Learning about the Rise of Nazism in Germany (part 5)

 To read the first post in this series, click here. 

To read what inspired me to write this series, click here.

I left off, in my last post, with a plan to dive into the subject of Nazi propaganda.

I was just thinking that I should search The Holocaust Explained to see if they have more propaganda information elsewhere. But I prefer to use multiple sources.

 Here's a website from an organization called Facing History.  

Lord Wiki says the organization was started in Massachusetts in 1976. Their mission is to use history to inspire students to fight against bigotry and hate.

Basically, they're the type of organization that the GOP is fighting against.

OR to put it in a less propaganda way, they're an organization with the opposite agenda of the GOP.

I was pro-homeschooling before. But now I'm even more so.  Especially in states that are putting so many GOP-mandated limits on curriculum.  

There is so much education available on the Internet. Outside of it being unsafe to leave children home alone, I see no reason for kids to go to school.  I think if it's possible, parents or other guardians should use the Internet as a teacher...when the child is old enough (and mature enough) to be home alone.  And if there's a stay-at-home or job-at-home parent, that makes it even easier.

Anyway...

Back to the website.  

Interestingly, the first propaganda sample  is one promoting the Nazi National Welfare Program.  So, THAT is more on the left.  Or at least the way we see Left these days.  Welfare these days is definitely associated with the left-wing.

The second poster has an angelic-looking Aryan family—mother, father, daughter, son, and infant.  It's message is pushing people to join the local party organization.  

The third poster is very Jo Jo Rabbit. 

The fourth example they have is not a traditional poster but a newspaper-type display that says, Jews are our misfortune.  

The fifth example they have is a still from Leni Riefenstahl's film Triumph of the Will. 

I'm feeling kind of silly just listing all the examples.

I'll just look through them and say something if something especially stands out to me. 

So...there's a couple of examples from an antisemitic exhibit called "The Eternal Jew".

There was an antisemitic children's book called The Poisonous Mushroom.  

Well, that ends the slide show.

Now I shall read the essay part.   

It talks about how propaganda was very important to Hitler and his Nazis.

Sometimes I see Democrats talking about how the Republicans are better at messaging than Democrats, and we need to be more like them.

Well...reading this essay makes me think that what's happening is that the Republicans are good at using Nazi-like tactics.

Facing History quotes Mein Kampf:

[propaganda should] be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away.

I swear I've seen some Democrats say things very similar to the above.

They, and Hitler, are not necessarily wrong. About propaganda, NOT genocide!!!!  (in case someone is wanting to take this out of context and cancel me...)

* * *

Moving onto the next part of Facing History's lesson on propaganda.  

I didn't know about this. Though it't not surprising. The Nazi's tried to control the art world.  

The website says: Nazis celebrated what they perceived as “authentic” German culture and tried to eliminate what Joseph Goebbels and others referred to as “degenerate” art. 

I think there is a little bit of this mindset with MAGA.  Instead of hating on "degenerate" art, they're going after woke art. At this point, they very much lack the power to control popular art forms such as music, TV, and film.  But if given more power, I'm sure they will exercise that power.

I'm trying to understand what I'm reading here.

I had to read it a few times.  But I think what it's saying is that with some art and music, instead of banning and destroying it, Nazis put it on display to show people what degenerate art looked like.  

I guess it would be kind of like hate-watching.  

The lessons provides a few questions. One of them says: Many Germans attended the “degenerate art” exhibits. Why do you think they went? Do you think that everyone who attended agreed with the Nazis’ opinion of the art that was displayed?

That's an interesting thing to think about.

It makes me think of teens watching a show "ironically" but then one teen secretly, truly likes the show. 

I don't know why I'm saying teens.  It could happen with any age group.

Peer pressure can be very painful.  

When you're dealing with an authoritarian government, pretending to hate and mock the art is probably a life vs death kind of necessity. 

I mean if you ARE going to risk your life in a situation like that, it's probably better to do it by hiding Jews in an attic or something...not walking into an exhibit and announcing, You know. I think this Jewish sculptor actually has some talent.  

 * * *

I'm at the next section of the Facing History 

This part is about the use of film in the propaganda pursuit.

Facing History credits the British for discovering that film can help shape public opinion.

Joseph Goebbels used short newsreels to win people over—those short films they played at the theater before the feature film.  

And the website brings up Triumph of the Will again.

I was just kind of maybe remembering something.

Was there a movie about Leni Riefenstahl at some point?

I feel like, for some reason, she and the film were in the news at some point...in one of the past decades I've been alive.  Maybe there was some kind of anniversary of Triumph of the Will?  

I Googled the movie, and I'm just getting the actual film that Riefenstahl made. I'm somewhat disturbed to see it has an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.  I think, though, it's less about Hitler love/Jewish hate and more about it being good filmmaking.  

Triumph of the Will was about glorifying Hitler which entailed showing the size and enthusiasm of his fandom.  

Facing History says there were also propaganda films that, instead of glorifying Hitler, worked to demonize Jews and other groups.

YouTube has one of the films.  It's called the Eternal Jews.

I'm watching some of the beginning.  It's hateful but entertaining.

From the movie's intro:  The civilized Jews we know in Germany give us but an incomplete picture of their true racial character. This film shows actual shorts of the Polish ghettos.  It shows us the Jews as they really look before concealing themselves behind the masks of civilized Europeans.  

If there are not shots of lizard skins and mice-eating, I'm going to be very disappointed.  

The music used is beautifully dramatic.

There's an American narrator...obviously dubbed in since it's a German (or Polish film?).  I'm wondering when the dubbing was done.  Back in those days?  Or more recently.  It sounds like an old-fashioned American voice.  But a modern actor could obviously fake that.

I have to say, my mood had a shift  The beginning part that I quoted above was in text-form...kind of like the beginning of Star Wars films.  That part I found actually amusing.

But then when the movie started, and I saw actual people, I felt angry and offended.

I think it was also something the narrator said...

Maybe I'll re-listen, so I can quote it.

Nearly 4 million Jews live here in Poland. But they won't be found among the rural population. Nor have they suffered from the chaos of war as the native Pol. They set out indifferently in the gloomy streets of the Polish Ghetto.  In plain language, Jewish dwellings are filthy and neglected.   

It's hard to write down dialogue from long videos on YouTube.  I miss something and rewind...and end up somehow ahead or way too far back.

I'm wondering if there's a full transcript online.

Anyway, the thing that got to me initially was the thing about the ghetto. Because weren't Jews sent to live in the ghetto?

Okay. Yes. The Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C confirms that.  

It's like you force people to do something and then you present them as being at fault for doing it.

Because those beginning lines, at least to me, sound like the Jews are keeping to themselves on purpose.  

And this kind of bullshit happens today. The slavery of Black Americans is kept alive thanks to a clause in the 13th Amendment.  Families are torn apart so the prison and slavery system can be fed with Black mothers and Black fathers.  

And so much other shit (like highways destroying Black neighborhoods, discrimination and violence causing a huge hinderance to Black families having generational wealth).

There's so much that Republicans deliberately shut their eyes to. And then they sit there and declare that if Black people worked on being better parents, there'd be less problems for the Black community.

Also, I must add that not only do Republicans deliberately shut their eyes, but they have made it a goal to also shut the eyes of American school children.

Well...I can't find a script/transcript of The Eternal Jew.  But there are some websites that talk about it.  I think maybe I'll read those.  I saw there is controversy over whether it's best to make the film available or to ban it and bury it.

Right now I lean towards making it available...just because I was curious enough to want to watch some of it.  And I feel people are more likely to look at it with a historical perspective and be more outraged WITH Jews rather than about Jews.

I'd be more worried about modern anti-semitic propaganda.  

I mean I don't think any normal person is going to run across that film and come away with Wow, I used to like Jews but now I'm gonna join a club that throws Jews down the well.  

I need to pee and feed the cats. 

Then later, I think I will read more about this movie.

Is it a Jewish thing to be bad at blog transitions?  Or an autistic thing?

Or just a Dina thing.

Please tell me.  

* * * 

I'm seeing from Lord Wiki that The Eternal Jew was released in 1940.

I'm going father ahead in time then I wanted.

I kind of wanted to stick to the 1920's and early 1930's.  At least in the beginning.

But now that I've already started looking into the movie, I don't want to abandon it just yet.

Maybe I'll look into the movie and then jump further back in time.  

Right now, I'm going to start reading an article (by Thomas Doherty) on a site called The Tablet.  Or it might be a review.  It's about a documentary that dealt with the question of how to deal with these old pro-Nazi and anti-semitic films.

The documentary is called Forbidden Films: The Hidden Legacy of Nazi Films.  It was made by a German—Felix Moeller.  I guess it was released in 2015...or around then.  Because that's when the article was written.  

Between 1933 and 1945, there were 1200 feature films made in Germany.  

Wow.  That seems like a lot.  That's 109 a year. 

How many feature movies usually came out in a year? I mean before we had so many streaming services making original content?

After the war, the Allies banned 400 of the films, labeling them as propaganda.  I guess that was in the end-of-the-war-treaty thing?

Apparently, there have been screenings of some of the banned movies in various big cities.  Including Jerusalem.  I let that surprise me.  A Jewish city watching these antisemitic movies? Yet here I am a Jewish woman reading about these movies.

I think it's the same part of our brain that pushes us to watch Fox News or CNN even when we think it's biased against our side. Or makes us go look at what the politicians, we hate, are saying on Twitter. 

About The Eternal Jew, Doherty says, it contains what may be the single most sickening montage in the Nazi canon: the exterminationist cross-cutting between the physiognomy of “Jewish types” and swarms of scurrying rodents.

Moeller didn't put a lot of scenes from The Eternal Jew in his documentary, saying, I think this is the most vicious and perfidious and repulsive film and I didn’t want to transfer it to HD quality. 

I like that he made that decision.

Basically, Moeller's documentary and Doherty's review deal with the moral and emotional dilemma of how to respond to well-made yet very problematic art.  

Can we separate the art from the message?

I think it's somewhat similar to what we experience too often these days, struggling to separate our beloved movies, music, TV shows, and books from the artists who have crashed down from their pedestal.   

I find it near impossible.

Actors I can deal with.

When it's the writer or director, I find it much harder.

Doherty says: For not a few spectators, the seductive quality of the cinema breeds a fear that, if let loose, the Nazi films can be a gateway drug into the harder stuff. Filmed in shadows, a pair of former neo-Nazis confirms that the vintage Nazi fare is useful as bonding bait for new recruits, though even they scoff at The Eternal Jew as over the top.

I can imagine.

I think there is something aesthetically alluring about Nazi imagery.  That's where transference comes in handy.  Instead of allowing ourselves to admit we like that, instead we can enjoy looking at the imagery of Darth Vader, the Stormtroopers, the Death Star, etc.  Or if we like the red and black graphic artistry, we can get into the V mini-series. 

OR...

I guess some people decide to become Nazis.

I wonder how many people have been inspired to join hate groups, because they were attracted to the ascetics. 

I'm not asking as a joke.

I totally imagine it could happen.  

Well, actually that probably makes complete sense.

Wasn't that the whole point of these films being made in the first place?  To attract people to Nazism.  Yeah...a lot was about playing on people's fears and prejudices. But it was also about making something look enticing.  

I was going to go back in time after reading this editorial.

BUT...something I just read intrigues me.  Doherty says Veit Harlan, the director of an antisemitic film called Jew Suss was "deeply ashamed" of his work and burned the negative. 

I want to know more about this.  Was he forced to make the film?  Was he okay making the film and then had a change of heart?

I shall read more later.....

And then go back (further) in time.  

Read my novel: The Dead are Online