Why the Sudden interest in Hitler and the Nazis?

ckristo2

After World War 2 the Soviet union was fixated on hunting down former Nazis and looked with suspicion on any country that seemed even a tiny bit sympathetic to the former German regime They even blocked Ireland's entry to the U.N. because Stalin felt that De Valera had displayed Nazi sympathies by offering his condolences to the German ambassador on the death of Hitler. The U.S.S.R. cautiously welcomed the birth of Israel and facilitated the free passage of Israeli scholars to The Soviet union and Russian Jews to Israel.
On the other hand the West was fixated on the threat of the U.S.S.R. stopping it's hunt for former Nazis and even quietly allowing some of them to work with the Allied armies of occupation in Germany. there was very little interest in Hitler or the Nazis at the time with Stalin and Mao being the big bogey men to frighten the children with (and of course the H Bomb)
War films from western Europe and America in the late 40's and 1950's focus on the experiences of ordinary soldiers and rarely show the Nazis or Hitler and there there would be no interest at all in the Holocaust till the 1960's when Jewish directors felt it was safe after Mac Carthyism.

Evilsbane

I'm not sure, but you seem to have answered your own question.

ckristo2

in the early 1950's relations between Stalin and Israel went sour when Russian Jews started speaking glowingly about the joys of "Nationhood" That was just what Stalin wanted to hear when he was trying to keep 50 nations under his boot. Russian Jews started to dissapear into Soviet prisons and gradually Israel drifted toward the only other country with a huge Jewish population. The United States. Once the communist "Red Scare" of the 1950's started to die down and many Jewish Americans felt safe to stop calling themselves Douglas and Curtis and Lewis and proudly proclaim their Jewish heritage the age of Pearl and Wolfowitz had arrived. And side by side came this sudden interest in Hitler and the Nazis. Long after the last of the leading Nazis had died and their political philosophy and symbols had entered the realm of the knuckle headed skinhead. When the Berlin Wall came down the last relevant echo of the Second World in Europe ended. So why the miriad of films, documentaries, books and TV programmes on Hitler and the Nazis particularly focusing on the Holocaust? Could it be someone's job to remind the world of a time when the Jews were suffering victims (A time when the U.S. itself ignored their persecution) Could this be by any chance a justification for the behaviour of modern day Israel?

dubtom

Is this leading up to a huge rant on the divilment of modern day Israel???

FiSe

Eeeee?

Have I missed something?

ckristo2

...In the 1950's the western world took a deep sigh of relief that it has survived the catastrophe of WWII. Continental Europe still felt a bit like peeled eyeball over which scar tissue had grown.
Don't pick at the wound,
don't look too deep
collaboration and occupation are painful memories.
Britain on the other hand was squeaky clean, cocky and victorious, no surrender or collaboration here.
The Brits linked arms with their good buddy from the war years the U.S. (the U.S.S.R and China were no longer welcome at this reunion party) and the "Special Relationship" was born

dubtom

Care to name the book your quoting from?

ckristo2

No book this is all me......The special relationship has long cooled off on the American side. Britain in relation to U.S. foreign policy is seen as not only the tiresome tart who is not only availabe twenty four seven but provides her own condoms and KY jelly as well.
But poor Britain is smitten still and like a lover who can't let go she clings to W.W.II like a spurned wife clings to her wedding photos. Re-living the time when we were great!
So next time you see an ernest Hollywood actor playing a Nazi or a Timewatch documentary about Hitler's dentist don't switch off. be merciful for you are gazing upon the memorabilia of a love affair between two nations.

ckristo2

Finally you'll be glad to know the conclusion is near: The fact is that W.W.II is a warm remindder mainly for Britain though the Yanks like to use it occasionally as the "we saved your Ass" bargaining chip to get the likes of Germany and Italy to pump more soldiers into Afghanistan.
For Britain the Second World War was the last clean "Good guys and bad guys moral war" they had fought. The last clear victorious war they won. So like Roman generals who carried busts of Alexander the Great on their campaigns every British Prime Minister is Winston Churchill and every American President id Franklin Roosevelt and every enemy be they Nasser, Yomo Kenyatta or Saddam Hussein is of course Hitler constantly being reborn like the Hydra to be slain again by "our Heroes." So whether you're Ross Kemp or Richard Starkey the Second World War is important to you. It affirms your morality in foreign policy, how you properly conduct your wars and hopefully how you win. Taliban look out Captain Mainwairing is out to get you.

mrtaylor1981

dubtom wrote: »

Is this leading up to a huge rant on the divilment of modern day Israel???

Yes indeed. Troll.

Jhazon

Did I just attend a lecture by reading this thread??

Denerick

This is a rather strange one.

I would say there has always been an intense interest in the Nazi's and Hitler. When AJP Taylor wrote 'Origins of the Second World War' in the 60s, it was but the hightide of nazi scholarship. Everything after that has been dominated by woeful history channel documentaries.

ckristo2

You did indeed get a lecture. well not so much a lecture as some ideas. It's up to yourself whether you agree with them or not. And if you did then you can say so and if you didn't ........you can say so as well. that's what it's all about.

ckristo2

I agree Denerick but my question if you like is why Hitler and the Nazis are still the "meat and potatoes" of popular history when other once popular subjects such as Vietman or the Cold War have fallen by the way-side.

getz

ckristo2 wrote: »

I agree Denerick but my question if you like is why Hitler and the Nazis are still the "meat and potatoes" of popular history when other once popular subjects such as Vietman or the Cold War have fallen by the way-side.

mass genocide of jews do for starters - i was born during the war when the nazi bombed england unless you was a irishman working or fighting in the british army at that time you would not understand-and irish republic history classes -dident dwell to much on the nazi- for resons like this--by maeve cavanagh --ireland to germany-i watch the red flame fiecer glow-the tide of war,its ebb and flow-and see the nations writh and strue-i who my freedom strive to gain-the while i pray swiftfall the blow-that lays the tyrant england low -irelands love of the nazi 1940-1945

DublinDes

getz wrote: »

mass genocide of jews do for starters - i was born during the war when the nazi bombed england unless you was a irishman working or fighting in the british army at that time you would not understand-and irish republic history classes -dident dwell to much on the nazi- for resons like this--by maeve cavanagh --ireland to germany-i watch the red flame fiecer glow-the tide of war,its ebb and flow-and see the nations writh and strue-i who my freedom strive to gain-the while i pray swiftfall the blow-that lays the tyrant england low -irelands love of the nazi 1940-1945

Well it was understandable an Irish person wanting to see one tyrant destroying another ? Maybe that woman who had written the poem had a family member or neighbour murdered by the British army in her younger days. Her feelings of animosity and revenge at seing the so called mighty British army humbled at Dunkirk, Singapore etc would be very understandable. Honest to God, but you Brits think your above all criticism and everyone should just love you - like you love yourselves.

Latchy

Am I missing something here to ? Hasn't there always being an intrest in Hitler and the Nazis just as their has always being an intrest in Stalin's / Cold war Russia ? .The exellent tv documentry series made in the early 70s '' World at war '' was one of the first tv series to seriously deal with WW2 , Hitler and the Nazis .

ckristo2

This thread was started by myself to discuss the reasons why a tyrant and his political party which effectively have both been dead for 64 years still occupies such a central position in our popular culture. certainly the question of the Second World War is relevant as well. though as I said earlier it was not always so. There was very little interest in WWII for the first 15 years after it ended in Western Europe at least and if you were to ask an over 70's from say China about WWII I'm sure they'd have a lot to say but very little of it would feature Adolph and his pals. My argument is that it has become a kind of secular passion play no longer about learning anything from History but about affirming Britain's and to an extent the U.S. moral credentials as "The Good Guys" When does a period in history slope of back to the academic library? Maybe when all the people who were directly affected by it have passed on. Nobody nowadays hates Kaiser Wilhelm II. There are no documentaries about him no films or books. Will Hitler go the same way as well?

Denerick

I really have to question your basic assertion here. There was an intense interest, both among the historical profession and among the people who lived through WWII in WWII and Hitler and the Nazis. This is a bit of a nothing thread to be honest...

Latchy

ckristo2 wrote: »

There was very little interest in WWII for the first 15 years after it ended in Western Europe at least and if you were to ask an over 70's from say China about WWII I'm sure they'd have a lot to say but very little of it would feature Adolph and his pals.

'' History is History '' and all history weather it be human or otherwise has being well documented since records were first kept. I cant remember a time when all political and military history from the time of the Romans ( and before) to present day has not being discussed in newspapers ,magazines , tv .WW1 history was always on tv documentries when I was a kid .

15 years after WW2, the world, specially most of europe, was trying to recover and build itself back up again from mass destruction to some sort of normality . The 50s was a deprssing time for many europeans and it wasn't till the 60s that people in Britain began to have it good .It would have taken lot's of time , with archive footage ,records and documentation to actually put the events of WW2 as they happened into some correct perspective, with eye witness accounts of battles ,events , atrocities etc .These were and still are continually edited and corrected by historians for any errors or mis truths .

ckristo2

"History is indeed history." My point is- And I'm just using Hitler as an example- The events in history that interest us in particular and how those events are represented shows more about the present than the past.
If you were to ask a Frenchman in 1942 why he joined the SS and is fighting for the Germans in Russia he might say "What country in the World today does not face the threat of Communism? I am fighting to save our way of life as free people."
If you were to ask a French soldier today why he (she) is fighting in Afghanistan for the Americans they might give the same answer but replacing the word Communism with Terrorism.
The bits of history we look at today tell us more about ourselves than they do about the times they were set.
The tragedy of this pop history is that we are missing the real story of WW II.
For example what was the bigget battle fought in the Second world War and what part did Iran play and what African country contributed the most soldiers?

ckristo2

Well that seems to have ended that discussion.
Anyway to answer my earlier questions: Iran was occupied by Russia, Britain and the U.S.A. right through the war up until 1946 (The Iranians were not asked what they thought about this, wonder why the Iranians aren't crazy about the West) The biggest battle in WWII was either Bryansk in Russia in October 1941 or Kursk/Oriel in 1943. The former had almost one million Russian soldiers killed and the latter close to two million soldiers both German and Russian involved.
The African state (or colony as it was then) that contributed the most soldiers in WWII was the Congo, a Belgian territory.

mikemac

That's interesting.
I thought it would have been Algeria with the French connection.

Not doubting you, just suprised

diverdriver

If you were to ask a Frenchman in 1942 why he joined the SS and is fighting for the Germans in Russia he might say "What country in the World today does not face the threat of Communism? I am fighting to save our way of life as free people."
If you were to ask a French soldier today why he (she) is fighting in Afghanistan for the Americans they might give the same answer but replacing the word Communism with Terrorism.

Your wording betrays your political viewpoint. It's would be considerably ironic for a Frenchman in WW2 to join the SS 'to save our way of life as free people'. They lost their freedom when Germany occupied France. Any Frenchman joining the SS must therefore be essentially a fascist. Which indeed many French were to their eternal embarrassment since. Freedom doesn't come into it when you're a Fascist.

As for fighting in Afghanistan 'for the Americans'. I doubt it somehow, at this point it's for the Afghans against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, a common enemy. No Frenchman out there is fighting for the Americans. For France certainly.

The tragedy of this pop history is that we are missing the real story of WW II.

You're making an assumption there, Kursk is well covered in 'pop' history not so much the trivia of the Belgian Congo's contribution to WW2. Haven't seen that on the History channel lately!:D WW2 is a huge subject. I personally collected ten or eleven volumes of a history of WW2, partwork as a teenager. It barely scratched the surface.

So why the sudden interest in Hitler and the Nazis? There's nothing sudden about it. Maybe you've only just noticed it. It's been ongoing since the end of the war. WW2 was the seminal event of western civilisation. It's effects still reverberates to this day. On top of that the whole Hitler phenomenon fascinates. Just how did a civilised people like the Germans fall for this little man with the big idea. In retrospect it's crazy but it's also a warning. It could happen again.

Fratton Fred

Why not bring the Roman Catholic Church, Steve Staunton and Fianna Fail into the thread as well. Then, in your supposed thread about the Nazis, you have managed to drag in pretty much everything that gets slated on these boards.:rolleyes:

WWII, which was started by the Nazis, is still the single most defining moment in european history over the last 100 years, of course it is going to be talked about.

getz

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Why not bring the Roman Catholic Church, Steve Staunton and Fianna Fail into the thread as well. Then, in your supposed thread about the Nazis, you have managed to drag in pretty much everything that gets slated on these boards.:rolleyes:

WWII, which was started by the Nazis, is still the single most defining moment in european history over the last 100 years, of course it is going to be talked about.

WW11 and the nazi will be in the news again in ireland when ever the republic goverment release the files on the nazis who came over to ireland after the war- their is a lot of dirt waiting to be dug up -none of it very nice

ckristo2

I Have to say thanks for the replies. For a while this thread was on life support but is seems to have revived a little. The Nazis invited recruits from all over Europe to join them in their "Crusade" (The word Goebbels chose) against Communism. A special unit of the SS was formed to accomodate these "Crusaders" who came from all over Europe including England and Ireland! (France contributed several thousand) The Danish contingent even fought to the last in the ruins of Berlin in May 1945. Hatred and fear of Communism was a major reason why many people sympathised and supported the Nazis both in the 30's and 40's. Many believed that Jews and Commies were one and the same.
According to recent surveys most Afghans want foreign armies out of their country but they don't want the Taliban either. We the West have given them the choice between a corrupt (I use the word advisedly) former Oil corporation executive who wouldn't last a week without the support of foreign armies of occupation on the one hand and Islamic fanatics from the dark ages on the other.
Afghans must feel like the Russians in WW II who had to choose between Hitler and Stalin. I know that's an exaggeration but does anyone believe that the Coalition armies are occupying the middle East for the welfare and benefit of it's population.

ckristo2

Yes Kursk/Oriel is covered as the biggest tank battle in history Vysma/Bryansk is not eventhough to the Russians it is like Dunkirk, the terror bombing of Belgrade and the Holocaust all rolled into one.
My point is that the serious historian of the war has to look beyond the "Blitz, D-Day Iwo Jima," narrative that you tend to get on The History Channel.