Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi
457 Responses
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I guess it could have been worse, anyway. Remember when the Viradoura school built and nearly managed to parade a Holocaust-themed Carnaval float in Rio?
A lot of Brazilians blamed their education system, which isn't exactly top-grade and doesn't do much world history -- I don't know whether we can do the same.
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Well, if Messrs Key and Goff can celebrate the Chinese National Day in front of a gigantic profile of Mao, I don't see any reason for Anke to feel guilty....
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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.
I was given (as a sort of joke-gift, mind you) a Mao pocket-watch. It has a relief of him on the front, and when you open it (and it is wound up) his arm waves back and forth behind the watch arms to greet you. I can't quite imagine anything similar for Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot etc.
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Thank you for this post.
I might post at length about my thoughts about New Zealand and its current perceptions of World War Two, but for now I'll just say that your summarisation of its place in the popular imagination is apt.
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I couldn't help feeling sad for young Germans growing up and feeling guilt at the levels described for something that happened half a century ago.
When I think of Germany and Germans I think of the largest economy in Europe, the Green Party, subsidies for people who generate electricity and sell to the grid, the Germans I've met, the fat red ones on the beaches of Spain, maybe the wall that once was. I've learned about the war and taught it in history, I've seen the movies and read the books, but it isn't how I define modern Germany.
Pirates were a damn unpleasant lot but every other kid wears a pirate costume to parties these days. I think dressing up as a Nazi is more about dress ups than portraying Nazis. Which is not to say that it isn't offensive, just that not everyone is going to be aware of the level of offence. I uderstand that Ka Mate could be considered quite offensive in Otago but it doesn't stop every other group from performing it here.
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A context issue with Lincoln worth keeping in mind.
Smallest Uni and Largest percent of foriegn students, many German etc. Offense is assured.
Being a Halls of Residence party, therefore a University Party, not private student antics,
By comparison the Klu Klux Van at the Undie 500, complete with a guy in blackface, staw hat, checked shirt, being lead around by a noose around his neck. That is far more offensive to me as it was signed off by the UC Proctor, and the Police, in person.
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Pirates were a damn unpleasant lot but every other kid wears a pirate costume to parties these days.
That is a comparison I really wouldn't feel comfortable making.
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I think dressing up as a Nazi is more about dress ups than portraying Nazis.
What about dressing up as Jews in concentration camps, which we also saw at Lincoln? Is that just about "dress-ups" as well? Or is it about basic stupidity and bad taste?
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What a fantastic post, Anke. Thank you so much. I would just add that when I lived in Switzerland, there were many German inhabitants in my town, and quite a few German tourists. And I remember wondering where they were, in C1945. So I appreciate your explanation of your feelings.
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...as long as there are still people alive who bear the number on their arm -- it's not a joke
So about twenty years, and all will be sweet?
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Almost every nation has atrocities in its past. Including NZ - we celebrate white NZ settler culture, ignoring the fact that if the treaty had been adhered to, Aotearoa would be a Maori nation with a small minority of pakeha, like Samoa or Fiji. The early settlers were only able to build cities like Wellington and Christchurch by stealing land, mostly through violence.
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Phillip - whose idea of "good taste" are we following? And isn't it more likely that ignorance, rather than idiocy, is at work here?
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Those of us who were born not long after the war, got more exposure to it than young people today. Our parents were in the services. The war was the subject of films, books, and in our teens, tv documentaries. To those in their 20s now, it is ancient history. They have more recent horrors to consider.
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Whose idea of "good taste" are we following? And isn't it more likely that ignorance, rather than idiocy, is at work here?
I'm only going to answer the second question. What are they ignorant of? By the looks of it, any German history before 1933 and after 1945. They're certainly not ignorant of basic knowledge about the Holocaust, which is how they managed to come as Nazis and Jews. This isn't about watching Hogan's Heroes or Inglourious Basterds and thinking it might be funny to go as cartoon Nazis. Because it brings the Jewish dimension in, it's much worse than that, surely. So, idiocy.
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Rich: how do you reckon Lincoln students would have managed a "settlers vs Maori" costume theme?
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Very intersting reading, ...it immediatley brought back memories of the Wunderbar(sp?) and the table soccer there ...nazis vs jews if I remember the news correctly ..
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philipmatthews: Exactly. Kol hakavod.
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To those in their 20s now, it is ancient history. They have more recent horrors to consider.
Rwanda, Darfur ... do you think those Lincoln students are "considering" these and other recent horrors on a regular basis? My guess is that if they were sensitive to those stories, they probably wouldn't have thought it a real laugh to dress up as Nazis and Jews.
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My recollection of my 20s suggests that we were more concerned with what was going on "now" than what was in the past. The now of the time contained apartheit, the Vietnam war, French nuclear tests.......there was lots to be going on with, and few offensive parties. Having said that, there were always those who were keen to freak out the straights.
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Perhaps the spate of recent movies about the War has something to do with this, as well as the historical and geographic distance. People only learn about the past as it is mediated through films; the realities of the War and the Holocaust are unknown to them. The Lincoln party costumes probably were responses to the movie images rather than the historical fact. Not that they were excusable: dressing up as a camp victim is appalling.
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Although I have a few quibbles with minor points* in this essay, Reading The Maps has some excellent commentary on this matter.
*the archeological evidence of deforestation preceding collapse in Rapa Nui is particularly strong, and not a "myth" as Maps characterises it. -
People only learn about the past as it is mediated through films; the realities of the War and the Holocaust are unknown to them.
By coincidence, one of our eight year olds asked about the cause of World War I and the cause of World War II over dinner last night. So we ended up talking our girls through the basics of the Holocaust.
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Almost every nation has atrocities in its past.
Yeah... but isn't there a general feeling that the Holocaust was (at least until that point) unique in its 'scientific' approach to genocide? It was a peculiarly modern, 20th-century sort of atrocity in the way it utilised technological infrastructure like railways; the preciseness of its record-keeping; the clear goals of its leaders. It has a particularly noxious sort of horror about it.
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Although I have a few quibbles with minor points* in this essay, Reading The Maps has some excellent commentary on this matter.
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Although I have a few quibbles with minor points* in this essay, Reading The Maps has some excellent commentary on this matter.
Working link here
Beware: some very tedious trolling in the comments.
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There is a huge amount of historical revisionism engaged in by Western nations over World War II. It upsets me no end, not least because it has very real consequences in how conflict is dealt with in the present.
World War II was not to save the Jews or liberate the Dutch. Turning back the North Vietnamese was paramount, and helping the South Vietnamese was never a primary goal of the Vietnam War. Liberating the Iraqi people was at best a distant second. The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is not, and never was, meant to advance the interests of the Afghans.
From an essay at War is Boring about how publicly stated motivations for wars change once they start to get problematic.
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