What is resistance? What is required to put a spoke in the wheel of fate when disaster looms?
In a few years` time, there will be no-one left who consciously experienced National Socialism in its entirety, from 1933 onwards. On the other hand, its historiographers are on the increase. Their judgements are changing and tend to contradict one another; almost all of them try to gain a monopoly on the interpretation and evaluation of the era, inventing new slants on the various protagonists - the Nazis, the followers-on, the adversaries.
Hartmut von Hentig does something quite different - from the wealth of knowledge available on the brothers Claus and Berthold Stauffenberg, he extracts those components which will help future generations to understand the conditions giving rise to their actions. The Stauffenberg brothers not only show »determination and rationality« in face of the powerful »circumstances«; they also go through the painful process of renouncing their own ideals, which have been abused. They know that it is not enough to defeat the tyrants; they must also take on responsibility for that which is to follow. They make a conscious decision to bear the loneliness that entails.
Can the assassins of 20 July be taken as an example? Hentig answers: Yes, by doing that which we ourselves would like to have done in times of trouble. There are deeds that must be done, and these do not become futile just because they are unsuccessful. Furthermore: We do not have to have known and wanted the right thing from the very beginning.
The Author
Hartmut von Hentig, born in 1925, Professor of Educational Theory in Göttingen since 1963, in Bielefeld from 1968 to 1987. Forerunner of the educational reform in the 1960s and 1970s.
Publications include: »Mein Leben bedacht und bejaht (My Life - Considered and Approved, 2007); »Von der nützlichen Erfahrung, nützlich zu sein« (On the Useful Experience of being Useful, 2006); »Warum muss ich zu Schule gehen?« (Why do I Have to Go to School?, 2004).
Also published by Wallstein
14 Punkte zur Beendigung des Rechtschreib-Kriegs (14 Points on Ending the War of the Spelling Reform, 2005)
