Mengele stuff up for auction.

[Chris]

Sorry if I confused you.

You didn't confuse me at all.

[bolo]

Hi Sister Hyde,

anyway, I think there is a big difference between little items like unis or medals and so on, and memoirs or manuscripts.

agreed, that's why I wrote in my reply to Phil:

"Let me add that I'm talking about historical documents, not memorabilia.".

A museum or researcher probably couldn't care less about SS daggers, Totenkopf caps or Blut und Ehre belt buckles or stuff like that.

Regards,

Boris

[Phil H]

In a mild way - if such a prejudice can ever be "mild" - anti-semitism permeated every level and part of Uk society before the war. My grandmother was born around 1884 and lived to be 95. I well recall her - if say a variety artist came on TV, saying something like "jewboy"! It was not meant to be a nasty comment (knowing my grandmother),or to belittle or harmful, it was just a comment. But it was there and it must have had implications for the way she saw the world.

I think it was this sort of thing that Hitler built on (although he had precursors aplenty).

There was also the dogma of the Catholic Church (extant I think until quite recently) that the Jews bore the guilt for Christ's death, and legends such as the "Wandering Jew" that Goebells made into a film.

It is also worth taking into account that although many Jews in the C19th (and even up to the war) were westernised, the Polish and Russian Jews LOOKED quite different in terms of the way they kept their hair and beards, their headgear and attire. This must have markedly increased the impression that thy were outsiders or Other which could be used to fuel prejudice.

As Ripperologists are all too well aware, of course, the forged "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (having their origin in anti-Napoleon III propaganda/satire) have been used as a weapon against the Jews for more than a century and still are by the ignorant.

Phil

[Heinrich]

Chris,

Perhaps I was using the term rather loosely - but I hope my intent and meaning is now clear.

Sorry if I confused you.

Phil

The term antisemitism tends to be used loosely, Phil, so it is understandable that clarification is sometimes needed.
Nowadays, antisemitism has come to mean criticism of the Israeli government.
Before that it meant hostility to Jews.
Since Semites are any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs, strictly speaking antisemitism is a prejudice against these people or their descendants.
In the Victorian era, there was a significant population of European Jews in London's East End and sentiment against them was common.

[Sister Hyde]

Hi Phil,

Of course not. I'm talking about people like my (now deceased) uncle Georg who was a member of the SS, convinced Nazi and avid collector of documents from '33-'45. He and his comrades openly admitted that they were picking up/buying that stuff for the sole purpose of "taking it out of neo-democratic hands".

collecting doesn't mean anything, I do too collect original items from WWII (medals, books, weapons, gasmasks, boots and so on), and I'm half jewish ( some could say I'm taking them out of neo NS hands, especially for that original signed Mein kampf, which is probably the most boring book in the world ) anyway, I think there is a big difference between little items like unis or medals and so on, and memoirs or manuscripts. Museums, associations, don't give a damn about finding a collection of SS medals or boots, these there are plenty and they don't bring anything new, but I think items such as the ones do carry some interest (although the texts it contains I think are not unknown to historians)

[Phil H]

Chris,

Perhaps I was using the term rather loosely - but I hope my intent and meaning is now clear.

Sorry if I confused you.

Phil

[Chris]

Phil H

You see, my rather antique dictionary defines "argument" as:
"Proof, reason, demonstration; process of reasoning; debate, discussion; an abstract or summary of a book; the subject of a discourse."

It seems an odd choice of word to describe anti-semitism.

[Phil H]

It does - thanks, for the clarification, Boris.

Phil

[bolo]

Hi Phil,

So how would you define (legally) an "inveterate Nazi"? I have a (slight) interest in the WWII period Wehrmacht; German Party and Military uniforms of the 1920s-40s; and most of my academic background comprises syudying, analysing and seeking to explain the rise of Nazism and its consequences - so would I fall into that category?

Of course not. I'm talking about people like my (now deceased) uncle Georg who was a member of the SS, convinced Nazi and avid collector of documents from '33-'45. He and his comrades openly admitted that they were picking up/buying that stuff for the sole purpose of "taking it out of neo-democratic hands".

I'm very interested in WWII and the political background myself, btw.

I realize that's no legal definition but I guess you know what I mean.

It is these practical concerns that make me veer away from any suggestion that artifacts or documents should be seized or confiscated or taken out of the hands of anyone. If you can do it for one item of personal property you can do it for others - some of which you might not agree with so readily.

I'm not opting for seizing them if someone obtained them in a legal way (even if he's an "inveterate Nazi") and does not want to sell or donate them. It goes without saying that proprietary rights should be respected, I just pity the lost chance for scientific examination and proper publication.

Let me add that I'm talking about historical documents, not memorabilia.

Hope this helps to make myself a little more clear.

Regards,

Boris

[Phil H]

The nazi's made it so - look at Mein Kampf is nothing else. Anti-semtism was a rallying cry, a cause, a justification, a call-to-arms - it was an argument for doing what they did.

Propaganda from film to poster art proclaimed it.

Groups like the Germanenorder and the Thule Society (from which the NSDAP sprang) made anti-semitism a cult, like freemasonry with rites and rituals. There were magazines like ostara before 1914 - which Hitler is said to have collected.

All this rooted anti-semtism in history and culture.

Thus, I see an argument as being either the theme/thrust running through a speech, a dissertation or a book; or alternatively a basis for logical reasoning. We would probably never see anti-semitism as that in 2011, but in 1933 the perceptions were different, unchanged in large measure over 1500 years.

Phil

[Chris]

Obviously it was a powerful force, but I still don't understand in what sense you consider it to be an "argument." What exactly do you mean by "argument" in that context?

[Phil H]

It was in Weimar (1919-33) because it was an explanation (an argument if you will) for why Germany did not win the war. It explained the "stab in th back".

It gave the Nazis an internal enemey for Germans to fear and fight - for the Prty to save ordinary people from. It allowed even the poorest "Aryan" the chance to seem like a lord. (Ever seen that film of a class teacher in the USA who divided her class into those with different coloured hair or eyes or something and then watched the effects? Old now but still shockingly powerful.)

It helped that in Europe before 1939 anti-semitism was universal, at least in mild forms. In Germany it became much more of a weapon.

And one could go back further to the politics of pre-1914 Vienna, where the young Adolf lived in poverty, but where anti-semitism and anti-slavism wre political creeds.

Phil

[Chris]

Is anti-semitism an "argument"? A powerful one, even?

[Phil H]

But I have had to try to understand why Hitler and Nazism had the impact they did in their time.

Intellectually I can see the power of their arguments; anti-semitism, miliarism, the power of the state, the role of a superman and an oligarchy, the rejection of democracy. I have striven even to gain an insight into the holocaust and the (yes) "pragmatism" that drove that awful horror. (If you have seen the TV film "The Conference" with Branagh as Heydrich, you will see where I am coming from. You cannot understand the words without - at least for a time - looking at them from their author's perspective.

The processes of the Reich and in particular such concepts as "Working up to the Fuhrer" don't come clear unless one examines them from the inside.

That does not mean that I do not reject all of them. In part, we now reject them - and I am a product of the POST-war world - because they failed. But that they seemed to be, or were tailored to be, practical/pragmatic solutions at the time, is surely undeniable. But a practical solution that is known to have failed is (almost by definition) nolonger practical.

Nazism was in large measure a confidence trick, but like a lie, a con trick has to have some basis in the truth, or at least a truth for it to be a falsehood about.

Phil

[Chris]

Phil H

What an unusual argument.

If someone gives you some examples of Nazi pragmatism, you really are going to be stuck!