The 'Hitler Myth'

Found this rare photo of Hitler in 'The Third Reich: Then and Now', which was taken by an amateur photographer in the early to mid-thirties. It's quite remarkable, I think, to actually see a contemporary photo of Hitler which doesn't conform to the carefully controlled public-image of Hitler as the Weberian 'Charismatic authority' figure.

Ammer Einheit - Deutsche Krieger

Aside from his work with German industrial noise pioneers Einsturzende Neubauten, F.M. Einheit has created a series of intriguing side projects in recent years. Deutsche Krieger is Einheit's third collaboration with Andreas Ammer; like their second project together -- Radio Inferno, Deutsche Krieger, too, has been released on the Chicago-based Invisible label.

Deutsche Krieger is an epic exploration of 20th. century German history through sound. Ammer and Einheit has excavated the German audio libraries for sound recordings of Kaiser Wilhelm, Adolf Hitler, Ulrike Meinhof, Goebbels, Kohl, Baader and dozens of other historical personalities. Samples of these people's words have been integrated into Ammer and Einheit's compositions. Centered around the three greatest periods of German crises of this century, the work has been divided into three distinct parts entitled: I. Kaiser Wilhelm Overdrive; II. Adolf Hitler Enterprise; and III. Ulrike Meinhof Paradise. At turns comical and chilling, this aural voyage through the past is at every turn fascinating.
Opening with the first few bars of Beethoven's fifth symphony, the CD immediately embarks on Kaiser Wilhelm Overdrive. The crackling of the old 78 rpm vinyl sources has been retained by Ammer and Einheit. The initial phrases by the Kaiser are rather ludicrous at this distance, and they have been underscored by a whimsical keyboard soundtrack. Later, as the samples become more vulgar in their viciousness, the underlying music also grows darker and more foreboding in mood.
Adolf Hitler Enterprise takes the listener through the drama of Hitler's rise to power and the second world war. This segment is richer in different sounds and voice samples than the former. The voices of various Nazi radio announcers, Hitler's political speeches, fragments of classical music, and the sounds of chaos and war are all weaved together with Ammer and Einheit's synth loops, which in turn makes extensive use of Kraftwerk's "Trans Europe Express." This segment ends with an imaginary burial ceremony for the German Fuhrer. The radio footage sounds authentic enough, and this passage is one of the most interesting on the CD, as it plays with the manipulative nature of the radio medium.
The third and final segment of the CD concerns the scandal surrounding Ulrike Meinhof, who allegedly supported and protected the members of the German Baader terrorist organization. To fit the period of the early 1970s, Ammer and Einheit creates a theme that utilizes not only funky disco rhythms, but also elements of Beethoven's fifth symphony, along with their own synth and percussion loops. The segment is again rich on media samples, and especially the extensive excerpts sampled from Ulrike Meinhof's defense speeches, in which she declares Germany a police state, are very powerful.
Ammer and Einheit's project is difficult to do justice in words. Deutsche Krieger is an extremely powerful work, the like of which has never (to my knowledge) been done before -- except for the musicians' own Radio Inferno, which did follow a similar design. While it is hardly a CD that one plays for its catchy dance grooves, it is a fascinating aural history book suited for careful and engaged listening.

Reviewed by Michael C. Lund (Last Sigh.com).

Individualised and State Murder in Nazi Germany

A couple of years ago, I saw a film on SBS about the case of a serial murderer in Nazi Berlin; unfortunately, I was unable to find any further info on the events depicted in the film. Recently, however, I stumbled across an article by the historian, Roger Moorehouse, on his blog and the BBC History Magazine site, in which he detailed the actual events of this long overlooked case. Paul Ogorzow, known at the time, as the 'S-Bahn' murderer, is significant in that his case highlights the tensions that exist when a more individualised form of murder occurs in the context of a State where mass murder is both institutionalised and legitimated by a political/racial ideology determined to remove all its' 'enemies'. In the case of Ogorzow, this meant that his killing spree (eight murders, and numerous attempted murders, within a ten month period) was unacceptable to authorities, particularly, as his crimes were against fellow 'racial comrades'. This case negates the fantasies and fascination of many modern day serial/mass murderers, such as, Ted Bundy, Eric Harris, etc, who saw Nazi Germany as an ideal- type society in which they, essentially, believed that had they lived at the time, they would have been able to run amok and murder at will.

http://historian-at-large.blogspot.com/2009/06/paul-ogorzow-nazi-serial-killer.html

Alternative History and 'Turning Point: Fall of Liberty'

At the moment, I'm keen to play the newish (its been out for several months now) game 'Turning Point: Fall of History,' which presents an alternative history in the form of a successful Nazi invasion of the USA in the 1950s. While some of the games' images look stunning, of equal interest will be the degree to which its themes, perhaps, accord with those raised in Gavriel D. Rosenfeld's excellent book, 'The World Hitler Never Made'. Rosenfeld offers a comparative cultural history of allohistorical treatments of the Nazi period found in a broad range of mediums extending from academic essays to popular cultural representations in television programmes, film, and novels. Through these, Rosenfeld examines to what degree the Nazi era, Hitler and the Holocaust have been 'normalized,' and what these various treatments suggest(ed) about different national identities, memory, and past and current politics. In this sense, I wonder what 'Turning Point' might point to (i.e, in a celebratory or self-critical manner) re America's actual participation in WW2 , how it views itself today, and its role in the post 9/11 world?

David Levinthal - "the ambiguity between reality and artifice"

I recently was suprised to find the above miniatures in a Sydney hobby shop. They remind me of the work of photographer David Levinthal who has produced some amazingly provocative images, perhaps most famously those collected in the book 'Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-1943', Levinthal and Gary Trudeau, and his 1994 exhibition titled 'Mein Kampf'. See the following link for more:

http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/1998/sepoct/articles/toy_story.html