Playwright Carl Miller and children’s authors Philip Pullman and Michael Rosen reflect on Erich Kästner and the historical context in which Emil and the Detectives was created and published, in the midst of great cultural and political change in Germany.
[ID: Tweet by Leeee J. Carter @carterforva reading, “The history of Nazis holding rallies in left-wing areas of Weimar Germany, instigating street fights, and then telling the press that only they could save Germany from the “violent communists” seems like an important thing for people to be studying right now.” ]
I’m kind of wondering if Amanda Marcotte has ever actually watched more than a brief clip of Triumph of the Will, though?
I feel like this article could have been stronger acknowledging additional layers of comparison. Because TotW is draped in insidious “wholesome” imagery too. No open antisemitism, even. Good local boys and family people all excited to stand tall for their Führer.
I’ve said this before, but watching uncensored Third Reich propaganda films with critical awareness is extremely instructive.
Fifteen years ago, around the same time I watched a bunch of Riefenstahl, I went to Germany, and went to the museum in the old half-finished Nazi stadium in Nuremberg. The museum uses its space hauntingly well, built on glass walkways through this cavernous monument to hubris. The paths take you through a chronicle of the rise and fall, including newsreels of Hitler - shaking hands and kissing babies like the doofy-looking, roguish politician he relied on everyone seeing him as.
In America, I observed, they only ever show you the same ten seconds of Hitler yelling, because they want you to think you can identify a monster when you see one.
They don’t show you that most of the footage is not like that at all. That fascism in progress mostly isn’t militaristic shouting, it’s an endearingly slovenly reality TV star taking office and holding “grassroots” rallies to stir up something that thinks it’s civic pride. They definitely don’t want you to recognize that a monster can look like the kind of regular dude that conservatives want to go drinking with.
I worried about it fifteen years ago and I wish I hadn’t been right.
Since 1918 he was in the Volunteer Army (White army) and participated in the Ice March. He was serving as Second Lieutenant in the Kornilov shock division, and was wounded twice. In 1919 he returned to his homeland Latvia but was enlistend in the North-Western Army the same year. In December 1919 he transfered to the Rifle Division of the 5th Infantry Division. He survived the civil war and emigrated to Germany. In 1938 he was arrested by Gestapo for criticizing Nazi policies and was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp. After the end of the war he stayed and lived in Germany for the rest of his life together with his family.
On this day in 1933, the German Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, which essentially secured Adolf Hitler’s position as dictator of Germany. The law gave Chancellor Hitler legal powers to establish his dictatorship as it gave the Cabinet the power to enact laws independently of the legislature - the Reichstag. Its formal name was ‘Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich’. Hitler had been appointed Chancellor on January 30th and just before the scheduled election, the Reichstag fire occurred. The Nazis used the incident to suggest a Communist revolution was imminent and passed the Reichstag Fire Decree which suspended civil liberties and habeas corpus. The Nazis failed to gain an absolute majority in the Reichstag, so Hitler drafted the Enabling Act to secure his position. The Nazis pressured and threatened representatives of the Reichstag to pass the bill, positioning SA men and Nazi swastikas in and around the building. With the bill’s passing, Hitler’s dictatorship was assured, and thus began a brutal regime which would last until 1945.
“The authority of the Führer has now been wholly established. Votes are no longer taken. The Führer decides. All this is going much faster than we had dared to hope” -Joseph Goebbels after the passage of the Act
Art from the Assassin’s Creed franchise by Gilles Beloeil, showcasing numerous scenes that never made it to the final cut of the games, including a First Civilization site from Assassins’ Creed: Syndicate. Full album: http://thecodex.network/gilles-beloeil/
Australian novelist Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief is a fascinating book. It is set in Nazi Germany at the onset of World War II but there is plenty of warmth to be felt from this curious tale.
It is narrated by Death and follows the story of Liesel Meminger, who has been sent by her communist mother to live with a foster family in a small town on the outskirts of Munich.
Liesel gets involved in many scams with local children, all of which are dwarfed in significance by her love of stealing books and reading.
Meetings with the Mayor’s wife and a Jewish fistfigher, who hides in their basement, set the tone for the events which are going on in the background.
It is a story of fanaticism and events on Himmel Street reflect the realities of this turbulent time in European history. However, the book is an enjoyable read and has a positive tone which the nasty circumstances cannot overcome.
People were led to believe that Trump wrote his eerily nationalistic Inaugural speech after posting this photo on Twitter a few days before the Inauguration:
Butaccording to The Wall Street Journal, Trump’s speech was written by his two aids: Steve Bannon (executive chairman of the extremely right-wing “news” page Breitbart) and Stephen Miller (infamously worked for racist Jeff Sessions who may be appointed for Attorney General).
We can’t trust a word Trump (or his wife) says to the public.
I don’t trust Bernie Sanders(which is your icon) more than Donald Trump.
@secondlake: Well it’s sad that you believe in a man who lies more than half of the time
And when he is saying the “truth,” this is what he says:
Source: PolitiFact
This is saddest post I have ever seen because you think PolitiFact’s judges of “Truth or False” are all right. Although I checked Trump’s False page which PolitiFact tells us, I thought a lot of those false judges are just their judges about Donald Trump. As a source and the media, PolitiFact has no value. As an addition post, “Truth or False” pages which PolitiFact used from Trump’s twitter posts are just their choices. This is not fair.
@secondlake: I guess you are just another believer of Kellyanne Conway’s use of the term “alternative facts” as justification for all the false statements Trump spews out on a day to day basis.
Even a Pulitzer Prize winning website that uses credible and various sources to prove their “judgments” have no standing with Trumpians. But the judgments of a reality TV star (that has declared bankruptcy 6 times) who has made a following based off his constant demeaning of others who don’t look or agree with him is more knowledgeable than any expert who confronts him on his divisive and demagogic tactics.
On May 12th, Russia’s RT bannered “Finland’s NATO membership will trigger response – Moscow”, and reported that
Moscow has warned that Finland joining NATO would pose a direct threat to Russia’s security and its acceptance to the military alliance would prompt Russia to develop measures to ensure its safety. That’s after Finnish officials confirmed on Thursday their commitment to join the US-led…
Janina Forbertówna was a Polish resistance fighter who took part in the Warsaw UprisingagainstNazi occupation in 1944. Using the codename ‘Jasia’ she worked as a liaison officer in the communist partisan Armia Ludowa, or 'People’s Army’. What became of her after the failed uprising is unknown.
