Pamela has posted an amazing spread of color photos of Hitler and the Nazis drawn from Life Magazine’s archives. Most of us are used to imagining the period in grainy black-and-white, so these color photos bring the Nazi era to life with disturbing immediacy.They’re also a reminder of Hitler’s taste for vast, grand, and vulgar theatricals. Presumably all that kitsch Nazi bric-a-brac and garish eagle-and-swastika architecture seemed just as tacky to well-educated people in the 1930s as they do to us now.
Go over to Atlas Shrugs and see the rest — it’s a huge collection.
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6 comments:
'Presumably all that kitsch Nazi bric-a-brac and garish eagle-and-swastika architecture seemed just as tacky to well-educated people in the 1930s as they do to us now.'
Christabel Bielenberg's book, When I Was a German, 1934-1945: An Englishwoman in Nazi Germany (U. Nebraska Press, 1998), is good on this. Originally published in 1968 by Chatto & Windus with the title, The Past Is Myself, and reprinted frequently by Corgi.
LTM
I highly recommend the book Art and Propaganda in the Twentieth Century by Toby Clark to anyone who is interested in this subject.
Also I urge everyone to read this VFR thread entitled Caesar comes to the Capitol, a discussion about a photo of Obama that appeared in the New York Times.
The Nazis was inspired by the Soviet Union, the large mass rallies organized by the communist propaganda machine.
They shared the same playbook in a lot of areas.
There are many components. Luther and Prussia. For us it is beyond imagination to study Prussia. It does not exist as a geographical or political term. But the military virtues praised above the role assigned usually to a military in a nation or a state and spreading continually to the West - what was later - in our time - East Germany and West Germany - played a significant role.
Compare communist East Germany and communist Czechoslovakia - the difference will be - lack of Prussian or Lutherian "virtues" in local communism variety.
Also in tsarist Russia the role of military was something like in Turkey, Pakistan or Nigeria. Inherited by the communist state. Upper class symptom.
Compare that to the classical European soldiers - rented businessmen, switching the sides legally - on contracts. Much less ideology involved.
Than the private property concept.
Very weak in Russia traditionally.
Confiscating Jewish property in Germany - how this could be "right wing"? In communism - all owners of private properties were like Jews - guilty by definition. Think of it. They applied the same "logic". In latter case it was termed "social justice".
Also compare the size of Germany before WWII or Russia. Little bit "hypertrophied" to be a classical European nation with similar size neighbours. Plus the minorities abroad. Expected to be good muslims and do jihad for the umma based in Berlin or Moscow.
I'll be the odd one out here and profess my undying love for that kind of neo-classicist architecture. Imposing, almost timeless, and representative. Way better than anything in Germany that followed after it.
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