Mr. Ruger, you mention "Mein Kampf," which I find almost unreadable (though it's nothing on Hitler's even more impenetrably boring "Table Talk" compiled by one of his henchmen); I wonder if you've read Albert Speer's memoirs. The first two are excellent, the third ("Infiltrations") pretty dry and tedious, just an amassment of figures and numbers. However, you reminded me of a section in his "Spandau Diaries" where Speer remembers Hitler fantasizing about basically plowing his armies ever further to the east, overrunning all the Russias and incorporating the Scandinavian countries and others into his fantasy empire ... he wouldn't have been satisfied until he'd wrapped the whole world into his lunatic embrace. And he was always going to fail in that: even overlooking the fact that what he wanted was evil, there was an additional sin: it was damned impractical. (Like I always say about movie villains who want to take over the world: what the hell would they do with it once they HAD it? It's just more STUFF you gotta do!)

quote:

---

Originally posted by MWRuger:
Speaking to the German meticulous of record keeping, did you know that this one of the evidences that people who deny the Holocaust point to? They say that they are false because no one would keep such records. Simply Amazing.

---

And what's even more alarming is that the very people who denied the existence of concentration camps are now in the Austrian government.

NP: Superman expanded (did anybody notice the wrong note at about 4:40 in the End Credits track? I'm amazed that I never heard it before)

Seriously, every country elects someone like that every once in a while. We elected Nixon twice!!!

H Rocco: Your right about Mein Kampf, It is just about impossible to get through. I can only read excerpts.

Of course, if anyone in the late thirties had waded through it, they would have known exactly what Hitler was planning.

I agree with on the impracticality of Hitler's plan. Logistically, it would have been a nightmare. Without adequate naval forces, he could never have extended conventional forces outside Europe. The best he could have hoped for would be a quick knock out blow of England, leaving "Fortress Europa" with no place to for the US to assault from. Then he could have turned East.

Again, he could never have taken England with out invading and he couldn't secure the channel and he didn't have enough amphibous forces. Now, if he had slaughtered/captured the British army at Dunkirk the way his Generals reccommended, he might have stood a better chance.

quote:

---

Originally posted by MWRuger:
We elected Nixon twice!!!

---

Yes, and we elected Clinton twice as well!!!

Scott

NP:The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo De Silos-Chant

I mentioned Hitler's friendship with the Mitford sisters above. The simple fact appears to be that Hitler never really wanted to wage war with the English to begin with, and devoutly wished they could have come to better and earlier terms. (One reason why Rudolf Hess flew over when and why he did. No, I don't believe Hitler sent him, but Hess knew Hitler as well as anyone did -- he helped write "Mein Kampf" while both of them were sharing a jail cell -- and would certainly have been sensitive to der Fuehrer's Anglophilia.)

A thought about "Mein Kampf": I think very few people actually COULD get through it, but you're right, the whole blueprint for what Hitler planned was right there in the text. (Ever read the contemporary New York Times review? It's quite eerie.) I always thought it weirdly funny that Hitler liked to make fun of the equally unreadable, similarly themed "Myth of the 20th Century" by one of his lackeys, Alfred Rosenberg; that book and "Mein Kampf" were pretty much on every bookshelf throughout the Third Reich, but it seemed that no one actually managed to get through the things. (Hitler himself said of "Myth" that it was "stuff nobody can understand!" Albert Speer remembered being interrogated right before Nuremberg about whether he'd ever read "Mein Kampf," and admitted that he hadn't; when the Americans laughed at him, he got defiant and declared that he HAD in fact read it. I have no idea whether he really did or not, but it seems clear that he was too young and too ambitious to worry too much about what "the future according to Hitler" might have meant, until it was already too late.)

Scott--I'm 36, I was kidding you about talking to 13 year olds.

MWRuger--I think I CAN describe Nazism as an artistic movement and suggest you watch THE ARCHITECTURE OF DOOM in this regard. There are many aspects to Nazi ideology and to say that art in Nazi Germany was so just because Hitler had control and wanted it a certain way is an over-simplification. Nazism isn't just Hitler having power, it had an agenda of political goals developed out of an artistic point of view. Jung went so far as once saying: "Hitler is not a man, he's a myth, a mouthpiece for unexpressed aspects of the German soul." This is a direct quote from Hitler: "To understand Nazism, you must first understand Wagner." Wagner wasn't just a composer, he was a critic, a polititian, an anti-semite, a proponent of the superiority of German Blood, a person who had a mythic ideal of Germans and felt it could be advanced not just in opera, but politically, that is, put into practice on the level of reality. I really believe this is one of the roots of Nazism, the other being a perversion of Socialism that wasn't just a society of people working together in unison, but one in which individuals they saw as apart from the norm--jews, the handicapped, the mentally ill, gypsies, blacks, homosexuals, slavs, russians, etc.--were seen as threats to the Nazi's ability to bring about a unified society.

12 million was an estimate on my part, obviously short.

But I don’t think Hitler’s aim was to promulgate his artistic agenda. My readings seem to indicate that his mind was fundamentally scarred by his experiences in WWI and that he felt that he needed to save Germany and to help unit Germany, he gave them a group that everyone could hate.

Hrocco: To me, one of the most ironic things about the Holocaust was that evidence of what was taking place in 39 and 40 was smuggled out to West in hopes that the US would take a stand and force Hitler to back off to keep them neutral, but it was widely regarded as British propaganda.

I haven’t read those journals, but considering that they had to commit almost all the stockcars in Europe to the enterprise on an almost 24 basis, I don’t see how anyone could reasonably claim not to know. I believe that a lot of people on this side of the Atlantic knew as well and remained silent for a number of reasons, some shameful, some pragmatic.

Marian: Don’t feel lonely. That is exactly what people did in the 30’s too! It was too ludicrous to believe that this maniac would ever get anywhere!

quote:

---

Originally posted by MWRuger:
I know this supposed to be about Audacity, but this is exactly the kind of free floating conversation that I like about this board.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by MWRuger:
Marian: Don’t feel lonely. That is exactly what people did in the 30’s too! It was too ludicrous to believe that this maniac would ever get anywhere!

---

Old Adolf must have been the most tedious dinner guest alive. "Table Talk" is by turns incoherent and completely, insipidly boring, even worse than "Mein Kampf." Even Speer, who was fascinated by Hitler as much as he was finally repelled by him, said that dinners with Hitler could be really maddeningly dull.

Messrs. Ruger and Goldberg: re the Wagner/Nietszche connection: it seems to me you both have a valid point. If nothing else, we know that Hitler insistently cultivated the friendship of Wagner's surviving family (Winifred, Kosima, etc.), partly as a means of appearing to "elevate" his image culturally.

Composers like Erich Korngold, Zemlinsky, and (I think Schoenberg) had to leave Germany because their music was somehow found not at all consistent with Nazi ideals (the whole 'Entartete Musik' thing).
Yet Wagner's and Richard Strauss' was great for the state.

I guess they didn't care much for musical social commentary. Just raw power.

That's why I hate myself sometimes for liking Strauss' music. He WAS sympathetic to the Nazis, and got to stay in Germany because he towed the musical line.
I think another composer, perhaps named Berio (?), was also fiercely loyal to the Nazis. I've heard he even wrote a nasty little cantata villifying the American government. I doubt it's been recorded...

as a side note:
I was actually called a Nazi once by someone who found out in the course of normal conversation that I have a German heritage. Asked me if I hated Jews!

NP -- The Omega Man, Ron Grainer

I promise to you that I won't let anyone write naughty things about Hanzimmer, the untouchable master of filmmusica-bombastica, here anylonger.

Please beloved Audacity!
Have mercy of all these fools who dare to write their different opinions here...

I beg you, Audacity!!! Come back to us...

Actually, Richard Strauss was even "Reichsmusikkammerpräsident" from 1933 on. But I once heard on the radio that he secretly supported several Jews, so maybe he accepted the title not because of political motivation but simply to secure his musical career. Conductor Herbert von Karajan was also briefly a member of the NSDAP, but never wanted to talk about it later.

I keep mentioning Albert Speer in these messages because I have a sort of sneaking sympathy for him. He was young and ambitious and wanted to do great things, and for a while, he believed he really was. "Spandau Diaries" is a particular heartbreaker, at least to me. I also felt that Rudolf Hess was punished WAY out of proportion to his actual crimes (he was the only one sentenced to life imprisonment based on the MILDEST charges leveled at Nuremberg, the ambiguous "Conspiracy" and "Crimes Against Peace," and if anything, his flight to England was, however deranged in conception, a real attempt to actually CREATE peace. And for the record, I don't accept any of the theories that there were "different" Hesses.)

As far as Max Steiner fleeing ... well, great, we got KING KONG out of the deal! (As I mentioned, Hitler's favorite movie!) But more seriously, a LOT of serious artists fled Europe in those years -- not merely because they disagreed with the way things were going, but because they were physically and financially ABLE TO DO SO. Marlene Dietrich and Josef von Sternberg fled together; Fritz Lang left in a rage, even though Goebbels would have made almost ANY kind of compromise to have Lang remaining with the German film industry; the actors Peter Lorre and Conrad Veidt got out as soon as they could as well (and Veidt actually spent some time under Nazi-enforced house arrest before he finally made good his and his family's full escape; his intriguing, little-known story was recently covered in CULT MOVIES magazine. Of course Veidt moved on to playing a Nazi villain in some little movie you might have heard of called CASABLANCA -- the actor was proud at the opportunity to spit in the tyrants' collective face.)

Ask people if they dislike Klintun and all he stands for: yes, by far.

Was it wrong what he did?: yes, by far.

Are they better off now than they were when he was elected: most say yes.

Would you elect him again: hell yes. I've got a job and the economy's growin' like wildfire.

Is he the most rotten man you've seen as president: No, Nixon was much worse, that rat bastard.

Did he deserve to be impeached: yes
Should he have been removed: No

The public has a perception of mediocrity in their elected leaders because they don't know what the hell they want. They want to have their cake and eat it, too. Doesn't work that way. Of course, that does not take away from the fact that there are clear leaders in either party; someone to tie their respective party together and say "we will go this direction." No, it's more like, "where do you want to go? We can't do that cuz PETA might get upset."