By Modris Eksteins

In Modris Eksteins's fingers, the interlocking tales of Vincent van Gogh and paintings broker Otto Wacker exhibit the origins of the elemental uncertainty that's the hallmark of the fashionable period. in the course of the lens of Wacker's sensational 1932 trial in Berlin for promoting faux Van Goghs, Eksteins deals a distinct narrative of Weimar Germany, the increase of Hitler, and the substitute of nineteenth-century certitude with twentieth-century doubt.

Berlin after the good warfare used to be a magnet for artwork and transgression. between these it attracted was once Otto Wacker, a tender homosexual dancer became artwork impresario. His sale of thirty-three solid Van Goghs and the resultant scandal gave Van Gogh's paintings unparalleled advertisement worth. It often known as into query an international of outlined values and criteria that had already started to erode in the course of the conflict. Van Gogh emerged posthumously as a hero who rejected equipped faith and different suspect assets of authority in prefer of artwork. Self-pitying Germans observed in his biography a sequence of triumphs-over defeat, poverty, and meaninglessness-that spoke to them at once. Eksteins exhibits how the collapsing Weimar Republic that made Van Gogh well-known and gave Wacker a chance for reinvention propelled a 3rd misfit into the highlight. making the most of the void left by means of a gutted trust procedure, Hitler won strength by means of fashioning myths of mastery.

jam-packed with characters who pride and frighten, Solar Dance merges cultural and political background to teach how upheavals of the early 20th century gave upward thrust to a look for authenticity and purpose.

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In Modris Eksteins's palms, the interlocking tales of Vincent van Gogh and artwork broker Otto Wacker exhibit the origins of the elemental uncertainty that's the hallmark of the fashionable period. throughout the lens of Wacker's sensational 1932 trial in Berlin for promoting faux Van Goghs, Eksteins deals a distinct narrative of Weimar Germany, the increase of Hitler, and the substitute of nineteenth-century certitude with twentieth-century doubt.

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39 The directive also provided a first glimpse into the sort of trials the army envisioned. 41 Owing also to the need to streamline the American war crimes investigation and trial program, military officials decided to centralize the entire operation on the grounds of the former concentration camp of Dachau. The choice of Dachau was at once practical and symbolic. 42 In the War Crimes Enclosure at Dachau, former perpetrators took up residence in the very barracks that victims of National Socialism had inhabited only a few months earlier.

Although the small gas chamber at Dachau was never used on prisoners, those too weak to work were at times selected and gassed at Castle Hartheim, near Linz. S. Army • 45 tried by American military commission courts. Lieutenant Colonel William Denson was only thirty-two years old when called to serve at Dachau. 117 A slim man standing just under six feet tall, Denson spoke with a slow southern drawl and emanated a warmth that made him popular with his colleagues. Alongside his southern charm, however, Denson proved to be a brilliant and formidable prosecutor who would leave Dachau with a 100 percent rate of conviction for the 177 men he tried there.

86 The British prosecutors working at Lüneburg selected defendants whose diverse functions had helped the camp to operate. Ultimately, the dock contained sixteen male SS men, the highest ranking of whom were camp commandant Josef Kramer, compound commandant Franz Hössler, and camp doctor Fritz Klein. S. Army • 37 members were also tried, including the notoriously cruel compound commander Irma Grese. Aside from such high-ranking defendants, however, the majority of the accused had subordinate roles in the camp, working in administration, in the kitchen or ration store, or supervising labor battalions.

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