BERLIN // Germany will open its first comprehensive exhibition about Adolf Hitler since 1945 on Friday in a fresh sign that the country is stepping out of the shadows of the Second World War.
The exhibition at the German Historical Museum in Berlin features busts, paintings, photographs and a host of memorabilia related to the Führer such as a pack of playing cards bearing Nazi leaders and a book of photos titled Hitler as No One Knows Him.
The aim is to show how wholeheartedly the German population embraced, worshipped and followed Hitler. The museum has been at pains to dispel the myth of an innocent nation led astray by an evil clique, an excuse often heard in Germany immediately after the war. To ram that point home, the historians who devised the exhibition called it: "Hitler and the Germans. Nation and Crime". "The time is right for this," Simone Erpel, one of the curators, said. "Germany is looking back at this era with greater historical distance now.
"We are showing National Socialism in the context of society. Neither Hitler nor the small clique around him nor the political system at the time can be held solely responsible for the crimes. The responsibility also lay with German society. We are trying to portray that with a host of exhibits." German museums have dealt with countless aspects of the Nazi era in recent decades, including the Holocaust and forced labour. One of the most controversial exhibitions, launched in the 1990s, showed how the German army, the Wehrmacht, was involved in the Holocaust and in war crimes on the eastern front, an accusation that had long been suppressed because it tainted ordinary soldiers.
But no museum so far has dared to focus just on the person of Hitler. His aura remains so strong that the German Historical Museum has avoided showing exhibits that may be construed as glorifying him or encouraging visitors to identify with him. There will be no large paintings showing him in visionary pose. None of his uniforms and other personal items will be on display either, even though the museum could have borrowed them from depots in Moscow.
"Our exhibits show how the Nazi system worked because many people willingly and proactively joined in," Ms Erpel said. A particularly telling object on display, she said, is a tapestry showing columns of Hitler youth, brown-shirted members of Hitler's paramilitary Sturm-abteilung (SA) and the League of German Girls (BDM) waving swastika flags and marching into a church. It was stitched by members of a women's organisation in the town of Rotenburg. "No one commissioned that work. The Nazi party didn't order it to be woven. It was done voluntarily. It is an example of how German society worked towards Hitler," Ms Erpel said.
The taboo surrounding direct portrayals of Hitler has been eroded in recent years, most notably with the film Downfall in 2004, which was the first German-made drama to show the dictator up close and personal, exploding in fits of rage and showing kindness towards his female staff during his final weeks in his bunker. In 2006, he even featured in a German-made comedy film, as a bed-wetting drug addict who played with toy battleships in his bath.
On each occasion, a debate flared up about whether such an explicit focus on the man was appropriate given the scale of his crimes and the country's sensitivity about its past. The consensus in each case was that the time had come for the country to adopt a more relaxed and distanced view of the Nazi era given that the overwhelming majority of Germans now alive were either born after the war or were too young to have had a role during it.
However, Madame Tussaud's in Berlin got a taste of how delicate the subject remains when it put up a wax figure of Hitler at its museum in Berlin in 2008. An irate visitor knocked off its head one day after it went on public display. The figure was replaced and is now protected by a thick glass window. Meanwhile, historical fascination with the Nazi era is increasing in Germany. Documentaries about the Third Reich are shown on television almost daily, and magazines and newspapers frequently run features about the Nazis, well aware that their circulation surges whenever they put Hitler on the front page.
So far, reactions to the Berlin exhibition have been muted. Some commentators said the museum has been too cautious in its choice of exhibits. "The exhibition wants to maintain a distance between the visitor and the biggest criminal of the 20th century," wrote Bild, Germany's best-selling newspaper, in a commentary on Monday. "It wants to avoid exuding any fascination with Hitler. But the question is whether the visitor can then be shown why the big majority of Germans followed this villain of mankind."
Levi Salomon, the spokesman on anti-Semitism for the Jewish Community in Berlin, welcomed the exhibition. "We need to deal with the history of National Socialism in many ways," he told Der Tagesspiegel, a Berlin newspaper. He added that he would reserve judgement until he had visited it. The museum's curators have said they are not worried that the show will attract neo-Nazis, mainly because such people do not tend to visit museums.
"I would like the show to trigger a debate about how we should be treating the Nazi past now, where we are today and whether we have found the right approach in the exhibition, Ms Erpel said. "But now in 2010, I don't expect a major negative reaction in the sense that we shouldn't be doing this."
The exhibition will run until February 6.
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Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
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THE BIO
Favourite book: ‘Purpose Driven Life’ by Rick Warren
Favourite travel destination: Switzerland
Hobbies: Travelling and following motivational speeches and speakers
Favourite place in UAE: Dubai Museum
Bert van Marwijk factfile
Born: May 19 1952
Place of birth: Deventer, Netherlands
Playing position: Midfielder
Teams managed:
1998-2000 Fortuna Sittard
2000-2004 Feyenoord
2004-2006 Borussia Dortmund
2007-2008 Feyenoord
2008-2012 Netherlands
2013-2014 Hamburg
2015-2017 Saudi Arabia
2018 Australia
Major honours (manager):
2001/02 Uefa Cup, Feyenoord
2007/08 KNVB Cup, Feyenoord
World Cup runner-up, Netherlands
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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Britain's travel restrictions
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The flights
Fly Etihad or Emirates from the UAE to Moscow from 2,763 return per person return including taxes.
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Trips on the Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian cost from US$16,995 (Dh62,414) per person, based on two sharing.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Tightening the screw on rogue recruiters
The UAE overhauled the procedure to recruit housemaids and domestic workers with a law in 2017 to protect low-income labour from being exploited.
Only recruitment companies authorised by the government are permitted as part of Tadbeer, a network of labour ministry-regulated centres.
A contract must be drawn up for domestic workers, the wages and job offer clearly stating the nature of work.
The contract stating the wages, work entailed and accommodation must be sent to the employee in their home country before they depart for the UAE.
The contract will be signed by the employer and employee when the domestic worker arrives in the UAE.
Only recruitment agencies registered with the ministry can undertake recruitment and employment applications for domestic workers.
Penalties for illegal recruitment in the UAE include fines of up to Dh100,000 and imprisonment
But agents not authorised by the government sidestep the law by illegally getting women into the country on visit visas.
The biog
Name: Gul Raziq
From: Charsadda, Pakistan
Family: Wife and six children
Favourite holes at Al Ghazal: 15 and 8
Golf Handicap: 6
Childhood sport: cricket
