Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Meeting with the Fourth Reich
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Against a background of the ruins of the dead
town, this inscription reads as an epitaph to the
latest epoch in German history.
There are many such places in the Germany of
today, which the Germans themselves like to refer
to sarcastically as the Fourth Reich while they look
forward to the fifth. If one goes to Cologne, one can
see a large wooden crucifix in the ruins of what at
one time was one of the most interesting churches
of the town from the point of view of an art
historian. It is hanging in what used to be the
chancel of the church, on a big iron support which
is now covered with rust. It is only a torso. The head
of Christ has been knocked off, and rain and
sunshine, to which the ruined arches are exposed,
have dealt harshly with the rest. When we asked
the old caretaker, who had stayed in his church even
after its collapse, why they had not taken down the
crucifix to save at least what was left of a valuable
treasure, he answered with a melancholy gesture:
”It cannot be done. It is too dangerous. We do not
have the tools and implements necessary to take
down the crucifix without risking the lives of the
workmen.” The whole archway would have tumbled.
Such is the Cologne of today — devastated and
strengthless.
We return to Hamburg to the mass grave in the
large cemetery out in Ohlsdorff where 45,000 people
sleep their last sleep — people who died during the
terrifying summer night of the 28th of July, 1943,
when large parts of the city were destroyed in a
bomb attack. The grave has the form of a giant
cross, on Which enormous beams of wood have been
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