« He was a kind person who loved his garden »

A Russian friend of mine once told me that her grandfather had been in NKVD. The pre -war Soviet intelligence organization was known for arresting, torturing and murdering people.

– Do you know what he did there? I wondered.

– No, and that’s not important to me. He was a kind person who loved his garden. You always have to look after man, my girlfriend said.

The whole thing Come up When we discussed the Russian oligarch Michail Prochorov. The year was 2012 and Prochorov was on everyone’s lips, as he was presidential candidate in Russia. My friend liked him because he had spent millions building sports halls all over Russia.

– He does something for children. It’s much more important to me than politics, she said.

She caught up with unpolitical deeds. To highlight the individual’s personal qualities in each context, never his personal responsibility, made her safe.

When I pointed out that Hitler was also kind to her dog, she was extremely annoyed.

« My grandfather was a wonderful man! Why do we really have to dig into this? »

On this girlfriend I thought when I recently listened to Deutschlandfunk’s broadcast in 80 years after the end of the Second World War. The broadcast was about how anyone who wants to find archival information about what grandparents did during the war should go.

A listener who called in was named Mr Schneider.

« I think my grandfather was a member of the SS, » he said.

« I understand, » the journalist replied in the studio. If you want to know more, you should do this …

– But I don’t want to know anymore! My grandfather was a wonderful man! Why do we really have to dig into this?

Studio values ​​kindly responded that it was free to let go.

– We do not urge anyone to dig into the archives. It is each and their own choice. We just talk about how to do it.

– Why can’t we let our ancestors be people? I want to preserve the memory of my grandfather as he was!

– But it may very well happen that your grandfather had her reasons to join the SS. Do you know anything about his family? Maybe the family had many children and it was a way to buy food, studio values ​​suggested.

I perceived the Not as the journalist wanted to reduce the grandfather’s possible membership in SS (a paramilitary Nazi organization). Rather, it felt like she understood that the man probably had been thinking about this for a long time. In the past, he wanted to know, even though it was against him.

So she helped him on the pile.

Why did Mr Schneider take this step? One reason may be that he listens to the crown jewel in European public service. Namely ambitious, folk -forming and educational deutschlandfunk.

Anyone who lives in a debating society, with a large center of established, ambitious and professional media, is better equipped to deal with painful circumstances in their own family history than the one who does not. Who has been taught throughout his life that the only thing that exists is propaganda.

In fact however that Russian citizens do not lack channels. The internet is probably flooded with quality journalism in Russian. There is the news channel DozjdThe news site Meduzathe excavation sites Vazjnye IstoriiThe MediazonaThe The insider.

What does not exist is knowledge of how to separate quality media from propaganda.

Why do you think right -wing populists in former dictatorships consistently portray public service as the largest enemy of all?

Because they want to get rid of this knowledge.

Mr Schneider should have no one to call. Instead, he should think: my grandfather was a good person and the rest I do not need to know.