Berlin: Bronze Hitler busts of various sizes crown austere pedestals. A red paper lantern with a swastika floats in the air. A tiny toy model of the Fuehrer stands behind a swastika-bedecked lectern.
This isn't an auction of Nazi memorabilia but a major exhibition at a Berlin museum that delves into the personality cult that sprang up around Adolf Hitler — exploring with the help of period artifacts how he won mass support for his destructive regime.
The exhibition at the German Historical Museum that opened on Thursday is the first exhibition in the German capital to focus so firmly on the Nazi dictator — another step in the erosion of German taboos concerning depictions of the Nazi era.
"Hitler and the Germans — Nation and Crime" comes more than 75 years after the Nazis took control, as Germans increasingly look at Hitler not as a one-dimensional monster, but as a complex figure who enjoyed vast popularity before plunging the country into war.
Such explorations of the Nazi past were inconceivable until not long ago, but in recent years there have been a series of films, exhibitions and plays that have shown Germany to be growing increasingly comfortable with confronting the phenomenon of Hitler's rule directly — or even as the subject of satire or comedy.
Museum head Hans Ottomeyer acknowledged that, even now, "displaying Hitler is viewed as delicate." He stressed that the show isn't a "homage."
"It is certainly not about Hitler as a person," Ottomeyer said.
"It tries to portray how Hitler grew out of the politics of his time, the mental state and fears, what methods he used and where that led, always in a dialogue of pictures and counter-pictures."
Ottomeyer noted that Germany has had at least one previous exhibition on Hitler — "Hoffmann and Hitler," a photo exhibition in Munich in the early 1990s that never made it to Berlin.
In recent years, Hitler has been the subject of a highly acclaimed German film portraying his final days, "Downfall," and another portraying him as a comical idiot — "Mein Fuehrer: The Truly Truest Truth about Adolf Hitler." He also has appeared as a waxwork at the Berlin branch of Madame Tussaud's and is a regular subject of television documentaries.
Broader approach
The museum has been considering the current exhibition since the early 2000s, but Ottomeyer said it decided against focusing more on the "bizarre personality" of Hitler in favour of a broader approach.
Curator Hans-Ulrich Thamer said he wanted to explore "how this power and influence, this domination of Adolf Hitler can be explained, and to make clear that one of the factors was the readiness to approve and the readiness to go along of large parts of society."
