Thinking back, I remember quite a lot about Anne Frank, the Nazis and WW2 in general from my days back in grade school. As an added bonus, I recently visited her home in Amsterdam so I like to think I know a little more about history from that era than the average student. But something that that everyone can love about history is that as new information is unearthed, history itself is constantly being revised. Among some of my favorite historical myths that are quite interesting was learning the unfortunate truth that Christopher Columbus didn't in fact discover america. This information, although not as revealing, illustrates that whether you have reminiscent moments such as mine or not, we can all admire news coming out of Germany this week in the form of a new book that makes new claims about Anne Frank and the SS officer that arrested her more than six decades ago.
Karl Josef Silberbauer, A member of the Gestapo in the Netherlands in1944, got a tip that jews were hiding in an attic at an Amsterdam home. The man was responsible for extracting of the jews and sending them to the nearest concentration camp. That much we know, but what has been revealed in Peter-Ferdinand Koch's new book "Enttarnt", is that after the war, Frank's pursuant became a spy for Germany's version of the CIA; Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND).
I know what your thinking. This isn't breaking news who cares! Well, the information revealed might not be Earth shattering, but it demonstrates two different reasons why this information is relevant. First, this is yet another textbook example of how media changes the status quo. Authors are taking it upon themselves to go "digging" and often stumble upon interesting information that history might have forgotten, they then proceed to publish the information in a book or what have you, and everyone benefits. A second reason why this information is important is because it demonstrates a situation where a member of a terrorist organization -- yes, I view the Nazis as a terrorist organization -- becomes a member of Germany's post-nazi era foreign intelligence agency. Shouldn't these people be punished for their role in the Holocaust? Or at least, we could make it harder for them to find more work after all is said and done.
Either way, This is revealing information that is important. I love how media can add different perspectives to things such as history. No matter how big or small the information is, as long as it's shared, we should all be not only grateful but thankful information like this can be revealed.
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