Resistance

GERMAR RUDOLF, RESISTANCE IS OBLIGATORYDr. Hans Friedrich Gorki 20 November 2000University Professor, emeritus…Affidavitabout the obstruction of free historical research in Germany.1. About my person:Born on 16 Dec. 1922. Study of geography, history and German philology.Teacher at a Grammar school. Since 1970 tenured professor forgeography and its didactics at the Ruhr Pedagogical College, since 1980at the Dortmund University. Retired 1988. Special areas of activity: citygeography and thematic cartography. Private interests: contemporaryhistory with focus on National Socialism and its effects. The occupationwith this topic enables me to make the following statement.2. About the matter:In the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), the officially promoteddepiction of the time of the so-called Third Reich still corresponds tothe extremely one-sided view which prevailed immediately after the endof World War II. Efforts aimed at differentiating with detailed studiesand at gaining insights which better describe the conditions and eventsbetween 1933 and 1945 are unwelcome as revisionist. Whoever investigateswith that aim runs the risk to be labeled as “unteachable” or to besimply defamed as a “Nazi,” partly due to ignorance and partly due tomalice, and to be socially ostracized, if he arrives at results which donot conform to the prevailing opinion. Already this situation clearlyshows a tendency for political persecution.However, there can be no doubt that effective political persecutionexists in the FRG as an official reaction to revisionist investigationsaddressing the topic of the National Socialist persecution of the Jews.Although it does not cross the mind of any serious person to deny thenefarious aspects of the “Third Reich” in its factuality, the depiction ofthese past, altogether terrible events, which is considered exclusivelyvalid, is nevertheless not convincing in all its details. Hence it mustmatter here as well to come to a differentiated and thus more realisticknowledge of the events by means of specialized studies. In this processit would have to be left to the evaluation of arguments and counterargumentsin an unpredetermined scientific dispute to establish whichtheses and views prevail at the end due to their factual weight – as it isthe case in all other areas of scientific work.335