Popped to the cinema this afternoon to see the film Nuremberg. Great acting, powerful drama and touching on such a crucial moment in world history the film had everything in its favour. It sligktly annoys me that we tend to get the humanist version of events as opposed to anything Christian. I have read books on Nuremberg by chaplains but this film gives no hint that there were chaplains present or that there was a spiritual dimension to what happend at all. Rather, we focus on a psychiatrist who was there and who wrote a commercially unsuccessful book on his time. With that caveat, great stuff. Ironically, the psychiatrist seems to have worked out that the Nazis were just normal human beings gone wrong not preternatural monsters. Warning - it includes what I assume is genuine footage of the dead and dying in the camps. Two past oscar winners on show and two past nominees I understand. Only one light moment I noticed - two doctors fight and an officer berated them - you are mental health professionals!
The similar phrase 'Worldly Christianity' is one used by Bonhoeffer. It's J Gresham Machen that I want to line up most closely with. See his Christianity and culture here. Having done commentaries on Proverbs (Heavenly Wisdom) and Song of Songs (Heavenly Love), a matching title for Ecclesiastes would be Heavenly Worldliness. For my stance on worldliness, see 3 posts here.
Showing posts with label Nazis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nazis. Show all posts
The Nazis and the Occult Paul Roland
I read quite a few books on Nazism and such matters and was immediately drawn to this volume when I saw it going cheap. It was the title that grabbed me. I had assumed the author would try and argue the case that the Nazis were greatly influenced by occult forces. However, he does not do that. The book is quite well written but its sources are often dubious, as he admits, and so the reader gets a little frustrated by it.
The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland
One of the books bought for my birthday was The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland. This is a biograpy of the Auschwitz escapee Rudolf Vrba. Vrba, a Jewish Czech teenager, wanted to escape from Auschwitz in order to alert the world to what was going on but found it very hard to get a hearing. The book is well written especially the Auscwitz episodes. The book covers the whole of Vrba's story. He died in 2006. The book is the opposite of hagiography but is respectful to its subject who seems to have been a unique character in many ways. One of the interesting things that arises in the book is the fact that merely informing people of what was happening was not enough. At one point we read
"... information alone was not enough. The inmates of the Czech family camp had had the information. They could see the crematoria with their own eyes; the chimneys were just a few hundred yards away. They had known that the Nazis were murdering the Jews they had brought to Auschwitz. The trouble was, they never believed this scheme applied to them. The reason for their special status had been a mystery to them, as it had been to the other prisoners in Auschwitz but special they believed they were. They had been certain that they would be exempt from the death sentence the SS were carrying out on their fellow Jews. Only when it was too late did they see that they had been entirely wrong."
It is not enough to inform people that judgement and hell is true. Even when confronted with clear proof they will not want to believe and will reject the message.
10 Nazi Triangles
1 Red triangle – political prisoners: occupied country resistance members, social democrats, liberals, socialists, communists, anarchists, gentiles who assisted Jews; trade unionists and Freemasons.
2 Green triangle – convicts and criminals.
3 Blue triangle – foreign forced labourers and emigrants. This category included apatrides, Spanish refugees from Francoist Spain whose citizenship was revoked and emigrants to countries which were occupied by Nazi Germany or were under German sphere of influence.
4 Purple triangle – primarily Jehovah's Witnesses (over 99%) as well as members of other small pacifist religious groups.
5 Pink triangle – primarily homosexual men and those who identified as such at the time (eg bisexual men, male prostitutes, etc, and sexual offenders as well as pedophiles and zoophiles. Many in this group were subject to forced sterilization.
6 Black triangle – people deemed asocial elements (asozial) and work-shy (arbeitsscheu), including the following: Roma and Sinti. They wore the black triangle with a Z notation (for Zigeuner, meaning Gypsy) to the right of the triangle's point. Roma were later assigned a brown triangle. Mentally ill and developmentally disabled. Their triangles were additionally inscribed with the word Blöd, meaning stupid. This category included, notably, autistic people. Though many others including schizophrenic and epileptic people were forcibly sterilized, shot or gassed in psychiatric institutions as opposed to at the Nazi camps. Alcoholics and drug addicts. Vagrants and beggars. Pacifists and conscription resisters. Sex workers. Lesbians. Other disabled people, such as people with diabetes (as "Diabetes was conceptualized as a Jewish disease not necessarily because its prevalence was high among this population, but because medicine, science and culture reinforced each other".
7 Brown triangle – Assigned to Roma later on in the Romani Holocaust.
8 Uninverted red triangle – an enemy POW (Sonderhäftling, meaning special detainee), a spy or traitor (Aktionshäftling, meaning activities detainee), or a military deserter or criminal (Wehrmachtsangehöriger, meaning Armed Forces member).
9 Yellow triangle - Jews. These were used in conjunctionwith other triangles, so red inverted triangle superimposed on a yellow one = a Jewish political prisoner; green inverted triangle superimposed on a yellow one = a Jewish habitual criminal; purple inverted triangle superimposed on a yellow one = JW of Jewish descent; pink inverted triangle superimposed on a yellow one = Jewish "sexual offender", typically a gay or bisexual man; black inverted triangle superimposed on a yellow one = "asocial" or work-shy Jew; voided black inverted triangle superimposed over a yellow triangle = a Jew convicted of miscegenation and labelled as a Rassenschänder (race defiler); yellow inverted triangle superimposed over a black triangle - Aryan woman convicted of miscegenation and labelled as a Rassenschänder.
10 Blue inverted triangle superimposed on a red one = foreign forced labour and political prisoner (eg Spanish Republicans in Mauthausen).
Birthday Books
One of the joys of a birthday is that kind people buy you books. Above is my haul for this year. Mostly history as you see. I tipped off my wife about the first one and the second is from my first son who has cornered the market in Nazi themes (one of my favourite subjects). I first saw the book on Africa in Kenya and have bought with money kindly given by family.
10 More Auschwitz Books
- The Thief of Auschwitz
- The Child of Auschwitz
- The Twins of Auschwitz
- The Saboteur of Auschwitz
- The Violinist of Auschwitz
- The Musicians of Auschwitz
- The Fake Prison Doctor of Auschwitz
- The Last Boy in Auschwitz
- The Guard of Auschwitz
- The Auschwitz Photographer
(Also seen, A tailor in Auschwitz, A Gypsy in Auschwitz, Lovers in Auschwitz, Swimming in Auschwitz, A Little Girl in Auschwitz, The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz, The Boy Who Drew Auschwitz)
10 Auschwitz Books
I noticed recently that there is a plague of books called "------- of Auschwitz". I think the Tattooist of Auschwitz was the first. Here are ten.
1. The Tattooist of Auschwitz
2. The Stable boy of Auschwitz
3. The Midwife of Auschwitz
4. The Librarian of Auschwitz
5. The Dress makers of Auschwitz
6. The Redhead of Auschwitz
7. The Fighter of Auschwitz
8. The Brothers of Auschwitz
9. The Sisters of Auschwitz
10. The Daughter of Auschwitz
Day Off Week 7 2024
A good day on Tuesday. I was going to read about Post-impressionists but my copy had been damaged at some point before I bought it so I had to bin that and turn to the one on Expressionists (Schiele, Munch, etc). Didn't enjoy them as much as the impressionists. I worked on one or two of my other blogs, including this one here. In the afternoon Eleri and I went to see One Life the olm about Nicholas Winterton and his rescue of children from Prague in the thirties. Very moving. When we came out of the cinema we heard of the death of Steve Wright, who we have both enjoyed over the years. An emotional moment after such a film. No pancakes today but we enjoyed hoe made burgers and then watched the last in the current series of BBC's Silent Witness. We enjoy it but it is a funny old series with more quirks than Quirky Mcquirky.
Christmas Books 2020
One of the joys of Christmas is getting presents and one of the joys of presents is getting books. These eight have come to me over the last few weeks from my sons and other relatives. Inevitably, one or two I already had, which can't be helped. One or two I bought myself for my wife t give me (!). Over the holiday I have read The Hitler Conspiracies and The Chieftains and have just started on Matthew Parris's biographical work Fracture.
My oldest son often buys me books on Hitler. This one by one of the premier historians in the field is very timely in that it explores five conspiracy theories connected with Hitler (including why Hess flew to Britain and whether Hitler survived the Berlin bunker) and so inevitably discusses the whole phenomenon of such theories, increasingly a part of modern life. It also served as a reminder to me that one of the many reasons why I could never have been an academic (despite its attractions) is that you have to spend time dealing with cranks and their crazy ideas. Here Evans is very gracious as he works away what are sometimes the dumbest theories. It makes the book a little long but there is no other way of dealing with a fool apart from ignoring them. Anyway the Hitler book was great and very stimulating.. The Chieftains book is 25 years old. It only goes up to 1995. it was good to have the background, however, and to discover I am not so unusual in liking Ireland's premier musical outfit. It is an official biography so a bit pedestrian and riddled with proofing errors as all these books tend to be.
I am enjoying Moby Dick in this beautiful Chiltern edition and hope to get to the others I've not read soon. Aren't people kind.
Day off Week 48 2019
Pretty typical week off this week - reading, walking, Private Eye, TV, etc. I read most of Mission at Nuremberg which I started reading a while back then put down but took up again recently having read the HHhH book. The whole Nazi era is endlessly fascinating and there were things here I did not know or had forgotten. I read a much shorter book on similar lines by F T Grossmith many years ago. This is a larger book that gives you the whole of the life of Major Gerecke the Protestant chaplain as well as plenty of other material on the history of chaplaincy, Lutheranism, etc, etc. The writer is lucid and fair minded but liberal in his theology. It is clear that several Nazis made credible professions of faith and some refused to believe but it is hard to be sure what to make of it all. In many ways Gerecke's pastoral work was similar to that of any other pastor.
Day Off Week 46 2019
A fairly typical day off this week. I read the new Private Eye and the newspaper over coffee. There was some transferring of files from one computer to another and some blog work. I also finished two books I might have mentioned, Michael Messenger on Elgar and Laurence Binet's novel come reportage - very interesting style (a bit of a pain in places) - on Reinhard Heydrich and his assassins. Also some TV later.
10 Things in German History that happened on November 9
1. 1522. Birth of German theologian and Refomrer Martin Chemnits (I would have put Martin Luther here but he was born on November 10, 1473).
2. 1518. Pope condemns Luther's writings.
3. 1848. After being arrested in the Vienna revolts, left liberal leader Robert Blum was executed. Many see the execution as symbolic of the ultimate crushing of the German March Revolution in April, May 1849.
4. 1918: Emperor Wilhelm II was dethroned in the November Revolution by Chancellor Max von Baden, who published the news of an abdication before the Emperor had abdicated. Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed the German republic from a window of the Reichstag. Two hours later, Karl Liebknecht proclaimed a "Free Socialist Republic" from a balcony of the Berliner Stadtschloss.
5. 1921. Publication of Der 9. November (The 9th of November) a novel by Bernhard Kellermann telling the story of the German insurrection of 1918.
6. 1922: German born Albert Einstein named winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".
7. 1923: The failed Beer Hall Putsch, 8 to 9, marking the early emergence and provisional downfall of the Nazis. During Nazi rule 9 November was a national holiday in Germany in memory of Nazis who died in the Beer Hall Putsch.
8. 1923: Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, chose 9 November for his return to Germany from exile in the Netherlands. It infuriated his father, the former emperor, who felt the anniversary of his abdication ill-chosen.
9. 1938: Kristallnacht. Known today in Germany as the Reichspogromnacht, on 9 to 10, synagogues and Jewish property were burned and destroyed on a large scale, and more than 400 Jews were killed or driven to suicide. The event demonstrated that the antisemitic stance of the Nazi regime was not as 'moderate' as it had appeared in earlier years.
10. 1989: The fall of the Berlin Wall ended German separation and started a series of events that ultimately led to German reunification and the Fall of Communism in eastern Europe.
Holocaust by Laurence Rees
This is another one from the same source as Silk Roads but shorter (only two thirds of the last one) and easier to read I found. I am familiar with the Nazi story through the three volume work on the Third Reich by Richard J Evans. This work by Laurence Rees narrows down to the death of Jews (and others) under Hitler and carefully sets out the way the whole horrific thing unfolded bit by bit. It is written with great care and thoroughness and a judicious balance of detachment and occasional identification. The only slips are a brief but misjudged slur on the New Testament and a failure to emphasise the effects of Darwinism on the holocaust. The constant references to eye witness accounts gives it a vividness that might be lost otherwise. No matter how much you read such material it is hard to understand how on earth it happened. Only a robust doctrine of man's depravity fits with the facts.
10 Nazi Suicides
Wikipedia lists some 110 suicides of Nazis. It says that there wee suicides among 8 out of 41 NSDAP regional leaders who held office between 1926 and 1945, 7 out of 47 higher SS and police leaders, 53 out of 554 Army generals, 14 out of 98 Luftwaffe generals, 11 out of 53 admirals in the Kriegsmarine and an unknown number of junior officials. Here is a list of 10 better known suicides.
1. Adolf Hitler Firearm Berlin April 30, 1945 56 years, 10 days
2. Eva Braun Cyanide poisoning Berlin April 30, 1945 33 years, 83 days
3. Joseph Goebbels Firearm Berlin May 1, 1945 47 years, 184 days
4. Magda Goebbels Firearm Berlin May 1, 1945 43 years, 181 days
5. Martin Bormann Cyanide poisoning Berlin May 2, 1945 44 years, 319 days
6. Erwin Rommel Cyanide poisoning Herrlingen October 14, 1944 52 years, 334 days
7. Heinrich Himmler Cyanide poisoning Lüneburg May 23, 1945 44 years, 228 days
8. Hermann Göring Cyanide poisoning Nuremberg October 15, 1946 53 years, 276 days
9. Leonardo Conti Hanging Nuremberg October 6, 1945 45 years, 43 days
10. Ernst Bergmann Naumburg April 16, 1945 63 years, 252 days
All of the above were Nazi party members.
1. Adolf Hitler Firearm Berlin April 30, 1945 56 years, 10 days
2. Eva Braun Cyanide poisoning Berlin April 30, 1945 33 years, 83 days
3. Joseph Goebbels Firearm Berlin May 1, 1945 47 years, 184 days
4. Magda Goebbels Firearm Berlin May 1, 1945 43 years, 181 days
5. Martin Bormann Cyanide poisoning Berlin May 2, 1945 44 years, 319 days
6. Erwin Rommel Cyanide poisoning Herrlingen October 14, 1944 52 years, 334 days
7. Heinrich Himmler Cyanide poisoning Lüneburg May 23, 1945 44 years, 228 days
8. Hermann Göring Cyanide poisoning Nuremberg October 15, 1946 53 years, 276 days
9. Leonardo Conti Hanging Nuremberg October 6, 1945 45 years, 43 days
10. Ernst Bergmann Naumburg April 16, 1945 63 years, 252 days
All of the above were Nazi party members.
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