View transcript: Hot Topic

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HOT TOPIC

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“Crusades” / “Mesopotamia” / “At least there was no gas warfare this time”

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War of Nerves

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Nerve gases

Sarin

Tabun

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Biological weapons

Anthrax Splenic Fever

Botulin Paralysis of the neural system

..dere Cholera, Typhus

…rien Hepatitis

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The new realities between Nineveh and Assyria have ‘slipped over into the functional’ / Calculated individually, together the functions form a chaotic equation / Images cannot provide an account of reality, according to Bert Brecht and Hans Magnus Enzensberger / They need to be ’estranged’ / ‘Tied to foreign times, the present releases its images - -’ (J. W. Goethe)

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Persian King Cyrus fights Babylon - -

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The contribution of art history

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Visit with Professor Dr. Hubert Schrade, professor for art history in Tübingen

Narrator

Professor Dr. Hubert Schrade

Interviewer

Wouldn’t you acknowledge that academics in particular have a certain ethical responsibility as observers?

Professor Dr. Hubert Schrade

Theoretically yes, but I wouldn’t know how to realize it. I would have to constantly watch television and I have neither the opportunity nor the time for that. I think this oversight would need to happen in television itself, according to Goethe’s principle:

Silly things are easily spoken,

Are easily written,

Are going to harm neither body nor soul,

Everything will stay the same.

But silly things, before one’s eye,

Possess a magical right;

Because they capture the senses,

The mind remains a slave.

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“Land war”

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General Khalid bin Sultan from Saudi Arabia on the day of the ground offensive: / “Horrible things are happening / I hate to say it, but men are being slaughtered with axes / They rape women, cut off certain body parts and display them in every street / We hope we can stop this soon –"

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Brecht, Collected Works, Volume 18, Frankfurt/Main 1967, p 161 f. : / “The situation becomes so complicated because a simple ‘reproduction of reality’ says less than ever about reality / True reality has slipped over into functional reality”

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Verdun, 1916

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The Allies

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The German Emperor

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General Pétain

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The Victors

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The defeated Germans

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The experience of the SENSELESSNESS OF VERDUN was more than enough for 80 years / The experience is confined to Europe, but includes Hitler / No gas warfare in WWII / Even though both sides had the resources – !!

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Saddam Hussein organizes a festival in the ruins of Babylon in honor of Nebuchadnezzar / In the 6th century BC, the king defeated and deported the Jews - -

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In the age of Crusades

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On the fields of Clermont, in November 1095, Pope Urban II speaks to the congregation / He speaks French: “A horrible message has reached us … / The people of the Persian empire, a heinous race estranged from God, a generation that has set its heart to the wrong goals and has betrayed God in spirit, has invaded Christian lands / They take pleasure in killing Christians by slicing open their stomachs, tearing out one end of their intestines and tying it to a pole; then they beat the victims and force them to walk around the pole until their guts are fully wound up and they fall to the ground, dead /

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Others they tied to poles and shot them with arrows, others they pushed to the ground, stretched out their necks and tried to decapitate them with one blow of their swords / What should I say about the horrifying rape of women? It may be worse to speak about it than to stay silent … / Rise and remember the heroic deeds of your ancestors, remember the glorious name of Charlemagne / Christian warriors, you who always hope in vain for an excuse for war, rejoice! / If you must have blood, you should bathe in the blood of the heathens! / I speak to you this harshly because my position demands it! / Soldiers of Hell, become Soldiers of the living God - - !!”

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The King of Jerusalem, a Franc, gave his daughter to Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, a Sicilian

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Saladin’s delaying tactic became so obvious that Richard Lionheart lost his patience / He could neither leave the prisoners in Acre nor take them to Jaffa, 110 kilometers further south / On August 20, 1091, he ordered the execution of all prisoners / It was an especially bright summer day, and from his headquarters on the second ridge of hills, he could see everything that happened on Ayyadieh / He saw the procession of the knights in their armor and thousands of foot soldiers, and he saw the long train of Muslim prisoners tied to one another by ropes / Then he saw the flash of swords, axes, lances, and the falling prisoners –

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Euphrates

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Tigris

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The Arabian prince Faisal was promised Syria by England in 1918 / In return, Faisal promised Palestine to Chaim Weizmann, the spokesperson of the Jews / That could have meant peace between Arabs and Jews! Then France occupied Syria / In 1921, the British Empire founded Iraq to compensate Faisal / A rather young foundation on ancient grounds –

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Iraq, a young nation, on the ancient soil of MEGA-time - -

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The Allies occupy Baghdad and Damascus - - (1918)

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The French occupation of Damascus

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The British occupation of Jerusalem

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Brecht, Collected Works, Volume 18, Frankfurt/Main 1967, p. 161 f. : / “The situation becomes so complicated because a simple ‘reproduction of reality’ says less than ever about reality / True reality has slipped over into functional reality / So something must in fact be built up, something artificial, posed - - ‘

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The new realities between Nineveh and Assyria have ‘slipped over into the functional’ / Calculated individually, together the functions form a chaotic equation / Images cannot provide an account of reality, according to Bert Brecht and Hans Magnus Enzensberger / They need to be ’estranged’ / ‘Tied to foreign times, the present releases its images - -’ (J. W. Goethe)

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“Crusades” / “Mesopotamia” / “At least there was no gas warfare this time”