MetaFilter posts tagged with germany and nazi

World War II’s Strangest Battle: When Americans and Germans Fought Toget

cthuljew — Mon, 13 May 2013 22:47:09 -0800

Days after Hitler’s suicide a group of American soldiers, French prisoners, and, yes, German soldiers defended an Austrian castle against an SS division—the only time Germans and Allies fought together in World War II. Andrew Roberts on a story so wild that it has to be made into a movie.

Nazi Propaganda

Trurl — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:33:10 -0800

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)

Rise and Fall of a Condom Empire

Rumple — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:33:51 -0800

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

1936 Berlin in Farbe

naturalog — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 07:46:26 -0800

Color footage of 1936 Berlin , in what appears to be a promotional film for the city before the 1936 Olympics. (SLYT)

March of Time

zarq — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:33:39 -0800

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. Two pages at the March Towards War site are linked above. The full site thoroughly examines March of Time as a propaganda effort. (Autoplaying video.) Also includes a quiz: Spot the Fake. Some March of Time clips were subject to censorship. Most featured reenactments, faked photos and footage. They are a look into how the editors of Time wanted people to think about the news. More about the series at TCM. In 1938, March of Time produced a sixteen-minute short film entitled “Inside Nazi Germany,” one of the most controversial films ever released into American theaters. (Available in two parts on YouTube: 1, 2.) The CBC documentary series about the history of news media, "Dawn of the Eye," discussed the film and its impact.

The last man to have been imprisoned in a concentration camp for being homosexual under the Nazis has died, his obituary is more interesting than that sounds.

maiamaia — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:21:46 -0800

Last gay concentration camp inmate dies.

Prisoner 918

zarq — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:21:42 -0800

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. "Uciekinier (The Escapee)" is a 42-minute documentary about him. Here's an additional short (3-minute) documentary about / reenactment of his escape, narrated by Mr. Piechowski.

Raisins: More Than Nature's Candy

gusandrews — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 12:22:41 -0800

A box of raisins saves a family from the Nazis. The Pop Laval Foundation in Fresno, CA adds an interesting WWII story to a historical photo from a local raisin processing plant.

Dates which do not live in infamy

Zed — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 09:21:20 -0800

The attack on Pearl Harbor was neither the U.S.' first armed conflict leading to WW II, nor the last Axis attack on American soil. On December 12, 1937, Japan, then at war with China, sank a U.S. Navy gunboat in the Yangtze river. On April 10, 1941, a U.S. Navy destroyer fired a depth charge at a German submarine that was preparing to attack a convoy it was escorting. On May 21, 1941, a German submarine sank a U.S. commercial ship (after allowing its crew to evacuate.) In September, 1941 a U.S. Coast Guard cutter patrolling Greenland captured a German ship. On October 31, 1941, a German submarine sank a U.S. Navy destroyer. There were numerous minor attacks on North America. Japanese submarines shelled an oil field near Santa Barbara, California (fueling a later scare of an attack on Los Angeles.) In Oregon, Fort Stevens was shelled by a Japanese submarine; the fort's gunners were commanded not to return fire, lest they assist the sub's aim. In the first aerial bombing of the contintental U.S., a Japanese plane dropped two incendiary bombs in southwestern Oregon, intending to start a forest fire. Japan captured and held two Aleutian islands for about a year. And, late in the war, Japan loosed thousands of fire balloons toward the U.S.' west coast. At first it was feared they were being launched on American soil; Batman-like forensics ultimately determined exactly which beaches in Japan the sandbags came from. While the balloons did some minor damage, it was covered up in the press to avoid giving any appearance of the attacks' effectiveness. Germany placed the Dusquene Spy Ring, and later attempted the ill-fated sabotage operation Operation Pastorius.

"...I never saw anything like this. The animal that came from never had any fur on it.”

The Whelk — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:31:23 -0800

I didn’t put much stock in the possibility that a Dominican spiritualist working out of a basement in Union City, New Jersey, would have much to say about a lampshade that might have been made from human skin in a Nazi concentration camp. But there I was.... (via)

A Home Movie Featuring Adolf Hitler (SLYT)

zzazazz — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 05:14:29 -0800

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)."

The Last Nazi trial?

brina — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:53:21 -0800

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. In 1988 Demanjujk, then believed to be "Ivan the Terrible" of Treblinka, was convicted in Israel and sentenced to death. Israeli judges later found that, although there was evidence that Demanjujk served as an SS guard, he was not in fact the man known as "Ivan the Terrible." Now German prosecutors say Demanjujk worked as a guard at the death camp of Sobibor in Poland in 1943, after he was captured by the Nazis. Some fear that the German government is setting a frightening precedent with this trial, deflecting responsibility to a man whom Nazis would have seen as an Untermensch, or sub-human, and who claims he is not a perpetrator but a victim. Others say the trial is "too little, too late" and fear that, because Demanjujk is in poor health and had to be wheeled into the courtroom on a gurney Monday afternoon, he will become an object of pity.

The House on Garibaldi Street

reenum — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:35:26 -0800

The capture of Adolf Eichmann is one of the more daring spy operations in the post WWII era. The story spans 17 years, beginning with Eichmann's clandestine escape from the Allied forces and the Nuremberg trial, and ending with his hanging in Israel. After WWII, Eichmann was able to escape the Nuremberg trials and the subsequent efforts of Nazi hunters in Europe. He worked as a farmer for 5 years, before he was able to gain passage to Argentina with the help of an organization that helped ex-Nazis defect to South America. However, Nazi hunters like Simon Wiesenthal never forgot about Eichmann and the crimes he had committed. After years of chasing false leads, the Mossad finally found Eichmann and assembled a team to capture him. This team included Rafi Eitan and Peter Malkin. The team followed Eichmann and planned his capture, which ended with the Israelis smuggling a drugged Eichmann aboard an El-Al plane and making two transcontinental flights that pushed the plane's limits. The operation caused embarrassment for some of the world's superpowers. But, the trial went on nonetheless. Subsequent generations have studied this capture and the impact it had on the world as a whole. You can find repositories of Eichmann related documents here, here, here and here.

Der ewige Jude

Joe Beese — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:33:04 -0800

The day after Kristallnacht, Hitler said: "It was necessary not to make propaganda for violence as such, but to explain certain matters of foreign policy to the German people in such a way, that the inner voice of the people all by itself gradually would call for violence." Towards that end, Goebbels commissioned and closely supervised the production of a propaganda documentary titled Der ewige Jude - "The Eternal Jew". Few if any of the inhabitants of the Łódź Ghetto who appear in its footage survived the war. Though it was exhibited throughout Germany and occupied Europe, popular audiences avoided the film's gruesome images of swarming rats and animal slaughter - preferring instead the anti-Semitic melodrama Jud Süß. In 1958, the film was still considered so dangerous that it required the intervention of the Customs Department to permit Amos Vogel to show it at his Cinema 16. Today, the film can be seen at the Internet Archive here. (previously)

All The Best People.

The Whelk — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 07:33:47 -0800

Indeed, all three of Hitler’s prized leather whips were presents from high society ladies. : Christopher Clark reviews High Society in the Third Reich by Fabrice d’Almeida in the London Review Of Books.

The last ones leave us now.

allkindsoftime — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:19:50 -0800

Fewer than 100 survived Treblinka. I am the last one.

Gerd Arntz and the origins of the stick figure

mediareport — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:35:09 -0800

The Gerd Arntz Web Archive collects graphics from the career of the man who - in creating over 4000 Isotypes for social scientist Otto Neurath in 1930s Red Vienna - can make a serious claim to be the inventor of the modern stick figure. He attacked the corruption of German society as the Nazis rose to power, then joined Neurath in an attempt to create a transnational visual language that bore later fruit in Otl Aicher's 1972 Olympic pictograms and the AIGA passenger/pedestrian symbol signs. [via Mark Larson and Austin Kleon]

That ain't Greek. Nuh-uh.

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 02:24:35 -0800

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. Wikipedia aricle on Carl Diem, the man who came up with the idea.

Jamel, The Town Controlled by Neo-Nazis

jason's_planet — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 12:55:04 -0800

Right-Wing Rot: A Village In the Hands of Neo-Nazis Houses torched, pets killed and outsiders chased away: Such is life in the Eastern German town of Jamel. For years, it has been controlled by the neo-Nazis who live there. Even the mayor says he has given up. This story in Der Spiegel inspired a pretty enthusiastic response on StormFront.Org (neo-Nazi site in English; probably Not Safe For Work at most normal workplaces.) Neo-Nazi Party More Popular Than Social Democrats In Saxony

whatever you do, don't mention the war

orthogonality — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 05:46:07 -0800

Winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize for Literature, a peace activist who opposed reunification for fear Germany might once again war against its neighbors, ghost-writer of Willy Brandt's speeches, author of the great fabulist history of World War II and postwar Germany, The Tin Drum, and of My Century, a novel of one hundred chapters, one for each year of the last century, a man considered part of the artistic movement known in German as "Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung" or "coming to terms with the past", Günter Grass belatedly admits the history he expunged from his personal narrative: his service as a member of the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg of the Waffen-SS. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Grass explained his service would stain him forever, but that only after the war did he feel ashamed of having been in the Waffen-SS:

for me, because I am sure of my recollection, the Waffen SS was nothing frightful, but rather an elite unit that they sent where things were hot, and which, as people said about it, had the heaviest losses.

matteo — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 11:31:44 -0800

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".

The London Cage

matteo — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 08:16:18 -0800

The London Cage. Kensington Palace Gardens is one of the most exclusive addresses in the world. Between July 1940 and September 1948 three magnificent houses there were home to one of Great Britain'smost secret military establishments: the London office of the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre, known colloquially as the London Cage. It was run by MI19, the section of the War Office responsible for gleaning information from enemy prisoners of war, and few outside this organisation knew exactly what went on beyond the single barbed-wire fence that separated the three houses from the busy streets and grand parks of west London. The London Cage was used partly as a torture centre, inside which large numbers of German officers and soldiers were subjected to systematic ill-treatment. In total 3,573 men passed through the Cage, and more than 1,000 were persuaded to give statements about war crimes. A number of German civilians joined the servicemen who were interrogated there up to 1948. More inside.

Sophie Scholl

movilla — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 18:01:48 -0800

Sophie Scholl , a member of the White Rose, was beheaded in 1943. Her crime? Being brutally honest with a brutal regime. Her punishment was death. It's now a film, Sophie Scholl, the Last Days. I'm looking forward to seeing this. Finally Germany is showing great films.

Nazis, UFO's, aliens, Oh my!

troutfishing — Wed, 12 May 2004 09:38:14 -0800

Secrets of the Third Reich...UFO's? "...As Sir Roy Feddon, Chief of the Technical Mission to Germany for the Ministry of Aircraft Production stated in 1945. "…I have seen enough of their designs and production plans to realise that if they (the Germans) had managed to prolong the war some months longer, we would have been confronted with a set of entirely new and deadly developments in air warfare.".....upright, vertical take-off aircraft.....a saucer-shaped craft with enclosed twin rotors.....Cruise missiles....the V-2....[predecessor of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles]....a rocket-powered fighter, the ME 163...These then, were some of the known German advances. However there were also hints of darker technologies not fully understood." Woo woo! So begins the four part "Secrets of the Third Reich" - where does fact merge into fiction? It's such a great read that it almost doesn't matter. A version with pictures lives here (go to menu, "Book 4"). Then, there's The Hunt For Zero Point We have met the aliens, and they are us ?

Johannes Matthaeus Koelz: A Life Divided

plep — Fri, 12 Dec 2003 12:33:41 -0800

Johannes Matthaeus Koelz: A Life Divided. An artist who escaped to England from Nazi Germany. From the exhibition :-
'Koelz, a painter, was living in a small cottage in the Bavarian forest estate of Hohenbrunn. One morning he travelled to nearby Munich on a routine visit to police headquarters to renew his exit visa for a planned trip to Italy.'
'At some point during the following night Koelz instructed a young man from the local woodmill to take his major work - a triptych which had occupied him since the early 1930s and cut it into pieces. He left Hohenbrunn at dawn, arranging for his family to follow ... It was the first stop on a journey that would take them to England. '
'Meanwhile the state police had raided their home and interrogated family members left behind. They were searching for the painter and his triptych, a massive anti-war painting which not only questioned the horrors of war but also the rising power of the Nationalist Socialist Party and by implication, its leader, Adolf Hitler.'
'Thou Shalt Not Kill', Koelz's tryptych.
Timeline and artworks.