Heldentod

Book excerpt: • Previously unpublished images dramatically illustrate the Third Reich’s love affair with death • From cradle to the grave, the seductive indoctrination of a ‘civilised’ nation • The significant aid to Holocaust research and curriculum studies • Shedding new light on the darkest of times Heldentod: The Nazi Culture of Death graphically focuses on the Third Reich’s conception and promotion of the ‘Hero’s Death’ as it fostered and then fuelled a cataclysm of apocalyptic carnage and destruction. This underlying driving force, ultimately self-destructive, is shown infusing both state-sponsored propaganda and echoed by the personal battlefield images captured by its soldiers’ personal cameras. In so doing, it confronts the matter of subject vs observer and their intimate connection. The original and often one-of-a-kind and never seen before photos also serve as a searing documentation of man’s inhumanity to man and a stark warning to future generations.