Churchill didn't really exist, say 23% of Brits

A new survey says that nearly a quarter of the British think Winston Churchill was a myth. AFP story here.

Hitler's lost fleet found in Black Sea

A Turkish engineer has discovered Hitler's "lost fleet" of U-boats at the bottom of the Black Sea. The Telegraph:

The vessels, including one once commanded by Germany's most successful U-boat ace, formed part of the 30th Flotilla of six submarines, taken by road and river across Nazi-occupied Europe, from Germany's Baltic port at Kiel to Constanta, the Romanian Black Sea port.

In two years, the fleet sank dozens of ships and lost three of their number to enemy action. But in August 1944, Romania switched sides and declared war on Germany, leaving the three remaining vessels stranded.

With no base and unable to sail home - the Bosporus and Dardanelles were closed to them because of Turkish neutrality - their captains were ordered to scuttle the boats before rowing ashore and trying to make their way back to Germany. However, all three crews were caught and interned by the Turks.

Fate of U-118

Depth charges exploding near U-118

Fate of the U-118, from Uboat.net: Sunk 12 June, 1943 in the mid-Atlantic west of the Canary Islands, in position 30.49N, 33.49W by depth charges from eight Avenger aircraft of the US escort carrier USS Bogue. 43 dead and 16 survivors.

Britney Spears and Adolf Hitler

I never thought I'd see Britney Spears and Adolf Hitler discussed in the same news story. Hats off to a Hartford Courant writer, namely Matt Eagan, for pulling it off. Eagan tells an interesting story:

Sometimes all it takes is one person to ruin a name. Take Adolph.

The name was relatively popular in the 1890s. Not "John" popular, mind you, but always fighting for a spot among America's top 200.

But once Hitler showed up, it was kaput for Adolph.

By 1970, Adolph was no longer among the top 1,000 names in the United States, and it doesn't show any signs of coming back.

Hitler spelled his name "Adolf," but that was a meaningless distinction for parents-to-be.

[...]

The popularity graph for Britney, which can be seen at the terrific Web site www.baby namewizard.com, looks like a shark fin.

The name was almost non-existent in 1980, rose to prominence on the blond-headed shoulders of bubble-gum princess Britney Spears and has deflated into irrelevance right along with her.

She has dragged the alternative spellings – Brittney and Brittany – along for the fall.

Gandhi on the Jews

The following is according to Tom Segev, writing at Haaretz:

The Jews of Germany were also supposed to respond with nonviolent resistance when the Nazis began persecuting them. The ideological and moral challenge posed by the Nazis left Gandhi unmoved: If only the Jews would project nonviolence, Mr. Hitler would capitulate, as if this were the Jews' historic destiny. When he saw that this wasn't exactly what was happening, Gandhi tended to blame the Jews themselves, denouncing them for the principle of "an eye for an eye" and citing the murder of Jesus as well. German Jews, he said, are trying to convince the United States to make war on Germany instead of just being loyal German Jews. Some of his admirers protested such statements, and then Gandhi was compelled to admit that he'd erred: I beg your pardon, Germany's Jews did not ask the United States to attack their country.

Even Auschwitz didn't change his mind: In his final days, being a great friend of the Jews, he wanted to explore the possibility of vast Russia absorbing all of them into its territory. This week marked the 60th anniversary of his assassination.

Growing up Nazi

The Phoenix has published an interesting memoir of a boy growing up in 1930s Germany. It is called "A child of Hitler, Growing up in the Third Reich."

In Hitler's Germany, my Germany, childhood ended at the age of 10, with admission to the Jungvolk, the junior branch of the Hitler Youth. Thereafter, we children became the political soldiers of the Third Reich.

In reality, though, the basic training of almost every child began at six, upon entrance to elementary school. For me, that year was 1933, three months after Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor. It was 50a years ago this week that Hitler came to power, and I have only a child's hazy recollection of the early years of his rule. But I vividly remember the wild enthusiasm of the people when German troops marched through my home town on March 7, 1936, in the process of taking back the Rhineland from the hated French.

Germany on the 75th anniversary of Hitler's chancellorship

The Telegraph:

Elected politicians from Germany’s far right NPD party have refused to stand and honour the victims of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party.

The German dictator became Chancellor 75 years ago on Wednesday, and many small ceremonies of remembrance for the millions killed by the Nazis were held across the nation.

But in the parliament building of the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, six members of the NPD, or National Democratic Party, refused to take part in a moment of silence.

The state is home to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. The parliament’s president Sylvia Bretschneider from the left of centre SPD party had called upon politicians from all parties to stand and reflect on the "end of liberty and freedom of opinion in Germany 75 years ago".

"Terror and violence were the end result," she said. "Anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia and an assault on democracy."

But the moment was disrupted when the six NPD parliament members remained in their seats, denouncing "tactical games and self-promotion".

Cancelled: Holocaust float and Hitler samba dancer

A judge in Brazil has quashed a plan for a Holocaust float that was to be used at Carnival. It's hard to believe anyone thought this was a good idea in the first place. There's a photo to go along with this story, and it's fairly gruesome. USA Today:

A Brazilian judge has banned a controversial Carnival float that depicted Holocaust victims and was to be accompanied by a samba dancer dressed as Adolph Hitler.

The creators said the float was a protest against genocide, but judge in Rio de Janeiro backed a complaint from the Jewish community, saying the festival "cannot be used as a tool in the cult of hate or for any form of racism ... or for the banalization of barbaric events."

Comic books about Nazis

From The Independent:

Comic books land in German classrooms today to help schoolchildren learn about Hitler and the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Entitled The Search, the cartoons are similar in style to the Tin Tin books, but their subject matter includes Hitler's rise to power and the horror of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

The comic strip has been produced by the Dutch-based Anne Frank Centre, and relies heavily on drawings by the Dutch artist, Eric Heuvel. It will be used during history lessons for pupils aged 13 to 16 in Berlin and the state of North Rhine Westphalia from today, the end of the week that marked the 75th anniversary of the Nazi Party gaining power.

Comparing EU legislation to Nazism

Members of European Parliament (MEPs) are fighting about the comments of a right-wing, British MEP. He compared current EU legislation to the Enabling Act of Nazi Germany. The Independent:

The MEP for South East England was complaining about about a new right granted by the Strasbourg Parliament to its president, Hans-Gert Poettering, to override delaying tactics in the chamber. Mr Hannan told him, "It is only my affection for you... that prevents me from likening this to the Ermaechtigungsgesetz", the Enabling Act of 1933 that gave the German Government special powers.

Responses:

Jim Murphy, Britain's minister for Europe, said: "To call someone a Nazi is tasteless. Nazism was a unique evil in human history. To use it as a term of parliamentary debate demeans the memory of those who suffered."

Graham Watson, leader of the multinational Liberal and Democrat group, said: "By comparing a vote today in the European Parliament with a vote in the Reichstag in 1933, UK Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan is plumbing new depths in UK-EU relations and in the Tories' approach to democracy in the EU."

Last night Mr Hannan said: "I do not compare anyone to the Nazis. That would be completely inappropriate and if I have caused any offence by my remarks, I apologise." He added that it would be "fair enough" if he were expelled from the EPP and called for an "amicable divorce" between the Tories and the group. " It is, as I have always maintained, better for us to be friendly neighbours to the EPP than grudging tenants," he said.

Alleged former Nazi guard in 30 year fight

Cincinnati, Ohio is home to a 30-year fight of a former auto worker to remain in the United States. In 1977 he was accused of being Ivan the Terrible, a notorious Treblinka guard. AP:

The Justice Department first brought charges in 1977 seeking to revoke Demjanjuk's citizenship and to deport him for falsifying information on his applications when entering the U.S. in 1952 and to become a citizen in 1958.

His U.S. citizenship was revoked in 1981, restored in 1998 and revoked again in 2002. He was extradited to Israel in 1986 and was under a death sentence, until Israel's Supreme Court ruled in 1993 that he was not the same man as Ivan.

The current deportation case is based on evidence uncovered by the Justice Department that Demjanjuk was a different guard. That evidence led courts to again strip Demjanjuk of his citizenship on the basis of the original falsified information.

Broadley had argued in briefs filed in July 2007 that Demjanjuk likely would be tortured in Ukraine if sent back there because the U.S. government never sufficiently disavowed its previous claim that Demjanjuk was Ivan. The government contends there is no basis for the argument that Demjanjuk would be tortured.

News

The Nazi occupation of Holland resulted in many graves. Personal affects from the victims have recently been discovered: Deutsche Welle:

"So many died. And now, 63 years later, I'm here holding my father's identity card in my hand," Evers told DPA news agency.

The items include an old pocket watch with cracked, yellow glass and its case, a scratched-up lock and key and a photograph with writing on the back that is hard to discern.

The Nazis had kept all the items packed in boxes, which were then confiscated by the Allies at the end of the war.

Art stolen by the Nazis is in the news again. Bloomberg:

Last month a U.S. court ruled that the Nazis forced German dealer Max Stern to sell his inventory of art. Officials at Concordia University in Montreal, one of the beneficiaries of Stern's will, believe the ruling will help them recover artworks owned by more than 20 museums or individuals.

Denying the Holocaust earns jail time in Germany. Deutsche Welle:

Stolz made the remarks in 2006 while representing "historian" Ernst Zündel, who was handed a five-year prison term in Germany last February for repeatedly disputing the Holocaust as a historical fact.

The 44-year-old also signed a motion during Zündel's trial with "Heil Hitler" and shouted that the lay judges deserved the death penalty for "offering succour to the enemy" -- leading the court to dismiss her.

Upping the ante on Nazi war criminals. Spiegel:

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has more than doubled its reward for information leading to the capture of Nazi war criminals from $10,000 to $25,000 under its "Operation Last Chance" campaign to bring the perpetrators to justice before they die of old age.

A Canadian court overturned the conviction of a "North American Indian leader". AFP:

A Saskatchewan court in western Canada upheld Monday a lower court ruling quashing the conviction of a North American Indian leader for hate crimes against Jews.

David Ahenakew, now 74, was convicted in 2005 of willfully promoting hatred for endorsing Adolf Hitler and telling a reporter in December 2002 that Jews bent on global domination were responsible for World War II.

Fascism and socialism

Daniel Pipes has reviewed "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning", by Jonah Goldberg. I touched on this book in an earlier post. Pipes calls Goldberg's book "brilliant, profound, and original."

His words, indeed, fit a much larger pattern of fusing socialism with fascism: Mussolini was a leading socialist figure who, during World War I, turned away from internationalism in favor of Italian nationalism and called the blend Fascism. Likewise, Hitler headed the National Socialist German Workers Party.

Most people think Hitler founded the NSDAP, or National Socialist German Worker's Party (also called the Nazi Party), but this may not be true. Here is what the Jewish Virtual Library has on the NSDAP:

In 1919, Anton Drexler, Gottfried Feder and Dietrich Eckart formed the German Worker's Party (GPW) in Munich. The German Army was worried that it was a left-wing revolutionary group and sent Adolf Hitler, one of its education officers, to spy on the organization. Hitler discovered that the party's political ideas were similar to his own. He approved of Drexler's German nationalism and anti-Semitism but was unimpressed with the way the party was organized. Although there as a spy, Hitler could not restrain himself when a member made a point he disagreed with, and he stood up and made a passionate speech on the subject.

[...]

In April, 1920, Hitler advocated that the party should change its name to the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). Hitler had always been hostile to socialist ideas, especially those that involved racial or sexual equality. However, socialism was a popular political philosophy in Germany after the First World War. This was reflected in the growth in the German Social Democrat Party (SDP), the largest political party in Germany.

Hitler, therefore redefined socialism by placing the word 'National' before it. He claimed he was only in favour of equality for those who had "German blood." Jews and other "aliens" would lose their rights of citizenship, and immigration of non-Germans should be brought to an end.

If Pipes is right, then Hitler may have had socialist leanings and, via Goldberg's book, we could connect dots all the way to modern American liberalism. If the Jewish Virtual Library is right, Hitler fastened the word "Socialist" to the German Worker's Party to curry popular support in 1920s Germany.

1934 Nazi party rally (Reichsparteitag) at Nuremburg

The "25 points" of Nazism were made clear by Hitler in a speech he gave in Munich on Feb. 24, 1920. The following are the points I would consider to be socialist:

13. We demand the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).

14. We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.

15. We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.

20. The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education and subsequently introduction into leading positions. The plans of instruction of all educational institutions are to conform with the experiences of practical life. The comprehension of the concept of the State must be striven for by the school [Staatsbuergerkunde] as early as the beginning of understanding. We demand the education at the expense of the State of outstanding intellectually gifted children of poor parents without consideration of position or profession.

21. The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young.

24. [concludes with] ... common utility precedes individual utility.

Many of the other points are nationalist or extremely so. Be careful if you search the Web for these points: most are summaries, which are subject to bias. The list at Yale Law School's Avalon Project, from the Nuremburg trials (document 1708-PS), seem to be the most authentic.

Yad Vashem's page on the Nazi party includes the following. Note, the site is oddly constructed, to say the least -- you may have to search for "nazi party" after following the link.

The evolution of organized National Socialism began with the formation of the German Workers’ Party in Munich on January 5, 1919, out of a small right-wing group headed by Anton Drexler that was noted for fanatic antisemitism. On February 24, 1920, it was reconstituted as the National-Socialist Democratic Workers’ Party -the NSDAP-or the Nazi Party for short. Nazi ideology was predicated from the outset on antisemitism, populism, racism, and pan-Germanism. The master-race idea, a virulent anti-Bolshevism and the vision of German conquest of Lebensraum ("living space") in the East were dominant from the very beginning. Adolf Hitler joined the party on September 12, 1919, and, after a brief career as the party propagandist, became its leader in 1921. The 1920 party platform, elaborated by Hitler and Drexler, included clauses concerning the army, the nation, society, the economy, and antisemitism.

News

The Jerusalem Post says Iranian state TV is producing a series "sympathetic to the fate of European Jewry during World War II." This is accomplished not with smoke and mirrors, but a distinction between Jews and Zionists.

One recent example is the speech commemorating al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day by former president and current head of the Assembly of Experts, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, in October. Rafsanjani said the Nazis' "first objective was to free Europe from the evils of Zionism," and that this was justifiable because "the Zionists, as a powerful faction, used to engage in many subversive activities in Europe, thanks to their large assets and propaganda empire."

Five trips to Hungarian courts fail to yield a return of art stolen by Nazis. The New York Times:

So when she got more news last week it was not wonderful, but it was not unexpected. Another Hungarian appellate court in Budapest, ruled in favor of the government. It found that the government had acquired the art through “prescription,” the principle that by possessing the property for long enough it had gained ownership of it. It was the fifth ruling in the case. It left Mrs. Nierenberg and her allies convinced that if she were ever to find justice, it would not come through the Hungarian courts.

Selling Nazi memorabilia draws anger. Port Macquarie News:

A SHOP selling Nazi flags, insignias and other memorabilia at Kew, 30km south of Port Macquarie, has caused outrage within the NSW Jewish community.

A holidaymaker of Jewish heritage spotted the items on the shelves of the BP Legends Café, which is located on the Pacific Hwy.

A BBC1 documentary, Weekend "Nazis", draws anger. Press Gazette:

The regulator concluded that the use of offensive language was justified by the fact that the documentary was a serious investigation into the extremist and racist views among certain people involved in a World War Two enactment.

Presidential contender Mike Huckabee has been slammed in an email sent to Michigan Republicans, just a few days before the primary. The email says Huckabee "has kept close acquitance with evangelical leaders who have ... said the Catholic Church collaborated with the Nazis to exterminate Jews," among other things. TheAtlantic.com:

What did Mike Huckabee do when presented with these vicious statements made by John Hagee about Catholics and the Catholic Church?

Nothing, but Huckabee did make this very equivocal statement: "I can't speak for (Hagee) anymore than he could speak for me. I'm sure that there're things I'll say that he disagrees with… I would certainly never characterize the Catholic Church as being pro-Nazi, never."

Victor Davis Hanson offers a scathing response (at National Review Online) to an article written by Arun Gandhi, published in the Washington Post. Gandhi wrote:

The holocaust was the result of the warped mind of an individual who was able to influence his followers into doing something dreadful. But, it seems to me the Jews today not only want the Germans to feel guilty but the whole world must regret what happened to the Jews. The world did feel sorry for the episode but when an individual or a nation refuses to forgive and move on the regret turns into anger… We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players) and that Culture of Violence is eventually going to destroy humanity…

Hansen's response included:

Everything in that brief excerpt alone is untrue for the following reasons: 1) The Holocaust was not just Hitler and a few SS “followers”; rather, it involved millions of followers (some of whom were active, some of whom were passive) in a systematic and near successful genocide of an entire people.

Neither Hitler, nor Himmler, nor Goebbels, nor any of the Nazi hierarchy could have wrought what they did without millions of German non-party guards, railroad employees, informants, and clerks and bureaucrats in the industry of death. Tragically this complaisance did not happen over night, but was prepped by years of National Socialist indoctrination that systematically and incrementally whipped up centuries old anti-Semitism by blaming — take note here, Mr. Gandhi — “the Jews” as being the “biggest players” in the world’s violence and problems.

Jeff Morton describes a meeting with a holocaust survivor who showed him a home movie like few others. The Conservative Voice:

Once everything was in place she turned to me and said, "What you are about to see is awful, are you sure you want to watch it?" I said, "Yes." She turned on the projector, aimed it at a particular wall in her home and the images of a group of women and children of various ages (all girls) appeared. They were walking into a huge pit dug into the earth. Their were probably 150, possibly as many as 300 naked, cold and frightened females being marched into this pit which was more like a football field that was dug out of the ground. As the camera panned over these people it was obvious that they were standing in what appeared to be water. The smallest children were just about submerged, some were being carried, and all were naked. After a few minutes and with the camera angle now some distance from the pit (I do not know what happened between the time that the camera was repositioned), the entire pit erupted in fire! This beautiful little Jewish woman turned to me and said, "That was not water!"

Nazi standards fall with Germany

Nazi standards held proudly at a Nuremburg rally, 1938

Russian soldiers display captured standards
during the VE-Day parade in the USSR

Nazi flag waves above a U-Boat

The flag captured from U-505 in US Navy hands;
U-505 is now a museum in Chicago

Ju87 Stukka

Hitler, the anti-smoking Nazi

People have been using the name "Hitler" in a debate about a smoking ban in Kansas. The ban resulted in a number of voicemails to a newspaper, TheKansan.com. A columnist wrote a piece based on the voicemails:

On the other hand, Adolph Hitler did not smoke, and did not permit smoking in his presence. So I suppose, he is the first “anti-smoking Nazi.”

In addition to being a non smoker, Hitler was a vegetarian. Therefore people who enjoy a medium-rare filet mignon now and then are genocidal, racist Nazis determined to conquer the world through force of arms, right? And let's not forget that Hitler was anit-hunting, too. All you Bambi killers should be ashamed of your Nazism.

The story prompted a Kansan to submit a comment:

I read Mark Schnabel’s column (Nov. 29) and, after much thought, decided to comment to it. I understand world history is not taught like it was in the ‘40s and ‘50s, therefore Mark did not put much time in studying World War II.

Adolph Hitler was not a smoker, but the comparisons were not about smoking. Before Hitler took power, he wrote a book, “Mein Kampf,” published in 1925 (vol. 1) and 1927 (vol. 2) and translated into English in 1933. In it he outlined how he would take over the world, and he came close.

His way was simple: First, infiltrate. Second, remove all rights and guns. Third, divide the people. Fourth, take over. The Fuhrer took Poland, France and Norway almost without a shot fired.

And now the comparisons. Before the county and city commissioners did what they did, 75 percent or better of Newton businesses were already non-smoking and had a smoking policy in place. The Free Air Coalition — check it out on Google, 80-plus pages, makes one wonder is it a coalition or a front? — entered the city of Newton, found their Quislings and now the smoking ban.

I don't have a strong opinion on smoking bans, but a ban on using the name "Hitler" to support arguments in modern debates would be interesting. In truth, neither the columnist nor the letter writer warped history to fit their views. I just find this continual use of WWII history in modern political debate a strange phenomenon.

Using Hitler to support creationism

A former member of the St. Petersburg, Fla city council believes that the theory of evolution played a role in the largest mass murder in human history. It is yet another example of using the name "Hitler" to push a contemporary view and, as always, the reference is not grounded in historical fact and is actually quite comical.

From the St. Petersburg Times:

Darwin's theory of evolution helped fuel the rise of Hitler and contributed to the school-shooting massacre at Columbine, a former St. Petersburg City Council member wrote in a letter urging the Pinellas County School Board to expose students to alternative theories.

"Evolution gives our kids an excuse to believe in natural selection and survival of the fittest, which leads to a belief that they are superior over the weak," Bill Foster wrote board members in a letter received this week. "This is a slippery slope."

[...]

"To put it simply, no Darwin, no Hitler," said the group's late founder, D. James Kennedy.

Foster echoed those words in his letter: "Adolf Hitler duped an entire generation using Darwin's evolution," he wrote. "He sought to preserve the 'favored' race in the struggle for survival."

That notion is a selective reading of science and history, said Florida State University professor Michael Ruse, an authority on the history and philosophy of science.

Ruse said Nazi ideologues were motivated by many factors, including "social Darwinism," a movement that tried to apply natural concepts like "survival of the fittest" to human society. But the Nazis later distanced themselves from Darwin because rather than promoting racial superiority, evolution showed "Aryans and Jews and Gypsies and Slavs were all one stem," he said.

The V1

Hitler's V1 rockets, called buzz bombs or doodlebugs as they flew over the British landscape, were unstoppable at first.

Inserting the firing piston

Ready for launch

V1 control box

Launch

Not all V1s were launched from rails

The people of London saw only this:



People had some advance warning from spotters, and they could be heard from a ways off. Go here to listen to a V1 (sound plays automatically). Interestingly, the British discovered an unexploded V1 in July 2007. See the BBC story here.

The defense against the V1 were anti-aircraft guns, and eventually allied fighters, including the Spitfire, were tuned to catch the 400 mph bombs. A pilot would draw alongside the V1, touch wings, and "tip" it out of control. The technique became known as tipping. Hitler was giddy when the V2s began flying, as he knew there was no defense against a warhead descending from the edge of space at over 3,300 mph.

Spitfire beside a V1

Tipping

News

Australian television is set to show a documentary about Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goring. Sydney Morning Herald:

What a colourful cast of nasties the Third Reich bequeathed to history: the nerdy Heinrich Himmler, director of the infamous death squads; rat-faced anti-Semite Joseph Goebbels; and the great Charlie Chaplin impersonator himself, Adolf Hitler.

The usual fourth in the quartet of nasty Nazis was Hermann Goering, the fat-faced, barrel-bellied chap often seen walking two paces behind the Fuehrer in contemporary footage, usually carrying a bejewelled rod.

The AP has released excerpts from diary dating to 1940s Paris under Nazi occupation:

June 8, 1942: On the first day she was forced to wear the yellow star to distinguish Jews: "My God, I didn't know this would be so hard. I was very brave all day. I held my head high and looked people so straight in the eyes they turned away. But it's hard ... This morning, I went out with Mother. Two kids in the street pointed at us saying 'Hey? You see? Jewish.'"

Oct. 10, 1943: On the reason she recounts her daily life: "I have a duty to accomplish by writing because people must know. Each hour of the day the painful experience is repeated, that of noticing that others don't know, that they don't even imagine the suffering of others and the evil that some inflict on others."

The Reichstag fire is in the news 75 years after it occurred. This fire was, essentially, the event leading to Hitler seizing total control of Germany. AP:

Prosecutors said Thursday they have formally overturned the conviction of a Dutch communist who was executed after the Nazis accused him of torching the Reichstag parliament building in 1933.

Marinus van der Lubbe, a bricklayer, was convicted of arson and high treason in December 1933 and executed on Jan. 10, 1934.

USA Today is reporting on Bush's visit to Israel's official Holocaust memorial:

President George W. Bush emerged from a tour of Israel's official Holocaust memorial Friday calling it a "sobering reminder" that evil must be resisted and praising victims for not losing their faith.

The Yad Vashem memorial was closed to the public and under heavy guard Friday, with armed soldiers standing on top of some of the site's monuments and a police helicopter and surveillance blimp hovering in the air overhead.

The father of Chelsea's manager (soccer, I presume) has a fascinating (and sad) tale to tell. I can't believe Hollywood doesn't make more WWII movies. There have been many, but there are still many more to produce. Jewish Chronicle:

“After the Nazis arrived they moved us south to near Warsaw,” he recalls. “We stayed there for six months and moved around some more, but in 1941 we realised things were looking bleak in Poland and decided to take our chances in Russia. We were exiled to the far north. Guards dropped us off in a forest and said ‘build a home or die’.

“When it is so cold, the body needs to eat more. It was -40 in winter, and what little food we could glean was rock hard. In such circumstances, people who are not young stand no chance.

“We were so far north that in the summer there was no darkness, and in the winter, no light. When do you pray Mincha when there is no sunset? When do you pray Shacharit when there is no sunrise? I wish that had been our only problem.

“When I buried my father, I cut off my peyot [sidecurls] and removed my kippah. I had lost my religious faith before his death. To survive, you must look forward in hope, never back.”

He was repatriated to Poland after the war and made his way to Palestine but was arrested by the British and imprisoned in Cyprus.

He eventually settled in Petach Tikvah and married Aliza Nisan, an Iraqi immigrant. They had three children: Avram, and two younger daughters, Ruti and Shoshi. Aliza died in 1997, and he later remarried.

This man had a thousand opportunities to give up on life, and nobody would have blamed him for throwing in the towel. Yet he survived. His story would make a great, and successful, movie.

Here's an eye-catching headline : Hitler popular in New Zealand.

Wellington residents using the city council's libraries are reluctant to return books about Hitler, a newspaper reported on Friday.

Jonah Goldberg has perfected the art of rattling liberals. Salon:

In the book, Goldberg attempts to convince readers that six decades of conventional wisdom that have placed Italy's Benito Mussolini, Germany's Adolf Hitler and fascism on the right side of the ideological spectrum are wrong, and that fascism is really a phenomenon of the left. Goldberg also attributes fascist rhetoric and tactics to Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and describes the New Deal's descendants, modern American liberals, as carriers of this liberal-fascist DNA. In a sense, "We're All Fascists Now," as Goldberg puts it in one of his chapter titles.

[...]

To sort of start the story, the reason why we see fascism as a thing of the right is because fascism was originally a form of right-wing socialism. Mussolini was born a socialist, he died a socialist, he never abandoned his love of socialism, he was one of the most important socialist intellectuals in Europe and was one of the most important socialist activists in Italy, and the only reason he got dubbed a fascist and therefore a right-winger is because he supported World War I.

Originally being a fascist meant you were a right-wing socialist, and the problem is that we've incorporated these European understandings of things and then just dropped the socialist. In the American context fascists get called right-wingers even though there is almost no prominent fascist leader -- starting with Mussolini and Hitler -- who if you actually went about and looked at their economic programs, or to a certain extent their social program, where you wouldn't locate most if not all of those ideas on the ideological left in the American context.

Here's the latest use of "Hitler" to argue a modern political point, from IBD:

President Bush calls Iran a "threat to peace" and promises there "will be serious consequences if they attack our ships." If they attack? Whatever happened to the military doctrine of pre-emption?

Sometimes big wars can start with little events, such as when Adolf Hitler tested Europe's resolve by ordering his horse-drawn infantry into the demilitarized Rhineland in 1936.

The equally mad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's provocative ordering of Iranian swift boats to engage in a simulated attack on U.S. warships may have been a similar test of how far he can go.

It's amazing that people are so divided over Bush. I can't count the number of times the name "Hitler" has been used to alternately demonstrate how Bush is like Hitler, or how Bush has been fighting people like Hitler, and how not fighting people like Hitler would be like Chamberlain.

World events today are scarcely like they were in the 1930s and 1940s, despite some writers' attempts to use the name most often associated with pure evil to fit a contemporary cause. Today there is one superpower, and whenever that superpower gets angry enough to apply its military to a problem, the world gets the jitters.

Bush, with the Patriot Act and Guantanamo Bay and war in Iraq, is not just like Hitler, and the enemies of America, with their genocidal tendencies and anti-Semitism, are not quite like Hitler, either. Though I cannot claim to be an expert on Hitler or WWII, I am supremely confident in saying that few of these writers who wheel out the ghost of Adolf Hitler know anything of the man, his motives, or the problems he caused.

M36 Tank Destroyer

An M36 Tank Destroyer at the Battle of the Bulge. Olive-Drab.com has a nice writeup on the M36 along with photographs.

Cruise as Stauffenberg: 'Valkyrie' under fire

Tom Cruise and Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg

Roger Friedman of Fox News is critical of Tom Cruise's upcoming film Valkyrie. Cruise plays Stauffenberg, a German colonel who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a bomb planted in a briefcase.

"Valkyrie," the movie about the failed 1944 assassination plot to kill Adolf Hitler, has already cost United Artists between $90 million and $100 million, sources tell me.

That’s why UA was so eager to cut a deal with the Writers Guild over the weekend and get back to work. Still pending on this film — which no one in their right mind actually wants to see — are a number of big reshoots as well as a huge battle scene that hasn’t been shot yet.

It makes you wonder what they spent the $90 million on so far? Tom Cruise’s eye patch?

I don't know why he believes "no one in their right mind" would want to see the film. A search for "Hitler" at any news site reveals a world still fascinated by Hitler. Does Friedman believe an interest in Valkyrie amounts to supporting the Nazis? This is doubtful, seeing as the film centers on an historical figure who came close to assassinating Hitler. Is the film projected to be bad? Perhaps he doesn't like Cruise, or Scientology, or both?

July 20 Plot

The assassination attempt is referred to as the July 20 plot, having taken place July 20, 1944 at Hitler's East Prussian war headquarters (known as Wolf's Lair). Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in the headquarters, killing four of the 20 people in the room. Hitler was wounded, but not seriously.

German authorities eventually made thousands of arrests in connection with the plot, and conducted many executions. The numbers vary from 5,000 arrested and 200 executed, to nearly 5,000 executed.

From the BBC's story in 1944:

A senior officer, Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, has been blamed for planting the bomb at a meeting at which Hitler and other senior members of the General Staff were present.

Hitler has sustained minor burns and concussion but, according to the news agency, managed to keep his appointment with Italian leader Benito Mussolini.

From the Jewish Virtual Library:

Over the next few months most of the (plotters), including Wilhelm Canaris, Carl Goerdeler, Julius Leber, Ulrich Hassell, Hans Oster, Peter von Wartenburg, Henning von Tresckow, Ludwig Beck, Erwin von Witzleben and Friedrich Fromm, were either executed or committed suicide.

It is etimated [sic] that 4,980 Germans were executed after the July Plot. Hitler decided that the leaders should have a slow death. They were hung with piano wire from meat-hooks. Their executions were filmed and later shown to senior members of both the NSDAP and the armed forces.

It is in connection with the July 20 plot that Field Marshal Erwin Rommel committed suicide. Rommel is one of few top Nazis who earned Allied respect -- even before his involvement with the assassination attempt became known.

Rommel in Tobruk

Related photos from my collection:

Stauffenberg

Wolf's Lair after the attempt

The pants Hitler wore at the time of the explosion;
David Irving says they still exist

Hermann Goring surveys the site

This photo was taken July 20, after the bombing; Hitler
wanted to show the German people and the world that
he was unhurt and still in charge; walking beside Goring,
Hitler clutches his wounded arm

Moments later

Links
Fox News "Valkyrie" story
Valkyrie at UA, with trailer
Valkyrie at IMDB
Jewish Virtual Library's July 20 plot page
BBC's July 20, 1944 story about assassination attempt

Corsair strikes targets on Iwo Jima

News

Former Nazi prison guard's citizenship revoked in Pennsylvania. The Herald:

A federal appellate court will hear arguments March 3 in the case of a Sharon man stripped of his citizenship because he was a Nazi concentration camp guard.

Anton Geiser, 83, of 411 Cedar Ave., has appealed U.S. District Court Judge David S. Cercone’s Sept. 29, 2006, order that revoked Geiser’s citizenship; vacated the March 27, 1962, order of Mercer County Common Pleas Court granting him citizenship; canceled his naturalization certificate; and ordered that his naturalization certificate, passports and other citizenship papers be surrendered.

Bad poets, including a possible Nazi-sympathizer, are featured in this Los Angeles Times story:

Oscar Wilde went to prison in 1895 for flaunting his homosexuality. Ezra Pound was indicted for treason in 1943 for broadcasting on behalf of the Italian fascists in the Second World War. Dylan Thomas died in 1953 after proclaiming that he had just downed 18 straight whiskeys and wondering if it were a record.

I mention them to emphasize that not all poets are whispering pixies. Some are maniacs, some are drunks and some are general hell-raisers. Which brings us to Charles Bukowski, who was probably all of the above. Although those who knew him might agree that he was a raving, brawling alcoholic, the question has arisen: Was he a Jew-hating Nazi sympathizer? I knew you'd wonder.

Bernhard Schlink's new novel, "Homecoming", deals with German guilt. Bloomberg:

The speed of Germany's recuperation after World War II brought its own kind of curse. It allowed the generation of Nazis and their sympathizers to turn their back on the past; what they had done became, literally, unspeakable.

But as we all know, repressed memories don't just go away. It was left to the following generations to make sense -- or, since that was impossible, to make art -- of atrocity. Among the most eloquent of those artists is Bernhard Schlink (born 1944), whose quietly troubling 1995 novel ``The Reader'' became an international best-seller and even an Oprah's Book Club selection.

A million German soldiers from WWII are being laid to rest. The Age:

A MILLION fallen German soldiers are being reburied more than 60 years after the fall of the Third Reich. And, more controversially, the skeletal remains of thousands of Waffen SS Nazis recruited from other European countries are also being reburied.

The operation is taking place across Eastern Europe, where more than 15 million civilians were killed by the German war machine. Resentment against the reburial program is running high in many countries.

How Huntsville, Ala., became a high-tech center. Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

A group of German scientists, many of them former Nazi Party members, guided Huntsville, Ala. into its position as a high-tech hub.

Claims that Arab anti-Semitism was a Nazi project appear in a book featured in The New York Times:

Obviously, then, these modern-day ideas about Jewish power were imported from Europe, and Küntzel makes a bold and consequential argument: the dissemination of European models of anti-Semitism among Muslims was not haphazard, but an actual project of the Nazi Party, meant to turn Muslims against Jews and Zionism. He says that in the years before World War II, two Muslim leaders in particular willingly and knowingly carried Nazi ideology directly to the Muslim masses. They were Haj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, and the Egyptian proto-Islamist Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. The story of the mufti is a familiar one: he was the leader of the Arabs in Palestine, and Palestine’s leading anti-Jewish agitator. He eventually embraced the Nazis and spent most of the war in Berlin, recruiting Bosnian Muslims for the SS and agitating for the harshest possible measures against Jews. Küntzel writes that the mufti became upset with Himmler in 1943, when he sought to trade 5,000 Jewish children for 20,000 German prisoners. Himmler came around to the mufti’s thinking, and the children were gassed.

German guns of Omaha Beach discovered

It seems strange that the location of four 155 mm and four 105 mm guns that killed so many American soldiers on D-Day would vanish from history after WWII. Deutch Welle:

Abandoned after the Allied victory, the complex of tunnels, gun emplacements and living quarters was gradually overtaken by nature, and it was only thanks to dogged detective work that Gary Sterne -- editor of a British military journal -- was able to locate it.

"It was totally forgotten. Local farmers never reclaimed the land, so gradually the bushes and thickets took it over. Only if you looked could you see a rough outline of the fortifications," said local deputy Jean-Marc Lefranc.

How the site was found and prepared for tourists is very interesting. Manchester Evening News:

Experts were divided on the location of the main Nazi gun battery which caused carnage on Omaha Beach, in terrible scenes which were recreated for the Hollywood film Saving Private Ryan.

The Germans had built a decoy gun emplacement overlooking the area and the location of the real guns which blasted the beach, where 2,000 men lost their lives, remained unclear.

But Mr Sterne, a publisher and collector, stumbled on the answer as he browsed through items at a Stockport militaria fair and a piece of paper fell out of a pair of US serviceman's trousers.

It turned out to be an invasion map for Omaha Beach, which included an area marked Area of High Resistance he thought could be the `lost' Nazi gun emplacements.

The site is scheduled to open for tourism in March. I suspect many Americans will be visiting.

New book on Vichy France

"The Hunt for Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France" covers what seems an interesting tangle of espionage and opposing sympathies in Vichy France (Vichy was the name of the French government in the south, from 1940 until its occupation by German forces in 1943). From The New York Sun:

The British historian Simon Kitson leaves Desseigne's story at this, and rightly so. "The Hunt for Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France" (University of Chicago Press, 208 pages, $25) is history, not a novel, and Mr. Kitson is a historian's historian: a patient, meticulous master of the archives, a disciplined analyst, a servant of the evidence. His study of the French counterintelligence service's pursuit of German spies during the collaboration is not calculated to appeal to a mass market. Yet the imaginative reader will find the germ here of at least a dozen characters to populate a sensational spy novel.

[...]

Mr. Kitson draws chiefly upon the documents from French counterintelligence seized by the Germans in 1943 following their invasion of the Southern Zone. Some 1,400 cartons were confiscated by the Soviets at the end of the war and repatriated to France at the end of the 1990s; Mr. Kitson's study represents the first systematic analysis of their contents. Unlike private collections donated to the French national archives by former intelligence operatives, these archives have not been sanitized to suggest a heroic narrative of resistance. The story they tell is considerably more ambiguous and complicated. It does no one in Vichy much credit.

Two recent Third Reich movies: Black Book and Witness

Originally produced in 2004 for AMC, "Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust" examines Hollywood's coverage, or lack thereof, of the Holocaust. From the Boston Globe's review:

The argument that US movie studios downplayed the Nazi threat in the years leading up to World War II is made not just clear but understandable: For every "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" (1939) or "The Mortal Storm" (1940), there were rantings from isolationist anti-Semites in Washington about Hollywood Jewish propaganda. The studio heads, assimilators to a man (Harry Warner excepted, perhaps), were loath to call attention to themselves, especially with Joseph Kennedy warning them, "This will be seen as your war."

A critic for The Village Voice lists "Black Book" among his top ten films of 2007:

The anti–Army of Shadows. Paul Verhoeven's first Dutch film in over two decades rewrites Soldier of Orange, his first epic of the resistance, penned in irony and from the perspective of a woman. And what a woman! Carice van Houten gave the performance of the year as a magnificently self- contained Jewish femme fatale who falls in love with . . . a sympathetic Nazi.

Holocaust denial

While Europe prosecutes Holocaust deniers, America ridicules them. In the example below, a news organization is taken to task for saying Hitler persecuted six million Jews. From NewsBusters:

Actually Hitler's totalitarian leadership as Fuhrer resulted in the murder of an estimated six million Jews in the Holocaust. But why get technical about accurate terminology, eh? Unbelievable.

Hitler of 'Downfall' spoofed

This bit of brilliance is from Chris Bowley in the UK. Hitler is angry about losing his gaming account with Microsoft. Very angry. Bowley is affiliated with dampowls.net. He links to other entertaining videos at his YouTube account.

News

The name "Hitler" is being used by both sides of an anti-smoking campaign in Germany. US Politics Today:

What is interesting is that Germany's ban on smoking- unlike the spurious arguments for turning the country's highways into racetracks- does actually have a connection to Germany's fascist past, and the smokers and tobacco industry have spared no costs to let this be widely known to all Germans whether they smoke or not. Since the medical evidence has abandoned the smokers' cause- as well as the rest of Europe- German smokers have turned to the great bogeyman of history: Hitler wouldn't let you smoke, either.

Adolf Hitler was a famous vegetarian, minimal drinker of alcohol and a rabid non-smoker. Accordingly, Nazi Germany pursued a cleaner and purer German race. In 1938, the Public Health Service stated that "the nervous disorders of every sort which are being reported in increasing numbers from nearly every part of Germany are for the larger part due to excessive indulgence in tobacco and alcohol." Smoking was prohibited in most of the party's organizations, and especially women were singled out as the Reich's potential carriers of baby Germans that smoking was not a female fashion statement.

Once the war broke out in 1939, the army moved forward to forbid its soldiers from smoking in public places. By 1943, teachers were recruited to kick the habit and set a good example for the young people before they headed off to the eastern front. The restrictions on smoking increased in severity in direct proportion to Germany's failed military campaigns; by 1944, smoking was no longer allowed on any public transportation, in work places or at any government building.

Same story, at the BBC:

German restaurants and pubs have strongly resisted the bans, not only because of the potential loss of income but partly because of an earlier crackdown on smoking initiated by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.

The sensitivity of the issue has prompted the authorities to allow special rooms to be set up purely for smokers.

New color photos of Hitler have been released by the French government. Telegraph:

The Nazi leader believed that traditional black and white photographs best highlighted the sinister nature of his regime, presenting dramatic images which were both powerful and menacing.

Now, however, an altogether more colourful view of the Fuhrer has emerged.

More than 62 years after his death in a Berlin bunker, images from a newly opened Paris archive show him relaxing with children in the Eagle’s Nest, his mountain top chalet in the Alps near Berchtesgaden, Bavaria.

A survivor of Dr. Josef Mengele decides to forgive him. Sydney Morning Herald:

(Eva Kor) speaks from an unenviable experience that gives her credence in such matters. When Eva was a kid of 10, her family was sent to Auschwitz by Hitler's loons. Mum and dad were "processed" while Eva and her twin sister came to the attention of the demented Dr Josef Mengele, whose quest for medical knowledge overrode every ethical consideration and fundamental respect for life.

Like sadistic gunfighters, Mengele and his minions blazed away with syringes, injecting Eva and Miriam with all manner of toxic compounds just to see what would happen. The sisters survived, but in 1993, when Miriam died, Eva felt compelled to retrace the lines of fate and found herself in contact with Dr Hans Munch, an SS doctor who has done what he could to help the Jewish guinea pigs and who, in the postwar years had sunk into deep depression and guilt. She decided to forgive him and, consequently, Mengele himself. Other survivors and the families of many who perished questioned her right to morally pardon the unpardonable.

The folks at OpEd News compare Bush's administration to Hitler's in a critique of the Iraq War, while TheTrumpet compares America's apparent lack of interest in the Iranian threat to Chamberlain's treatment of Hitler.

The CBS is reporting on an interesting art exhibition to be held in Jerusalem:

The Israel Museum in Jerusalem plans an exhibit in February of more than 50 drawings and paintings stolen from France by the Germans during the Second World War and never reclaimed.

The exhibit, being organized with the French Ministry of Culture, is part of an effort to trace the owners of the works.

French museums, including the Louvre and Musée d'Orsay, currently hold about 2,000 pieces of Nazi-looted art that were never reclaimed.