What do the Brothers Grimm have to do with the Nazi party? Lots, maybe. They’re both German, for one. And they’re both full of violence, revenge, sadism, what have you. But, did the Brothers Grimm lead to the holocaust? One Harvard professor sees a connection between the violence inherent in Teutonic art and violence in 20th century Tuetonic fascism. Some (like Allan Bloom) have even suggested that swinging hot 1920s tunes like “Mack the Knife” (from Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera) had a direct influence on the culture that gave us the Nazi party. Happy Thanksgiving!
More Active Posts
Front Page
19 Comments
I read this entire piece with my Burger Meister, Meisterberger voice. You know, the German villain character from the Rankin-Bass Christmas special “Santa Claus is Coming to town”. “A yo-yo? I always wanted a yo-yo!”
Thankfully, Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darin, Ella and many others took the edge out of Kurt Weill’s classic “Mack the Knife”. Happy Thanksgiving indeed.
Check out this clip of Bobby Darin doing “Mackie”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBTITHA8twI
“… violence, revenge, sadism …”
Hmm, sounds a tetch like the GWOT:
Violence? “Shock and awe. (Sorry about that collateral damage, you innocent civilians …)”
Revenge? “He tried to kill Bush’s Daddy!”
Sadism? Abu Ghraib.
My point is, sounds like these reports are trying to attribute greater sinfulness to certain nationalities or ethnicities than to others.
Is this biblical? (That’s a sincerely-asked question.)
Oddly enough, I just did some O/L research re. Mack the Knife last week.
Didn’t see anything … nationalist (or even bigoted) in the lyrics. Just a zippy little tune about some loser anti-hero.
Just sounds like someone just has to much time on their hands.
Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear
And it shows them pearly white
Just a jackknife has old MacHeath, babe
And he keeps it … ah … out of sight.
The Three Penny Opera was one of my favorite musicals as a teenager.
However, I didn’t start any dictatorships, world wars, or death camps.
Although I suspect both Weill and Brecht had a lot of ambivalences, I would say there more were reacting to trends they saw that later led to Nazism than they were the cause of it. Brech played footsie too much with Communism, though.
After all, everyone knows that Darwinism led to Nazism. I read it here on wmb, so it must be true.
I’m with Frank on this one. And no, I don’t think it’s biblical at all.
The Holocaust was a truly evil, horrific event, but I’m not so sure I would say it is unique. I think there are mass murderers all over the place throughout history. Some had train tracks and others didn’t.
Frank, I am posting to suggest to you that you might want to visit the Volokh Conspiracy (just google that) over the next few days and get a read on the 2nd Amendment case. Oral argument will be heard after the first of the year. Sometimes these guys get a thread going after they read the briefs.
… and sometimes I get a thread going, after washing the briefs. And if I don’t stop right away, they fall apart, and are cast into the fire.
I really must start snipping those things with scissors.
=8-[\>
Thx for the heads up, NJL … BTW, when are you gonna get a nice New Jerseyish (or lawyerish) avatar?
Frank, you know I love your eagle. It makes you look so official, as if you head up a government department. I suppose I’ll figure avatars out someday, but truth be told, all I get is a box to type in here. I don’t know how you guys get the emoticons or bold or italics. But I’ll look for some scales of justice or a book or something.
(I did find what I read at Volokh interesting. They had a little of the underlying history behind the 2nd amendment, and it makes sense: one wants one’s gun for self-preservation. When you know WHY they put that amendment in there, you realize how much things HAVEN’T changed. I hope they rule your way!)
I love the Brothers Grimm and read them to my kids when they were little. I also read other gruesome tales, like Charlotte’s Web and Treasure Island and Last of the Mohicans. I read the poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier to them, which told tales of scalping and mayhem. I read to them the history of NH with Hannah Dustin and her capture by Indians and also a wonderful book about Daniel Boon. On top of all that we watched Bugs Bunny and loved every minute of it.
Hanzel and Gretel’s being shoved into the witches oven as a prelude to Das Endlosung? Not so sure.
But it is a well known fact that Der Fuhrer was a huge Wagner music fan (Richard, not the late Porter) Both men harbored and shared a deep hostility to die Juden.
I think both the Grimm and Wagner works were both symptomatic of a deeper flaw in Germanic character
Xion - Which set of Grimm’s tales did you raed to your kids?
There are multiple versions, running from PG to hard R (perhaps even NC-17).
The PG set isn’t too bad for kids (I like having kids get some idea that we’re in a broken world with lost of evil and strange), but the hardest versions are not small child friendly at all.
I am not sure what we mean when we say something like “Germanic character.” It may correspond to something real, however.
It does appear to me (speaking very superficially, I admit) that Germany has show a considerable willingness to face up to and consider what happened in its history in regard to killing millions of people and starting a terrible war.
Speaking equally superficially, I find myself bothered by Japan’s apparent unwillingness to come to terms with events such as the “Rape of Nanking,” and use of Korean “comfort women” as forced prostitutes for its soldiers.
I had an (American) friend who was fascinated with Japanese culture. She got a job working for a world-wide (though not a big name) Japanese company. Mostly she worked for them in America, though she also spent some time in Japan.
She found the whole experience very unpleasant. Her biggest irritation was rampant sexism toward women.
My brother owns a crafts-related company that does a lot of business with Japan. I met a young Japanese woman who was studying for a business degree in the United States. She had picked my brother’s business as a likely place to advance her career and had invited herself in as an intern, much to my brother’s surprise.
She told me that as a woman interested in a career in business she had decided that there was no future for her in Japan, so she had decided to become an American.
This is an off-topic side dressing, though some might find some relevance to Thanksgiving. Also Brecht, as well as Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, who also moved to America, and who mixed cultures in humorous and peculiar ways, would probably have been amused.
NJL -
I hope they rule our way.
The right way.
The American way.
The — dare I say it? — biblical way.
And BTW, Scales of Justice is a perfect avatar! (Can you believe I was thinking of a yellow 8 x 14 legal pad?! Duh!!)
NJL -
BTW (once more), the eagle is simply an Eagle Keeper patch, designed by McDonnell Douglas for USAF airmen involved with the F-15 Eagle project. “Eagle Keeper” is for various systems mechanics (I was a jet engine and secondary power mechanic from 1980-1983 — and I still test the secondary power system today at Honeywell.) “Eagle Driver” is for pilots. “Eagle Crew Chief” is for crew chiefs, etc.
All of which is to say, it’s really nothing to do with officiality or heading up a government department! (Except maybe insofar as the only entities that own F-15s are governments.) I’m just a grunt in the trenches. A cog in the Military Industrail Complex.
Sawgunner (10): I think both the Grimm and Wagner works were both symptomatic of a deeper flaw in Germanic character.
Frank: Is the Bible possibly symptomatic of a deeper flaw in Judeo-Christian character? Plenty of violence, revenge and sadism there. (Conversely, is there something in the works of Luther and Bach that possibly redeems “Germanic character”?)
Or, do the stories that include elements of violence, revenge and sadism that are (probably, I think) found in all cultures in all eras of human history reveal the flaws of human nature — without regard to nationality or ethnicity?
Indeed, if I simply consider the level violence, revenge and sadism in current American literature, film and music as compared to your asssessment of some “deeper flaw in Germanic character” — I’m left with little reason for hope in American charcacter. (And of what holocaust will we be — are/i> we — guilty?)
I think we can say that all mankind is tainted by original sin; and that, at various times in human history, various peoples and cultures have broadly abandoned the true and living God, and followed their lusts instead — both individually and nationally.
HEY, BLOGMISTRESS: So how’s that “Preview” feature coming along?
KRM #11 Xion - Which set of Grimm’s tales did you read to your kids?
Yeay, I found it! I grew up in Germany “an den Nord See” and my parents read this version to me when I was little. This is a very old book, but unfortunately has no date. It is an English translation by EV Lucas, Grosset & Dunlop Publishers, NY.
When I was little I liked the usual, Little Red Riding Hood, Rumplestiltskin, Repunzel, Cinderella, Snow White, etc.
But my favorite story as a father, reading to my kids was “The Fisherman and His Wife”. To this day I crack up every time I read it. It is very appropriate in the Christmas season.
In this story, the fisherman encounters an enchanted fish that can grant his wishes. So the wife Ilsebil, keeps asking for more and greater things. She wants a new house, then a bigger house, then a stone castle. Then she asks to be King (not Queen), then Emperor, then Pope.
Now here is the kicker. She finally asks to live like the Lord of the Universe and poof her wish was granted. Everything is back to the way it was, a humble man and wife in a humble hovel.
The Babe in Bethlehem’s manger laid,
In humble form so low,
By wond’ring angels is surveyed
Thro’ all His scenes of woe.
Dang, Xion. Sawgunner (10) was right about Grimm. Dark stuff, that. Deep Germanic flaws, etc. and so forth …
JUST KIDDING, EVERYONE …
Here’s a link to the story I just found:
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm019.html
A bit more on the possible Germanic temperament–with considerable relevance to this audience.
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/06/did-martin-luther-regard-roman.html