Talk:Friedrich Kellner

Untitled
Related articles are:
 * Friedrich Kellner, the biography
 * My Opposition, the diary
 * My Opposition: the Diaries of Friedrich Kellner, a 2007 TV documentary

Sütterlin?
For what it is worth, Sütterlin will be the wrong name. I know it is used on some of the linked pages and in the german wikipedia article Kellner, but see, german wikipedia, Sütterlinschrift, discussion page.--Radh (talk) 15:22, 18 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the comment. Numerous examples of the handwriting in Kellner's diary are available at the Kellner gallery at Wikimedia Commons, and you will see that he did indeed write in Sütterlin. The diary was written many years after the Sütterlin style became popular and widely adopted in Germany. I might add that one way for you to discern Sütterlin from other German styles is the expanded shape of the letter a, and the similarity between the capital d and the small letter d. --Rskellner (talk) 15:36, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Sütterlin. I once got my head bitten off suggesting that Aby Warburg wrote in Sütterlin, so it may be a raw point with me.--Radh (talk) 19:54, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Average people's knowledge of atrocities
I have modified the following sentence: "yet very early in the war Kellner recorded this in his diary, showing that even in the small towns, the average citizen knew what was occurring" ...because it is pure conjecture. "You heard of it, therefore you knew it happened" is faulty logic at best. Hearing a rumour is one thing, but the Allies heard the same rumours, and they disbelieved them also. The word that these atrocities occurred amounted to conspiracy theories, only conspiracy theories which turned out to be true. Hindsight is 20/20, but they had little reason to believe these outrageous rumours. Let us also not forget that the "Jews to soap" rumour flourished within Germany during the war as well, but this particular rumour has been shown to be false. Similar rumours circulated during WWI as well, and wars are in general fertile breeding ground for rumours. In WWI it was "common knowledge" among many civilians in France and Belgium that German soldiers ate babies. My point is, hearing something is not the same as knowing whether it is true or not. --Tsuka (talk) 22:05, 25 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Apparently you have not read the diary, not only Friedrich Kellner's diary entries, but also the hundreds of newspaper articles he pasted into the diary, some with headlines such as this one from 1942: "Die Bereinigung Südosteuropas von Juden." This very long newspaper article gives details about how many Jews have been "cleansed" from each country.  And, of course, the German readers of this newspaper saw how the Jews in their own towns and neighborhoods were taken away by the Gestapo.  Because the diary is filled with proofs, not just assertions or rumors, it has been acclaimed in Germany as "one of the most important books of the century." Of course, there are many people around the world who still try to minimize or find excuses for the gruesome deeds that took place.  Hopefully they will actually read the diary before they continue with their mistaken assumptions.  The German government, by the way, has underwritten an inexpensive paperback edition of the diary, which is now available at the webpage of the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung at www.bpb.de/publikationen/4Z85WX,0,Vernebelt_verdunkelt_sind_alle_Hirne.html  Rskellner (talk) 12:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)


 * A diary, no matter how truthful, can never be filled with "proofs", only claims. The proofs of atrocities are the dead bodies themselves. And irrespective of what the diary or the newspapers at the time contain, there is nothing in the quoted passage that shows that anyone KNEW the atrocities were taken place, they are still only rumours. Just because we find out AFTER the war that rumours are true, does not mean we had any reason to believe them WITHOUT the benefit of hindsight. This diary represents nothing new, as even the acclaimed WWII documentary series "World at War" from the '70s revealed the same things in several interviews. I will have to go back and check the names of the interviewees, but one civilian woman, resident of Germany, spoke of how she told her neighbours about how they made soap of the Jews in the concentration camps: "I know this happens". And a British official spoke of similar reports, and how they were dismissed because "they were so terrible we didn't think they could be true". So even if the reports were accurate, that is not the same as to say that they KNEW, just because they had the reports.


 * More importantly, back to the edit, I am really curious as to what you find objectionable about the alteration I made. My alteration does not contradict the original wording, but is devoid of conjecture. Which the original wording demonstrably is. In short, my edit was justified in my explanation here, and frankly I do not see how you could possibly object to it. --Tsuka (talk) 07:05, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Because you have not read the diary, you are mistakenly equating it with a compilation of "rumors." You are failing to distinguish between eyewitness accounts of an event (which are in the diary) and a "rumor" of an event; between official Nazi military reports and "rumors"; between newspaper reports and "rumors." This particular diary is made up of eyewitness reports, military reports, and published news stories. It is not based on rumors, and that is why it has been so well received in Germany.

The editors of the published diary, German university professors in Giessen and Heidelberg, spent the past six years researching all the names and dates--and each one of the Nazi military reports and newspaper articles--for factual accuracy. In essence, you are doing here, with your "critiques," what you say you are against: you have not read the diary, you have only "heard" about it, and yet you are making assertions about it. I do hope you have a chance to read it because otherwise you are just using semantics to deny historical truth, and I would like to think that is not your intention. The German government--which has thoroughly read the diary--has now made it available in one volume for only 7 euros (around $5). Please restore the original sentence that you have changed. Thank you. Rskellner (talk) 13:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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