Third Reich

It's a bit late, because yesterday was liberation-day and the day before was remembrance-of-the-dead-day, but did you know that the Third Reich was great for the environment? Where they murdered millions of people, they also saved millions of trees. This all began with Tacitus, who with his Germania set a tradition of 'the German' as 'the noble wilderman', and the forest the native habitat, with the oak as symbol for that nation. He also said that the Germans were the least polluted, most pure race because as wild as they were, they didn't sleep around a lot. Course the Third Reich rulers loved this, and this wilderman nationalism was picked up by loads of writers at the end of the 19th century. Also, the minister of landschutz was Hermann Göring, big on hunting. So naturally, he wanted to protect the habitat of the creatures he hunted.
This valuable information I got from Landscape and Memory, that big book by the great historian Simon Schama. I started reading this because my dear dad pulled it out of his bookcase when I told him Anselm Kiefer was my new favourite modern artist. I've just come to the last part of the second chapter, where Schama'll begin talking about this wonderful artist. I saw a big show of his work in the modern art gallery in Montreal, and fell in love with it instantly. This is because this German artist, living in France, uses great materials from nature (like lead, earth and sunflower seeds) and, also, esoteric symbolism. I can't really show you his work and I would not advise anyone to go look at pictures on the web, for the real works, they are wall-sized and should be seen in their full magnitude. Here is, however, the poster child of the exhibition I saw: