Open letter to Prof. Donald Muldrow Griffith,
Producer and director of the Black International Cinema Berlin,
Fountainhead Tanz Theatre
Dear Donald,
Some months before
Some months ago, I had asked you wether you were willing to join me in a kind of
conversation about my familiy research, based on letters memories of my childhood
and the awkward melange of philosophy and violent selfdestrcution herited as
German Post-NS-Legacy.
Your answer pointed out, that, for any this kind of undertaking and with open hands
(you would
quote email from
Your needing of a book, film, or any other oeuvre which might help you in
understanding what we would could talk about first, is and was what seems to be the
most natural thing to ask for.
But, you see, the reply you requested – the thing, I am suppose to give, the material
to deliver - is just this BOOK describing a very difficult beginning of a DIALOGUE:
this notyet book
this preliminary 'esquisses' which might help us approach the approximative approach
to the philosophical truth on some inner NS circles or the slightest evidence of some
unknown acquaintances, of hidden Jewish pedagogues who had survived the Final
Solution (and those who did not) or some vague fumistigation, dreams about lost
plans to make deportations stop - at least temporarily - or whatever kind of possible
betrayal of The NS Final solution we could imagine in the hope to begin a TALK, a
DIALOGUE with somebody representing liberation and the military arms of
liberation.
2Nataly Ritzel Open letter
What kind of talk or conversation could I possibly or timidly propose to the director
of a festival whose last edition, the 40st in 2025 proudly called for
„PEACE! NOW! PLEASE!
And whose 30st edition in 2015 lies on my table with the bold exclamation „30 Times
after Time“ - when „time“ means, in my research, the apocalyptic destruction of a
core population of mankind and the philosophical misunderstanding about something
what you had questioned as
„Justifiable Disaffection or Misunderstanding?“ by quoting the African proverb
„Only when lions have historians will hunters cease being heroes“.
Oh, I do see, your hands now raising in an awkward silent protest…and I ask you still
to keep a bit longer to yourself what you wanted to object -
Which is, you may probably smile at my earnest expression, one of the funnier
episodes my grandfather loved taking aim at: being an hero (Kant) or being an
forgotten hero (Hermann Cohen or Moritz Löwi or Richard Hönigswald) or being an
unfit hero (his uncle Siegfried).
In your programme of the 30th edition of The Black International Cinema Festival
Berlin, the column discussing the societal role of „Migrants or Expatriates“ you
presented (and I suppose you would do today the same) two pictures of Liberators:
one, a „Black soldier with a captured German Soldier“ and the other „From the
Buchenwald Camp 1945“, depicting US Soldiers in front of a bundle of dead inmates
laying on the ground. The text mentions „the exploit of the 761st Black Panthers, the
first American Africans to be trained to fight on armor“.
I do know that this last caption was the result of a long and disputed or feared
achievement (on the French side, the movie „Les Indigènes“ draws a different
picture) and in my family, especially the female side of it, there are other tales, hopes,
confidences which I’ll try to ..sideline for the moment.
Perhaps, you allow - TIME does not look like being the easiest way to begin with
THE National-Socialism’s beginning and ending, so I am still wondering how to
start a discussion without having to develop a distinctive and clear vision of the
entire history and the final ending – the final judgement. By blocking any kind of
investigation with some absolute metaphysics by which I mean / intend/ some
absolute Ideas and final expectations concerning the LAST words coming out from
the Third Reich
„Yet say this to the Possum: a bang, not a whimper
with a bang not with a whimper
to build the city of Dioce whose terraces are the colour of the stars“
When Ezra Pound refutated TS Eliot’s „Last land“.
3Nataly Ritzel Open letter
So I thought, I could introduce you in my „ developping story“ with the unfit hero
Siegfried Otto Fath, becoming employee of the US forces.
4Nataly Ritzel Open letter
SO Fath Curriculum Vitae, on leaving the entering US forces 1946 / and on leaving
1948
This is the moment, you see, when my father, unable to keep it to himself, having
learned about my research, claimed that SO Fath, our „uncle Siegfried“ was - against
all laws of physics – and unlike Orson Welles’ mains character always on top of the
Giant Eye in Vienna’s Prater (The Third Man).
Curriculum vitae given January 1944 after a new period of „unemployment“.
Which makes the situation and my storytelling even worse.
By this move (and please don’t think of a chequers game) he got access to a more
„private“ position in the German occupational forces which made him THE German
Sonderbeauftragter für Theater, Musik und Literatur in Athenes. Which explains
(please imagine my strong German accent) his beginning dislike or openly expressed
contempt for German opera-singers kindled by the talents of one young Grec
woman..
Which is – and here we could listen a bit to some notes of Fidelio - of a simple and
illustrative note because by this move was SO Fath obliged to clarify his situation,
his remaining in Greece (and his Unabkömmlichkeit – the so called U.K-Stellung –
which means his NOT becoming a soldier.
In fact, he will have to fight finally and got captured rapidly in spring 1945 by
Russian forces - but as my assumption goes – the fact of fighting for the German
Wehrmacht does not seem having been a very conclusive affair, but -
But – PLEASE – not now ! -
which is one more „detail“ (luckily for me) and one of those circonstances when SO
Fath must declare himself before the Party commitee or NSDAP Mitgliedsamt des
Braunen Hauses deciding over his stay and venues even in Greece, noting that he has
never been a member of the NSDAP
but that from 1939 until 1943 he had worked as scientific assistent
(wissenschaftlicher Hilfsarbeiter ) for the AA -German Foreign office.
For the moment it is not important to know if this is true.
The Institut für Zeitgeschichte seems to suspect him as a kind of member of the SS –
but unable to produce more detailed information about it. I haven’t – even with the
assistance of some students (and with a historian paid by my father) found any
exhaustive evidence about his real whereabouts – but I do believe one couldn’t lie
about the NSDAP membership before the party’s committee).
5Nataly Ritzel Open letter
This is the moment so to speak where I would like to start with a temporary
renonciation of this kind of certainty .....of having got an absolute idea of history.
Perhaps du to the fact that I must start NOW by translating his sister Hildegard Fath’s
notes about her interrogation sessions with her US chief of stuff.
Hildegard Fath has not been without work after she had been released of the KL
Dachau in 1941, where she had been „incarcerated“ after her boss, Rudolf Hess had
flown to England. She had found - months later then -a job in a laboratory and
obviously in a hospital. I do possess a machine typed copy of
„Meine Lebens-und Wohnverhältnisse Herbst 1944 bis Herbst 1945
einschliesslich Mutters Höhenrieder Zeit
(zum besseren Verständnis der Familienbriefe von 1944 – 1945)“
by Hildegard Fath, starting with the death of her mother Mathilde Fath.
26.6.1945 „7h30 Beerdigung (Mathilde Fath) Dorffriedhof Bernried. Die Leichenfrau
sagte: „ I habs no a paar Protestanten gsagt, daß’s a amal a protestantische
Beerdigung mitkriegen.“So kamen ...-sonst war ich allein. Sehr bald gestartet mit
6Nataly Ritzel Open letter
Möbeltransport in die Klinik, Mutters Sachen sind nicht dabei.-Sehr müde und
abgespannt.“
27.6. „Schwab.Krankenhaus in Aufregung, weil wahrscheinlich alles entlassen soll.
Nachdem im Mai alle deutschen Patienten aus dem Schwabinger Krankenhaus
herausmußten (außer Kinderabteilung) um Platz für aufzupäppelnde Kzler zu machen
(wobei dann die barmherzigen Schwestern, keine „Nazi-Meinung“ verdächtig, sich
bei uns im Labor ausließen über die Ferkeleien der neuen Patienten), flogen nun die
Kzler ebenso schnell wieder heraus, weil das Schwabinger Krankenhaus zum
amerikanischen Krankenhaus wurde, 89th General Hospital.
30.6.“ Fleckfieber-Impfung.“
2.7. „Brotzulage widerrufen
3./. „Fragebogen zum Ausfüllen.“
Es war uns überlassen, ob wir unter den Amerikanern bleiben wollten. Da ich fest
damit rechnete, früher oder später doch interniert zu werden, blieb ich, um sie mir
anzuschauen.
5.7. „Angestanden für die für die Polizeiregistrierung.
6.7. Bleiben vielleicht. Viele amerikanische Kommissionen. Fragebogen abgeliefert.
10.7. Vom Colonel nach Vorbildung und Facherfahrung gefragt. Wirrwarr überall.
(Hildegard gibt mehrere ausführliche Beispiele – NR)
14.7. Col.Lev gibt usn die Einteilung: Serologie und 1st Lieutnant Tucker Eberle,
Fath, Moore.
20.7. „Die ersten Kahn gemacht „( bei uns nicht gebräuchliche Lues-Reaktion)
2.8. Zur Militärregierung gefahren mit Capt. Branca. Das kam auf die korrekte
Ausfüllung meines Fragebogens!. Es wurde mir dort Fragen vorgelegt wie z.B:
„Wenn Sie von einem versteckten SS-Mann wüssten, würden Sie ihn uns dann
melden?“ Es war ja nicht schwer, hier „nein“ zu sagen.
Oder: „ Wenn sich eine neue Ortsgruppe der NSDAP bilden würde, was würden Sie
tun?“ ich sagte etwa, ich würde ihnen sagen, dass das jetzt absolut sinnlos sei usw.
3.8. Lev erklärte, dass er mich behalten werde: „we prefer an honest enemy to false
friend“. Auf dieser Basis kann ich hier mitarbeiten, ohne mir was zu vergeben.
1.9. Lev mit „Gettysburgh Address“ (Lincoln??) will mich zur Schnecke machen,
weil sie damals schon über alle Rasseschranken erhaben waren.
Ich hab mir von einem Theologieprofessor Heckel alle einschlägigen Untaten aus
dem Alten Testament sagen lassen; er gab mir aber noch eine amerikanische Arbeit
aus der Mitte der dreißiger Jahre über die dortigen (von Hand durchgestrichen und
ergänzt durch: heutigen) Rassen-Gegensätze; die sog. Jim Craw Laws, nach denen
Wohnblöcke, in denen Neger einzigen, nicht mehr für Weiße bewohnbar waren usw.
Als ich damit versuchte Lev zu kontern ( Lev war Jude), sagte er, das sei nur bei
einigen ganz rückständigen Staaten! – aber er ließ mich dann in Ruhe, bis ich ohnehin
abgeholt wurde in die Internierung.“
7Nataly Ritzel Open letter
This looks like a very arrogant introduction by someone like me and especially when
intended to somebody of the American Forces in Baden, let’s say those in Karlsruhe,
confronted with a person named SO Fath, in the end of October 1946, ten days or less
than five days after besaid person had escaped Russian custody as a P.O.W
SO Fath, however, says my source of ……………...– I went to archives in…
to „fix“ him... to identify him …
and there I found the formala and the selfdescription by which// and with what he had
declared himself in front of US investigators, I suppose :US-americain Forces, just
before they accepted to take him in their ranks… from Russian POW status to US it
took him just 3 weeks...but this „transition“ might have been prepared long before he
became POW…? This hypothesis certainly poses a new difficulty, the Third Reich
8Nataly Ritzel Open letter
still existing at the time of his capture in February or March 1945, so when and where
had the enrollment taken place and when did a certain promise occur?
This, again, is the moment, so to speak where I would like to start with a temporary
renonciation of a kind of certainty. By which I understand a certainty of having got an
absolute idea of history.
Perhaps du to fact that I should return to the translation of Hildegard Fat’s notes about
her interrogation sessions. Hildegard Fath, during the ongoing discussion with her
interrogation CIA officer (at least she calls them so) might to have to explain her
because, you see - this was 80 years ago the starting point of historical examination.
May I quote again your Liberator’s standpoint from 2015 ?
I don’t think it is useful to repeat your stance. It is obvious (Hildegard, of course, did
not join in (but could live with). Perhaps would you like to illustrate this moment
with the poem „Paestum“ ?
Or with the picture? American forces typewriting on the colonns of Paestum,
antiquity
Picture Screenshot. Commons. US soldier machine typing while sittig on some columns
Gustav Regler s am Meer Hinundherwandern
„Ich schrieb Herrn Staatssekretär,: Wenn Sie es sind, wie kommen Sie von Nürnberg nach
Bonn?“....„Herr Globke hat geantwortet! Er schickte mir 13 Seiten persönlicher Gedanken zu
seinem Leben. Ein paar Tage später klopfte es wieder an meiner Tür hinter dem Deich und der
dicke Expreßbote brachte mir, sichtlich beeindruckt von dem Absender „Bundeskanzleramt“, ein
noch dickeres Kuvert
Regler. Journal D’europe, in dem er den Briefwechsel mit Dr Hans Globke
wiedergibt
„Sehr verehrter Herr Staatssekretär! Ersparen Sie mir, Ihnen Dank zu sagen für die
so korrekte Unterbreitung Ihres apologetischen Materials.
Ich zitiere Sie: „ich glaube, es kann nicht bestritten werden, dass er (Dr.Globke’s
Kommentar -G.R) von allen erschienen Kommentaren derjenige ist, d er die Gesetze
am günstigsten kommentiert.“
Sie waren also der Mann, der das Bremsklötzchen an der Guillotine anbrachte.
Zwei Tage später werde ich ins Innenministerium gerufen. Ich hasse Polizisten, mehr
aber noch Ministerien, die sie dirigieren. In einem Zimmer am Ende eines wahren
Kafkakorridors empfängt mich ein alter Freund,W.R., der ein ausgezeichnetes
Büchlein über Rilke und Kierkegaard schrieb und hier beamtet ist: er überreicht mir
mit scheuem Lächeln ein Blatt, auf dem er mein Gedicht „Paestum“ übersetzt hat
11Nataly Ritzel Open letter
Letter from Gustav Regler, ex communist writer, friend with André Malraux and
Ernest Hemingway and an acquaintance, in some mirky way, of Wolfgang Ritzel, my
grandfather, nephew of SO Fath and Hildegard Fath and - Gustav Regler had been
introduced as a kind of literary or historical tutor for my father as young man, who
gave me the letter 50 years later.
My fascist grandfather had (let’s say):„hoped“, his juvenile and rebellious son
would have loved to get in some deeper conversation with a „combattant“ of The Red
International Brigades in Spain - which is obviously a very fascist and very quirky
manoeuvre by besaid fascists.
Rüstersiel 9. XII.55.
Lieber …- bin aber morgen wieder auf dem Weg und als nächste Adresse gilt: 25, Via
Fr. Carrarro in Rom bei BLOCH.
Ich sprach mit Deinem Vater, dessen Intelligenz ich sehr schätze; wir wurden zwar oft
von besuchenden Studenten unterbrochen, mit denen er einen besonders guten
Kontakt zu haben scheint; er doziert über Kierkegaard und Geistesgeschichte, u. a.
auch über Hölderlin, dessen Landschaft Du ja dort um dich hast. Er hat im
Grundsatz nichts gegen Deinen eventuellen Italienbesuch im nächsten Jahr, will Dir
auch gern das Fahrzeug spendieren, d. h. die Zugreise; für einen Flug reicht wohl so
ein Professorengehalt kaum, das wirst Du einsehen. Übrigens sprach er auch von
Deinem Motorrad; das steht hoffentlich im Stall; ich hatte einen Freund, der
runinierte sich seine Nieren, weil er trotz einer Entzündung noch weiter fuhr.
Wie steht's um Dein Englisch? Ich bin dort unten mit meiner amerikanischen Frau; es
wäre schön, wenn Du mit ihr auch sprechen könntest. Lass mich erst aber sehen, ob
wir bis Frühling dort bleiben und bau bitte nicht zuviel auf dieser Idee auf. Ich muss
erst alles abtasten, wir waren drei Jahre getrennt, da muss vieles abgewartet werden,
Du verstehst das wohl schon. ….
Meine nächste Adresse ist die römische: 25 Via Fr. Carrarro, bei BLOCH, Roma-
Italien. Da erwähne ich die schon zweimal. Die von Palermo schicke ich dir, sobald
ich klar sehe. Also etwas Geduld mit dem vagabundierenden Dichterfreund! Ich bin
sehr beschäftigt für 14 Tage; in Milano mit dem alten Freund Leo Valiani (der das
Todesurteil an Mussolini vollstrecken liess und nun ein ganz diskreter Mann in einer
Bank geworden ist), in Rom mit den Resten meiner spanischen Brigade, und in
Palermo mit Peggy und den griechischen Ruinen. Lass von Dir
hören!
Herzlichen Gruss Dein Freund Gustav
Taking a pause before judging would mean to cede momentaneously a little space to
a small amount of uncertainty which, on the other hand, seems to be according to a
lot of people 2026 (in France) a highway to reintroduce Fascim..we will come to this
point again later.
Paestum is important, you see, and it played a certain small role (compared to History
and Philosophy and German Idealism and Kant and …..) in my family //upbringing
and of course in the hindsight of the botched bogus situation afterwards… but
But today this brief moment of…..
the beginning of the falling empire..the moment where ....
the beginning of the beginning of the end
Q/ Answer of the american sergeant in 1945 - adressed to Hildegard Fath:
If she could, would she start it all over again.
Hildegard Fath’s answer: Yes of course.
Q A about the The documents of Hess and his flight to Scotland
Responce...as if the Gestapo would have left any…
You see in this kind of REPURGING the process of history...This cleaning and
cleaning and purging and humiliating and to confess again and again
this is a tricky situation, your first reaction is probably: I should got hanged myself.
Is tricky because I am asking you to put aside some ideas about historical certainty
you might have
and by doing so, it looks like I was undermining your moral right as interlocuteur
……
as if Hildegard Fath was unable to see and to deal with REAL authority. Your
authority. As it is seems so obvious in her diary.
„Honest enemies...“
While her brother SO Fath was undermining real authority with his phony unlawful
untrustworthy NS- opportunism. (this is the opinion of an Jewish director whom I had
told about the situation and who believes this is obviously, totally and all possible
hindsights nothing other than PURE fascist lies)
The problem is, that for Us Forces just after 1945 and especially for those not beeing
white supremacist ones historical lessons are tight to everyday life experiences with
German Racism and US racism.
„Am 4. April 1945 waren Soldaten der 1. Französischen Armee entgegen vorheriger
Absprachen in Karlsruhe einmarschiert und hatten hier für drei Monate die
Militärregierung übernommen. Nach der endgültigen Festlegung der Zonengrenzen
übernahmen am 8. Juli 1945 die Amerikanerv offiziell die Besatzungshoheit…. So
entstand mit den Jahren eine Art amerikanischer Kleinstadt mit nahezu autarker
Infrastruktur. ….Die Entnazifizierung wurde von den Amerikanern in Karlsruhe wie
13Nataly Ritzel Open letter
generell in ihrer Besatzungszone anfangs mit großer Konsequenz durchgeführt. Das
galt auch für das Fraternisierungsverbot. Stattdessen setzte man auf re-education“
So I thought, this could be a possibility to find out more about Siegfried Otto Fath
who lived and died in Karlsruhe ….Possibly..or not...some ideas about ongoing
consistent racial attitudes…
S.O. Fath returned to his earliest formation as taxman (because he had been one
before 1922 BUT NEVER apparently under NS rule) and found work after his unit
got dissolved in 1948 as civil servant for the tax authorities, more precisely, for the
indemnisation and restitution payments which were, of course, just the same lie and
the same kind of restitution of postfascist nothingness which made my father say,
‚they‘ loved to use re-usable fascists on that purpose.
But perhaps you could read now a statement of Philippe Sands concerning US Forces
helping NS war criminals Out
s241 The americans gathered German scientists and former Nazi intelligence agents,
and set them to work. General Reinhold Gehlen, an intelligence officer who served as
chief of department ‚Fremde Heere Ost‘ at the Führer’s HQ...was brought to
Washington with his intelligence files to be interviewed and recruited by Allen
Dulles...“
(Obviously SO Fath – at least to my actual knowledge - had NOT been detected as a
potential War criminal, but my research is that of a dilettante and a mental weak
14Nataly Ritzel Open letter
person, so I should have used ZEIT Journalism to search for Partymembership.
Nothing else seems to guarantee verification…(if only it was certain that nobody in
THE family had ever tried to tamper with membership cards…)
And which is more embarrassing - I have to warn you: everytime I am hoping to
describe some contra-fictional or antagonist posssiblities, my computer will show
disfunctional wordings.
Unfortunately for you, I do have this inability to express myself correctly ( or, more
precisely in your terms: I don’t have the ability to express myself correctly)
Superiority is – I fear - at stake here. And my (quasi existential ) denial to produce
REAL CULTURAL STUFF like books or films or movies, you see, because this is
what everybody is expecting me to do, WRITE THE BOOK or write a proper book
at least as if the book alone and the publishing house would guarantee the REALITY
of my findings – any other sort of historical finding (which may be a part of historical
truth, a reliable source) will be a mere nothing instead and here we could
immediately deal with some Heideggerian stuff – but this is not your topic.
My refusal to comply with this kind of normal intellectual standards .. my
untrustworthy documents about Carl Theil, Abs Joosten, the Jewish but Catholic PDG
// CEO of Montessorian mouvement under German occupation, about the Jewish
philosopher Moritz Löwi or Richard Hönigswald
will - in any possible hindsight - make me a ridiculous person just as Horst von
Wächter who refuses to aknowledge his father’s rule and committements of mass
murdering ( unwilling to understand what really happened and happily denying any
NEW Evidence produced by Philippe Sands)
The problem, my problem is – that, of course, my presentation might be ridiculous as
a any doing by a descendent of fascists should be. My shitty words, my poor English
based on NOT English at all, my furbed warped Frenchdeformities I brought back
into your NONFrench and especially with all the NONFrench I put Into French
Literature fighting German Occupation and the NONGerman reaction my Swiss
grandmother was able d’en faire.
Anyway, nothing but to talk, the proposal of an conversation about a notyetwritten
book is all, I can you offer. This IS my proposal. But it looks like we will never
come to a conclusion in a kind of infinitive regression to a straightforward pointing
hand, demanding for a real and trusthworthy „moment“, which is the reason, why it
takes me so long to come up with something, atleast, a scratch of a book with some
„sources“ , some memories, some inconsistencies, some stories, some booknotes
which I COULD translate by using the NEW METHODS of ...KI or other neutral
scientific sources disrespectful ignoring any kind of private emotional personal
15Nataly Ritzel Open letter
speech, the impact of nonverbal communication underlying my grandparents capacity
in producing words of literary hiding ...
broken associations, nontold music, by amusical logcs (doesnt matter if you don’t
understand what I am talking about I do know it by heart and we will come to it later
– those wrong „pianists“ who cost me a lot of imagination only to find out there was
no music in their language or precisely afterwards perhaps) intimate words
sometimes illogical like hose words a child does use by „learning „, writing correct
spelling (Montessorian ideas of speech apprehension not taken into consideration
especially when dealing with Montessorian ideas)
to become a cristall clear translation exempt annihilated without cleansed from any
and every personal touch, smell, odor of language and of course without any
difference between English French or German the translation must be neatless fluid
invisible
is’n it
This would have be a kind of TRUER Translation and nothing hidden.
Or, at least, a way of respecting silence, or some inconsistencies in silences...
Indeed, my grandparents were the first people who introduced me to some of the
most democratic childhood books you could possibly find between 1965 and 1977, as
there were
A.S.Neill and Summerhill as radical democrate, the murdered polish teacher Korzac
and his Book – König Hänschen I., Das rosarote Kaninchen, Anna Frank,
the spanish author Michel del Castillo and his desperate „Elegies der Nacht“.
Even the murdered Jan Patocka found a place and some hidden communist writer
named Barckhausen and his wife….
Jean Améry, Bruno Bettelheim ..to name only them.
So, perhaps, you will understand, how difficult is it for me, to overcome my first
introduction to a nonfascist education by - calling my grandparents fascist...its tricky.
The next question would be:
Had they learned something ? Had they understood their lesson? Would it even be
possible for Hess’ secretary, speaking only in regard of her, to imagine a kind of
moral or cultural learning?
There, out there in some bookstore lands, in some university prints there are very
strange quotes to be found about Africa. The enemies of the future in 1934/35 which
I had the chance to identify in some letter exchanges between Albert Einstein,
Forster, and/or a personal letter of Wolfgang Ritzel of that time and some possible
16Nataly Ritzel Open letter
explanation of the Abyssinian-Italy war - some strange ideas about a critical situation
in Western Colonisation Imperialist politics.
Yes, I do know, quoting Albert Einstein seems to be far fetched and not introduced
by some personal acquaintances. I tried to get in contact with his daughter-in- law of
his…
not important, the contact had to be killed (virtually) by somebody else. Sabotaging is
part of my process, my personal one and sometimes, a personal humiliating
experience. Something I have encountered several times during the last years. We
will come to that later.
And don’t be surprised, we already spoke about negative impact of Western
Civilization. Your attention to Duala Manga Bell oder to Germans in Tanzania… I
had already tried to incite your interest in the abstruse philosophy of a German
missionary who fought 5 years to survive the NS torture system – the clergy-man
Hugo Schmid, posthumus brother-in law of my already introduced grandfather
Wolfgang Ritzel who married somebody else the precisely the moment when Hugo
Schmidt died in Buchenwald 1940.
Hugo Schmidt had some very strong ideas about the errors of Western Imperialism
and he tried to fight for his convictions, hindered by some deep personal
contradictions, but strongly supported and heavily critized by some friends from The
Neuwerk association, with, perhaps some ties to the Quaker mouvement, the society
of friends...and Hugo Schmidt drew severe criticism upon his reflections by one
particularily vunerable friend, named Otto Salomon, working for Karl Barth
publishing company.
If we were again d’accord in talking through the Brussels Anticolonialist mouvement
in 1928 or 1929 -you know better than anybody elsemy concept of critisizing
Colonialism, based on my family’s library, familiy diaries, started continued or even
dreamt of in Africa or South-America, German Traders in Hamburg – their inherited
books I tried to use for The Cameroun expropriation project which we presented to
you in 2007 – where I used some familiar and similar bankruptcy charges against the
German Imperialism and German imperialistic mindset - but of no importance here.
To start whith the end of an epoch or the the theoretical formulation of „historical
change of concepts“ – the famously named „paradigm change“ needs at least an idea
of Historical goals riming with those concepts and in my situation concept meets
with counteraction, quite surprisingly.
Stretching – perhaps – from some non-said personal objections or individual
contradictions to those concepts, from brutal illogical irrational behavior of fascst
behavior inherent to Fascim as illogical mouvement.
17Nataly Ritzel Open letter
Pause.
Africa – and the criticism of Western Imperialism - is, perhaps, the faintest core of
my family’s coherence -just the moment in the words of my grandfather Wolfgang
Ritzel who tried many years later to write about it -
his secret engagement with Hanna Schmidt, the pastor’s sister, in spring 1937. During
this infromal ceremony Abs Joosten and Hugo were present in a kind of silent
mentors or spiritual guardians.
Abs Joosten was not a brother but a close friend of Wolfgang Ritzel, a a strong
Catholic of Jewish descent (shouldn’t it be all the same?) who had to prepare for
Maria Montessori's leave and stay in India, where she was expected as supporting
force for Gandhi’s mouvement. Gandhi had asked her to create an Indian educational
system including the Montessori material but asked her, too, to transform it according
to Indian mythology... by developping a kind of Indian version of her Montessorian
material destinated to help empowering the local, the individual child and nation –
perhaps with Maria Montessories own paradoxes and contradictions.
Adam von Trott zu Solz, supporting Human Kabir is standing, perhaps, in one of the
very interesting further perspectives here.
That Adam von Trott zu Solz' fate seems to be unknown to American and Britisch
reader just like Carlo Lutz. The main focus lies on their perceived antisemitism.
You are, Dear Donald, without knowing,
part of this core of hope (and part of this inner anxiety and fear) is expecting
somehing coming from elsewhere. Like physically coming from the South. Not alone
philosophically, or through a strong belief or by the superstitious overestimation of
one’s own strength.
Tobruk,
Caire.
Casablanca,
„Casablanca“, ainsi begins a letter of my grandmother written in 1982, (who wasn’t
the first fiancé of grandfather) „Casablanca, the film, was just over, when you asked
me what had happened in my life, with my two husbands..“