Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi
457 Responses
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I suppose one has to give the RSL the benefit of the doubt and assume that because of the cold war the widespread participation and complicity of the Wehrmacht in genocide and crimes against humanity in the East, the Balkans and Italy was not known.
When I was first in Australia, in the early 70s, I spent time in a pub in Sydney's Haymarket that appeared to have a resident German veteran as some kind of inhouse roustabout-cum-resident crazy man. The guy had an Afrika Corps palm tree and swastika tattoo, and did a kind of garbled tomorrow belongs to me party piece for the amusement of the patrons. When I left he'd climbed to the roof and was making a lot of noise. He'd have gone down a treat at Lincoln.
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At the crux of this issue is the intent behind the behaviour. Were the Lincoln uni students attempting to validate Nazi behaviour? It does not seem the case to me. It appears that they were simply implementing the German theme, in a very bad taste way.
There is no getting away from the fact that Nazism is a now media artifact, and is inextricably linked with Germany.
I do not think it is helpful to point out that in Germany that only the extreme right would wear Nazi gear. The difference is that your neo-fascists are doing it for real. For a start, their uniforms would not be as half-arsed as the Lincoln student's ones. Nor would they dress up as holocaust victims.
Not everyone who dresses up as a Nazi is making a statement about Nazism, other than to concur that it did happen. Surely the ultimate demise of Nazism is to become fodder for dress up parties ?
So, how would I feel about a similar event that from my own history being used in a similar way. For example, a History of Te Arawa theme party where some people came as the Nga Puhi invader Hongi Hika, and some came as his victims. Well, it is part of my history, and it did happen, and we can't deny history. If the purpose was to say "You deserved this" or "Murderous invasion is cool", then, yeah, I'd have a lot to say about it.
Has anybody got an information on what message the Lincoln students intended to convey ?
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German civilians - and the military even more so - knew and/or broadly approved of Nazi crimes untl the rain of Allied bombs and defeat in the East caused them to start to fear the consequences of those beliefs.
I'm not so sure that is true, at least for the civilians. Most German civilians genuinely had no knowledge of the concentration camps. Anti-semitism was actively encouraged, but mosty people didn't understand what had happened to the Jews. Most probably just thought they'd "gone East", and the Nazi regime was not one you'd want to asking questions of as a civilian if you wanted to stay alive.
That's not to say the civilian populace wasn't in any way responsible for what happened. But the worst atrocities weren't widely publicised until the end of the war.
How to treat German war veterans: it's not a easy question. How complicit someone was probably depended on where they were posted and in what branch of the military they served. If you were a Wehrmacht soldier on the Eastern front, or in the Balkans, chances are you saw or participated in unspeakable acts. If you were an Afrika Corps man, or in the Luftwaffe or navy, maybe not.
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I talked to a German about it once.
2 things. He said he’d always been proud of his grandfather who was mayor of his local town for 10 years. It was only when he got to an age of independent thinking that he realised what that actually meant.
The other one was that he was holidaying in the English part of Spain when the Falklands War broke out.
The headline in the Sun at the local shop said “BRITAIN DECLARES WAR” and his first thought was “Oh, shit!!”.
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3410,
Has anybody got an information on what message the Lincoln students intended to convey ?
Nothing first-hand, but I'd put money on it being no more complicated than "I've just seen Inglourious Basterds."
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Has anybody got an information on what message the Lincoln students intended to convey ?
They are all big Formula 1 fans?
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Yes, but would you have thought it was acceptable for the Lincoln students to hold a KKK-themed party where some of them turned up in hoods, and some of them blackfaced-up and put nooses round their necks?
They're only making fun of rednecks, right?
I don't think you can ever consider humour just by looking at the images. Is there no way that you can dress up as the KKK and it be socially acceptable? Mel Brooks put the African American sheriff in a KKK costume as a disguise in Blazing Saddles. It was silly, but not offensive I thought.
Shortly after 911 I heard Ewen Gilmour set an audience up for a very well done joke about the event. After the joke he said there shouldn't be any such thing as "too soon", and that if we allow ourselves not to laugh at our world, we lose an important coping mechanism.
So I'm not sure anything should be off the table for humour. It's an essential part of human nature. It will always be about how it is done, and who is having the fun poked at them. I'd guess that the kids from Lincoln failed in that regard (or didn't even aim to poke fun), not in their choice of theme.
If you were a Wehrmacht soldier on the Eastern front, or in the Balkans, chances are you saw or participated in unspeakable acts.
But you could say the same thing (or indeed worse) about many of the Soviet soldiers, whose activities upon invading Germany were pretty horrific revenge on both military and civilian populations. Not many of the winning side ended up at Nuremburg facing trial.
At some stage, for 99% of the list of people who did horrible things, it becomes pointless not to move on. If we allow our civilisations to fall into war, horrific things are going to happen, despite the bizarre set of rules that we have developed around what is and isn't OK during a war.
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There's also a lot you could say about why Nazism raises these questions so much, whereas other historical incidents don't, or don't as much.
You wouldn't get much support for a slavery party, but pirates are fine. Cowboys and Indians are still commonly accepted.
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I'd put money on it being no more complicated than "I've just seen Inglourious Basterds."
Wahey, them German miliary are so cool man, and like they had tragic prisoners that I could look like by just wrapping this sheet like so and where's that marker pen. Oh, and...
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They are all big Formula 1 fans?
subtlenui
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But you could say the same thing (or indeed worse) about many of the Soviet soldiers, whose activities upon invading Germany were pretty horrific revenge on both military and civilian populations. Not many of the winning side ended up at Nuremburg facing trial.
Agreed. The massacre of Polish officers by the Russian army at Katyn is an atrocity that springs to mind.
And let's not go anywhere near the debate over whether the Allied bombing of Dresden was a justifiable act or an atrocity.
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So I'm not sure anything should be off the table for humour. It's an essential part of human nature. It will always be about how it is done, and who is having the fun poked at them.
Context counts. This wasn't a stand-up performance or a carefully scripted film. Not a satirical revue or a political rally.
It was a party. Supposedly in a centre of higher learning. Full of a group of people with certain backgrounds, in a particular place and in a broader context of local historical knowledge and social and political change.
However, they chose powerful and resonant cultural symbols, either in ignorance or lack of compassion about the impact. Who knows? It seems legitimate to question what that choice says about that group of people and about us as a society.
Retaining a sense of fun is not mutually exclusive with that. But where's the satire in this example?
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How complicit someone was probably depended on where they were posted and in what branch of the military they served.
I'd say it's more about what they themselves actually personally did. For sure, there were more atrocities in some theaters, but that's never any indication that any particular person there was doing anything more than trying to fight in the war and stay alive.
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Or you forget that it could happen again.
It is happening in the scrubland of western Sudan and hills of Burma.
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Retaining a sense of fun is not mutually exclusive with that. But where's the satire in this example?
Yes. But I was responding to a person saying a KKK party would only be making fun of rednecks, not the Lincoln example specifically.
But alternatively, if it was a Wild West party, and everyone turned up as "cowboys and Indians", not many people would care, and it certainly wouldn't be news. Despite the horrific acts carried out against native Americans by settlers and the colonial military in North America.
Which isn't the same thing as a Nazis party (nothing really is), but our treatment of what is "OK" from historical themes and which isn't doesn't necessarily follow any logic about relative "bad-ness". It says as much about our cultural baggage of the theme (or lack of) as it does about the original event, and the recreated event, themselves.
Also see the woman who was in the media earlier this year pointing out that Eskimo lollies would be seen quite differently by some indigenous people in Canada than they would be here. Yet that's something that 99% of NZers wouldn't be worried about.
I guess I can fully understand how Anke feels about it, and why any Jewish person would be horrified. And why Germany has laws about it. And I think it's horrible too.
But in the back of my mind I'm noting "there's other things that we should also be concerned about and we're not". Maybe this incident, in NZ isn't something we should be so up in arms about, or we should express more concern about representations of other things, that currently we don't care about.
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"Cultural baggage" is the point - the impact comes from tapping into that. There's a reason Godwin is about that topic not the pillaging of native North Americans, Ugandans or local iwi.
I'd question how conscious the choice was - and how responsible, even if deliberate. Bullies tend to play the "I was only joking" card, whether alone or in groups.
This and similar incidents are signals that something needs to be fixed. Something more than representations.
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"Cultural baggage" is the point - the impact comes from tapping into that. There's a reason Godwin is about that topic not the pillaging of native North Americans, Ugandans or local iwi.
Yes. But it's also worth looking at why we have the cultural baggage we do have.
I guess I can fully understand how Anke feels about it, and why any Jewish person would be horrified.
Re-reading this, I suspect I don't fully understand these two things at all, not having anything anywhere near to compare it to. I guess respect would be a better word.
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it's also worth looking at why we have the cultural baggage we do have
Totally agree. And in this case, the global cultural influence of the USA is declining with time, amongst other factors.
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It is happening in the scrubland of western Sudan and hills of Burma.
Well, not in quite the same mechanised fashion that others upthread have pinpointed as being one of the reasons the Holocaust seems especially chilling.
But, yeah, it is, and that's part of the same thing, I think; we ignore those genocides because they're being done by, and happening to, The Other. People who are Not Like Us. Exclusively portraying Nazis as demons - often literally - lets us do the same thing. And we shouldn't.
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But alternatively, if it was a Wild West party, and everyone turned up as "cowboys and Indians", not many people would care, and it certainly wouldn't be news. Despite the horrific acts carried out against native Americans by settlers and the colonial military in North America.
Or if they called the local rugby team Canterbury Blood-Soaked Murderers and Pillagers, as they have. Nobody objects to this (well I do, but I'm nobody).
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A lot to think about from this post - thanks to both Anke and the other commentators. Ignoring the Lincoln guys for a moment, it is a reminder the this who area is complicated - but really good at getting you to think deeply.
The thoughts and questions that come to me as I read this are:
I'd put money on it being no more complicated than "I've just seen Inglourious Basterds."
Agreed.
they're literally the kind of farm boys from New Zealand that went to fight the Nazis when it was a live issue.
Also very true - but what does this mean? I think I need to mull over this for a while longer...
Nazis associated with zombies/demons/epitome of evil
WW2 involved people. The Nazi actions where evil, but if we categorise them as inhuman, we take away some of the lessons we need to learn and, in a perverse way, it almost becomes an excuse "oh, well those people were Nazis. Nazis were monsters. We're not mosters, so it could never happen here. Pass the toast."
Great civilisations have risen and fallen. One thing we have going for ourselves is our knowlege of history. We need to use that to make sure important lessons/thoughts really are learned. But do we lose the lessons when the people who learned them firsthand are no longer around? Can a generation of people only learn certain lessons by making the mistakes themselves?
I'm about to spend a week with the German father-in-law...
I've encountered this Ben, but in relation to more recent events (in southern Africa).
It's hard... As I said above, I really believe we need to learn from our history. That said, I am sad and defeatest - because I also think some parts of our social history will only really progress with time ... and the death/removal of power of participants in society who will not change.
cheers guys
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Apart from the Crusaders' name there's the strange practice of having them dress up as Freddie Krueger. Hardly a masterpiece of PR to fit David Bain up for his post-prison photo op in a crusaders jersey.
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I'm not so sure that is true, at least for the civilians. Most German civilians genuinely had no knowledge of the concentration camps. Anti-semitism was actively encouraged, but mosty people didn't understand what had happened to the Jews.
This is much discussed of course but I'm going to have to agree with Tom. Most males were in the military by 1941 and every family had military age males and they most certainly knew what was going on. The list of occupations needed to make the camps work was vast and went through German society.
There is voluminous evidence that the Jews of Europe knew their fate long before they were selected to be shipped so I'm always very uncomfortable with the claim that the civilians en-mass had no knowledge
If you date the second round of fighting from the Spanish civil war in 1936
Surely the invasion of Manchuria in 1931 is a more appropriate starting point if you wish to finish it with the CCP's victory in 1949. Although the wars in Korea, Malaya, Indonesia & Vietnam that went into the 50s and 60s all extended fairly continuously out of the second conflagration.
The birth of the modern world is widely set at 1789 aand the French Revolution.
Sure, but the decisions taken at Vienna, the events of 1848, and the rise of Prussian led Pan-German militarism thereafter directly contributed to the place that Germany found itself at in 1917-18 and the extremism which came from the trenches.
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I was responding to a person saying a KKK party would only be making fun of rednecks
Kyle, that would be me.
But the point I was making was in response to someone else, who more or less said that it [the lincoln party] wasn't a big deal and they couldn't really see what the problem was.
I was hunting for an appropriate example that I thought might demonstate that it couldn't be dismissed that easily.
In Germany that only the extreme right would wear Nazi gear
Well, not in public they wouldn't. Because it's illegal.
And it's probably worth noting that what the Lincoln students did would have been illegal in Germany, and it isn't here.
Legally, they did nothing wrong. But it was exceptionally poor taste. They either didn't really know how poor, or they didn't care. Both of these options are troubling.
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There is voluminous evidence that the Jews of Europe knew their fate long before they were selected to be shipped so I'm always very uncomfortable with the claim that the civilians en-mass had no knowledge
I'm not. But the question of willful ignorance does arise. The Jews did want to know what was happening, so I'm sure they made a lot more effort to find out, and were a lot more informed about Jewish affairs than the average civilian. The disappearance of most of their family would not be unnoticed, and their chances of coming into contact with 'underground' sources, like foreign agents, would be considerably higher, on account of their fairly obvious forced-alignment against the Nazis.
Germans, on the other hand, might be inclined to trust the official sources a lot longer, and speaking openly amongst themselves about anything that was against the propaganda would probably have been a terrifying prospect, in a society where children were being encouraged to rat out their parents, informers were everywhere, and the consequences were extremely harsh. It's not a climate that fosters people knowing the truth about anything.
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