Weimar, Buchenwald Memorial

As a statement on something; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), the poet and author is buried at Weimar; Friedrich Schiller (he wrote “Ode to Joy” featured in Beethoven’s Ninth), made Weimar his permanent home; Franz Liszt, celebrated pianist and composer was appointed musical director in Weimar and lived there for years; the philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzche lived and died in Weimar. The headquarters of Germany’s Shakespeare Society and the Goethe-Schiller Archives (1896) are located in Weimar.

And on the hill above the city of Weimar is the Buchenwald National Memorial, commemorating the 50,000 who died in the Nazi concentration camp located there. During the late ‘30s and early ‘40s, a few men, at the head of state, turned Germany into the most hated nation in the world, and for the next 40 years the East Germans were brainwashed by their liberal-left government.

But isn’t it wonderful to observe how fleeting and how superficial that brainwashing was. The ideas of freedom are so ingrained in human nature, no debriefing or retraining was needed. They knew instinctively how freedom works. A handful of men (and millions of honorable citizens) converted Germany into a decent society during the years since.