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We are all suffering from Nazi fatigue. Donald Trump is celebrating a decade of being “literally Hitler,” and will apparently soon be putting immigrants into camps. In Britain, young schoolchildren are shown timelines linking Mussolini, Hitler, and Nigel Farage, and showing how the first two lead inexorably to the Reform UK leader. The rest of us on the Right are just plain Nazis, although one consolation is that if we are, at least we get to wear cool clothes. (more…)
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I enjoyed Fred Reed’s April 24 essay “Ignorance, Its Uses and Nurture,” which refers to universal suffrage in anything larger than a small town as a “crackpot” idea. In a mere thousand words, Reed painted the American public as entirely incapable and unqualified to understand United States foreign policy, let alone vote on it. Therefore, he concludes, the entire democratic system is a sham. Yes, the statistics he presents bolster his point admirably. But maybe not as much as epic burns such as this one: (more…)
Bolshevism Without a Mask, National Socialist propaganda poster (1937)
Bolshevism Without a Mask, National Socialist propaganda poster (1937)
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Travis LeBlanc dropped a lot of wisdom and perspective on us regarding the Second World War and the Jewish Holocaust in two recent essays for Counter-Currents. Judging from the comments in response to them, it seems the Counter-Currents readership is well aware of this and appreciates his efforts. I certainly do. Although he expressed a fair number of historical opinions regarding the world wars, his main thrust was to discourage what he calls “spergery,” or how the excessive, specialized interest in the Second World War among dissidents can quickly drive a political movement into the weeds. Or even cause it to crack up altogether through absurd purity spiraling: (more…)
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Stephen E. Flowers
The Occult in National Socialism: The Symbolic, Scientific, and Magical Influences on the Third Reich
Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2022
In the realm of the occult and its intersection with the Third Reich, Stephen E. Flowers’ The Occult in National Socialism: The Symbolic, Scientific, and Magical Influences on the Third Reich stands out as perhaps the most comprehensive, profound, and objective investigation to date. (more…)
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Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)
A trial is held and several witness are called. Hanna inherited a substantial sum when her father died, and Hanna’s brother Edward — who never liked Thomas and thought he himself should have received the money — accuses Thomas of killing his wife in order to get her inheritance. (more…)
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Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)
While researching my essay on Die große Liebe, I learned of the infamous pro-euthanasia Nazi film Ich Klage an. I’m glad I did. Oftentimes I watch these old cinematic artifacts for solely academic purposes, but with Ich Klage an, I found myself actually being engrossed in the story.
Ich Klage an, or I Accuse, is a propaganda film about a doctor whose wife becomes ill with multiple sclerosis, a rapidly progressive disease which destroys the nerves and reduces people to paralyzed vegetables. (more…)
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They never stopped marching, as I like to say. Hardly were German soldiers out of uniform in 1945 than they were marching again — only this time across cinema screens. It certainly cannot be claimed that German post-war film productions did not deal with recent history. The Trümmerfilme, or “rubble films,” a (thankfully!) short-lived genre that I personally admire very much, tell raw stories of their time amidst real ruins and real losses. In 1955 the first of many film adaptations about the July 20 plot, aka the Stauffenberg plot, premiered; at the time it was still a topic of some debate in Germany. (more…)
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Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)
It is during and after the First World War that reinforced concrete was incorporated into political programs as a “progressive” building material. The Futurist Antonio Sant’Elia inspired an entire generation of so-called “brutalists”: Le Corbusier, Buckminster Fuller, and members of the movement called De Stijl. Jappe cites Futurist proponents of concrete cities: (more…)
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I have been watching 1970s Nazisploitation movies lately. This started when, on a whim, I thought it would be funny to write a review of Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, which is one of those movies that everyone has heard of — because, credit where it’s due, it is one hell of a name — but which very few people have ever actually seen. Nonetheless, you still hear people drop the name as a punchline all the time. If some conservative bimbo offers a milquetoast take that is mildly critical of Black Lives Matter, someone will inevitably say, “Who does she think she is, Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS?” So I thought I’d watch it just to know where the joke came from. (more…)
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Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)
Harlan’s film, unlike Mendes’, was an enormous box office success,[1] and it is said that concentration camp guards and the SS were shown this film to remind them of their duties. It is fast-paced, and Harlan shows things: the oppression of Süß’s decrees, Theodora’s corpse, the angry mob, and the people fighting for their rights. Sturm’s calm, civil demeanor is contrasted with Süß’s slick manipulation and George’s overbearing yet sensual Karl. (more…)
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Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)
I’ve reviewed Munchhausen and Grosse Freiheit Nummer 7, films produced in the Third Reich that avoided discussing National Socialist philosophy regarding Jews. Which films from that era did? There was Der ewige Jude, Hitler’s favorite film on this subject given its depictions of Jews in caftans and beards, visually compared with rats scurrying down a drain. “That’s what I want to see,” Hitler said to Goebbels. “That’s what we need.” (more…)
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I have been wanting to write a review of Die große Liebe (The Great Love) for years. I read that it had the distinction of being the most popular movie in the Third Reich, and that got me curious. The only Nazi films that anyone has ever heard of are two that are discussed far out of proportion to their actual popularity at the time: the Hitler infomercial Triumph of the Will and Der ewige Jude, a helpful and informative public service announcement about the Jewish menace lurking in the shadows of Europe. As much as you hear about those two films, very few Germans actually saw either of them at the time. I wanted to see a Nazi movie that the average German actually watched and enjoyed. (more…)
