MetaFilter posts tagged with germany and nazis

“...but the numbers are unbelievable.”

Fizz — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 09:21:14 -0800

"The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking" [NYTimes.com]

"The researchers have cataloged some 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe, spanning German-controlled areas from France to Russia and Germany itself, during Hitler’s reign of brutality from 1933 to 1945."

"Are we the baddies?"

Artw — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 13:51:07 -0800

Danish author Sven Hassel (Wikipedia, official site) has passed away at the age of 95. (Danish - Translation) Hassel fought for the Germans during WWII and became famous after publishing Legion of the Damned, a semi-autobiographical account of the war. He went on to write thirteen more books following the adventures of his convict battalion, incuding Wheels of Terror which in 1987 was made into the movie The Misfit Brigade staring Bruce Davison and David Patrick Kelly (clip). He will be remembered fondly by all who browsed the bookshelves of charity shops as young men.

Aurochs

homunculus — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 10:50:55 -0800

Heavy Breeding. "In 1920, the brothers Lutz and Heinz Heck, directors of the Berlin and Munich zoos, respectively, began a two-decade breeding experiment. Working with domestic cattle sought out for their 'primitive' characteristics, they attempted to recreate 'in appearance and behavior' the living likeness of the animals’ extinct wild ancestor: the aurochs. 'Once found everywhere in Germany,' according to Lutz Heck, by the end of the Middle Ages the aurochs had largely succumbed to climate change, overhunting, and competition from domestic breeds." Białowieża Forest – Remarkable Remnant of Europe’s Primeval Past Aurochs previously. Bialowieza previously. Nazis trying to breed back tarpans in Bialowieza previously. Now some aurochs have a role in a new film, Beasts of the Southern Wild, and are being played by Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs.

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.

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)."

Poetry in Hell

zarq — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 18:37:01 -0800

Poetry in Hell contains a complete collection of poems recovered from the Warsaw Ghetto's Ringelblum Archives. The project, which took ten years to complete, gives English translations of poems that are shown in their original Yiddish. Background on the Ringelblum Oneg Shabbat Archives During the Holocaust, dozens of Jewish men and women trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto chose a special form of resistance: they chronicled their path to doom for future generations. Led by Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum, an historian, 35,000 paper documents were collected that showed how the Nazis had deprived Warsaw's Jews of their rights, then tormented and finally killed them in the death camps. On Aug. 2, 1942, while German soldiers combed the streets outside, two young men buried 10 metal boxes and several metal milk cans containing this extraordinary archive in the basement of an elementary school inside the ghetto. They were recovered from the rubble in 1946 and 1950. Approximately 25,000 of the documents survived and are now housed in the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland and the United States Holocaust Museum. "The Archives comprise government documents, materials concerning the ghetto resistance, testimonies of the fate of Jewish communities during the Holocaust, literature, works of art and private correspondence collected by victims of the Holocaust in order to pass on information about the Holocaust to future generations. This collection is absolutely unique, both in terms of its origin and its historic value. It mainly concerns the largest ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe (approximately 500,000 inhabitants), but in fact it covers the whole of occupied Poland, documenting the Shoah, the fate of its Jewish community of 3.500,000 people. Nearly all the creators of the Ringelblum Archives perished, either in the ghetto or in the extermination camps."
The archive recovery and restoration efforts were documented in a 2007 book by American historian Samuel Kassow: "Who Will Write Our History?: Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto". Some of it is available to view online at Google books, here. Book reviews and background on the recovery project: * Video: C-Span Book TV with Samuel Kassow * Los Angeles Times * Spiegel International * The Guardian * New Jersey Jewish News Background on the Poetry in Hell Project * Preface * Forward * Author's Note * Interview with Dr. Sarah Traister Moskovitz on J-Wire: "Warsaw Ghetto Poetry Now Online"

Heroes and Gay Nazis

PeterMcDermott — Sun, 31 May 2009 18:51:17 -0800

Heroes and Gay Nazis is a german documentary by Rosa von Praunheim that looks at gay men with hard-core right wing views. Part One. Part two. Part three. Part four. Part five. Part six. Part seven. Part eight.

From Anschluss to Zyklon B

Rumple — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:59:28 -0800

The Dictionary of Coming to Terms with the Past (Wörterbuch der 'Vergangenheitsbewältigung') examines over 1,000 German words that have Nazi connotations, such as Endlösung (Final Solution) and Selektion, It is featured in a review by der Spiegel. Such loaded words still constitute a minefield for Germans today, as the Archbishop of Cologne discovered last year in a situation analogized to Senator Biden's use of the term "articulate" when referring to Senator Obama. Buy it here. Interestingly, most of the English Language reaction to this dictionary appears on white supremacist sites (which I won't link to), and they appear to take it seriously perhaps, as suggested in the der Spiegel article, so they can avoid emotional linguistic responses to their hate messages.

Meet the Nazi Cowboy

huskerdont — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:18:50 -0800

Billy Jenkins was "The Nazi Cowboy." One of the most popular German western stars of the 1930s, Jenkins (real name Erich Rudolf Otto Rosenthal) was a card-carrying member of the Nazi party. Pre-war Germany was crazy for cowboys, with Jenkins starring in pulp fiction books with titles like "Texasfieber" and "Aufruhr in Laredo" that were influenced by the works of Karl May. The only problem? Under Nazi Germany's racial laws, Jenkins was considered half-Jewish.

Concentration Camp Tarot Cards

jonson — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 08:01:42 -0800

Hand drawn Tarot Cards created by a Boris Kobe, a prisoner at Allach Concentration Camp, a sub-camp of Dachau. Each card depcits an aspect of life in the camp - click each image for high-res versions.

Uncle Leo and the Nazis

sotonohito — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 18:52:13 -0800

This Sunday will be Yom HaShoah "Holocaust Martyrs' Remembrance Day" in Israel. A month ago Eric Muller, a law professor at UNC, went to Germany to find what he could about his great uncle Leopold Müller. Today he got something unexpected in the mail. (via)

The price paid for working against evil, unafraid.

cenoxo — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 14:56:40 -0800

Mildred Fish Harnack was the only American woman executed for treason during World War II. Born, raised, and educated in Wisconsin, she moved to Berlin with her German husband Arvid in 1929. Arrested by the Nazis in September 1942 for their pivotal role in the Communist Red Orchestra resistance movement, they were tried in December 1942: Arvid was hung and Mildred received six years hard labor. Reviewing her case (during the humiliating German defeat at Stalingrad), Adolph Hitler ordered her retried in January 1943. This time, she was convicted, sentenced to death, and beheaded by guillotine in Plötzensee Prison on February 16, 1943.
[Mildred's life is detailed in the 2000 biography Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and the Red Orchestra.]

The Fair-Haired Children of Darkness

digaman — Sun, 20 Mar 2005 10:59:23 -0800

Hitler's "fountain of life." In 1935, Heinrich Himmer and the SS launched a network of Lebensborn maternity centers to increase birthrates among Aryans, where German soldiers were encouraged to mate with genetically desirable local women in occupied countries like Norway. These women were given the option of raising their kids themselves or turning them over to SS-run homes where they would be "Germanized." The lives of these kids was hell after the war, when they were shunned and worse by the Nazis' previous victims. To those who are nostalgic for the Reich, like this veritable eBay of Nazi memorabilia, the Lebensborn program represented " wonderful social experimentation."

German Helmets

starscream — Tue, 15 Jun 2004 18:40:35 -0800

The Online Reference Guide to World War II German Helmets 1933-1945.

Where is this country headed?

Rastafari — Sat, 12 Jun 2004 06:04:34 -0800

Is U.S. like Germany of the '30s?

German Propaganda Archive

hama7 — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 14:02:03 -0800

German Propaganda Archive.

I poo on Godwin's Law, but this isn't GW's fault....

troutfishing — Sat, 18 Oct 2003 18:00:30 -0800

Trading with the Enemy (Prescott Bush was a bad man) - The mainstream press decides to bring up the Bush/Nazi connection - Newly declassified documents shed new light on the shady beginnings of the Bush family's dynastic wealth: through GW Bush's grandfather Prescott Bush's work as a director of a US bank which was both controlled by the German industrialist Thyssen (who played a key role in bankrolling Hitler's rise to power) and which continued to launder Thyssen Group profits after the US declaration of war against Germany. But if you've been reading Metafilter closely, you would have known the facts almost a year ago. ( * executes clannish, self/Metafilter congratulatory victory jig * ). Will the mainstream press pick up the trail of the story, to the US government secret importation of Nazi scientists immediately after WW2? (don't hold yr. breath)

3rd reich in ruins

crunchland — Wed, 15 Oct 2003 16:56:17 -0800

The Third Reich In Ruins

What can The White Rose teach us today?

fold_and_mutilate — Fri, 22 Feb 2002 11:11:10 -0800

What can The White Rose teach us today? 59 years ago..."February 22, 1943, 9am... three students from the University of Munich are brought to trial for treason. The trial lasts until 1 pm and by 5 o’clock all are dead...Why are their voices silenced? And how many more innocent people will have to die before they are heard?" Their executioners maintained "It was not a time for tackling theoretical problems, but rather for grasping the sword , yet [they] sowed doubt among our youth. [They] nourished doubt instead of dispelling it..."

In memory of Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Willie Graf, Kurt Huber, and untold others whose terrible crime has been to speak truth to power.

Nazis planned Palestine subversion.

stbalbach — Thu, 05 Jul 2001 06:46:16 -0800

Nazis planned Palestine subversion. British secret intelligence files have been released in London about a German wartime plan for subversion in Palestine. Nazi Gold, secret parachute drops and the Grand Mufti.

Interview with the (Secretary of the) Vampire.

rory — Mon, 25 Sep 2000 13:08:10 -0800

Interview with the (Secretary of the) Vampire. Hitler's secretary, now 80, describes the man in this interview with The Times. (Via Arts and Letters Daily.) 'After all the despair, all the suffering, not one word of sorrow, of compassion. I remember thinking, he has left us with nothing.'