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Is dressing up as a Nazi an acceptable pastime?

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sat 15 Jan , 2005 10:02 pm
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Din, that was me that made the comment about the president's son dressing up as a stormtrooper. Mumph is German and I'm American so I think we might give different answers to your question!

I too detest the way the media prey on public figures. I never read that stuff. But we just can't change the fact that much of the public adores gossip and when people accept fame and the privelege that goes with it, they know there's a downside too.

Nin, I feel as you do - Harry gets the money, he's recompensed for being a national symbol. If he takes the money then he has to do the job. He *does* have the option of getting a job, renouncing his claim on the throne, and dressing any way he likes!

Jn

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Holbytla
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Posted: Sun 16 Jan , 2005 1:13 am
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I am going to try my hand at this I guess.

As I see it there are multiple issues here. First off let's look at the parties involved. I feel kind of badly for Harry and his brother. They have never really had a chance for a "normal" life. It is tough enough being famous, let alone being heir to the throne. I realize that he has very many benefits and luxuries in life, but I wonder if they really compensate for the stressed and dramatic lifestyle they have had to lead.
Couple that with the constant papparazzi coverage, the widely publicized life of their mother and her untimely death, the alleged affair of their father, and the general zaniness of his family, and it is no wonder that he at times behaves strangely. He lives in a world that we couldn't possibly relate to. I am a firm believer however that people are responsible for their own actions.

Another issue of this story, is obviously the swastika and all of it's symbolism. I am amazed each and every day how desensitized I and others around me have become. I am at the point now, that I can hardly watch the news or read the papers. All the stories seem to be about murder, child abduction, child abuse, kidnapping, war etc. It is no wonder that given the time since the Nazi's were overthrown, and the calloused nature of today's society that the Prince could conceive of doing such a thing.
On the other hand, there are certain things in which we are more sensitive to. Hogan's Heroes would never make it to air in this day and age. For that matter neither would All in the Family, the American version of Till Death Us Do Part, a British sitcom aired in the 60's. I do believe that on the whole, we as a society have become at least more aware of issues of race, and hatred. Harry should be well aware too.
Given enough passage of time, I suppose that the issues of WWII will be able to be mocked and satired. I don't think nearly enough time has passed, especially for such a public figure.
Harry had to know that there was a chance his "stunt" would have been known outside of his little party. He also had to know that it was wrong. He should have given some thought to how others may have perceived his actions, and he definitely should be well aware of the papparazzi. Perhaps he didn't care, or perhaps he didn't think or know there was anything wrong with it, but I doubt it. Although he is well educated and well brought up, he is still in my eyes a dopey kid, raised in a dysfuntional family.
I was brought up to believe that the Nazi's were evil, and that you could make fun of them in any way you wanted. They were the ones that comitted all of the crimes, so who cares? I was never alerted to the fact that there are many more victims of the Nazi regime, other than the Jews and the neighboring countries that Hitler conquered. We were never taught that the German people themselves were also victims, and still are to this day. I wonder how much that played into Harry's decision?
Would Harry have been offended if some guy dressed in drag as the Queen Mum?
I guess everyone has their sensitive spot, and I think we should be aware of them at the least.

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truehobbit
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Posted: Sun 16 Jan , 2005 8:19 pm
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Holbytla wrote:
I was brought up to believe that the Nazi's were evil, and that you could make fun of them in any way you wanted.
I'd say it would be perfectly alright to make fun of them - it's a way of survival to ridicule that which oppresses you. I don't remember where I heard it, so it's probably silly to quote something I don't know the source of, but "There's nothing evil can brook so ill as laughter" to my mind is a true statement.
However, that's not what Harry did. By wearing a swastika, he just pretended to be a Nazi, and that's what isn't funny. That's why I came up with the Marc Dutroux-analogy. Pretending you are a perverted killer just isn't funny.
Now, I'm not saying everybody who was a Nazi was a pervy killer - the majority most likely just were deluded and didn't even know what they were doing. But perverted torture and murder of millions of people is one aspect of Nazi-history, and the term "Nazi" as such has come to stand for the whole of that perversion. That's why it's just not funny to go round playing at being a Nazi.

And that goes for an ex police officer just as much as for a prince of the realm.

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Leoba
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Posted: Mon 17 Jan , 2005 10:51 am
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Here comes the next nail...
Quote:

Call for Europe-wide swastika ban

German politicians have called for Nazi symbols to be banned throughout Europe after Prince Harry was pictured wearing a swastika to a fancy dress party.
The Liberal group in the European Parliament says all of Europe suffered because of the crimes of the Nazis, so there should be a continent-wide ban.

A senior Christian Democrat said the proposal may be discussed at the next meeting of European justice ministers.

The symbols are already banned under German law.


The photograph of Harry in a costume with a Nazi swastika armband was taken at a friend's birthday party in Wiltshire last weekend.

Vice-president of the Christian Democratic parliamentary group Wolfgang Bosback said the outfit "really lacked taste".


It is time for the press to back off
The Duchess of York


He said it was possible European justice ministers would discuss bringing in a European prohibition on displaying the swastika and other Nazi signs.

Liberal group vice-president Silvana Koch-Merin said: "All of Europe has suffered in the past because of the crimes of the Nazis, therefore it would be logical for Nazi symbols to be banned all over Europe."

She also called for the question to be placed on the agenda at the next meeting of justice ministers.

The vice-president of the parliamentary Social Democratic group, Michael Mueller, said a study was needed to find out how a German-style anti-Nazi law could be applied to the rest of Europe.


Apologising in a statement on Wednesday, the prince said: "I am very sorry if I caused any offence or embarrassment to anyone. It was a poor choice of costume and I apologise."


THE HOLOCAUST
The Nazis' final assault on the Jews from 1933-1945
Estimated 15m civilians killed by regime
6m Jews murdered
1942: Gas chambers built at Birkenau concentration camp, mass transports begin
Majority who arrive gassed immediately
About 900,000 gassed at Birkenau
1.1m died at Auschwitz-Birkenau and its sub-camps
1m of them were Jewish


On Friday, Prince Harry received the public backing of his aunt, Sarah Ferguson.

The Duchess of York told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Harry is a fine young man. He needs to be supported now.

"It is time for the press to back off."

The leader of the UK Conservative Party, Michael Howard, and the Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy have led calls for a personal public apology, and the Prince has also been criticised by foreign politicians.

Veteran forces sweetheart Vera Lynn has added her voice to calls for him to visit a former death camp.

Some critics have said the prince should join a British delegation which is visiting the Auschwitz death camp for the 60th anniversary of its liberation later this month.

The UK's Ministry of Defence has said the incident will not affect Prince Harry's place at Sandhurst military academy.

It is the latest in a series of stories involving Prince Harry - who is third in line to the British throne - which have earned him a media reputation as the "party prince".


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/4178643.stm

Published: 2005/01/16 08:15:03 GMT

© BBC MMV
I'm not for one moment disputing the fact that Harry (and William - who apparently went to the costume hire shop with him) should have displayed a little more common sense.

However, isn't a call now for a total ban on a symbol, a serious over-reaction?

Would this mean an end to the screening of war films? Not just such classics like 'The Great Escape'... what about more modern epics such as "Schindler's List" or "Saving Private Ryan"? No more repeats of "Allo Allo" (maybe a good thing!). Will "The Producers" by driven off the London stage? Computer games like "Medal of Honour"? WW2 re-enactment? (though I agree with a commentator over on the Living History forums, that I would be glad to see the back of the SS re-enactors. :sick: ).

Where do you stop? Isn't waving a Confederate flag pretty offensive to anyone opposed to racial discrimination? Should we not dare talk about the crusades, for fear of offending Muslim ears?

I know, I'm overreacting a little. ;) Yet I cannot help but be concerned to see attempts to bury history under a blanket. Sure, it's distasteful stuff - but the more you hide it away, the more you prevent it being humourised and turned into myth, the more likely it is to be forgotten as the dust settles. Surely it's more important to educate!


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Nin
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Posted: Mon 17 Jan , 2005 11:29 am
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Leoba, in Germany where the use of Nazi symbols is forbidden, it is no problem to show any of the films you mentionned, and I doubt also that the shows, although I do not know them would be forbidden. What is forbidden is public use without any historic and/or artisitc reason. To the best of my knowledge. I have seen pieces of theatre with actors wearing SS uniforms on stage in Germany...

I think reenacting WWII is bad taste and for me it is horribly offensive. Personally, I think that re-enacting any war is bad taste, but WWII in particular, as it has touched still so closely so many people I know. I think the same for computer games like War-Hammer or Medal of Honour - whereas I can eventually understand something like Ages of Empire. I'm sorry, but for me all this does not add to the understanding and remembering of the horrors of WWII. Also, I think this war cannot be remembered and thought of like other wars, as it is was connected to the greatest crime against humanity in history so far. I work on the memory, you could even say daily, with my students. And especially computer games and comedy shows tend to banalize instead of warning. You can laugh about everything - but only if you know what is behind the laugh. It is more difficult to teach children the horror of thsi time, who think of it as exciting by their computer games, or as funny because they have seen the French movies which make fun of the Nazi occupation. I have become drastic at times, maiking students rise in one class and pointing fingers at them: "You would have been gassed, you're a jew, you're black, you're a bloody foreigner - your house bombed...." They recieve biographies of a class who had their age in 1940 and in the end you count: how many have survived? How many untouched by the war? How many dead? I can swear you, that this is a lesson that students remember... when they stand up and talk in the first person: I am Gerlinde Müller born in 1924 in Bielefeld... My father was arrested as a communist when I was nine... It's important to make things real, and not a game.

This does not mean not to talk about it - like you say it for the crusades, for example. But it does mean, at least for me, that you should not laugh before you know what about, that you should not glorify even if reasons wer considered to be glorious in the moment they happened - and that war is not a game, and that in real war you cannot stand up and get a second life... and that for thousands of children an SS-uniform was one the last things they saw before they were killed.

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Mummpizz
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Posted: Mon 17 Jan , 2005 12:55 pm
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Just this one, just for Din: "Sturmtruppen" isn't colloquial in German, as the literal Sturmtruppen obliterated themselves in WW1. It is, however, an older term back dating to the 30 years war (similar to the "Landser", which has a distinctly worse sound to it).

Even the German Star Wars Fans talk of "Stormtroopers", so I take it as an American word (with some German ancestors like "Hamburger") anyway.

I never in my life took a single moment of Star wars seriously, as well as I see Lord of the Rings as a movie and not anything one should lead one's life accordingly.


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Dindraug
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Posted: Mon 17 Jan , 2005 12:56 pm
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Quote:
What is forbidden is public use without any historic and/or artistic reason. To the best of my knowledge. I have seen pieces of theatre with actors wearing SS uniforms on stage in Germany...

I think reenacting WWII is bad taste and for me it is horribly offensive.
What is the difference? Is it ok to portray Nazi's on stage because its art, but because reenactment is creating historical fact it is offensive. I think priorities are a bit mixed up here, and probably the understanding.

Reenactment is not done for the laughs, or the excitement (not totally). It is done to remember, lest the world forget. It is generally done by people who lost relatives, or who want to know more than a school can or will teach. Although I would never do it, it would offend my grandfather who took twenty years to die from German shrapnel, or my Gran whose husband went to war and came back a different man. I do however have enormous respect for the German reenactors. They stand there in the uniforms of the oppressors and wait for the pop shots. Then they explain what it is about, and why, and what really happened. No different than the Thirty Years War reenactors who explain religious hatred or the Romans who talk about persecution of the Jew or the Christian.

It is also worthwhile noting that many play both sides, an American one day, a German the next (hey, bit like Vichy France or the Italians).

The one thing that really does stand out with the banning of the Swastika is the apparent need of Germany to sweep it under the carpet. That is what this is about, forget what happened, the old people who saw it are dieing out. Let’s destroy the images in the general perception and it will go.

I disagree with games like Medal of Honour as much as any glorification, but I disagree more with the 'hide it under the rug' mentality that banning the swastika brings.

Besides, How would this ban take place, would all the books be mutilated to protect sensibilities? Would film have to be destroyed? Would kids be beaten up because they know about 'dangerous things'?


EDIT, thanks Mumpy. I had to ask. One of my areas of interest is the perception of evil (usually medieval). I have always wondered that. Humm, you know the English always refer to German troops at Storm troopers. It was a hang on from WWI (and earlier) I guess. Very interesting, than you ;)

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Nin
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Posted: Mon 17 Jan , 2005 2:45 pm
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Well, Din that is a personal choice how you want to revive and remember history - for me and specifically concerning WWII re-enactment is not an option and I just try to explain my reasons about it.
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The one thing that really does stand out with the banning of the Swastika is the apparent need of Germany to sweep it under the carpet. That is what this is about, forget what happend, the old people who saw it are dieing out. Lets destroy the images in the general perception and it will go.
Well, I went to school in Germany - and I can only vividly contradict you. Nothing is swept under the carpet, sometimes even on the contrary, it rather seems as if the German past is essentially focused on the Nazi-time - there is no other period in history that I have discussed so often at school as this one. And in everything which is documentation, even documental fiction, the swastika does appear in its context, in German school-books as well as in those of other European countries (and I know those of several countries, because I work with them). I agree with the German law - not in any contexte I want it to be possible to see someone with a Nazi uniform walking legally in the streets of Germany. But that's just my own sensibility. I feel roughly the same about other wars beign re-enacted, although the difference in time makes it less painful. But then, nobody obliges me to do it and I oblige nobody to give up.

I just think that I have the right to dislike it, and I also think that I have the right to judge the German legislation perfectly right and the contextes in which its use is allowed enough for me.

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Axordil
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Posted: Mon 17 Jan , 2005 3:32 pm
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Do any of us have a frame of reference that allows us to understand what it is to be a member of the House of Windsor? Born to live in a fishbowl, as a symbol? Sure, Harry could turn the money down and renounce, and he could hack off his family (such as it is) and a chunk of his country in doing it.

I pity him. It doesn't change the poor taste and lack of sense, but I wouldn't trade places with him.

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truehobbit
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Posted: Mon 17 Jan , 2005 5:38 pm
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I quite agree, Ax, but I think the problem is more general - as I said, to me it doesn't make a difference whether Harry or Leoba's ex police officer did that.
On the contrary, I can more easily understand a silly youngster doing that - the stuff is obviously surrounded by a big taboo and therefore must be tried out, just like using drugs.
People who are more organized about it, like doing re-enactment, collecting memorabilia - that's a different matter, IMO.

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Kushana
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