Young Fans Of Hitler

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

http://news.bbc.co.u...sia/8660064.stm

Apparently Hitler memorabilia is big business amongst India's youth. Is this a bad sign for the future, or just a phase. In case you didn't know Hitler also had an Indian regiment: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/3684288.stm

Hopefully in terms of symbols they'll stick to the former and not the latter ones.

[rolf]

Am I correct in saying that Nazi WWII memorabilia is more popular than Allies stuff?

[Guest Noodle]

It was (perhaps is) the same in Thailand. Lot of Combat 18 t-shirts being worn. Frankly, these kids had no idea what it meant or represented and were probably just old ex-stock (like anyone actually buys this stuff) and therefore cheap.

[OnionTerror]

Am I correct in saying that Nazi WWII memorabilia is more popular than Allies stuff?

A chap I know has a replica iron cross, with "made in Britain" stamped on the back...

[Executive Sadman]

The peoples car.

I actually prefer the 1930s version. So much for progess.

[Guest sillybear2]

The UK seems to be undergoing an 80's revival, and India is doing the same for Hitler :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/jun/11/bollywood-film-hitler

[juvenal]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/5182107/Indian-business-students-snap-up-copies-of-Mein-Kampf.html

Seems like Mein Kampf sales go apace, especially to business/management students in India. I doubt that they know that universal education was one of Hitler's particular hates. Young Indians, we're told, see him as a 'visionary'.

He certainly was. He envisioned a world without Jews or non-Aryan faces in it. Other than as slaves.

[Frank Hovis]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/5182107/Indian-business-students-snap-up-copies-of-Mein-Kampf.html

Seems like Mein Kampf sales go apace, especially to business/management students in India. I doubt that they know that universal education was one of Hitler's particular hates. Young Indians, we're told, see him as a 'visionary'.

He certainly was. He envisioned a world without Jews or non-Aryan faces in it. Other than as slaves.

Indians are Aryans so they're not going to feel excluded. The Hymns of the Rig Veda are interesting, chariots and attacks on ciies, and the Arya pop up there as the victors.

[juvenal]

Indians are Aryans so they're not going to feel excluded. The Hymns of the Rig Veda are interesting, chariots and attacks on ciies, and the Arya pop up there as the victors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Order_(Nazism)#Hitler.27s_plans_for_India_and_Operation_Maximillian

Good point. But how does that fit in with 'Hitler's Racial Plans for India' in the link?. Hitler's attitude to Indian Asians seems self-contradictory. It seems intuitively difficult to see him viewing Asians as racial equals.

[Frank Hovis]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Order_(Nazism)#Hitler.27s_plans_for_India_and_Operation_Maximillian

Good point. But how does that fit in with 'Hitler's Racial Plans for India' in the link?. Hitler's attitude to Indian Asians seems self-contradictory. It seems intuitively difficult to see him viewing Asians as racial equals.

From your link Juvenal:

Himmler had identified purest of the Aryan castes in India to be Germanized; the rest would either be exterminated or subjugated for slave labor.

So the idea of an elite Aryan race ruling India (the victors of the Rig Veda) then the Indian business students see themselves as this Indian elite.

I'm sure I read that Himmler always had a copy of the Koran on his desk and that there was a Muslim SS battalion (though I could have got that from an Alastair MacLean book).

Was there something about Himmler seeing himself as "The Old Man of the Mountain" as well? This was where an earthly paradise was created: drink, drugs, sex. At regular intervals the young men would be sent out to carry out an assassination. Failure to complete the mission meant they were denied re-entry to the paradise. The wiki entry doesn't touch on that but that's my memory of what the title means. Can you confirm my memory Juvenal?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashid_ad-Din_Sinan

Edit: I just invented somebody called "Nimmler"

[CrashedOutAndBurned]

In Italy, you get lots of ironic and not so ironic Mussolini tat for sale - he's still viewed with great affection by many italians. You get cafes named after Chairman Mao. There's a Stalin Society in the UK that seeks to set the record straight about the great man.

All this stuff is considered fine and dandy...

So why should Hitler be seen as a taboo? You only need some drugged up rockstar to say that the Germans had cool uniforms or some fancy dress pic of a prince to be unearthed and the offenders must be forced to apologise.

[Guest Noodle]

In Italy, you get lots of ironic and not so ironic Mussolini tat for sale - he's still viewed with great affection by many italians. You get cafes named after Chairman Mao. There's a Stalin Society in the UK that seeks to set the record straight about the great man.

All this stuff is considered fine and dandy...

So why should Hitler be seen as a taboo? You only need some drugged up rockstar to say that the Germans had cool uniforms or some fancy dress pic of a price to be unearthed and they must be forced to apologise.

Is this not more 'kitsch' than actual acceptance of tyranny?

[Frank Hovis]

In Italy, you get lots of ironic and not so ironic Mussolini tat for sale - he's still viewed with great affection by many italians. You get cafes named after Chairman Mao. There's a Stalin Society in the UK that seeks to set the record straight about the great man.

All this stuff is considered fine and dandy...

So why should Hitler be seen as a taboo? You only need some drugged up rockstar to say that the Germans had cool uniforms or some fancy dress pic of a prince to be unearthed and the offenders must be forced to apologise.

IMO the mass murder of Jews. He is entirely loathed by Jews and, whilst I am not a subscriber to any "Jewish-controlled media" theories there are many Jews in public life and they stamp out any kind of reappraisal of Hitler because he tried to wipe out their existence and came close to succeeding. To those of us who aren't Jews he is just another historical villain, but to them he is much more than that.

[Guest sillybear2]

In Italy, you get lots of ironic and not so ironic Mussolini tat for sale - he's still viewed with great affection by many italians. You get cafes named after Chairman Mao. There's a Stalin Society in the UK that seeks to set the record straight about the great man.

All this stuff is considered fine and dandy...

So why should Hitler be seen as a taboo? You only need some drugged up rockstar to say that the Germans had cool uniforms or some fancy dress pic of a prince to be unearthed and the offenders must be forced to apologise.

Well, a bit of youthful Nazi worship seemed to work well for Ed Balls :-

[dissident junk]

It's Hitler Chic.

The back story to this is that the Second World War tends to be taught as thought it were a conventional war, rather than a clash of meta-ideologies, in non-European education systems in countries where attitudes to minorities tend to be very different anyway.

[CrashedOutAndBurned]

IMO the mass murder of Jews. He is entirely loathed by Jews and, whilst I am not a subscriber to any "Jewish-controlled media" theories there are many Jews in public life and they stamp out any kind of reappraisal of Hitler because he tried to wipe out their existence and came close to succeeding. To those of us who aren't Jews he is just another historical villain, but to them he is much more than that.

Possibly. I'm not into glorifying any historical dictator, even ironically or for kitsch value but Stalin and Mao certainly presided over incredible loss of life. Stalin's estimated to have been responsible for around 20 million deaths. Mao anything from 50 to 70. Musolini was Hitler's ally. But it's okay to goof around with those guys if you want to.

[Guest Noodle]

Possibly. I'm not into glorifying any historical dictator, even ironically or for kitsch value but Stalin and Mao certainly presided over incredible loss of life. Stalin's estimated to have been responsible for around 20 million deaths. Mao anything from 50 to 70. Musolini was Hitler's ally. But it's okay to goof around with those guys if you want to.

Not you doing it for kitsch value, but the cafes and stores and wotnots.

[Eric Blair]

IMO the mass murder of Jews. He is entirely loathed by Jews and, whilst I am not a subscriber to any "Jewish-controlled media" theories there are many Jews in public life and they stamp out any kind of reappraisal of Hitler because he tried to wipe out their existence and came close to succeeding. To those of us who aren't Jews he is just another historical villain, but to them he is much more than that.

+1.

there are those who dispute the intent to exterminate the jews. who knows? what is undeniable however, is that everything we read of the natsocs and WWII germany has come to us through so many layers of propaganda filters and via so many vested-interests that it is now almost impossible to know anything objective about that era.

"The program of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day,

but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure.

He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party's purity.

All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage,

heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching"

--1984, George Orwell.

[Executive Sadman]

Lots of stuff like this all over the internet.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_23-3-2005_pg4_24

No idea what Gandhis views on the Joo's were.

[juvenal]

From your link Juvenal:

So the idea of an elite Aryan race ruling India (the victors of the Rig Veda) then the Indian business students see themselves as this Indian elite.

I'm sure I read that Himmler always had a copy of the Koran on his desk and that there was a Muslim SS battalion (though I could have got that from an Alastair MacLean book).

Was there something about Himmler seeing himself as "The Old Man of the Mountain" as well? This was where an earthly paradise was created: drink, drugs, sex. At regular intervals the young men would be sent out to carry out an assassination. Failure to complete the mission meant they were denied re-entry to the paradise. The wiki entry doesn't touch on that but that's my memory of what the title means. Can you confirm my memory Juvenal?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashid_ad-Din_Sinan

Edit: I just invented somebody called "Nimmler"

Sorry, no. We're out in the wilder shores of Nazi race theory here, and this takes me into areas I know only fragments about. Fascinating stuff. I'll have to extend my reading!

[juvenal]

+1.

there are those who dispute the intent to exterminate the jews. who knows? what is undeniable however, is that everything we read of the natsocs and WWII germany has come to us through so many layers of propaganda filters and via so many vested-interests that it is now almost impossible to know anything objective about that era.

"The program of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day,

but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure.

He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party's purity.

All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage,

heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching"

--1984, George Orwell.

Have you seen filmed concentration camp liberation footage? Or Alfred Hitchcock's 53 minute film for the War Ministry?

I don't think Central Casting supplied those thousands of skeletal 'extras' lying in piles and in pits.

[Eric Blair]

Alfred Hitchcock's 53 minute film for the War Ministry

ok. i'm convinced.

[juvenal]

ok. i'm convinced.

So all the film is faked? Give over.

[Eric Blair]

So all the film is faked? Give over.

before we venture into a pointless and shifting argument ...

let's get straight what you are saying:

ie, that the allied camp liberation footage and the hitchcock propaganda movie are prima facie evidence of an extermination programme.

do i misrepresent you?

[juvenal]

before we venture into a pointless and shifting argument ...

let's get straight what you are saying:

ie, that the allied camp liberation footage and the hitchcock propaganda movie are prima facie evidence of an extermination programme.

do i misrepresent you?

Well, unless there was total famine across Germany in 1945 - yes. And I know there was a clear propaganda purpose in recording the Camps on film. But that doesn't change what the films recorded, and who was responsible for it.