Bad News from WASt

[Jochen Prien]

Gentlemen,

I don't think that the reaction of the WASt. is the result of some recent development over here in Germany but rather part of an official - albeit not publicly proclaimed - policy that has been going on for quite some time now and is aiming at restricting and eventually suffocating any other than purely scientific interest in the material stored at the official archives.

I have had the same experience with the Bundesarchiv / Bildarchiv over the years; when I first had contact with the BA while researching the history of JG 53 in 1985 I was helped by the staff in a most generous way, was shown around and given hints at not so obvious files where I was supposed to find what I wanted. The prints I acquired then were first class - old style photo paper, technically perfect - and were reasonably priced both as far as the acquisition of the photos as such and the payment of royalties for publication in the books were concerned.

This situation has changed constantly over the years; to cut a long story short, in the end they used plastic paper, let the quality of the prints drop considerably - blurred, too much b/w contrast, not full format - and what was the best - they did not sell the prints any longer but gave them on loan only, to be returned asap and this for prices and costs that were markedly above those where we originally started from. In my opinion all of this is meant to deter people from coming to the BA and trying to use the material that is stored there. This policy was issued higher up, definitely not at the Archive itself, and the situation was tolerable as long as the old staff was still active who knew their customers.

When I complained about this intolerable decrease of service and quality I was told that a) they didn't understand what I was complaining about and b) that they had their regulations which they had strictly to abide by. If there were a change in their services it was only for the benefit of the conservation of their assets which would suffer from extended and multiple use. At the same time they denied that this might be part of a new policy aiming at the German style of Political Correctness.

This is of course only a miniscule part of the overall issue which is that in our country these days everything is done to restrict free access to any sort of document relating to the Third Reich in general and WW II in particular where the official authorities have no control over what the user eventually does with the material he gathered. The growing number of right wing idiots - Neo-Nazis - in our country who might use this sort of material for glorifying the War and especially the Wehrmacht serves as an additional argument for this policy, doubtful or outright wrong as it may be. It all leads back to the simple truth, that Germany - the West as well as the East, although in a different fashion - have up until now failed to work up the twelve years of the Third Reich properly, to really go after all the villains and to cleanse the nation once and for all future from this sickest part of its history in order to make the next generations immune to all sorts of totalitarism. Had they / we done this properly instead of wiping large parts under the carpet of oblivion, the present situation would not have arisen.

Regards

Jochen Prien

P.S.: Didn't it all start for many of us more than three decades ago, when Hakenkreuze - swastikas - on plastic scale model aircraft were forbidden by law ? As if this could have the slightest effect when it came to preventing young or older people from becoming Neo-Nazis. But there we go: it only takes denying facts to be politically correct.