EJ kasinofaehig?

[Rebing <Rebing@compuserve.com>]

I am certainly not qualified to decide whether EJ would be "kasinofähig" or
not, whether in German or Swiss barracks. It must be a very special
military honour if neither the Pour le mérite nor the rank of
Kompanieführer nor the function as Stabshengst in the Paris army
headquarters seem sufficient to make EJ eligible, not to talk of the
Stauffenbergs. Maybe Roberto Haab is willing to explain this term in more
detail?
Or is it maybe rather a term intended to express his moral outrage at any
member of the Wehrmacht that aided or abetted Hitler at any time? A noble
and lofty moral position indeed which I forbid myself to call into doubt.
However, I must add that for myself I would see little sense to strike up
an attitude of moral censure towards EJ. I am a member of a generation
which is far away in time and in its way of thinking from the terrible
quandaries EJ and his contemporaries and his compatriots found themselves
pushed into. Certainly, during my career as a teacher in Germany I felt the
obligation to do everything I could "damit Auschwitz sich nicht wiederhole"
(one of the quandaries this later generation saw itself pushed into, by the
way). I must say that for a long time I did go the way of moral outrage at
the Nazis and even more at our parent generation that was afterwards so
silent about what had happened during those twelve years. That made me feel
indeed different from them, but it blocked my understanding of people like
EJ who did not go into exile and even seemed to like wearing the uniform
mit dem geflügelten Hakenkreuz (I think it was rather the imperial eagle
perched on the swastika). Gradually, I came to realize that less moral ire
and more patient readiness to understand (which is not to be confused with
readiness to excuse or to gloss over) helped me meet that obligation I felt
towards my students. Luckily, the first book by EJ I read was STRAHLUNGEN,
his diaries of WWII. I was profoundly impressed, so impressed that even if
I had read only that one book I would never feel tempted any more to pass
moral judgments on EJ.
And this is the point where I find Roberto Haab's approach questionable. As
he indicates himself by inserting "wohl" or "vielleicht" he bases his
criticism on his personal impressions of the curriculum vitae, on his
personal latter-day impression of biographical traces like photos, and, as
I suspect, on the sulphurous aura post-war Germans conjured up around his
image in order to protest how radically different and anti-fascist they
were. So we learn a lot about Roberto Haab's idiosyncrasies, but little
about EJ. And we learn nothing about what EJ actually thought and felt as
long as we do not look at what he wrote. I find discussing EJs arguments
and ideas more fruitful than quarrelling about the phantom images which
certain aspects of his biography evoke in people's minds. 

Günter Rebing