Nazi Propganda – History of Sorts

When the Red Cross was Fooled

A mistake many people would make is that a charity as large as the Red Cross would not fall victim to manipulation. Although they have the best intentions, any charity can only go by the information given to them. They may believe they are eyewitnesses to something, but to suit “certain” narratives—façades can cover the truth.

On June 23, 1944, the Nazis invited the International Red Cross to inspect Theresienstadt Concentration Camp. The camp was described as a Utopian experiment by the Germans to produce a self-sustaining community of like-minded citizens who would live and work together for the common good. Craftsmen of all types exercised their talents in specially constructed workshops; fruit and vegetables were grown in abundance in large garden areas close to the moat; there was a post office, bank, library, hospital, and countless opportunities for the residents of the camp to participate in sporting and cultural activities. In short, the Nazis portrayed Theresienstadt as being a veritable paradise camp.

To ensure the Red Cross reported positively on Theresienstadt, the Nazis attempted to mask the true conditions, thereby presenting it as a model ghetto. The Nazis removed 7,503 Jews from Theresienstadt between 16 and 18 May 1944 to reduce the overcrowding of the ghetto, holding them in a special camp at Auschwitz in case the Red Cross requested to visit them there. Buildings along the inspection route were spruced up, a football match was staged, and cultural activities were promoted to add to the deception.

As the Red Cross arrived and toured the ghetto, they followed a specific route, which had been pre-planned to portray the camp in the best light possible. They met the prisoners who had been warned about how to act and what to say. The Red Cross was duped, and their report did not reveal the ghetto’s true purpose or conditions.

The commission that visited on June 23, 1944, included Maurice Rossel, a representative of the ICRC; E. Juel-Henningsen, the head physician at the Danish Ministry of Health; and Franz Hvass, the top civil servant at the Danish Foreign Ministry. Swiss historians Sébastien Farré and Yan Schubert view the choice of the young and inexperienced Rossel as indicative of the ICRC’s indifference to Jewish suffering.

The Nazis intensified deportations from the ghetto shortly before the visit, and the ghetto itself was beautified—by adding a garden, painting houses and renovating barracks. The Nazis had staged social and cultural events for the visiting dignitaries. Once the visit was over, the Germans resumed deportations from Theresienstadt, which ended in October 1944.

Rossel was completely duped. A sad fact is the subsequent report he produced was so favourable that the local SS decided to make a film about the camp. The intention was a resultant propaganda film that would be distributed worldwide, particularly to international humanitarian institutions and neutral countries. This was to assure them that the negative reports from the Western powers about their camps—were all exaggerated and untrue.

Jewish spectators watching a football match at Theresienstadt

Not only was it enough to have a false depiction of Theresienstadt, but the Nazis also coerced German-Jewish Actor/Director Kurt Gerron into directing. Gerron escaped Germany after the Nazis took power and ended up in the Netherlands. When the filming finished, Gerron and members of the jazz pianist Martin Roman Ghetto Swingers—were deported on the final train transport to Auschwitz. Gerron and his wife were gassed immediately upon arrival, as well as the film’s performing entourage, with the exception of Martin Roman and guitarist Coco Schumann.

As a result of preparations for the Red Cross visit, the summer of 1944 was, as one survivor later wrote, “The best time we had in Terezín. Nobody thought of new transports.”

The gimmick was so successful that SS commander Hans Günther tried and decided to expand on it by having Kurt Gerron make a short documentary about the camp to assure audiences that the inmates kept there were not abused. In return, the Nazis promised that he would live. Shooting the film started on September 1, 1944, and took 11 days. Kurt Gerron was murdered upon arrival at Auschwitz on October 28, 1944.

This should be a lesson for today and the future that seeing should not always be believing.

Sources

https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/theresienstadt-paradise-camp/

Red Cross visit

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/theresienstadt-red-cross-visit

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Propaganda & Art

I believe that the most powerful weapon the Nazis had during World War II was its propaganda machine. Other countries used propaganda, but not as effectively as the Nazis. Perhaps critical thinking had not been eradicated or banned elsewhere.

The Nazis often used art to spread their message. Some of their posters remind me of today’s memes. The connection between art and propaganda was probably the strongest in the Netherlands, known for its art and artists.

The art piece at the start of this article is from the Exhibition Art of the Front collection—displayed at the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum from 21 January–21 February 1943.

The Nazis also set up several charities, not for the betterment of the population, but really as a means of propaganda. Winning hearts and minds was essential for the Nazis. Again, art and fancy posters played an important part in this, to relay the message.

Relief work Visual arts. Nederlandsche Volksdienst (Dutch People Service) in collaboration with the Nederlandsche Kultuurkamer (Dutch Chamber of Culture). Exhibition.

A wall with posters, most likely in Amsterdam from the autumn of 1941. It includes the V-Action poster and calls for enlistment in the SS or the Volunteer Legion. One of the posters was for the exhibition in the Rijksmuseum concerning Westphalian Art of the Present.

German propaganda. Posters from the Netherlands Winter Aid Foundation said, “Your fellow citizens expect you to do your duty,” doesn’t mention the Nazis or the occupiers—but fellow citizens.

Propaganda against Bolshevism “Bolshevism is murder!” It didn’t just instil fear of loss of life, but also destruction of religion.

The NSB (Dutch Nazi Party) was intensively involved in propaganda. Posters and placards flooded the Netherlands, both before and during the war.

Propaganda poster from the NSB Photo Service “Do you want the rule of egoism? That is the freedom to use people and the community for your own personal interests or do you want everyone to have the obligation to serve people and the community? Then support National Socialism.”

Aimed at Railway Workers “Strike only brings misery to your own people!”

Aside from the art used in propaganda, the Nazis also decided an ample number of Dutch artists to be murdered.

Portrait, possible of hidden or captured Jews. (Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum)

Max van Dam
Max van Dam was the son of Aron van Dam and Johanna van Dam née Leviticus. Both his parents were Jewish. He grew up in a socialist environment. His father was a certified meat inspector who became the director of the cooperative store De Dageraad, a literal translation of The Dawn, in Winterswijk, where he was on the town council for the Dutch Social Democratic Workers’ Party (SDAP). Max received art training in Amsterdam and Antwerp and attended Isidoor Opsomer’s Academy of Fine Arts.

During the war, Max van Dam went into hiding. He tried to flee to Switzerland but was captured in France and deported to Sobibor by way of the Drancy Interment Camp. During his time in the two camps, Max van Dam continued to produce engravings and paint portraits.

In Sobibor, Max was one of the ‘lucky’ ones who were not immediately murdered. He had to do paintings for the SS. The SS man Karl Frenzel testified in 1983, “He did not have to stand for roll call, and his food was brought to him by fellow prisoners. I asked him to do paintings for the SS canteen, which would not remind us of the camp or the war, they were exclusively landscapes. There was also a painting made by Van Dam of FiFi, Bauer’s dog.” Frenzel further stated, ”Van Dam had been killed in the revolt and that the paintings in the staff quarters of Sobibor were destroyed at the same time.”

The details and exact date of Van Dam’s death remain unclear. Survivors have indicated that he was killed shortly after completing his last commissioned painting in September 1943. Jules Schelvis noted that Frenzel’s assertion that Van Dam was killed in the revolt may have been self-serving. Schelvis concluded this based on statements by Alexander Pechersky, who was emphatic in his declarations never to have met Van Dam because the painter had already been killed prior to his own arrival in Sobibor on 23 September 1943.

Theodoor van Gogh
Although Theodoor van Gogh was not an artist himself, he was the great-nephew of one of the most famous artists of all time—Vincent van Gogh.

Theodoor (Theo) van Gogh was born in Amsterdam. He was the uncle of the director, columnist, and opinion maker Theo van Gogh, who was murdered in 2004. Theodoor began studying economics at Amsterdam University in 1941, where joined a student resistance organisation.

He was active in the resistance on many fronts, as were many other members of his Corps fraternity. In 1943, they protested, among other things, against having to sign the so-called declaration of loyalty, which meant that you would not do anything against the Germans. If you refused to sign, you could not continue your studies. On 6 May 1943, those who had not signed had to report for the Arbeitseinsatz in Germany. Theo did not do this. He immediately helped Jews, arranged hiding places and provided identity cards, ration cards, food, etc., for people in hiding in collaboration with, among others, the Student Resistance. He supported the Domestic Armed Forces and was the central figure for a courier service. He also offered help to prisoners and succeeded in getting a number released. At the end of 1944, he housed the resistance newspaper, Het Parool, from his father’s office, and was involved in the resistance newspaper, Ons Volk. He also committed more acts of resistance, about which less has become known. Theo was arrested twice, once during a raid in 1943 and again at a train check-in in 1944. In both cases, his father’s influence was able to have him released after a few months from Camp Vught and Camp Amersfoort, respectively. An extensive group of students and others worked with him and for him. During a raid on his home on 1 March 1945, he, with many others, was arrested for the attack on SS commander Hanns Rauter.

As a reprisal for the attack, on 8 March, the Nazis executed 263 political prisoners, including Theodoor at age 24, by a firing squad in southeast Amsterdam. The spot became known as Fusilladeplaats (execution place).

Calendar design for November, drawing, 1930–31: “On wings of storm winter approaches.”

Willem Arondéus
Willem Arondéus was a Dutch artist and author who joined the Dutch anti-Nazi resistance movement during World War II. He participated in the bombing of the Amsterdam public records office to hinder the Nazi German effort to identify Dutch Jews and others wanted by the Gestapo. Arondéus was caught and executed soon after his arrest. Yad Vashem recognized Arondéus as Righteous Among the Nations.

When Nazi Germany occupied the Netherlands during World War II, Arondéus became a member of the Dutch resistance movement. He used his artistic skills to forge false identity papers and other documents to help people escape persecution.

With a small group of confidants from the art world, including Gerrit van der Veen and cellist Frieda Belinfante, Arondéus started in 1942 by counterfeiting identity cards for Jewish people in hiding so that they could perhaps survive the war without the “J” on their identity cards. A plan was devised to blow up this register to prevent the occupier from checking the numbers of the forged identity cards in the administration of the Amsterdam population register.

Under the leadership of Willem Arondéus and Gerrit van der Veen, the resistance group committed an attack on this population register on the night of 27 March 1943. A few days later, Arondéus and almost everyone else involved were arrested. On 1 July 1943, 12 resistance fighters, including Arondéus, were shot dead in the dunes near Overveen.

Sources

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/tijdlijn/Theodoor-van-Gogh/02/201255

https://oorlogsgravenstichting.nl/personen/201255/theodoor-van-gogh

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2020/05/22/executed-by-the-nazis-the-story-of-vincent-van-goghs-brave-great-nephew

https://www.sobiborinterviews.nl/en/sobibor-sketches/maxvandam

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/?mode=gallery&view=horizontal&q=propaganda&rows=25&page=1

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/?mode=gallery&view=horizontal&q=kunst&rows=25&page=1

https://www.noord-holland.nl/Bestuur/Provinciale_Staten/Willem_Arondeuslezing

Willem Arondeus: The Gay Men That Led The Dutch Resistance

https://www.europeana.eu/en/blog/willem-arondeus

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Another Type of Train Journey

The Dutch railways were essential to the Nazis, not only as the transport of Jews and others eastwards to the camps but also as a propaganda tool.

During the pre-war crisis years, the Netherlands welcomed many malnourished Austrian children. Reichskommissar Seyss-Inquart, himself an Austrian, thought he should show gratitude for this. The Nazis, therefore, organized so-called children send-off to Ostmark (Austria) in the summer of 1940. This was done under the guise of charity, but, in fact, it was a transparent propaganda stunt. During the occupation, various children send-offs were also organized by the NVV, Dutch Federation of Trade Unions (which was controlled by the Nazis at that point) and the Nederlandsche Volksdienst (NVD, Dutch People’s Service, was regulated by the Nazis).

“Rotterdam. This morning the second special children’s train, this time filled with small Rotterdam children, of the D.P. (Delftsche Poort) station to Ostmark, where the children will have a wonderful holiday. The Reichskommissar for the occupied territory in the Netherlands, Dr Seyss Inquart, was personally present to see his hundreds of little guests off.
The climax, however, was when the Reichskommissar personally appeared on the platform, followed by numerous German authorities, to say goodbye. The Reichskommissar reads the names of his youthful guests from the cards that all the children have around their necks. [In the above photograph], behind the State Commissioner is the mayor of Rotterdam.”

That is how the journeys were sold to the Dutch population.

On those same tracks, dozens of trains would have travelled East via Westerbork—not with children in comfortable coaches but in cattle cars—sent to their deaths. Two different realities.

Sources

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/?mode=gallery&view=horizontal&rows=1&page=1&fq%5B%5D=search_s_keywords_poolparty:%22Kinderuitzending%22&sort=random%7B1692194373481%7D%20asc

https://today.ucsd.edu/story/2015_16_holocaust_living_history_workshop_series_highlights_holocaust_journ

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Derrick in the SS

Anyone who grew up in Germany or the Netherlands, would have seen at least one episode of the German Police drama Derrick, set in Munich. The show ran between 1974 and 1998. It is well-rumoured that even Pope John Paul II was a fan.

Yesterday, I started watching a TV show called Faking Hitler. It is about Konrad Kujau, the man who forged the Hitler diaries. The show mentioned that Horst Tappert had been in the Waffen SS. Horst Tappert was the actor who played the aforementioned character Derrick, as seen in the above picture.

This came as a surprise to me. In April 2013, information emerged he had served as a member of the notorious Waffen-SS during World War II and had hidden the fact for years. Reruns of Derrick were suspended in Germany and some other countries as a result. He had never personally disclosed his connection with the SS. At age 19, he was, according to his widow against his will, transferred from the Army to the Waffen-SS. Initially a member of a reserve anti-aircraft unit in Arolsen, he was listed as a grenadier with the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf in March 1943. In 1945, he was briefly a prisoner of war in Seehausen, Altmark. Warsaw Ghetto Uprising from 19 April to 16 May 1943 was the training Battalion of the 3rd Panzer Division Totenkopf that took part in the suppression of the uprising. Given the fact that was soon after Tappert had joined the division, there is a great likelihood he would have been involved.

Horst Tappert wasn’t the only one with a connection to Derrick that had an SS past. The main author of the Derrick stories, Herbert Reinecker, joined the Hitler Youth movement in 1932 at the age of 17. From April 1935 onward, Reinecker worked full-time as a propagandist for the Nazi youth movement.

In 1936, Reinecker moved to Berlin where he became the editor-in-chief of the youth magazine, Jungvolk. In the same year, he also co-authored a book, Jugend in Waffen (Armed Youth). This was a time when the Nazis had already been in power for three years and when the media had long been gleichgeschaltet (the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party successively established a system of totalitarian control). In 1943, he joined the Nazi Party and worked as the editor-in-chief of a magazine, Der Pimpf (The Pimp) about the training system of the Hitler Youth. Throughout World War II, Reinecker served in the propaganda company of the Waffen SS.

I was wondering why there weren’t any reruns of the show. I moved to Ireland in 1997, it’s why I missed out on the media reports in Germany and the Netherlands about the Derrick scandal.

Horst Tappert died in 2008, and Herbert Reinecker on 27 January 2007, ironically the date of the International Holocaust remembrance.

sources

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22384143

https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/report-reveals-derrick-actor-horst-tappert-was-an-ss-member-a-896765.html

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/10/09/baue-o09.html

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070981/?ref_=ttmi_tt

https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/pimpf.htm

Snow White and the Third Reich

Currently, I am reading a book titled, Animation under the Swastika—A History of Trickfilm in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945. It is the history of how Hitler and Göbbels attempted to compete with Hollywood, especially Disney.

A whole chapter in the book is devoted to the Disney movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Evidently, it was Hitler’s favourite movie despite the Nazis never achieving to get the film released in Germany. Only a few people, including Hitler and Göbbels, saw the movie and had copies.

In the 1930s, the Nazi regime dubbed foreign media to control anything negative from abroad, as would be the case for Snow White. In the late 1930s, the animated film was voice-over by German-speaking actors. The movie had not been released during World War II. The nationwide release of the dubbed version was in February 1950.

One sad thing about this is that most of the voice actors were Jewish and did not survive the Holocaust.

The 1938 News Report only mention some names of the cast. The only voice credited for her role is Hortense Raky as Snow White. Two other female actors mentioned were Dora Gerson and a New Lady Star. Seeing her age, Dora Gerson must have been the voice-over for the Evil Queen (and maybe the Witch), while the new female star was certainly the singing voice of Snow White.

Most of the original 1938 cast were Jews, and were murdered by the Nazis: Dora Gerson died on 14 February 1943, murdered with her family at Auschwitz. Otto Wallburg also died in Auschwitz on 30 October 1944.
Kurt Lilien died on 28 May 1943, at Sobibor Extermination Camp. Finally, Kurt Gerron, the Dubbing Director, died on 28 October 1944 at Auschwitz. Kurt was coerced into directing a Nazi propaganda documentary intended to be viewed in “neutral” nations about Theresienstadt. However, once the movie was finished, he, his wife and the crew members of the documentary were deported on the camp’s final train transport to Auschwitz.

sources

https://www.jstor.org/stable/42943087

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029583/releaseinfo

https://disneyinternationaldubbings.weebly.com/snow-white-and-the-seven-dwarfs–german-cast.html

https://books.google.ie/books/about/Animation_Under_the_Swastika.html?id=vow4hqhXCzQC&redir_esc=y

Ignorance is Never the Answer

••••••••••WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES••••••••••

I have often argued that it would be unfair to brush all Germans with the same brush because some Germans did resist the Nazi regime. However, there is no denying that many were ignorant about what was happening to their neighbours who were either Jewish, Gay, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Disabled or Roma/Sinti, or anyone with a different political view.

education, or awareness. I recently read an interesting definition of ignorance in an article on a website called Farnham Street—it has all sorts of pieces for food for thought. They defined it as Empty Suits and Fragilistas [The Empty Suit/Fragilista] defaults to thinking that what he doesn’t see is not there, or that what he does not understand does not exist. At the core, he tends to mistake the unknown for the nonexistent. I think this was partially the problem in Nazi Germany and that is how the Nazis got away with mass murder and genocide because this ignorance turned into collaboration and complicity.

Before we judge the German citizens, we need to look at the oppressive nature of the Nazi state. That meant it was difficult not to be complicit in Nazi activities at some level—although some people played a much more active role in helping the Nazis to achieve their aims than others. Different examples of collaboration in Nazi Germany included: informing Jewish neighbours, adhering to anti-semitic laws, or taking part in boycotting Jewish shops and businesses.

A public notice was issued by the Central Committee for the Defense against Jewish Atrocities and the Boycott, instructing Germans to protect themselves against the Jews by boycotting Jewish businesses and Jewish professionals on April 1, 1933. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Hans Levi

While the Nazi leadership led the way in creating their racist ideology, propaganda and anti-Jewish laws were implemented and bound into law by those working for the Civil Service. Those who continued to work in the Civil Service following the Nazi rise to power directly contributed to the Nazis’ persecution of Jews.

Following the Nazi rise to power, new textbooks were introduced to make sure that all content taught by teachers was in line with the Nazis’ beliefs. This page is taken from a Nazi racial science textbook published in 1934. In the bottom right corner, someone has added another side profile with stereotypically Jewish features and written Jüden, meaning Jews, next to it.

The Germans weren’t the only ones being complicit. There were many citizens in the occupied countries who were eager to help the Nazi regime. The collaboration took many forms. In some countries, the government actively cooperated with the Nazis. In others, individuals or groups acting on their own initiative to offer their help to the Nazis. Smaller forms of collaboration also took place on an individual basis, such as informing on Jewish neighbours (sometimes out of antisemitism, sometimes out of a desire to take over their property, jobs or valuables once they had been arrested or deported).

That doesn’t take away from the fact though that this all started in Germany. If the German citizenry would have paid more attention to what was happening, and if they would have asked collectively what was happening to their neighbours, then perhaps the Holocaust would not have taken place, and they would not have been forced to bury those who their political leaders had massacred, in their names.

sources

German collaboration and complicity

https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1004598

https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1933-1938/anti-jewish-boycott

Nemmersdorf massacre-Murder of civilians

No one can deny that the Nazis committed unspeakable atrocities during World War 2,against civilians. But the Nazis were not the only ones.

On October 21, 1944, the Soviet Red Army was steamrolling the German army on the Eastern Front, reaching the town of Nemmersdorf, at the time it was a German rural town in East Prussia, though today the town finds is part of Russia and is called Mayakovskoye.

The 2nd Battalion, 25th Guards Tank Brigade, belonging to the 2nd Guards Tank Corps of the 11th Guards Army, crossed the Angerapp bridge and established a bridgehead on the western bank of the Rominte river on 21 October 1944. The German forces tried to retake the bridge, but several attacks were repelled by the Soviet tanks and the supporting infantry. During an air attack, a number of Soviet soldiers took shelter in an improvised bunker that was already occupied by 14 local men and women. According to the testimony of a seriously-injured woman, Gerda Meczulat, when a Soviet officer arrived and ordered everybody out, the Soviets shot and killed the German civilians at close range. During the night, the Soviet 25th Tank Brigade was ordered to retreat back across the river and take defensive positions along the Rominte. The Wehrmacht regained control of Nemmersdorf and discovered the massacre.

A Soviet officer had ordered the civilians to be killed. There were some conflicting reports in relation to the age and gender of the victims , as well as the number of victims, with both sides trying to spin the incident to their respective advantage.

Nazi German authorities organized an international commission to investigate, headed by the Estonian Hjalmar Mäe and other representatives of neutral countries, such as Francoist Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. It heard the report from a medical commission, which reported that all of the dead females had been raped (they ranged in age from 8 to 84). The Nazi Propaganda Ministry (separately) used the Völkischer Beobachter and the cinema news series Wochenschau to accuse the Soviet Army of having killed dozens of civilians at Nemmersdorf and having summarily executed about 50 French and Belgian noncombatant prisoners-of-war, who had been ordered to take care of thoroughbred horses but had been blocked by the bridge.

After the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, new sources became available and the dominant view among scholars became that the massacre had been embellished and actually exploited by Goebbels in an attempt to stir up civilian resistance to the advancing Soviet Army.

The former chief of staff of the German Fourth Army, Major General Erich Dethleffsen, testified on 5 July 1946 before an American tribunal in Neu-Ulm:

“When in October, 1944, Russian units temporarily entered Nemmersdorf, they tortured the civilians, specifically they nailed them to barn doors, and then shot them. A large number of women were raped and then shot. During this massacre, the Russian soldiers also shot some fifty French prisoners of war. Within forty-eight hours the Germans re-occupied the area.”

Karl Potrek of Königsberg, the leader of a Volkssturm company present when the German Army took back the village, testified in a 1953 report:

“In the farmyard stood a cart, to which more naked women were nailed through their hands in a cruciform position … Near a large inn, the ‘Roter Krug’, stood a barn and to each of its two doors a naked woman was nailed through the hands, in a crucified posture…. In the dwellings we found a total of 72 women, including children, and one old man, 74, all dead…. Some babies had their heads bashed in.”

While the Germans claimed that most of the 653 residents of Nemmersdorf were killed, Soviet records showed only 20 to 30 killed. It was generally believed that the Germans had inflated the number of deaths, grouped evidence of other isolated atrocities to embellish the size of this massacre, and might even had created the situations where civilians would be killed by the Soviets (for example, some accused the German military of using civilians to shield one of the attacks on the Angrapa bridge). The Soviet claim of only 20 to 30 killed was equally fantastic, as the Soviet Union was also known to take great liberties with numbers even with its official state records. The actual number of deaths was likely somewhere in-between.

Regardless what the numbers were, it was nonetheless a massacre on civilians which never should have happened.

sources

https://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=198

https://www.bridgemanimages.com/it/noartistknown/wwii-nemmersdorf-massacre-1944/nomedium/asset/2497462

Nemmersdorf massacre
byu/MaxRavenclaw inAskHistorians

One More Reason the USSR was Bad! (Nemmersdorf Massacre)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemmersdorf_massacre

https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/45432/were-the-events-in-nemmersdorf-a-pr-stunt-of-the-nazi-propaganda

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Lou Manche—Dutch Artist and Nazi Propagandist

One of the weapons during World War II was propaganda—a powerful tool. The armies did not have to be persuaded to go to war, it was their job to follow the orders of their respective governments.

However, propaganda was used to persuade civilians of the merits of war. This was done by all sides.

World War II was different from any war before because it included the targeted mass murder of the civilian population. The Nazis were convincing the general population that they were not just fighting external enemies but also internal ones. They organized propaganda tools to sell their lies to market them as truth. It is a fact that there is an element of truth in every lie.

Lou Manche was a member of the NSB, the Dutch Nazi party. He was also a member of the WA, the Dutch equivalent of the Stormtroopers, they called themselves a group who maintained order, but in fact, they were just a gang of thugs.

Lou Manche was also an artist and, by all means, a very talented artist, but rather than using his talents for good—he used them for evil.

Manche became a prominent propagandist for the NSB. The poster at the start of the blog is one of his posters. In the poster, he made clever use of semiotics, the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. There are a few symbols in the poster: The Star of David, the hammer and sickle, and a caricature of Winston Churchill sitting on someone, who I believe to be Stafford Cripps, who was appointed Ambassador to the Soviet Union by Churchill. He also used words like: retarded; dandy; millionaire communist; and gold trading Jews. The symbols and words were subliminal messages meant to slip past your mental radar and embed themselves deep into your subconscious mind. It focused on making Jews, English, Communists, and people with mental illness look to be the enemy of the state.

People who read the messages may have thought they were not so harmful because they didn’t call for aggression. They may have thought they were warnings of what could happen. The headline read, If England Wins the War, then listed all that could happen. In short, it implied that the Jews would exploit the Dutch, the English were retards, and the Soviets would destroy the country.

The poster also refers to a piece H.G Wells had written in a magazine called, Fortnightly.

Wells warns about the mistake the English government has made by going to war with Germany. To end Hitler’s regime, he warns about what may come after Hitler. He also says that they think that they can render Hitler powerless just so that can go back fishing and golfing, quoted on the poster of Lou Manche. This of course was one of those cherry-picking tactics of the Nazis, H.G. Wells had been one of the authors banned by the Nazi regime. His book “The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind” was one of the books, thrown into the flames, a the 1933 book burnings. But if it suited the Nazi agenda, they would be willing to overlook that fact.

Although many Dutch used their common sense and did not heed the propaganda of the NSB and Lou Manche, there were many who fell for it, and quite a few were well-educated. 75% of all Dutch Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, Lou Manche’s ‘art’ had a part to play in this.

Many of Lou Manche’s propaganda posters remind me of modern-day memes, which are often used in a similar way to get a political message across. Like then they are usually taken out of context.

After the war, Lou Manche was tried and jailed for a short time. In 1954, the Royal British Legion commissioned him for a stained glass piece, but after an assembly of protests, they decided against it and assigned it to another artist.

sources

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/hg-wells

https://geheugen.delpher.nl/en/geheugen/results?coll=ngvn&maxperpage=36&page=1&query=Lou+Manche

https://historical.ha.com/itm/books/philosophy/-h-g-wells-contributor-the-fortnightly-fortnightly-review-may-1940-issue-original-wrappers-some-wear-and-t/a/201306-93219.s

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Rolf Wenkhaus; Child actor and Luftwaffe crew member

I was reminiscing on TV shows I watched as a kid in the Netherlands. One of my favourite shows was a series called “Q&Q”. It was about 2 teenage detectives. The boys named Aristides Quarles and Wilbur Quant accidentally snap a photo of a dead body in the woods. After finding the place where the body was, they find it to be gone. Nobody believes them except Grandpa. They decide to investigate themselves. I will spare you the theme song because once you hear it, it will be in your head for days.

Then I also remembered a German movie I watched about some German teenage detectives, nowadays with Google and IMDB, it was relatively easy to find the title. The movie is called “Emil and the Detectives” .Turns out it is the birthday of the young main actor today. Rolf Wenkhaus was born on September 9,1917. The movie I was referring to earlier was made in 1931.

Rolf only made tow more movies, the last one was a Nazi propaganda movie titled “S.A.-Mann Brand”

Ironically the screenplay for Rolf Wenkhaus’s 1st movie, “Emil and the Detectives” was written by Billy Wilder, a Jewish Austrian screenwriter who lived in Berlin. After the rise of the Nazi Party, he moved to Paris, due to rampant antisemitism and discrimination against the Jewish people. He moved to Hollywood in 1933. That movie was also based on a novel by Erich Kästner, a pacifist and an opponent of the Nazi regime. The Gestapo interrogated Kästner several times, the national writers’ guild expelled him, and the Nazis burned his books as “contrary to the German spirit” during the book burnings of 10 May 1933, instigated by Joseph Goebbels.

After the outbreak of World War II, Rolf Wenkhaus enlisted in the military. At the time of his death, aged 24, he was in the aircrew of a Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor, a four-engine bomber that specialized in attacks on shipping. Wenkhaus’s plane, with identification code F8 MH 0093, was shot down on 31 January 1942, off the coast of Bloody Foreland in County Donegal, Ireland by HMS Genista, a British Flower-class corvette being utilized as a convoy escort vessel.

The entire aircrew of six was killed. The body of the pilot, Werner Bornefeld, washed up at Bunbeg two weeks later, and was eventually reburied at a German War Cemetery at Glencree, Ireland.

Because Rolf Wenkhaus’s corpse has never been found they officially pronounced his dead only in 1948.

sources

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0921020/?ref_=tt_ov_st

https://prabook.com/web/rolf.wenkhaus/1928015

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_K%C3%A4stner#Berlin_1933%E2%80%931945

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Being taught to hate.

Education is the key to a better world and to end ignorance and racism. However if education does not include an element of critical thinking, it is open to abuse and it can be used to indoctrinate young impressionable minds, or any impressionable mind really.

This blog will refer to the education in the Third Reich, but it also comes with a warning. Nowadays there is education on the far right and far left without any critical thinking being encouraged. There is a great danger in this.

From the 1920s onwards, the Nazi Party targeted German children as a special target audience for its propaganda messages. These messages emphasized that the Party was a movement of youth: dynamic, resilient, forward-looking, and hopeful.

Millions of German youngsters were won over to Nazism in the classroom and through extracurricular activities. In January 1933, the Hitler Youth had approximately 100,000 members, but by the end of the year this figure had increased to more than 2 million. By 1937 membership in the Hitler Youth increased to 5.4 million before it became mandatory in 1939. The German authorities then prohibited or dissolved competing youth organizations.

Soon after the Enabling Act of 1933 had been passed, Jewish teachers and professors were dismissed from German schools and universities. By April 1933, there were no Jewish teachers remaining in schools attended by ‘Aryan’ students, a racial term used by the Nazis to describe the Germanic peoples.

All teachers had to join the Nazi Teachers’ Association, which vetted them for political and racial suitability. By 1939, 97 per cent of teachers belonged to it. Teachers had to go to summer school so they could teach Nazi ideas effectively. Pupils were encouraged to inform the authorities if teachers did not teach and support Nazi ideas.

In the educational system, Jewish children regularly experienced ridicule, from both their peers and teachers. For example, Jewish children would be sent to the back of the classroom to reiterate to the non-Jewish German children the notion that they were inferior to them. Additionally, “teachers would begin to pick out Jewish students in classrooms to use as examples during biology lessons about racial impurity. Jewish children would be told to stand at the front of the class, whilst teachers pointed to their eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and hair, comparing these to characteristics on Nazi propaganda sheets”. Eventually, the Jewish children were completely segregated from the non-Jewish German children in schools.

The lines on the blackboard ,on the picture above translate to “The Jew is our greatest enemy! Beware of the Jew” While 2 Jewish students stand next to the black board.

Textbooks were rewritten, especially in history and biology, to promote Germany’s ‘greatness’, Aryan ‘supremacy’ and anti-Semitism. Children’s Stories and Textbooks were used as Propaganda tools. Young people were even encouraged to act as propagandists for the Third Reich.

Additionally, after-school activities and weekend trips were regularly sponsored by the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls. These activities often acted as recruitment meetings for the participating school children. The Hitler Youth combined sports and physical outdoor activities with Nazi ideologies. Likewise, the League of German Girls emphasized collective athletics such as rhythmic gymnastics, which “German health authorities deemed less strenuous to the female body and better geared to preparing them for motherhood”. This was also used for public display. Authorities wanted these sports and activities to encourage “young men and women to abandon their individuality in favor of the goals of the Aryan collective”.

The Nazis tried to create a global ‘brand’ for the NSDAP. For this they would also children from the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls. They would even go as far as China. The picture below was taken in China in 1935.

The Nazis started in 1933 to introduce their education curriculum. Six years before they started WWII. Six years of creating young willing followers of the Nazi ideology. All of this did not start on the battlefield but in the classrooms. Creating a feeling or sense of belonging to a cause is a powerful and seductive tool.

As I said at the start of the blog, education is key to fight ignorance and racism. But if not done in a proper way and without any critical thinking incorporated in the curriculum, it will do the opposite and create ignorance and racism.

There is a trend in education at the moment where something doesn’t suit a certain narrative it gets cancelled or ridiculed. Especially in reference to history. This is the way the Nazis got a hook into education.

So this is a warning to all educators, unless you are eager to let something like the holocaust again, allow your students to absorb all aspects of history, good and bad. Don’t cancel things that don’t suit you but look at the bigger picture.

sources

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z897pbk/revision/2

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/indoctrinating-youth

https://digscholarship.unco.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1202&context=urj

https://www.pnas.org/content/112/26/7931

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_propaganda_in_Nazi_Germany