Archive for Nazis
The Third Reich: Not All Grimness and Genocide Edition
Posted by: | CommentsJust came across a whole page full of goofy pictures of German soldiers from the Second World War – all silly faces and cute animals. In trying times like these, it’s nice to know that even in the midst of a life-and-death struggle of National Socialism vs. Interntional Bolshevist-Jewry, it was still possible to take time out for a yuck or two. Go figure.
Joking with Dictators a Bad Idea: Hitler Version
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Apparently, the last guy to have regular contact with Hitler just died, and his memoir is set to be published posthumously. The Holocaust denier deniers are apparently keen to have first-hand confirmation that Hitler ordered the extermination of the Jews, though since the guy is clearly keen on Hitler (to judge by what he said in recent interviews), one wonders why it should be expected that he wouldn’t try to “paper things over.” We’ll have to see when the work is actually published.
Anyway, Keyser had to laugh at this bit about how the guy – Fritz Darges who was Hitler’s personal adjutant – got sent to the Eastern Front:
“I must say I found him a genius.”
But Darges misjudged the “warm-hearted” Führer deeply during one conference at Rastenburg on July 18 1944 – two days before a bomb plot nearly succeeded in killing him.
During a strategy conference a fly began buzzing around the room, landing on Hitler’s shoulder and on the surface of a map several times.
Irritated, Hitler ordered Darges to “dispatch the nuisance”. Darges suggested whimsically that, as it was an “airborne pest” the job should go to the Luftwaffe adjutant, Nicolaus von Below.
Enraged, Hitler dismissed Darges on the spot. “You’re for the eastern front!” he yelled. And so he was sent into combat.
It’s in the middle of a totally humorless news story and itself is presented in a humorless way. Maybe it’s just Keyser, but isn’t it funny when Hitler orders his adjutant to swat a fly and he replies, “No, the Luftwaffe guy should do it!”? Well, seemingly, Hitler didn’t think so, either.
Though the article doesn’t say anything about it, the joke was perhaps a reflection of a bit of inter-service rivalry, since Darges was a member of the SS, and the Luftwaffe was suffering at this stage from an increasingly declining reputation with Hitler because of its inability to fight back Western bombing of German cities. Perhaps HItler wasn’t in the mood for that kind of thing. Or maybe he was just having a bad day.
Anyway, just goes to show the difference between democracy and dictatorship. Hitler gets to have someone else swat flies for him and can send him to the Eastern Front for a joke. Obama’s gotta swat his own.
Oh, and up there is the famous image of Darges telling Hitler the joke about “what’s black and white and red all over?” “Was?” “An SS division on the Eastern Front.” “Das is nicht komisch.” Below is a picture from happier times (for Nazis, at any rate) of Goering telling Hitler a good one about how an Italian, a Jew and a National Socialist walk into a bar. Not only is Hitler taking the joke in good stead without sending the head of the Luftwaffe to the Eastern Front, but Himmler (standing in between) is also having a good laugh. Not a good sign.
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Really Big Cow!
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Adolf Hitler was a “chubby chaser.” At any rate, it turns out he liked his cows big, which is a bit odd for a man who was a vegetarian.
Hitler wanted them to be Aryan cows – ancient beasts resurrected from a time before Europe was populated by “racially degenerate” wildlife.
Hermann Goering was so keen to recreate the one-time prey of Roman hunters that he employed two Nazi scientists to breed the once mighty aurochs back into existence.
The project seemed to have ended with the Second World War when nearly all the cattle kept in Berlin and Munich’s zoos were destroyed.
But some 70 years later, the fruit of this deluded labour to bring back to life the gargantuan bovines which roamed Eurasia can now be found peacefully chewing the cud in a few fields on the Devon-Cornwall border.
A herd of 13 Heck cattle, named after the two German zoologist brothers who bred the long-horned, stocky cattle in the Nazi-funded project, has been acquired by a West Country conservationist as part of a rare breeds farm.
Derek Gow, who already has a collection of beavers, polecats and water voles, bought the nine cows and four bulls from a Belgian conservation park which had bred a herd of the shaggy Heck cattle from the few surviving animals left in Munich’s Hellabrunn Zoo after 1945.
Beaver collector, huh? Keyser can see the point in that at least. Anyway, meanwhile back at the Nazi breeding grounds:
Mr Gow, 44, who runs a farm at Lifton, near Dartmoor, said: “The Nazis wanted to recreate the aurochs to evoke the power of the folklores and legends of the Germanic peoples. Between the two wars there was thinking that you could selectively breed animals – and indeed people – for Aryan characteristics that were rooted in runes and folklore. Young men hunted these bulls as preparation for battle and leadership in war. Hunting was a very big part of what people like Goering did. This was something that was considered very manly to do.”
The aurochs, which weighed up to a tonne and were up to two metres high, was lauded by Julius Caesar as being “a little below the elephant in size” with “extraordinary strength and speed”. The animals were hunted into extinction across most of Europe by the 16th century with just a few remaining in early Polish zoos by the 1700s.
Such was the obsession of Goering – the head of the Luftwaffe and Hitler’s designated successor – with reproducing a menagerie of ancient “noble” animals to be pursued by the Nazi high command on his personal hunting reserves in Prussia and modern-day Poland that he personally authorised Heinz and Lutz Heck to pursue their programme, begun in the 1930s, to “breed back” through existing cattle varieties to create an aurochs.
Heinz Heck, the director of the Munich zoo who with his brother was an admirer of Eugen Fischer, one of the fathers of the Nazi pseudo-science of race, set about cross-breeding strains including Highland cattle, Freisians and even Corsican cows. Lutz Heck, who ran Berlin’s main zoo, crossed Spanish fighting bulls with other breeds and, along with Heinz’s cows, the resulting cattle were declared to be the resurrection of the aurochs.
The Munich-based brother wrote after the war that he prized the brute power of his creation, which he said “must be eager to fight to the death”. It is now accepted that the Heck cows, some of which were sent to Goering’s private shooting estate south of Berlin, were in reality genetically far removed from the aurochs and the brothers had succeeded in creating only a facsimile of the primitive cow. Modern genetics has long established the impossibility of recreating an extinct species.
But Mr Gow strongly denies that his animals are besmirched by their Nazi associations, saying their hardiness means they could eventually be allowed to roam freely like the aurochs.
Yeah, the sins of the fathers’ breeders are not to be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation, as Jehovah would have it. These are more enlightened times, and it’s hardly the aurochs’ fault is their great-great-grandsires voted for Hitler in the elections of 1933.
Adoration of the Magi?
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Strange work by modern German artist Gottfried Helnwein. It looks like a photograph, but is said to be “multimedia on canvas.” And it is entitled, “Adoration of the Magi.”
Not entirely sure what it means, but it’s certainly disturbing. His watercolor of Hitler is even weirder.
Third Reich in Color: Part Two
Posted by: | CommentsWe had a post a few months ago with a bunch of color photos of Nazi Germany owned by Life magazine. Keyser came across a bunch more today, and since we had a post with an “(in)human interest” photo of Joseph Goebbels yesterday, it seemed appropriate to post a few of these shots. A lot are boring “Hitler viewing some parade” shots, but a number of the images seemed to say somethiing about the subjects.
This image is a bit dull, but it shows the Gauleiter of Berlin (the Goebbels of yesterday’s post) giving a speech in front of the Altes Museum. They knew how to throw a hoopla.
The guys in the background seem to party officials to judge by the uniforms. Whatever they’re looking at doesn’t seem to hold the attention of the dolled-up women in the foreground, who are apparently chatting about something else altogether.
Two guys joking around with an enemy donkey, who doesn’t seem to be amused by the festivities at all.
It’s sort of funny that these guys are stuck at the back of the color guard here, and are looking back rather good-naturedly at the cameraman.
This is apparently the “Pageant of the Dumpiest-Looking National Socialist Broads.”
“Hey, get a load of the ridiculous outfits on these guys.” (Keyser gathers that they’re Hungarian gendarmes.)
Some things never change. Public works projects are the same everywhere. A few guys work, and everyone else stands around pretending to be ready to work “if needed.”
Nazi Germany’s entry in the “World’s Stupidest-Looking Helmet” competition (Keyser thinks they’re some sort of motoring headgear for the NSKK or National Socialist Motoring Corps).
Seemingly, even Nazi Germany was a place for love. The girl’s swimsuit seems pretty skimpy.
Too bad this imagine came out a bit faded. The guy in the center with the jaunty stance is famous fight place ace Adolf Galland.
Not sure about the guy on the left (Keyser thinks the brown uniform signifies some position in the Nazi Party), but the guy on the right is in the SS with the rank equivalent to a senior colonel. He seems to have a rather mild expression. But what did this congenial looking guy go on to do during the war?
Boys go to war. This kid seems to have seen a lot of action to judge by all the awards on his uniform.
Somehow, this guy’s seemingly jocular, mock-heroic pose seems more English than German.
This guys a general to judge by the collar tabs. He looks more like an account to judge by his face.
This guy is wearing a naval uniform. If Keyser had to bet, he’d peg his expression as one of anxiety. This image is probably from early in the war, so he couldn’t know that 80% of those who sailed in U-Boats would die eventually die. Whatever he’s thinking about, it doesn’t seem to be reassuring.
The Look of Hate
Posted by: | CommentsWhoa! Does this photo have “I loathe you” written all over it or what?
The image was taken by the famous photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt under the following circumstances:
In 1933, I traveled to Geneva for the fifteenth session of the League of Nations. There, sitting in the hotel garden, was Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda…. Sunddenly he spotted me and I snapped him. Here are the eyes of hate. Was I an enemy? Behind him is his private secretary and interpreter. This picture was published many times throughout the world. I have been asked how I felt photographing these men. Naturally, not so good, but when I have a camera in my hand I know no fear.
There’s no doubting the emotion signified by Goebbels’ expression. But what exactly generated it? Did he habor some peronal animus towards Eisenstaedt? Given his control of the German newspapers this is conceivable. Or did he simply resent “unauthorized” photographers in general? Photos can be so reavealing and at the same time so uninformative.
This image seems to be the very personification of the phrase “if looks could kill.”
Third Reich in Color
Posted by: | CommentsOne tends to think of images of Nazi Germany in black and white, but it turns out there actually are a lot in color. Apparently, one of Hitler’s photographers, Hugo Jaeger, specialized in filming Nazi spectacles in color, and he kept a ton of negatives until 1970, when he sold them to Life magazine. Keyser ran across a bunch of such color photos with the logo “Life” in the lower right, so presumably these are part of that collection (see here and here.). There’s something to be said for each of them, but a few in particular stuck out (in Keyser’s mind at any rate). (You can click on the images here for somewhat larger versions, but the links above show the huge original files. Post scriptum: Some of the images seem faded, so Keyser played a little “Photoshopping” via iPhoto; the “doctored” versions come second.)
Christ, look at all those people (presumably at a rally in Nuremberg), stretching as far as the camera can see. Keyser would have made a lousy Nazi. Keyser Sr. once remarked that Keyser had a problem with institutional authority. “Heil who?”
Whatever else you say about the red, black and white Nazi flag, it makes a very striking image. Must have been quite the sight with all those long banners fluttering in the wind.
The impassive, scarred face of this guy with his eyes obscured by the very dark shadow cast by the helmut somehow looks stark (and a bit menacing) against all the bright, sunny colors (especially in the large version).
Who in the hell is that woman in the blue dress for her to stand up in the crowd and face the camera like that? (This again is Nuremberg, and all the SS men at the bottom look oddly bored.)
All the little girls giving the Nazi salute in their old-fashioned peasant outfits are kind of funny (and it isn’t even the Führer himself who’s speaking but some local nobody, with Hitler in the back).
Okay, by itself this image isn’t that interesting, but it does give the background to the next one. It’s a military briefing in the field (maybe during the Polish campaign?), with some officer explaining what’s going to a group of high-ranking officials standing at a distance. Hitler’s off to the right, and the guy in the center in the light grey overcoat is Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, who looks very unprepossessing for a mass murderer. The guy next to him in the leather coat is Martin Bormann.
Seemingly, the same situation as the previous shot, but everyone’s moved up close, with Hitler now looking on in the center as a general continues the discussion (and that’s Himmler peering over Hitler’s left shoulder). What struck Keyser about this image is the guy in the back sticking his head up looking straight at the camera. Everyone else is fixated on whatever it is on the map that Hitlers’ looking at, but this guy pops his head up with an odd mixture of arrogance and curiosity on his face. It rather “breaks the fourth wall” (as they say in the theater).
Nazi Germany vs. USSR
Posted by: | CommentsWhilst wandering through YouTube, Keyser came across two selections from contemporary propaganda that make an interesting contrast between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. First, a German newsreel that includes extensive footage of the victory parade for returning units from France that took place in Berlin in July 1940 (starts at 2:30 after a speech by Hitler):
Next, the victory parade in Red Square in June, 1945 to celebrate the defeat of Germany:
Whereas the German film lingers over the connection between the crowd and the troops and shows ecstatic enthusiasm on the part of everyone (especially, the women in the crowd), the Soviet film concentrates very much on the regimented troops. There is virtually no footage of the crowd, and in the few seconds in which they appear they seem to be as bored as the viewer (e.g., 2:32). Admittedly, the circumstances are a bit different. The German parade celebrates the very unexpectedly swift and comparatively bloodless victory over France, unlike the four-year nightmare of the First World War, whereas the Soviet victory came after a four-year war costing many millions of deaths. Still, the music in the Soviet film shows that the event is supposed to be happy (after all, one should be all the more happy to see the victorious end of such a long and bloody struggle)–but no joy. What does this show? That the Nazi regime was aiming to secure the cooperation of the populace and at this point at least succeeded, while the Soviet regime was seeking to intimidate the population? Anyway, it seems pretty clear that if you were given the choice to attend only one of these events, the one in Berlin looks like a lot more fun.
Weirder and weirder
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As a companion piece to go with yesterday’s post about Jews reading Nazi porn, Keyser gives you German converts to Judaism, including the illegitimate grandson of Hitler’s half-brother’s illegitimate son (or something like that).
And to add to this bizarritude, here’s some old news about a Neo-Nazi cell in Israel.
Double go figure.
