During a recent visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., I was reeducated in the power of branding — especially as applied to poster design — at the special exhibition, State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda, which demonstrates how the Nazi party used carefully crafted messages, advertising and design techniques, and then-new technologies (radio, television, film) to sway millions with its vision for a new Germany. (related)
posted by Trurl
on Feb 2, 2012 -
28 comments
The creators of
Italian Spiderman were
hired by Australia's multicultural TV network, SBS, to produce
Danger 5: "Set in a bizarre, 1960s inspired version of World War II, action comedy series DANGER 5 follows a team of five spies on a mission to kill Adolf Hitler." The six-part TV series will air in February 2012, but the
trailer and the
first instalment of a promotional web-series are now playing.
posted by robcorr
on Nov 24, 2011 -
30 comments
Julius Fromm, a “quintessential ‘entrepreneurial proletariat’”, and a modest man with minimal education, sought a career alternative to making cigarettes and began taking evening classes in rubber chemistry around 1912. Julius Fromm then hit upon the idea of making condoms. The early condoms from the eighteenth century were generally made of animal intestines, and were used primarily by wealthy men – like Giacomo Casanova, who referred to them as “English riding coats” . . .
The Great Rubber Robbery: How Julius Fromm’s Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis.
via 3 quarks daily
posted by Rumple
on Nov 9, 2011 -
2 comments
From 1935 to 1951, Time Magazine bridged the gap between print & radio news reporting and the new visual medium of film, with
March of Time: award-winning newsreel reports that were a combination of objective documentary, dramatized fiction and pro-American, anti-totalitarian propaganda. They “often
tackled subjects and themes that audiences weren’t used to seeing —
foreign affairs,
social trends, public-health issues — and did so with a combination of panache and subterfuge that today seems either absurd or visionary.”
(Previous two links have autoplaying video.) By 1937, the short films were being seen by as many as 26 million people every month and
may have helped steer public opinion on numerous issues,
including (
eventually) America’s
entry to WWII. Video samples are available at
Time.com, the
March of Time Facebook page and the entire collection is available online,
(free registration required) at
HBO Archives. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Aug 22, 2011 -
8 comments
74 years ago today, Nazi officials debuted an exhibit of "degenerate art" in Munich made up from pieces among the over 5,000 works of art the government had confiscated, including works by Paul Klee, Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian, and Wassily Kandisnsky. Most of the pieces the Nazis confiscated were later publically burned, although some was auctioned off or kept by prominent Nazis. Last year, a few of the confiscated sculptures were
recovered from a bombed-out basement and exhibited. Today, you can view
images from the exhibition catalogue as well as an
unfinished recreation of the exhibit.
[more inside]
posted by Copronymus
on Jul 19, 2011 -
33 comments
802 Prisoners attempted escape from Auschwitz. 144 were successful. Kazimierz Piechowski, a Polish boy scout, was one of them. Today, at age 91,
he tells his story.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 13, 2011 -
30 comments
A family traveled to France and Germany in 1938 and shot
this footage which features two appearances by Adolf Hitler. It's creepy seeing this Nazi spectacle shot by an amateur. It's a perspective I don't know if I've ever seen. The video opens in France and the Nazi footage starts around 1:45.
The collector writes: "The Basement Collection presents: An 8mm film bought at an estate sale back in the 90's. This reel is part of a series of a family vacation movies to Europe in 1938. On this reel the family visits France and then Germany. The footage of Hitler is from a celebration in the Berlin Stadium on what I think is a May Day celebration (May 2, 1938) then another celebration at Berlin's Lustgarten. (on May 1st). (I think the reel was edited together out of order)."
posted by zzazazz
on Aug 12, 2010 -
95 comments
Nazi's propaganda. My Granddad once told me that I didn't understand Nazi's, because the black and white film always made it look unreal. He said if the films were color, I'd see.
posted by Mblue
on Mar 5, 2010 -
74 comments
The Imperial Palaces of
Tsarskoye Selo (nowadays Pushkin), near St. Petersburg, contained many invaluable cultural treasures that were plundered or destroyed during the Second World War. Most famous among them was the fabled
Amber Room, whose disappearance has soured diplomatic relations between Germany and Russia ever since (
the Germans can't find it back). Some claim that another, much more secret room of the
Catherine Palace was also plundered. However, in this case, the Russian authorities deny that it ever existed.
[more inside]
posted by Skeptic
on Jan 17, 2010 -
26 comments
Germany is, for the first time,
trying a non-citizen for crimes committed as part of the Holocaust. John Demjanjuk, originally from Ukraine, is an 89-year-old man, retired US auto factory worker, and former US citizen who has been deported and charged with
27,900 murders for the part he may have played in World War II. This is the
second time Demjanjuk has been tried.
[more inside]
posted by brina
on Nov 30, 2009 -
115 comments
Former child actor
Kirk Cameron and his friend Ray (
The Banana Guy) Comfort
[previously] seek to distribute the "
correct" (aka
altered) version of Charles Darwin's
Origin of Species to 50,000 students at the nation's top 50 universities as the book is soon to celebrate its 150
th anniversary. Their version includes a 50-page introduction which "...gives the history of evolution, a timeline of Darwin's life, Adolph Hitler's undeniable connection with the theory, Darwin's racism, his disdain for women, and Darwin's thoughts on the existence of God..." Cameron's promotional video for the project: '
Origin Into Schools.' A video response: "
Origin of Stupidity."
[more inside]
posted by ericb
on Sep 24, 2009 -
281 comments
The Torture Colony.
In a remote part of Chile, an evil German evangelist built a utopia whose members helped the Pinochet regime perform its foulest deeds... [i]nvestigations by Amnesty International and the governments of Chile, Germany, and France, as well as the testimony of former colonos who, over the years, managed to escape the colony, have revealed evidence of terrible crimes: child molestation, forced labor, weapons trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping, torture, and murder. It may sound like the farfetched plot of Saw VII (or
something out of Kafka) but it's horrifyingly true.
[Previously]
posted by dersins
on Apr 17, 2009 -
38 comments
Autumn 1944, and London was under attack from space. Hitler's 'vengeance' rocket, the V-2, was the world's first ballistic missile, and the first man-made object to make a sub-orbital spaceflight. Over 1400 were launched at Britain, with more than 500 striking London.
Each hit caused devastation. The 13 tonne rocket impacted at over 3000 miles per hour. There was no warning; the missile descended faster than the speed of sound and survivors would only hear the approach and sonic booms after the blast.
via Londonist.
posted by swift
on Jan 13, 2009 -
84 comments
Nazi German Bunker in my Garden: "[...] the previous owner told us that there was a tunnel built by the germans during WW2. He said it was big enough to drive into, [...]
So I traced some WW2 reconnaisance photos of the property, which appeared to show the entrance road to my bunker. [...] And that's where the quest began....." (
Original thread here, first link is to condensed but more readable blog.)
posted by orthogonality
on Jun 29, 2008 -
23 comments
The Olympic torch is being welcomed this weekend in the UK as a symbol of the sporting spirit, uniting people around the world in peaceful competition.
But the idea of lighting the torch at the ancient Olympian site in Greece and then running it through different countries has
much darker origins.
[more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Apr 5, 2008 -
37 comments
Max Mosley,
controversial president of the
FIA (the governing board of F1 and other international motorsports), made headline news this past weekend for a
"sick nazi orgy with 5 hookers" that was caught on tape (posted, but has since been pulled down). He has
apologized, but does not plan to leave his position, despite many who feel his vices may
detract from motor racing.
posted by jaimev
on Apr 1, 2008 -
87 comments
"it turned out the abstract compositions in the posters contained hidden letters. (The one above, for example, displays the letter A.) Hung side by side on the streets, they spelled out N-A-Z-I. A public outcry followed, and within six weeks the company was ruined."
Can a designer punish a company that helped the nazis?
Maybe.
Maybe not. (via
swiss miss)
posted by wittgenstein
on Jan 14, 2008 -
28 comments
