You've stepped out of a time machine, it's 1894 and you're standing in front of a young Adolf Hitler, with instructions to assassinate the child. What you do next may depend a lot on your belief and definition of free will (never mind the unintended consequences) [more inside]
posted by smoke on May 20, 2010 - 205 comments

Hitler Speaks

Using advanced speech recognition technology, researchers and voice-over actors have been able to put a soundtrack to long-silent video relics of Adolf Hitler: Eva Braun's infamous home movies filmed at the Berghof, private filmed meetings between Hitler and various Reich cronies, as well as the last known footage of him taped before an awkward bunch of Hitler Youth at the Reichstag in the final days of the war made famous in Downfall. Chilling stuff.

Via.
posted by auralcoral on Mar 22, 2008 - 177 comments

Donald Rumsfeld's recent speech at the American Legion Convention has revived interest in the 1938 Munich pact between Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler and its use as an analogy in foreign policy debates. Military historian Jeffrey Record weighs in with Appeasement Reconsidered: Investigating the Mythology of the 1930s. Michael Cairo examines how analogical reasoning based on "the lesson of Munich" influenced the first Gulf War and Clinton's intervention in Kosovo. Juan Cole argues against "the crock of appeasement" as applied to the Middle East, whereas MacGregor Duncan claims that the Munich analogy has caused us to underestimate the diplomatic value of appeasement. Finally, Pat Buchanan claims the Islamo-fascist label is historically inaccurate (or is he worried that non-Islamic fascists get a bad rap?).
posted by jonp72 on Sep 2, 2006 - 40 comments

He has cavorted naked with Charlotte Rampling [this is VERY NSFW] and covered himself in caviar for Marc Jacobs, but Jürgen Teller thinks "fashion is a wank". Teller's first solo show in Paris is entitled "Nurnberg", it consists of a sequence of images (annoying Flash site, sorry) taken at the infamous Zeppelintribune parade ground, site of Nazi propaganda rallies, which was designed by Hitler's favourite builder, Albert Speer. Over several months, Teller (.pdf) has photographed the monument, the podium and the steep, ruthless steps, all of which have been left to decay. Or not. "It wasn't really maintained, but if there was a broken step, or a smashed wall, it would be mysteriously replaced with a new one." Teller's photographs show the delicate weeds, flowers and lichen [NSFW] that have grown up around the stone blocks. "In Germany, there is a saying about letting the grass grow over things, meaning that events will eventually be forgotten".
posted by matteo on Mar 22, 2006 - 19 comments

"The German invasion of Britain took place in July 1940, after the British retreat from Dunkirk". We see, documentary-style, members of the Wehrmacht trooping past Big Ben and St Paul's Cathedral, lounging in the parks, having their jackboots shined by old cockneys, and appreciatively visiting the shrine of that good German, Prince Albert, in Kensington Gardens. Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's film "It Happened Here", with its cast of hundreds (.pdf), imagines what a Nazi occupation might have been like — complete with underground resistance, civilian massacres, civil strife, torch-lit rallies, Jewish ghettos, and organized euthanasia. Shot on weekends, eight years in production, made for about $20,000 with nonactors and borrowed equipment and Stanley Kubrick's help, "It Happened Here" was originally envisioned by Brownlow as a sort of Hammer horror flick about a Nazi Britain. Thanks in part to Mollo's fanatical concern with historical accuracy, however, it became something else. The most remarkable thing about this account of everyday fascism is that it has no period footage. Brownlow's 1968 book about the film's production, "How It Happened Here", has recently been republished. More inside.
posted by matteo on Feb 12, 2006 - 16 comments

The Wartime Ninth. "Berlin. October 7, 1944. In the Beethovensaal a concert is about to begin, but the theater is empty, relieved of its usual audience studded with Nazi elite. The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra is on stage, awaiting its cue. Conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler stands awkwardly on the podium. The vague meandering of his baton summons the first shadowy note of Bruckner's Ninth Symphony. A Radio Berlin engineer starts his Magnetophon. The most extraordinary orchestral recording of the century has just begun". More inside.
posted by matteo on Oct 5, 2005 - 21 comments

Is U.S. like Germany of the '30s?
posted by Rastafari on Jun 12, 2004 - 139 comments

The Third Reich In Ruins
posted by crunchland on Oct 15, 2003 - 16 comments

The Passport: the next step in its evolution may include invisible information encoded into your mug shot, but if you are wondering where it all began, the Canadian passport office identifies one Nehemiah of Persia, ca. 450 BC, as candidate for very first passport holder. Some think that it was all downhill from there. Regardless, there might be very good reasons for getting more than one passport, which you can do legally, or less so. Lenin had a fake passport. So did Hitler, though he didn't know it. (More inside.)
posted by taz on Aug 10, 2002 - 5 comments

Appeasement. Chamberlain sat at a table with Hitler in 1938 signing a treaty and proclaiming "peace for our time". Shortly after, World War II began. Killing innocent people does not solve the problem, but sitting at a table with your enemy and proclaiming peace (when he just wants to kill more) does no good either.
posted by owillis on Sep 15, 2001 - 36 comments