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Anyone ever see Conspiracy with Kenneth Branaugh and Stanley Tucci? While fictionalized it is based on the surviving transcript of the Wannasee Conference. Of course the definitive movie on the Holocaust is Night and Fog, and although I own a copy, I have never watched it. I want to support keeping the film in print, so I bought it, but I just can't seem to actually open it.
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The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. -
Phil:
Amazing the sort of stuff that comes out when we step outside of the JTR case for a moment, isn't it?
I would still highly recommend "A Child Of Hitler" by Alfons Heck, along with "
Hitler's Table Talk" by Hugh Trevor-Roper. The latter is long and heavy reading at times but you won't find a better insight into the mind of the man who started it all.
Incidentally, the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbour is fast approaching!
Cheers,
Adam.Comment
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Hi Phil and Errata (and Adam),
Phil that book by Goldfagen has the thesis that more Germans were sufficiently anti-Semitic in the 1930s and 1940s to willingly assist in the Holacaust as an ethnic cleansing they felt was overdue. While the book certainly is worth reading, Goldfagen has been criticized for being overly selective in is proof of the thesis, and it has been suggested that more Germans were more human than Goldfagen made them out to be.
Errata - I saw that film CONSPIRACY about a decade back. It was worth watching to see how relatively easy the planning of the Holacaust could be - but ironically there was a brief scene in an earlier film (JUDGEMENT AT NUREBURG) that illustrated the entire matter quickly.
In JUDGEMENT, the allied prosecutors (led by Richard Widmark) have been presenting the argument about the monstrous guilt involved of the Nazis on trial for at least tens of thousands of deaths in the death camps. Afterwards there is a break for lunch. Werner Klemperer (an unrepentant Nazi jurist - I think he is based on the evil Roland Freisler, of the trial of the July 20th Conspirators) says how dare the Allies present these guesses as lies, and he turns to Torben Meyer (a fellow jurist on trial) and asks if he believes it. Meyer says possibly for a few hundred buy not for the size of the losses Widmark has mentioned. At a nearby table are a bunch of other Nazis also facing trial. One of them (I think he was played by Mike Kellin) is just interested in his lunch, but Meyer asks him point blank if the camps could have killed as many as Widmark suggested. Kellin is still chewing, but he is now mulling over the question, and suddenly, "Well it depends on these factors...." Kellin then proceeds to give a very good report on how the camps could function with railroad rolling stock backup, and adequate staffing to push through a certain number of thousands of prisoners per hour and day so that by the end of a month close to 340,000 or so can be "processed" to the conclusion. Meyer and Kemperer are listening with increasing surprise and panic - sudden it is apparent it can be done! What was wonderful about the scene is that Kellin is not disgusted by what he is saying due to any personal feeling regarding the monstrosity of this - he is what the Soviets would have called an "apparachnik" who probably is proud he is able to meet his quota of doomed Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, or whatever.
JeffComment
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Hi Jeff,
Interesting that you should mention Werner Klemperer, as he was of Jewish origins and his family, I recall, was directly affected by the Holocaust and Nazi persecution in the 30's and 40's.
He of course later went on to the role of Colonel Klink in Hogan's Heroes, and some outsiders felt that given the connection he had with the crimes of the Nazi regime, that he would be willing to play a Nazi. Yet Klemperer maintained that the only way in which he could bring himself to do it was to play Klink as the bumbling, naive commandant that we've all seen on TV - really was an interesting connection.
Anyway, sorry to get off topic a little....
Cheers,
Adam.Comment
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Hi Adam,Originally posted by Adam Went View PostPhil:
Amazing the sort of stuff that comes out when we step outside of the JTR case for a moment, isn't it?
I would still highly recommend "A Child Of Hitler" by Alfons Heck, along with "
Hitler's Table Talk" by Hugh Trevor-Roper. The latter is long and heavy reading at times but you won't find a better insight into the mind of the man who started it all.
Incidentally, the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbour is fast approaching!
Cheers,
Adam.
It is okay if you get a trifle off topic. We all seem to at times.
You are right - this December 7th is the 70th anniversary of the attack (and I believe that December 10th is the 70th anniversary of the sinkings of HMS PRINCE OF WALES and REPULSE, which was a similarly meant event by the Japanese, only towards the British. Perhaps (being of a cynical or ironical sense of humor, on December 7th we should try for some good sea food: Chiliean deep Sea Bass. It was the favorite fish of Admiral Yamamoto.
JeffComment
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ahh but chilean sea bass is a non sustainable food fish, and so we shouldn't eat them anymore. Not that the Japanese care, they still hunt whales. Oh the burdens of being a responsible Western country. Fight evil, preach tolerance, aid democracy, avoid tasty fish.Originally posted by Mayerling View PostThe early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.Comment
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And don't forget - avoid attacking large fleets of warships of a rival power in what is supposedly peace-time (even if during a diplomat contretemp).Originally posted by Errata View Post
JeffComment
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And avoid watching any Pearl Harbour related films which just happen to feature Ben Affleck.
Cheers,
Adam.Comment
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Preach.Originally posted by Adam Went View PostThe early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.Comment
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