Katja Hoyer: belief

Transcript context

…If you’re trying to talk an American into visiting Weimar, say they don’t know German, they don’t have German heritage, is there a case you would make, or are they just not going to grasp what’s going on there? I would definitely make a case. As I say, I just spent a whole year basically researching this because it is so crucial to understanding Germany, I think. You get a good handle on what Germany is if you go to Weimar that’s across different centuries. You do have this cultural legacy we just discussed. That really isn’t just at the time when Goethe’s there, but because Goethe’s legacy lasts for so long, he gets reinterpreted by every incarnation of Germany that comes after. Even today, still, he’s more seen as a humanist or someone who’s into the European idea. Every generation of Germans takes something new out of Goethe. To understand that, again, it makes sense to go there. Then, of course, it was where the Weimar Republic was founded. In terms of the 20th century and understanding that, there’s a very good case—this is why I chose to place my book there as well—there’s a very good case of going to Weimar to see both the ambitions of the nation and where they unfolded after the First World War, as well as the fall of those ideals, because you have the Buchenwald concentration camp just on its doorstep as well. To see that side by side, I think, is really quite enlightening in lots of ways to see the high ambition of the era, as well as the fall of those ideals. During the Holocaust, how much were citizens of Weimar aware of what was going on at Buchenwald? They would have seen the smoke come up, right? There were all kinds of provisions and supply contracts for something.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.