-Caveat Lector- .............................................................. Forwarded from the New Paradigms Project [Not Necessarily Endorsed]: From: Remy C. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: endsecrecy list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [endsecrecy] Light Show Stirs Dark Memories Date: Saturday, December 18, 1999 2:05 PM Light Show Stirs Dark Memories by Steve Kettmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] 3:00 a.m. 14.Dec.1999 PST BERLIN -- The ghosts of Germany's Nazi past have a way of popping up when you least expect it, even when people are trying to have a good time. It's happening again, as this city that loves to party gears up for a New Year's celebration that will be capped by a massive light show expected to draw half a million people to the famous Victory column at the center of the Tiergarten. Organizers of the "Art in Heaven" light show bill it as the largest ever, and there's no doubt it will be a technological wonder. As the project Web site http://62.96.245.61/english/frame.htm makes clear, this is meant to be a dramatic statement. Using 3.8 million watts of electricity and sending light 70 kilometers into the sky, it should be visible as far away as Dresden and Hamburg. A crew of 760 will work for five days to set it up, laying 70 kilometers of cable. Even on the site, the show looks impressive, but artist Gert Hof has in mind a different sort of drama for shortly before midnight. The plan is to have the Victory column, or Siegessäule, lit by 250,000 torches. "I wish to create a moment of silence," Hof said. "Everybody should experience these first seconds of the new millennium in a peaceful and thoughtful manner, before the massive light cathedral will build up in the sky." But not everybody likes the idea. Especially those with long memories. Much of the controversy has to do with the Victory column itself, sitting in the park and topped by a golden angel. Although it dates back more than a century and was built to commemorate Prussian military victories under the first kaiser, the column does have associations to Germany's Nazi past, too: Albert Speer, the Third Reich's armaments minister and Hitler's favorite architect, moved the column to its present location in the Tiergarten. Speer's name also comes up when the subject of dramatic lighting is raised. Joern Jensen, mayor of the Tiergarten district, wants the light show scrapped, saying that it harkens back to Speer's illuminated spectacles that glorified the Nazi regime. He says the current plans will tar the city's reputation and taint the celebrations. "When I found out what would happen there -- this was in late November -- I was scared about all the associations that could take place if this event shall happen," Jensen told Wired News. "This spectacle of the lights is just like the light show Albert Speer made for the Nazi party rallies in Nuremberg. "I think all those associations are too much for you to say 'This is only art and there's nothing about the history we Germans have at that place.' I think art always is combined with space and time, and this light show at that place and at this time is wrong, and is political failure. "You can't do that with this history we have in Germany. We shouldn't give a message to the next millennium with a kind of art like the Nazis did, because all our neighbors, especially those in the East, are afraid of this big Germany in the middle of Europe again." Unpleasant echoes from the past are a given in Germany, but the light-show controversy appears to have kicked up an even stronger reaction than usual in favor of putting the past in the past. Even the head of Berlin's Jewish community, Andreas Nachama, issued a strong public statement defending the light show. "It's just a party," said Nachama, whose father survived Auschwitz and helped rebuild Berlin's devastated Jewish community after the war. "So maybe I'm more sensitive about our history and about the political conflicts that could follow this event," said Jensen, 56, a Green Party member who has lived in Berlin since 1963. "Most people I talk to tell me it's all right that I speak out about the light show, but of course those people are mostly intellectuals. I'm sure there are many people that don't care about all this. They only want to have a party and a big show. They don't care about history. It's mostly important for me to speak out to academics and others who are the most informed about this background." Peter Massin, a spokesman for "Art in Heaven," said Jensen does not speak for many. "I think it's only a few who make this association," he said. "It's a most crazy thing to make a light show and then get a comparison to a Nazi event. This is very, very far out. This is no political statement whatsoever. The main discussion now is about 'are we allowed to do something like this? Can we use light for a show when Mr. Speer also used light for a show? Is it morally right? Or should we stop all light shows?'" It's true that the Nazis eagerly embraced technology, in the propaganda arena as well as on the battlefield. Germany was the first nation to use jet fighters in combat, and its V1 and V2 rockets were the ancestors of the modern ICBMs. Ironically, they failed to develop an atomic bomb, a weapon that was never taken seriously by Hitler, according to scholars. But the Nazis were innovators on the propaganda battlefield as well. In devising his dramatic effect for one of the Nuremberg rallies, Speer hit on the idea of arranging more than a 100 spotlights in a huge circle, then pointing them straight up into the night sky. The result was chilling, aptly described by Neville Henderson, then Britain's ambassador to Germany, as a "cathedral of ice." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Want to send money instantly to anyone, anywhere, anytime? You can today at X.com - and we'll give you $20 to try it! Sign up today at X.com. It's quick, free, & there's no obligation! http://click.egroups.com/1/332/4/_/1335/_/945543937 -- 20 megs of disk space in your group's Document Vault -- http://www.egroups.com/docvault/endsecrecy/?m=1 Forwarded for info and discussion from the New Paradigms Discussion List, not necessarily endorsed by: *********************************** Lloyd Miller, Research Director for A-albionic Research (POB 20273, Ferndale, MI 48220), a ruling class/conspiracy research resource for the entire political-ideological spectrum. 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