Re: What is your opinion on the LAH series?
Brad's point about German participation in the regime apparatus is a good one but for many Germans the whole "Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit" (coming to terms with the past) debate has subsided a little. In the 50s there was the huge effort at economic reconstruction but politically Germany was retarded, and Grass' character Oscar in 'The Tin Drum' was a good characterization of this, a paedomorph who wouldn't develop beyond certain narrow limits. Obviously the 60s reaction to political docility was severe, and violent, but from student protest to Red Army Faction atrocities just showed how unstable the process of rebuilding a proper public sphere was becoming. Certainly though the 70s and 80s historians debates (a parallel for political debate for many) on how Auschwitz became possible were fascinating, especially when it facilitated the exposition of those who used the Berlin Wall and the Cold War in general as a fig leaf for their unreconstructed beliefs on Russia's place in Europe, and Germany's too. Although I know that some German toyshops such as Berliner Zinnfiguren do stock the LAH range I just know, from the German people I know at any rate, that the LAH would be just an unacceptable normalisation of the period from 1933-1945.
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