Iraqi People Vote For Candidate Backed By The United States!

[Michael Tee]

<<I'll have to remember that you implicitly believe all the products of the Nazi propaganda machine.>>

No, honest, I don't.  I think Der Giftpilz (http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/thumb.htm) was hilarious.

But you know, those newsreels and photos looked pretty realistic to me.  Tell me, what makes you think they're fake?  Was it that they never happened? 

Do you think the whole Holocaust story is a fake too?  That the Jews invented it all to make the Germans and their Austrian allies look bad? 

Do you think Hitler was framed cuz he was an Austrian?  What about Kaltenbrunner, was he framed too?  What about Seyss-Inquart?  Wrongfully convicted due to anti-Austrian bigotry?  What about Amon Göth, the Viennese-born commandant of the concentration camp shown in Schindler's List, did he get a bum rap from the Poles?  Was his hanging a grave miscarriage of Polish justice?

[Amianthus]

But you know, those newsreels and photos looked pretty realistic to me.  Tell me, what makes you think they're fake?  Was it that they never happened? 

I tend to distrust all the newsreels produced by the Nazi propaganda machine. I know that there was support for Hitler, mostly in Vienna and a couple other metro areas (Linz was another area with support) but the support for the Nazis was minimal to non-existent in the rural areas (most of Austria). Just because a few newsreels were produced in areas where there was support for Nazis does not mean that the sentiment existed universally. After all, viewing the "newsreels" for support of Obama in a few cities would tend to make people think that support for Obama was nearly universal in the US as well, and we know that that is not true.

[Michael Tee]

Fair enough.  So you figure that the Nazi propaganda machine featured some of the areas of Austria in which Hitler was most popular and ignored the areas where he wasn't?  And that this selectivity was then used to create a false impression that the whole country loved him?

[Amianthus]

Fair enough.  So you figure that the Nazi propaganda machine featured some of the areas of Austria in which Hitler was most popular and ignored the areas where he wasn't?  And that this selectivity was then used to create a false impression that the whole country loved him?

Yup. That tends to be what they did elsewhere. It's known that the claims of "widespread rioting" in Austria and a request from the Austrian government to intercede were fake; don't see why they wouldn't fake a few newsreels as well.

[Michael Tee]

But they didn't fake newsreels of the "widespread rioting" or of the signing of the fake document.  Those were false radio broadcasts by announcers who were simply reading out lies.  Same with the fake document.

Those newsreels weren't fake at all - - they were real.  Jews who escaped from Vienna even mention that stuff happening in their memoirs.  Foreign correspondents in Vienna reported both on the abuse of the Jews and the rapturous welcome given to Hitler.

The only false note in them was that (according to you) they were only true for the regions depicted, but they were used to show that the entire country (including the parts never depicted in the newsreels) were equally wildly pro-Hitler.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I am unsure what the argument is. Does Tee believe Nazi propaganda more than Ami, or it it the other way around?
It seems to me that the point is moot now in 2010, as all but a tiny number of Austrians who might have voted or not voted are deceased. I am pretty sure that the Anschluss is no longer seen as a good idea today. Of course, both countries are in the EU, so it hardly matters.

[sirs]

Yet folks like Tee, salivate in Communist propoganda, advocating a governmental system that is JUST as bad, if not worse than Naziism

Go figure

[Michael Tee]

I think that some folks like to paint unvarnished newsreels and photos that have appeared in the international press as Nazi propaganda when it suits them to do so.  As, for example, when one is seeking to disassociate oneself from the Nazis after the war.  Nothing complex about it.  The Austrians for example - - first they were in bed with Hitler for years, then they didn't even know the gentleman.  Losing the war and seeing the odometer rolling back on that Thousand Year Reich might have had something to do with it.

The Anschluss was raised as an example by Ami when I challenged the validity of an Iraqi "election" held under the guns of an occupying U.S. army.   Smart move - - if I applied the same logic to the post-invasion Austrian plebiscite, with a pro-Hitler winning margin of 98 or 99%, it would mean the Austrians were NEVER in bed with Hitler.  Unfortunately, the newsreels showing a joyous Vienna welcoming the Nazis and mercilessly persecuting the Jews were all too true.  What Ami failed to realize was that the Nazi propaganda ministry, while adept at fabricating and publicizing false events as needed to burnish Germany's image, was also perfectly capable of capturing and spreading images of real-life Nazi successes when they didn't need to be fabricated.

Although according to Ami, the Nazis did their filming  in urban areas where Hitler supposedly made his best showings in the polls, not in the more conservative, Roman Catholic countryside, which preferred its fascists and anti-Semites to be of the homegrown variety, not the German import variety.  Not that such prejudice would have applied to Hitler personally, for obvious reasons.  

[Amianthus]

I am unsure what the argument is. Does Tee believe Nazi propaganda more than Ami, or it it the other way around?

I guess Tee's last post post shows which it is.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I have seen the celebration of the Nazi takeover in Vienna, and those people surely seemed truly joyous.

On the other hand, it was pretty clear that if one were to protest the Anschluss, one would be taken aside and pummeled and thrashed without mercy. So those who liked Herr Adolph came out and cheered, and those that did not, not wishing to be pummeled and thrashed, wisely stayed at home.

I find the attitude toward the German defeat in WWI defeat to be somewhat similar to the way Americans related to the rout in Vietnam: they blamed it on their fellow Americans: "we didnlt really LOSE the war, we just were not sufficiently ruthless. We should have nuked them, we woulda coulda shoulda."

The reaction to the Nazi defeat was sort of different., since Herr Adolf said at the end, that the German people were insufficiently courageous to have won, and deserved to be defeated and humiliated and should cease to exist for said cowardice.

At my college, we had an AF Major who taught Airway Science that was gung ho on everything the rightwing said. He worshipped Lintball. And he said that Hitler's biggest mistake was to assume that all Germans were as brave as he was

But still, they were seriously outnumbered, and taking one the Russians after proving to be unable to destroy the RAF was a major error. I am a lot more glad that Hitler lost than Major Baker, I am sure.

[Michael Tee]

<<At my college, we had an AF Major who taught Airway Science that was gung ho on everything the rightwing said. He worshipped Lintball. And he said that Hitler's biggest mistake was to assume that all Germans were as brave as he was>>

It's always revealing to see what the U.S. military really thinks of Hitler and the Nazis.  Most of them have sense enough to keep it to themselves.  Patton got into a lot of hot water when he ridiculed denazification programs on the basis that the difference between Nazis and non-Nazis in Germany was like the difference between Republicans and Democrats back home.

What can ya do?  Authoritarian "brains" (if that's what they are) gravitate to other authoritarian brains.  Those who are trained to resolve problems by force gravitate towards others of like training and inclination.  The universal brotherhood of men at arms. 

Best argument I ever saw for civilian control of the military.  In the U.S.S.R. they did it with political commissars who had the power to shoot politically incorrect regular army officers in the field.  Under proper civilian control the Red Army was truly an irresistible force.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I think it is safe to say that had all the Germans been as brave as Hitler was said to have been in WWI, winning WWII would have been more difficult. But still the Gremans did not have the numbers, and as I said, Hitler was not exactly a clever strategist, taking on both the Soviets AND the Brits at the same time. NOT WISE.

Major Baker claimed to be a Chippewa Indian. He looked about as Indian as Bob Cummings, if you remember him. Not a Chief Iron Eyes. But his theory was that SOME Indians had migrated from Europe at an earlier period, while others (which he thought included all the Mexican and South American Indians) came from Asia at a later date. He really dug Eskimos, as his favorite sport was kayaking. Strangely, he did not think Eskimos looked "Asian". I guess his theory was that there were two groups of Indians: the "Like me Indians" and the less favored "not like me Indians". An interesting character.

[BT]

In the U.S.S.R. they did it with political commissars who had the power to shoot politically incorrect regular army officers in the field.

Umm isn't this resolving problems by force and therefore authoritarian which i believe you just pooh poohed.

What can ya do?  Authoritarian "brains" (if that's what they are) gravitate to other authoritarian brains.  Those who are trained to resolve problems by force gravitate towards others of like training and inclination.  The universal brotherhood of men at arms. 

Why yes you did.

[Michael Tee]

<<Major Baker claimed to be a Chippewa Indian. He looked about as Indian as Bob Cummings, if you remember him.>>

Yeah sure I remember Bob Cummings.  A good comic actor of the Forties and Fifties, in in the over-the-top style of those days and before that a Hollywood leading man.  Always very boyish or youthful good looks.  Glib, fast-talking.  IIRC, his hair could have been Indian, had it been a little straighter.  I had a close friend and business associate from the Rice Lake - Peterborough part of Ontario who was 1/4 Chippewa (up here, "Ojibway," from the same linguistic root-word) who for years I had just assumed was Anglo-Saxon.  In retrospect, the only giveaway was the hair - - thick, straight, black and lustrous.  His was always cut short, but he said that in Peterborough, for the old-timers there (as opposed to the post-war immigrants) anyone with that kind of hair might just as well have worn a feathered head-dress.

OTOH, one of our kids' live-in nannies was a full-blooded Ojibway woman, married to an Englishman and the daughter and grand-daughter of chiefs.  Her grandfather lost a leg at Dieppe.  Very, very Mongolian-type features, unmistakeable in all three generations.

Your major is either a fake Indian or maybe has some minimal degree of "Chippewa" ancestry - - the theory of European Indians is pure hooey, this is the first time I ever heard it, but it sounds like the kind of "British Israel" nonsense I used to hear a long time ago.  (That is a kind of religion claiming that the real Biblical Hebrews migrated to Britain, and became "the English," as can be deduced from a study of British place-names, and today's Jews, rather than being the descendants of the Biblical Hebrews, are a bunch of fucking imposters.)

[Amianthus]

But his theory was that SOME Indians had migrated from Europe at an earlier period, while others (which he thought included all the Mexican and South American Indians) came from Asia at a later date.

So, he was ahead of the curve? That's the current thinking among anthropologists... The initial settlement of the Americas came from Europe and was later displaced and absorbed by an Asian migration.