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Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi

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  • Rich of Observationz,

    Um, I would here point out that the Holocaust didn't cause WW2.

    The western powers (and indeed the Soviet Union) had no problem with Hitler persecuting the Jewish people from 1933 onwards. It was only when their territory was clearly threatened that they took military action (UK & NZ:1939. US, not until 1941). A sizeable chunk of political opinion in all three countries was quite keen on the Nazis - the UK Daily Mail, for instance.

    I hope this doesn't come over as diminishing the evil of the Holocaust (I have Jewish ancestry myself, and some of those relatives disappeared in 20th century Europe). But I have the belief that we are best served by analysing history through thought rather than emotion.

    Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report Reply

  • Deborah,

    I would here point out that the Holocaust didn't cause WW2.

    Well, yes. When we tried to explain World War II to our girls, we started with the Treaty of Versailles. We segued from there to the Holocaust, trying to explain the horror, and the extent to which many nations were complicit in it, even if the greatest responsibility for it could be sheeted home to Hitler and his cohorts.

    New Lynn • Since Nov 2006 • 1447 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    But I have the belief that we are best served by analysing history through thought rather than emotion.

    But no one here argued that WWII was caused by the Holocaust. The general public didn't even hear about the death camps until close to the war's end, did they?

    ETA: Yes, as Deborah says, even in our early history classes in high school, we always went back to Versailles. (And crazy 1920s inflation, with German people carrying their daily wages home in wheelbarrows. That always stuck with me.)

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • George Darroch,

    Working link here

    Beware: some very tedious trolling in the comments.

    Thanks Sam. Yes, avoid the comments.

    WLG • Since Nov 2006 • 2264 posts Report Reply

  • Keir Leslie,

    hurt my national feelings

    If we accept the discourse of national feeling, then the German national feeling should be hurt forever and ever; that's what the sign outside Oradour-sur-Glane means: you can never, ever, ever, get past this. You fucked up, you did something so monstrous that you can never really be free of the taint. That's the legacy of Nazi national pride: that the Germans can't really have any any more. Even the football team is tainted.

    And this applies to France and Britain and America and New Zealand as well, but what is striking about the German case is that even if you are very western and imperialist and racist and all that, they are still going to be the country that started a truly evil war of choice and then got taken to the cleaners for their trouble forever and there's pretty much nothing they can do about it.

    Which is an argument against national feeling, but if we are to have national feeling, then the German national feeling should be shame.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Tim Darlington,

    There's nothing like having a good "they," is there?

    Since Nov 2006 • 56 posts Report Reply

  • Sam F,

    Thanks Sam. Yes, avoid the comments.

    Wow, that's pretty much the worst I've seen of Maps' regular NZ pseudohistory trolls - and appears to have an anonymous sockpuppet too!

    Reading the Maps is a fantastic blog, but the one problem with its magnificent debunking of Celtic NZ and other nutters is that these people are all on the Internet and will swarm at the slightest provocation.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1611 posts Report Reply

  • Keir Leslie,

    There's nothing like having a good "they," is there?

    Well, yes, that's why the idea of national feeling is daft. But if you want to use it, you should be consistent.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Tim Darlington,

    ...that's why the idea of national feeling is daft.

    Well, maybe one day the rest of us will reach modern German society's level of enlightenment re national pride. But I think it more likely that the reverse will happen - eventually, Germans will be as big on national pride wank as the rest of us.

    How so? Well, I worked with a bunch of Indian guys a few years back. My level of guilt that one of my ancestors may have strapped one of their ancestors to the muzzle of a cannon and fired it? Zero. Their level of annoyance about it? Zero. Time wounds all heels.

    Since Nov 2006 • 56 posts Report Reply

  • Rob Hosking,

    Well, yes, that's why the idea of national feeling is daft.

    Hear hear.

    My English ancestors kicked my Scottish ancestors out of the Highlands. Half of me is supposed to be bitter and resentful towards my other half, which is supposed in turn to be smug and overbearing.

    It's a load of nonsense.

    South Roseneath • Since Nov 2006 • 830 posts Report Reply

  • 81stcolumn,

    Rich: how do you reckon Lincoln students would have managed a "settlers vs Maori" costume theme?

    Along the same lines.....

    Do you think the guys at Lincoln would have had problems wit the following:

    A WW1 party and I turn up giving out horsemeat stew.........

    A tsumani today and dudes going to the beach to surf a wave that caused such damage....

    Nawthshaw • Since Nov 2006 • 790 posts Report Reply

  • 3410,

    For most of us here, the War is something that happened to our parents' or grandparents' generation. For today's Lincoln students, it is one further generation removed, and that extra generation makes all the difference in the world.

    Consider what you know about your grandparents. Now consider what you know about your great-grandparents; much, much less, right?

    My parents grew up in a household with parents who lived through the War. My grandfather (an aircraft mechanic) was stationed in the Pacific. My parents have friends whose fathers were killed or irreparably damaged, so my parents have some perspective on the War (which I heard about, growing up), whilst I really have none.

    As someone said above: to these students, it's ancient history.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report Reply

  • Tom Semmens,

    Danyl in his first post basically sums up what I think on this matter.

    BUT

    1) The Germans had the absolute coolest uniforms, weapons, tanks, planes, etc of that era.

    They didn't have such uniforms just because they thought combat required you to be snappily dressed. The Nazi's were besotted with the power of their symbols, plastering swatikas on any and everything. The western public lampooned them for this even at the time - there is a well-known 1939 cartoon from a Belgian newspaper showing Hermann Goring admiring himself in the uniform of a tram conductor that apparently infuriated the Reichsmarshall. And when the Nazi's were defeated, the Soviets symbolically desecrated the symbols of Hitlerism.

    Ridiculing, debasing, and making powerless objects of humour of Nazi regalia is the surest sign I can think of that their defeat was total.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report Reply

  • mark taslov,

    I played at a toga party once at Lincoln. To my grave disappointment, everyone was dressed as romans, not a single celt or gaul to be found, I respect the equality of representing both sides of a struggle, and I think it's awfully forgiving of the students to dress as NAZI's and not just wear the costumes of the eventual victors.

    lest we forget salon kitty.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075163/

    tend to agree with Danyl,

    Look at it this way: which notion do you think would annoy the Nazi high command more, the idea that subsequent generations only ever referred to them in hush, respectful tones or that people made fun of them and dressed up in silly costumes to mock them?

    wot is zis tread? zey make fun of our uniforms? zey make fun of our var? But vee lost das wor, vee must all forget.

    (And you all know, of course, that if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow.)

    Danielle, A brief moment where the prophet John misread the times... considering Mao's mug remains on the bank notes.....

    Te Ika-a-Māui • Since Mar 2008 • 2281 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock,

    For most of us here, the War is something that happened to our parents' or grandparents' generation. For today's Lincoln students, it is one further generation removed, and that extra generation makes all the difference in the world.

    More or less the point I was going to make. We're on the cusp of this part of history passing out of being 'living' history, to 'not living' history.

    But as Danielle has pointed out, the peculiarly horrifying and vile thing about the holocaust was the way it was so efficiently industrialised on such a mass scale.

    That is why is deserves to be remembered in all it's horror, and not trivialised as part of some infantile shock party.

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • mark taslov,

    It's a costume party dude. Watch some Richard Pryor.

    Te Ika-a-Māui • Since Mar 2008 • 2281 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock,

    Ridiculing, debasing, and making powerless objects of humour of Nazi regalia is the surest sign I can think of that their defeat was total.

    The risk is that in doing so, you trivialise the horror associated with it.

    And as has been pointed out several times in this thread, there were plenty of participants dressed in concentration camp prisoner outfits (oh, my sides! Stop it, you're killing me!).

    I'm quite happy to laugh at someone caricaturing a self-important nazi fool like Goering, if it is quite clear that the intention is caricature and mockery, and not just because the tittering imbecile in the uniform thinks he can get a cheap rise out of someone.

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • mark taslov,

    So your saying Rich it's ok to redress as the losers of struggle, and forget the victims? Dressing as the victims, the Jewish prisoners is the very best way to mock Goering and the like.

    Reenactments are good fun.

    To throw a party themed around the darkest period in German history is as fitting as having a 'Stolen Generation' ball in Darwin ("Bring your black and your white mum"), or a 'Killing Fields' piss-up with a Pol Pot look-alike contest at the Cambodian cultural centre.

    It really depends who is holding these events and where. In this case much the same as aborigines throwing a 'Stolen Generation' ball in Darwin. Lest we forget which side we were on. As New Zealanders we have little shame to feel for our involvement in what transpired in those war years. So why should we now?

    Te Ika-a-Māui • Since Mar 2008 • 2281 posts Report Reply

  • mark taslov,

    Marry a guy who dresses as the leader who brought Slobodan Milosevic to justice for crimes against humanity replete with a Frankfurter hanging from his fly, and the whole world just goes crazy....

    Te Ika-a-Māui • Since Mar 2008 • 2281 posts Report Reply

  • Gareth Ward,

    Oh sure, those Lincoln students were making satirical political commentary on Nazi self-importance and the complex layering of the Final Solution.

    Auckland, NZ • Since Mar 2007 • 1727 posts Report Reply

  • Martin Lindberg,

    Beware: some very tedious trolling in the comments.

    I actually found it pretty entertaining. The troll (spam) really got it handed to him in a rather restrained way by the host. Then he totally lost it.

    Classic textbook example!

    Stockholm • Since Jul 2009 • 802 posts Report Reply

  • Rob Hosking,

    Ridiculing, debasing, and making powerless objects of humour of Nazi regalia is the surest sign I can think of that their defeat was total.

    Not to mention singing songs about their testicles.

    South Roseneath • Since Nov 2006 • 830 posts Report Reply

  • mark taslov,

    Oh sure, those Lincoln students were making satirical political commentary on Nazi self-importance and the complex layering of the Final Solution.

    Whether intentionally or not, yes.

    Te Ika-a-Māui • Since Mar 2008 • 2281 posts Report Reply

  • Stephen Judd,

    Whether intentionally or not, yes.

    Is there such a thing as unintentional satire? I don't think so. They were just being a bunch of cocks, and revelling in it.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report Reply

  • mark taslov,

    Is there such a thing as unintentional satire? I don't think so. They were just being a bunch of cocks, and revelling in it.

    They were, but they same was said of Peter Cook. Not so much that the satire was unintentional but that the political commentary offered by Anke foisted it rather unworthily up that mast.

    Te Ika-a-Māui • Since Mar 2008 • 2281 posts Report Reply

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