Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi
457 Responses
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Rich yes that where I went and I quote
"However, Germany is still criticized by some regarding its response. The German government never apologized for the invasions or took responsibility for World War II.
Poland still insists that Germany must offer an apology for the suffering of its people during the war.
Additionally, the emphasis for blame is often placed on individuals like Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party instead of the government itself, so no restitution has been made to any other national government by Germany"
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Years ago I played in a ceilidh band that was engaged to perform at an Irish-themed sports club function*. Some of the attendees had cooked up a hilarious jape whereby equipped with toy machine guns, balaclavas and fatigues they staged a mock IRA raid on the audience. Freakin' hilarious.
I'm afraid some of us are just deeply crass, insensitive and stupid, and that's all there is to it.
* this was in Hamilton. Le sigh.
I'm very comfortable with people dressing up as the klan and making fun of them
Who was being made fun of here? I don't think Nazis were being lampooned or satirised here (even if there could be anything brave or clever about lampooning Nazis at this late date). Clearly the "funny" part is the transgressive pleasure of burlesquing a tragic event.
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Probably because the Nazis had cooler uniforms.
Made by Hugo Boss. Seriously.
It is worth noting that the Germans still have not apologised for what they did, 'cause it wasn't them it was the nazis etc
In addition to the other responses to this, when I was in Jerusalem I met a bunch of German hippies doing charity work to atone for their nation's sins. They called themselves 'The Tribe of Cain'.
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Thanks for the article and the responses; together they make for informative reading. It is my impression that Austrian culture, unlike German, is still distinctly and overtly anti-semitic in places -- I was reading somewhere that you have no chance of employment in the civil service in Vienna if you are Jewish. And in interviews with Wagner family members some have been quite outspokenly Nazi. And note that British/Commonwealth/US memories of their own atrocities tends to be marginalised (e.g. the bombing of Dresden, Ireland, and more recent events in Afghanistan and Iraq).
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Raymond, Germany apologised to Poland in 1994
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By the way, Russia has never managed to apologise to Poland for what it did to Poland before, during and after WWII.
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And at that age, for most people, things like Hitler and the Nazis are pretty abstract things. They're almost metaphors.
I think this is an important point. The power of the imagery has resonated for so long in so many ways that it - ironically? - creates a kind of distance. For people who don't know any history, Nazism and Hitler are just shorthand for 'evil stuff' (see also: use of the Hitler moustache in teabagging protests). So if you want to transgress or shock, using Nazi imagery is the way to do it.
It makes me stabby. But I suppose I'm humourless that way.
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Clearly the "funny" part is the transgressive pleasure of burlesquing a tragic event.
Genocide is not a tragic event.
Genocide is not an unvoidable or accidental occurance in which people are blameless. Genocide results from evil, stupid, thick headed, idiotic, vain glorious, but very human causes. These aspects of humanity should be ridiculed and laughed at as frequently as possible, so good on the Lincoln students.
For the Germans (like the author of the article) to get parties devoted to them that do not involve the Nazis they are going to have to develop a national aspect even more monumentally stupid than the Nazi party. I sincerely hope they don't ever achieve this.
Meanwhile the genocide in Darfur continues, not that it makes the news much now that the death toll has dipped under 50,000 per annum.
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I don't think it is accurate to associate the actions of those Lincoln yobs with humour or satire. They're not smart enough for that, though it does not mean I will let them off the hook like some have done.
I am concerned about what their actions tell us about how they have been brought up and educated. It does not bode well for their constructive participation in a diverse society, as I said when we discussed this at the time.
we can guarantee many of them will continue being offensive into their old age if there are no consequences for boorish crap behaviour now. They're not little children.
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Anke Richter has written two books and is currently working on her third, a satirical novel about the perception and stereotypes of Germans in New Zealand.
I'm looking forward to reading that one! Will it appear in translation?
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Genocide results from evil, stupid, thick headed, idiotic, vain glorious, but very human causes. These aspects of humanity should be ridiculed and laughed at as frequently as possible, so good on the Lincoln students.
Call me dense, but please tease out how those students were doing that.
It still seems to me that they were playing dress-up to annoy the grown-ups.
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1) The Germans had the absolute coolest uniforms, weapons, tanks, planes, etc of that era.
2) The biggest joke of Hogans Heroes was the ongoing one of the Americans being able to outsmart the Germans every week.
3) It will always be "too soon?" to lampoon the concentration camps.
By the way - I just watched Der Untergang (Downfall). The end of the war as only the Germans could do it. Sublime, if not exactly uplifting.
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Raymond, focussing on the omissions in the apology and reparation suite is to miss the broader point that the German state as a whole has, for the last 60-odd years, made huge and ongoing efforts to make amends for, and come to terms with, the evil acts of it's citizens. And, not incidentally, make sure it never happens again.
That was my point.
In contrast, Japan has been heavily criticised for it's ongoing failure to satisfactorily acknowledge any culpability. But still doesn't receive half the crap that the Germans do.
It is my impression that Austrian culture, unlike German, is still distinctly and overtly anti-semitic in places
The Austrians, to a large extent, have managed to convince themselves that it was their German neighbours who were to blame for that unpleasant and distasteful business. So they're just as much victims as anyone else, y'see?
They've managed to side-step the national soul-searching that Germany has had to carry out, and so there are still some really nasty characters in Austrian Nationalist politics.
I highly recommend the book 'Fuhrer-Ex' to anyone who is interested in German/Austrian history and culture before, on and around the time of the fall of the Berlin wall.
Written by a guy who grew up in Communist East Germany, where guilt for WW2 was force-fed to children growing up, along with totalitarian communist philosophy. Naturally the two became indistingushable. So natually when the guy rebelled, he became a neo-nazi in the new unified Germany, until he came to his senses, realised what a load of crap it all was, and left the country.
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I am concerned about what their actions tell us about how they have been brought up and educated.
I don't know whether it's still the case now, but when I went to school, WW2 was part of the 5th form History curriculum, therefore optional. And Lincoln is an agricultural college: basically if you were doing swot subjects like history at school, you probably went to Canterbury instead.
And the age they are, not only is WW2 not really real to them, but it's probably not something their parents endured either. That's not to excuse, just to try to understand.
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playing dress-up to annoy the grown-ups
I suspect they just thought it would be a cool theme to dress up to. Fashion, not subversion. No sense beyond style. Or did they seem like way-smart activist yoof to you?
And the age they are, not only is WW2 not really real to them, but it's probably not something their parents endured either.
Fair point.
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Germans on the other hand, the more we mock their so called Nazi superman culture the better
It is worth noting that the Germans still have not apologised for what they did...
Either deliberate trolling, wilful ignorance or ... Well, I don't really know.
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Rich, in my case it proves you shouldn't believe eveything you read on-line
The German's have apologised and paid reparations to the Jews but for some obviously that will be never enough -
Thanks for all your comments. I just passed them on to a German friend who had studied in Lincoln and she was equally impressed with them.
just to add fire to the debate: Another friend commented that I have a metal plate/plaque (?) of Mao hanging on my toilet wall amongst other political kitsch art. Got it from a a flea market in Hongkong. My friend asked how a Chinese would feel about that, if his/her grandfather had been killed or tortured by the Great Chairman's regime. And would I hang up a mock picture of Stalin, for instance? Probably not... -
At least you would probably know what they meant.
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it proves you shouldn't believe eveything you read on-line
Basically, the problem was a Wikipedia page with no citations to follow up and check out.
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Ah well, I've never liked Pravda cafe in Wellington, all the Stalinist kitsch gives me the heebie jeebies.
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Another friend commented that I have a metal plate/plaque (?) of Mao hanging on my toilet wall amongst other political kitsch art. Got it from a a flea market in Hongkong. My friend asked how a Chinese would feel about that, if his/her grandfather had been killed or tortured by the Great Chairman's regime.
Reminds me of the Chaff Mao cover furore a couple of years back. The joke was clearly on Mao and not the Chinese student community, and the editors did the right thing by standing their ground and explaining the context.
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Am all for considered satire, not ignorance.
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The Mao kitschification thing is really weird. I can understand the appreciation for, say, the design aspects of Russian or Chinese propaganda posters, but the way you can get Mao on *everything* is odd. He wasn't exactly peachy keen on the mass murdering front.
(And you all know, of course, that if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow.)
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I would have got three other guys and gone as Kraftwerk.
Two mannequins with laptops would be enough.
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