The author of this article is a German, who asks us not to reveal his identity because of the German Laws for the Suppression of Free Speech.

THE "WEHRMACHTSAUSSTELLUNG"

We Pay a Visit to an Atrocity in Hamburg

by a Correspondent of this Website

esterday my wife and I visited the 'Anti-Wehrmachts Ausstellung' In Hamburg. The perpetrators of this exhibition add insult to injury at the entrance by charging eight Deutschmarks per person entry fee. A guided tour cost extra.

Being a normal working-day Friday morning I was surprised to find the exhibition rooms very full with people of all ages (and colors) I noticed the same strange suppressed quietness that I have gotten used to when visiting Museums in concentration camps -- as though it would be a sin to talk normally.

Half blocking the entrance to the exhibition they had setup a large trestle table full of 'Anti-German-Military-Hate' books, a quick glance showed me that all the books could have been written by Ilja Ehrenburg himself. The catalogue to the exhibition cost a mere forty Deutschmarks but I bought it anyway because I wanted to take my time looking at all the photographs.

Off to the other side of the entrance old Black and White films were being shown on about six video screens, No sound could be heard because each screen had a number of headphones attached to it, all were in use. The films being shown were the ones we see every week on TV -- lots of dead bodies lying in pits, German soldiers standing around looking into the pits and naturally being blamed for the murders, didn't matter if they had just discovered the graves or whatever...they were obviously guilty -- because they were on the film right?

I had my 35mm camera as well as a small video with me and as there were no signs prohibiting photography I immediately shot a few general scenes. Within three or four minutes an official accompanied by a Private Security guard came up to me and asked me politely 'Come with me please Sir!'

I followed them to the front door where it appears some person had seen me taking pictures , thought he was on my film and so he complained. An argument ensued where the official demanded I hand over my film, I refused, pointed out that it was a public exhibition, no signs were displayed prohibiting photography and so they would be best advised to leave me alone. They did. But I had noticed how sensitive and easily agitated everybody was, everyone almost tiptoeing around this exhibition.

I have been a professional photographer for over thirty years and when I started out most of what we shot was on black-and-white film, I also had my own darkrooms and so I'm smarter than your average bear when it comes to picking up manipulated images.

This exhibition has a lot of manipulated images, many very obvious, some only recognisable by a professional like myself. One of the most obvious manipulated images was a double exposure of two men in a water tank -- one of the men looked like a ghost because the background could be clearly seen through his body. I suspect some other photos have been stills taken for propaganda movies (probably by the Soviets) because those scenes had been lit by a professional.

On other photos the German soldiers were all wearing the older WW1 helmets that were no longer used in Operation Barbarossa. I saw photos where the shadows were falling in the direction the light was coming from, other photos show German soldiers that were allegedly 'escorting Jews to their execution' , these soldiers threw no shadows at all but seem to be 'floating' above the ground, obviously carefully cut out and pasted into the scene. On other photos the heads of people in the foreground were smaller than heads of people in the background.

Most of the photos however were of innocent soldiers not doing anything sinister at all, but the text accompanying the photos tells the viewer what the soldiers are supposedly doing -- any German soldier shown carrying a weapon was either on his way to execute someone or had just executed someone (usually Jews). - -- Any bearded person shown on a photo was a Jew on his way to be executed. All Jews were first 'shamed' before they were shot, usually by giving them a shave or a bath or making them sweep the street. (This must be an old German punishment, my mother would demand the same from me when I was younger.)

German troops loading or unloading food were 'Robbing food from the mouths of the people who's country they had invaded'. According to the exhibition almost every civilian the German troops came across was to be shot as a partisan, their homes razed to the ground, their farm animals taken as 'Beute'. (Spoils of war) If the Wehrmacht soldiers didn't have the nerve to mass murder the children, the SS or an Einsatzkommando was called upon to do it.

By the time one gets to the end of the exhibition if you see a photo of a group of German soldiers just standing around having a good laugh, you just know they've just murdered a whole city of people (or are about to).

I didn't stay in the exhibition for very long, I felt disgusted, annoyed and aggro that the normal people in Hamburg after having been shamed, burnt and murdered themselves would put up with this rubbish -- but I guess I'm no more of a hero. I didn't have the courage to rush around the room tearing down the exhibition; apart from a jail term for me, would it change anything?

I really feel sorry for the Serbs, I believe I know what's coming up for them -- the German nation has been through it twice.

Now visit this link on the website of the rightwing Deutsche Nationalzeitung and download a leaflet (with photos) plus petition against the Wehrmachtaustellung: "Informationsflugblatt (PDF) zu Reemtsmas Ausstellung. Fakten, die die Fälschungen widerlegen"