'Too Many *Nice Nazi* Films Being Made' ?

Just happened on this:

The new spate of Nazi films - Times Online

 

British and Americans are sometimes a little bit strange...

Whilst you won't be able to buy a model-kit of a wartime Messerschmitt 110 including the swastika-decal in Germany, whilst it is forbidden to hang out the "Reichskriegsfalgge" in Germany etc. etc. such is not a problem in UK and for sure not in the US. Remember one of the UK-Princes going to a party in a Nazi-Uniform some time back. Cannot imagine that the son of such prominent people in Germany could have done that. Or, in German no veteran of WW2 is allowed to wear his original medals (but only the 1947-version without Swastika). In the US you can buy them open. What about re-prints of Nazi propaganda-material? Does not come from Germany. US is the main producer...

So; and no go back to the big part of the films. Germans are either stupid&stubborn soldiers hardly able to spell a sentence or the pittoresque Nazi in SS uniform. Bäääh.

Personally I believe that the truth is somewhere else and that as in every war, millions of all involved parties were sentenced to dead by carelesss and ruthless politicians. Look around in the world of today - what did we learn out of the history except how to build more lethal weapons? Actually not that much; correct?

 

Kuno Prince Harry is a German Sorry I couldn't resist

Ok as for the films. If they are a accurate portrayal of events I don't have a problem with them. I'm sure there is some weird reason why Tom Cruise has chosen to do this film-I expect he played a very big part in funding it too.

Personaly I'd rather see films about British exploits during WW2 on DDay, Dunkirk, BoB, Norway, Bomber Command, Africa, Italy and the far east. The list is as long as you like but as long as its accurate I don't mind.

Cheers

 

I can understand that the film makers are constantly looking for new angles. There must be a feeling in Hollywood that it can never out-band the brothers or out-save Private Ryan. Personally I refuse to watch anything with Cruise in because of his Scientology connection.

I watched "Ill met by Moonlight" last week. I rather like black and white films. What surprised me was that British cinema audiences in the late 1950s were expected to be able to understand non subtitled German. The accents weren't perfect but the Germans weren't treated as caricatures.

Kreipe was sympathetically portrayed as an honourable man and 1950s audiences didn't complain. The film gives no impression of whether his past was equally clean, neither did it dwell on the earlier atrocities on Crete. It wasn't considered necessary for the story but perhaps at that time, such things were taken as read.

 

Kuno,

I have to agree with you about Politicians.

They never seem to learn from past mistakes.

I like to watch films that portray the war accurately and not from some one sided Director.
Hollywood manufactures films to make money and in many cases, historcal accuracy comes a poor last.

Regards
Tom

 

Hollywood manufactures films to make money and in many cases, historcal accuracy comes a poor last.

Regards
Tom
Couldn't agree with you more on this, Tom. One of the first things I do is go to the errata to see how many errors are in the most recently released film. In some cases, American historical accuracy is out the window as well. If you ask John Wayne types, they won all the wars on guts and glory -- UK and Cdn guts and American glory.

 

What did we learn out of the history except how to build more lethal weapons? Actually not that much; correct?

Well I kind of agree but then again a pile of social advances were made off the back of the victory against fascism, including improved rights for women, homosexuals and non-whites. However the dreams of a wholly better world have been stunted.

 

What's caught your eye, Owen? The synopsis or just Kate Winslet? :p

Must admit; I could watch just about anything with her in it ~ except 'Titanic'!

 

I remember our MO telling us, that as we were watching some of the actual surgical procedures from the Korean War, that the surgeons learned a lot by trying to put people back together. The Guinea Pig Club was another amazing advance in skin grafting out of necessity. I think medical science advanced tremendously albeit on the backs of the folks at the sharp end.

I always think of the Indiana Jones movie with the nice Nazis in it - Raiders of the Lost Ark. Isn't the Africa Corps an anacronism in this movie? And what about the rockets? But I digress.

 

This again makes me think of the book Paul mentioned "Myths of the Eastern Front".

Nice Nazis , servants of the Nazi state - I can't think that I would say the men who acted on 20th July could be seem as "nice Nazis" given that they ended up against a wall and shot or hung bu piano wire following the indignity of experiencing " National Socialist Justice" in the so called "People's Court" facing Roland Freisler - who shouted so much that he had to be asked to tone it down as he was ruining the soundtrack of the trials which were being flimed for the German cinema news reels.

Nice Nazis ?
Whilst not a fan of TC's own lifestyle it is his own business .
the boy in striped pyjamas I have not seen but it is a work of fiction and I would have to agree with Tom and Rich - they are entertainment first and not history lessons , if they make people want to look and read about what actually took place that is fine by me.

An interesting article but the real hard core "revisionist"medium is to be found here on the internet "U-Tube" innocently being used as a host , the host of sites run by various individuals and "Institutes" are like venus fly traps to a generation which is vunerable.

Evil by degrees - I myself do not believe that every German was a Nazi but it cannot be overlooked that German society must have made a contribution to the rise of Hitler who having achieved power certainly extracted a price for their having allowed him to get his foot in the door.
A society which puts its people into uniforms is one to be aware off - there have been numerous examples of this.

 

@ James S; I like your last paragraph. It just brought back an old Italian joke I read once: Just in 1946, there was a competition about who has the best memory in Rome. Three men came into the last round of the competition. Tension was high when they were asked to proof how good their memory is. First one said that he knows all the phone numbers of his living quarter... and he did. Second one sais that he could easily top the first one - he would know all the phone numbers of the city. And yes; he did. The crownd was really excited and one doubted that the third one was able to top this. Silence when he came to the stage. He was asked how he could proof that his memory was better than the one of all the others, particular those two before him. He said: "I can remember that I was a member of the Fascist Party!".

Think that it was somehow similar in Germany as well...

 

If you ask any veteran who managed to fight his way to Germany and was stationed there during the occupation, upto their demob, Not one will have ever found a German Politician, Civilian or Military man who actually new or saw or admits that anything untoward was happening.
How, at the very least, can you not smell what was happening at various places.?

 

If you ask John Wayne types, they won all the wars on guts and glory -- UK and Cdn guts and American glory.
It never ceases to amaze me how the Soviets are ignored in these statements!!!

There were no nice Nazis - the entire regime was founded on hatred, bigotry and violence and people who were nazis subscribed to these views.

 

Fair points Owen - man as a species does tend to disappoint.
I mentioned Otto Ohlendorf in Goldensohn's interviews in the "Nuremberg - was it fair thread".
Ohlendorf when asked if he talked to his wife about what he did said "I saw her but I never talked to her about those things , I didn't think it was a good conversation for a woman".

Q. But it is alright to shoot women , not all right to talk to them about shooings ?
A."In the first place , I didn't shoot women, I merely supervised"

Browning worte Ordinary Men based on the records of a Reserve Police Unit from the area around Hamburg - their killing activity was very productive , it is horrifying to read it - man at his indiffernt worse is a souless and perniciously evil creature.
Leilani makes a fair point.

 

I like this quote from that news article that Steve posted in post #1.



I work with many racist , homophobic, bigoted people.
I'm sure given similar circumstances they'd too could commit similar acts.
In any other aspect of their life they appear 'nice' but we don't know what's going on inside do we?

Amen to that brother.

I remember when I was in Kosovo in 2001 I was doing a stint as guard commander at Slim Lines in Pristina. Nothing much was happening apart from stagging on and off the guard and I got talking to a local female translater that worked with us at the Checkpoint.

She told me she used to be a journalist and lived with her husband and two children in one of the many tower blocks. She was a Serb and one of her neighbours who was a family friend (Both babysitted each others children etc etc) was a Muslim. Anyway in short they were all quite close. As hostilities started to become more and more apparent after Kosovo declared independance from Belgrade her sister from Serbia told her to leave Kosovo and come and stay with her in Serbia.

She passed of her sisters wishes saying that nothing would happen. The whole Balkans thing wouldn't happen again and it would all be sorted peacfully. She spoke to her neighbour about her sisters concerns and he said we are have been friends for many years- we look after each others children and go out for family dinners etc. You and your family will be ok. Don't worry.

Anyway a few days later she told me the Serbs 'Invaded' after a lot of unrest across Kosovo and as the Serbs got closer to Pristina she told me her neighbour came and knocked on the door with a shotgun in his hands and told her that her family had 15 minutes to leave or he would have no choice but to do all manner of things to her and her family. In 15 minutes she had gone from being a normal member of society to a refugee with nothing but the clothes on their backs and what they could carry.

I few days/weeks later her husband was killed (She was very upset and I didn't push this point) and she told me she had returned to Pristina sometime ago with her two children but someone else was now living in her old apartment and her possessions were all gone. Despite numerous pleas from her sister to go and live in with her in Serbia she was a proud women and very intelligent for that matter. She impressed upon me that Kosovo was her home and her children were born here and asked me why should she move? Why should she give up her country? Obviously I couldn't answer those questions for her.

I will never fully appreciate what she and many others must have gone through in Kosovo and hope me and my family will never be put in similiar circumstances.

Anyway my point of this story is for someone to say it will never happen again- It did, it happened all over the Balkans from the 1990's to the 2000's and it is happening today and will happen again in the future all over the world.

I think the thing with the Balkans that shocked me so much and a lot of people fail to realise is that it happened in Europe on our back door.

Sorry for the rant and I hope not too much off topic....It wasn't ment to be

Cheers
Andy

 

Seemed 'On Topic' enough to me, Andy. Being as this whole thread was started, really, as a muse for discussion of what ever it throws up.

And now I must try not to start ranting myself. Only I looked into the Kate Winslet film. It's ~ I very strongly suspect ~ set to be some bleeding heart apology for Ilse Koch 'The Bitch of Buchenwald'! Now I think I may throw up!!!

 

militarycross
I remember our MO telling us, that as we were watching some of the actual surgical procedures from the Korean War, that the surgeons learned a lot by trying to put people back together. The Guinea Pig Club was another amazing advance in skin grafting out of necessity. I think medical science advanced tremendously albeit on the backs of the folks at the sharp end.

Another example is the expereicne gained in the treatment of bullet wounds and injureis in N.I.
Many of the argentines treated by their own medical staff had to be treated again by the British MO's - their counterparts being unaware of the neeed to remove damaged and dead tissue , the first aid expereince and triage skills of the British saved many lives.

 

I wonder how many people on this site living in Germany in the thirties, would be strong enough to oppose the Nazi party.
Having a glut of information at your fingertips and hindsight is a wonderful thing.