From: dwayne (dwayne@pobox.com)
Date: Thu Apr 11 2002 - 14:08:58 MDT
John Grigg wrote:
>
> Dwayne wrote:
> But who knows? I'll have a read of their various screeds, but time will tell,
> I guess. I tend to assume people are nice until proven otherwise. This might
> be a flaw on my part :)
> (end)
>
> Is it really a flaw of yours?? : )
Well, yeah, as I have trusted people in the past when I should not have, and
it has been kind of tragic.
It's something I am aware of and trying to be a tad meaner in my dealings with
people, but I suspect I still suck at looking at people objectively.
> I remember you giving poor Olaf Henny a very hard time
> for having been "taken in" by Nazism as a very young
> child(along with his family).
Well, ot so much taken in as sticking to it, as I recall.
> To me Olaf was heroic for later on as a teenage boy standing
> up to Communist party officials who wanted him to knuckle
> under and be a good youth party member! His post which
> shared these rememberances really impressed me.
Well, as I recall, you *could* look at it from that perspective.
Or, you could see him as an unreconstructed nazi, which I think is what I
called him.
Was he standing up against totalitarianism, or was he a true believer? he
succumbed once before, had he made a decision not to be taken in again, and
resisted their nefarious attempts at brainwashing, or did he seriously believe
in german racial superiority and all the rest of it?
Beats me. Calling someone a nazi is pretty mean, I guess, but if he was a nazi
I guess he'd not be too worried about it. If he wasn't a nazi I'd like to
think he'd understand my suspicion, but I guess it might upset him a tad.
> Have you changed your view of him since that time?
> Olaf is the one who deserves a break, and not these folks.
Well, like any human being, he certainly deserves the benefit of the doubt.
I'm not sure if he deserves a *break* or not, as I'm not aware of all of the
circumstances.
Ah, cool, I see you appended his post.
Well, yup, reading over it again, I stand by what I said. He comes across as
an unreconstructed nazi.
I'll retract that if convinced otherwise (ie: his writing "the nazis were bad
and wrong and I am sorry I believed their garbage" somewhere will do) but on
the strength of those words, that's what he sounds like to me. Got any more
quotes?
Dwayne
>
> best wishes,
>
> John
>
> Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2002 16:21:24 -0800
> From: Olaf Henny
> Subject: Message #18258 from Mike Darwin
> References: <20020101100001.63313.qmail@rho.pair.com>
>
> I am responding to Mike Darwin's posting concerning the
> significant achievements of Leni Riefenstahl in cinematic opinion
> forming, without the benefit of having read any of the books
> about her. However I have personally been exposed to the
> euphoric atmosphere her film productions created among the German
> public. Even though I was just a small child at the time, I
> sensed the powerful, uplifting impact they had on the adults in
> my life.
>
> While the architect Albert Speer designed the monumental setting
> of the parade grounds featured in "Triumph of the Will", he was
> not the founder of the propaganda technique used in her films.
> That was clearly the creation of 'Reichspropagandaminister Dr.
> Joseph Goebbels', an unequalled genius in mass manipulation. His
> technique was later also widely used by the communist leadership.
> I was exposed to it on both sides, as an enthusiastic and willing
> target by the Nazis* and later as a hostile exposed to communist
> propaganda. The power of it is enormous.
>
> Just a quick introduction to my situation at the time: In 1950 I
> was one of only seven students in my school, who were still
> refusing to join the FDJ, the communist youth organization, and
> found myself under immense pressure to do so. Instead I changed
> schools and ended up in a class, where there were 6 of us still
> on the outside. Only a couple of month thereafter I was again
> the lone resisting student in my class. I was clearly no friend
> of the system.
> On occasion of the May 1st 1951 Workers Day
> parade, we were marching in true totalitarian style, ten or
> fifteen abreast, past a stage occupied the then president of the
> GDR, Wilhelm Pieck, and his entourage. Chanting all around us,
> the loudspeaker proclaimed: "The president of the German
> Democratic Republic salutes the students of the Goethe Schule
> (our school)". Around me everybody was clapping with hands
> raised above their heads. It was mass frenzy and although I
> resented the guy, as I have resented few in my life, my impulse
> at the time was to raise my hands and join in the clapping. I
> resisted and clenched my briefcase instead, but I realized then
> how profound the impact of mass manipulation can be.
>
> It does not work in our present situation, because the profound
> building of a new world by a new generation concept is missing
> or no longer credible as a mass movement setting. In communism
> it was the new world, where everybody has equal rights and
> shares in the wealth for a better and brighter future. With the
> Nazis it was the prosperous future achieved through healthy
> living and strengthening of body and mind in order to evolve into
> a stronger people .
>
> Those, who were not there, and know of Nazi atrocities will have
> difficulty understanding the mind set of the German people of the
> time. The 6 or 7 % of the population, who were directly exposed
> to those atrocities mostly disappeared quietly over night and
> faded from the memories of the general population. 99% of the
> rest of us had absolutely no idea, what was happening to them
> afterwards and the fraction of one percent, who were directly
> involved in those atrocities, did well for themselves by not
> talking about it, unless they wanted to share the fate of their
> victims.
>
> *The rest of us (the then adults anyway) have experienced in the
> years prior to Hitler s election in 1932: 60 to 70% unemployment,
> galloping inflation, during which you started in the morning after
> negotiating a wage, which would feed the family for a day, and in
> the evening, when you got paid, it was barely enough to buy one
> cigarette. Tumults in the streets fist fights between Nazis and
> Communists, the Weimar Republic out of control. Then in just six
> short years Germany rose from being the economically most
> devastated industrialized country to the one with the highest
> living standard with full employment. That was the foundation
> for the fanatic enthusiasm, with which the people supported the
> Nazis, and why their believe in the final victory of Germany was
> unwavering for so long.
>
> Albert Speer, Hitlers architect, is also credited with bringing
> the German war production into high gear and condemned for using
> slave labour to achieve that. In 1942, when he took over and
> when the bombing of industrial plants in the from Britain easy to
> reach Rhein/Rhur areas by the Allies started in earnest, the monthly
> production of tanks (the smallish P4) was under 100. By 1944 it
> had risen to 400 of the much bigger Koenigstiger, despite the
> relentless bombing.
>
> Best,
> Olaf
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