Rare stash of Nazi propaganda films mirror Bush's US today

[protect freedom impeach bush now]

Rare stash of Nazi propaganda films

"If you look carefully, you can see they mirror what's happening
right now in America."

http://westword.com/issues/2002-12-19/news2.html/1/index.html


Nurkiewicz believes that President Bush is capitalizing upon the American public's emotional response to the September 11 terrorist attacks in much the same way Hitler capitalized upon the German public's outrage over the Treaty of Versailles. "Bush is incrementally positioning himself as a dictator, and he's using modern propaganda to further his agenda," Nurkiewicz says.

"That's why I want to make sure these films enter the public domain, because if you look carefully at how they use images and language, you can see they mirror what's happening right now in America. The Department of Homeland Security -- that sounds exactly like the language of the Ministry of Propaganda. People need to examine these films and realize this has happened before."

.........more.......

[Eloriel]

1. Excellent

Thanks.

Eloriel

[JohnyCanuck]

2. I'll bet the real Fuhrer didn't feel the need for artificial enhancements

like Captain Codpiece did.

It depicts German riflemen riding in motorcycle sidecars, Hitler dressed in a gray field coat standing tall in a jeep, and columns of captured Polish Jews destined for concentration camps.

[iangb]

3. And yet some people......

....still cling to the prospect of having the chance to vote him out in '04.

Do you honestly believe that after years and years of planning and dreaming of absolute power that these guys are going to let you get the chance to vote?

[Carmerian]

4. I have a similar story

The father of one of my in-laws brought back a stack of magazines from his time in Germany during the occupation, and I've read through them. The magazines he brought back were of a weekly called the Illustrierte Beobachter (the Illustrated Observer), and my in-law has most of the 1939 series.

I guess Americans assume that Nazi propaganda was crude and blunt, but these magazines weren't, for the most part. They read something like a 1939 version of People magazine, with fluffy human-interest stories, interspersed with rather modern ads for things like cigarettes, clothing, and electronics. The issues early in the year were relatively free of politics, except for the regular "World war against the Jews" column (I think it was "Weltkrieg Gegen Den Juden").

As you read farther along in the year, the stories begin to get shrill, and it occurred to me how much they resemble the hysteria in the U.S. in the months after 9/11.

I wish I could scan these magazines in for the purpose of translating them, but they're bound together tightly. I do wish someone can get examples of Nazi-period media like this translated and into the hands of Americans. They really need a frame of reference for what's happening now, and these old magazines and films sound ideal to me for that.