6 quotes
The question of originality, if it arises at all, can never be peripheral: originality is more than a requirement in good poetry, it is a description of it.
As Of This Writing (2003)
The answer to the nagging conundrum of how a civilized country like Germany could produce the Holocaust is that Germany ceased to be civilized from the moment Hitler came to power.
As Of This Writing (2003)
The new Germany is a democracy. So was the old Germany, or it tried to be: but then the Nazis got on, and Hell broke loose. It can break loose anywhere: all people have hellish propensities.
As Of This Writing (2003)
McAuley's nominal subject was left-wing incomprehension of the recently published Dr. Zhivago, but the real object of his ire seemed to be liberalism in general, starting with the invention of moveable type, or perhaps the wheel.
As Of This Writing (2003)
Claus Graf von Stauffenberg's famous last words Es lebe das geheime Deutschland have turned out to be not quite so romantically foolish as they sounded at the time. If there never was a secret Germany, the July plotters at least provided a sacred moment, and the Germans of today are right to cherish it.
As Of This Writing (2003)
In Germany, everyone knew that helping or hiding Jews was an unpardonable crime, which would be punished as severely as an attack on Hitler’s life – because it was an attack on Hitler’s life. Why, Goldhagen asks, did the population not rise up? The answer is obvious: because you had to be a hero to do so.
As Of This Writing (2003)