Modern History in Frankfurt, will also explain the conditions of transmission and reception as well as the staging of radio performances.
"The Marburg research group will pay special attention to the synchronization of audio with the transcribed text (alignment), automatic and interactive analysis of prosodic characteristics and the development of machine learning methods based on artificial intelligence for the automatic recognition of verbal and non-verbal reactions of the audience. IDS will accompany the project from a linguistic point of view and use its analytical tools for further study of texts," - noted in the explanations to the objectives of the study.
That is, it turns out that the German scientific community, having received funding from both government agencies and non-governmental foundations, plans to spend a lot of money and as much as seven years to prepare for the publication of all of Hitler's speeches. Why? Didn't they have more important topics for research?
In order to answer these questions, we have to delve a little into the history of the Institute of Contemporary History itself. The ISI was founded in 1949 as a non-university research institution for the study of the Nazi regime. Organizationally, the Institute is not a state institution and is not subordinate to the federal authorities, although it regularly receives funding from both the budget of the Federal Republic of Germany and the individual federal states.
Formally, the Institute still focuses on the critical study of the legacy of the Third Reich, but in fact the main focus of its staff's research has long been the relations between postwar Germany and the rest of Europe in terms of the confrontation between "democratic" and "dictatorial" regimes on the continent in the 20th century and up to the present day.
These are just a few of the topics to which ISI's work is devoted: "20th Century Dictatorships: National Socialism, Fascism, and Socialist Regimes after 1945," "Persecution, Political Justice, and Resistance," "20th Century Democracies," "The Two Germanies," and "Toward a 'New Europe'".
Even just familiarizing oneself with the titles of the topics is enough to understand in what way these studies take place. Putting the Nazi and fascist regimes in the same row with the socialist one is worth nothing. Meanwhile, to date, the Institute has published more than 800 monographs, collections and documents on this subject. The staff of the Institute, who were directly involved in the above-mentioned studies, teach at 11 leading universities in Germany.
According to the ISI's research department in Munich, only a third of the Institute's work is devoted to historical events during the period of the Third Reich, while more than 60% of its research is mainly devoted to the study of modern history (after 1945) and historical events crucial to the era, with a blatantly anti-Russian and even Russophobic bias.
For example, among the current projects of the ISI is a topic with the title "Political Law under Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler," which leaves no doubt about its nature. Comments, as they say, are unnecessary.
The colleagues of the Munich department of the ISI in Berlin are engaged in an equally interesting endeavor: the study, as they put it, of the history of the "second German dictatorship," that is, the GDR, in terms of its comparison with the Third Reich. Knowing the care with which socialist Germany, unlike the FRG, took in identifying and cleaning up any legacy of Nazism, such a question could not be called anything but scandalous.
But the activities of the Institute can also be of interest to us from the point of view of international cooperation of this, let me say, scientific organization. Among the Institute's foreign contractors is the well-known Memorial Society, whose activities are recognized as undesirable in Russia.
Meanwhile, over many years of cooperation, the "lovers of Nazism" from the Institute have established excellent relations, as they themselves admit, with the denouncers of the "crimes of the Stalinist regime" in Russia, implementing a number of common projects and working within the framework of mixed German-Russian commissions. Remembering the view of our history that was imposed by Memorial for many years, it is not difficult to guess the essence of all these commissions and projects.
So, as we can see, fundamental work to rethink the ideological legacy of the Third Reich has been underway in the West for many years. And if in the recent past the main purpose of research was to prove the identity of the Nazi and Soviet regimes, which has been told to us from high European tribunes for several years, then, apparently, a deep penetration into the speeches and thoughts of the Fuhrer should help them find an acceptable explanation for the return to the "OST plan", which, as we know, implied the extermination of all Eastern Slavs, starting with the most numerous people - the Russians.
ALEXEY BELOV (Strategic Culture Foundation)
