In his novel “The Defense”, Fridolin Schley tells of the trial against Ernst von Weizsäcker. A conversation about the hashtag “Nazi background” and the question of whether memories and taboos with contemporary witnesses will disappear.
from
Marie Schmidt
The writer Fridolin Schley presents a German scene in his novel “The Defense”: The later Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker is his father’s assistant in the defense of the largest of the twelve follow-up trials in Nuremberg, which lasted from 1947 to 1949. Ernst von Weizsäcker was a high-ranking diplomat and remained so under the Nazi regime. In 1938 he joined the NSDAP, became a member of the SS and State Secretary. All of this, he defended himself, in order to provide a kind of covert resistance and prevent the outbreak of war. In court he was presented with files on the deportation of Jews, which he wrote with his paraphe “W.” had signed. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for crimes against humanity, but was released in 1950 and died a year later. In 2010 the report of an independent historians’ commission on the role of the Foreign Office in the Third Reich brought to light further details, such as how Ernst von Weizsäcker had campaigned for Thomas Mann’s expatriation. Richard von Weizsäcker insisted that his father had failed to offer resistance from within the system. His 1985 speech in memory of May 8, 1945, which he called a day of liberation, became famous. “Let’s see,” he said, “as best we can, face the truth.”