The lost world of 1938
A reader sends a link to a 67-year old Time Magazine article of November, 1938 headlined "After Munich". The snippet reads:
Just before leaving London to visit Paris this week, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the House of Commons that he is once more appealing to Adolf Hitler to continue the Munich work of "appeasement" in general. In so doing he revealed what may yet prove to be the most important international event since Munich, the efforts which the British Government is making to find a home for Germany's Jews. Having queried all the colonies, he revealed that the Governor of Tanganyika has put at his disposal 50,000 acres on which to settle Jewish men, their families to follow if the...
The rest of the article behind the registration wall describes His Majesty's Government's efforts to settle "700,000" victims of "Nazi pogroms" in Tanganyika or in 10,000 square miles of British Guiana.
If the past seems a familiar story with one conceivable ending, those living in it had no presentiment of the future. In 1938 Neville Chamberlain could unashamedly continue the "Munich work of 'appeasement'" and Time Magazine could think that finding a Jewish homeland in Africa or South America was a viable proposition. The Nazi invasion of Poland was less than a year away and the ancient institutions which formed the fabric of the Time's world were not going to last another twenty. The European colonies would disappear; and America would become a world power and the saga of Israel would begin.
But not everything would be unfamiliar to the modern reader. A contemporaneous Time movie reviewer lamented the tendency of Hollywood to distort history.
Sixty Glorious Years (Imperator-RKO Radio) should be an enlightening experience for U. S. cinemaddicts whose notions about 19th-Century history may have been slightly confused by recent Hollywood versions. Suez, for example, portrayed Ferdinand de Lesseps, who actually had two wives and ten children, as a lovesick young bachelor, and explained England's participation in his canal-building as the result of a General Election which never occurred.
And there were miracle tans even then.
At an unnamed beach summer before last an unnamed hypogonadal (undersexed) man lay down in "an abbreviated bathing suit of peculiar cut." He lay there for seven broiling August afternoons and scarcely changed color. ... The scientists examined him, began to treat him with male hormone substance. To their astonishment, "within three weeks there appeared, along with the bronzing of the face, a tanning of the body...
posted by wretchardthecat at 12/26/2005 12:20:00 PM
28 Comments:
Human nature itself seems to have changed the least. Even then people worried about tanlines and preferred fictional Hollywood history to the real thing. Politicians gave the appearance of being in control when they could barely understand what was going on around them. But that's another story.
The hollywood types speak their self-indulgent "enlightened" words in public, but then privately vote - or flee the country - in support of their money. Feckless cowards, all.
W--
If you're not a fan of Al Stewart, I think you would be, just based on his uses of history in his music. This one is from his CD "Between the Wars"...it is haunting.
Laughing Into 1939
Party hat and satin dress
Silver paper curled in her long black hair
Tapping one small elegant shoe in time
Oh, the way she plays with them
Smile at one, then dance with another
Pretty soon they're forming up a line
And she's laughing, laughing into 1939
Oh, laughing, laughing into 1939
Oh, the party draws them in
It breathes and moves
To a life its own
In its arms it's gathering all time
From the dark he watches her
Moving in and out of the bobbing crowd
If she even notices, she gives no sign
And she's laughing, laughing into 1939
Oh, laughing, laughing into 1939
For tonight is New Year's Eve
Uncork your spirits and welcome it in
Who knows what it's got up its sleeve
Can't wait for it all to begin
Stand by the girl with the purple balloon
The look in her eyes just lights up the room
In the corner of her smile
She'll be seeing you soon
Under a mistletoe moon
Out on to the balcony
Come the King and Queen
And the crowd go wild
He's a little bit nervous
But that's just fine
And they're laughing, laughing into 1939
Oh, laughing, laughing into 1939
Obviously, Stewart's British background is here, as it is in all his music.
BTW, one time when Al Stewart was touring here a few years ago, the Baron's Boy got up on stage with Stewart and did an a capella version of "Joe the Georgian" (about Stalin). It has a real Russian flavor and by the end, everyone was stamping their feet with that unmistakable Russian rhythm. It was eerie...
Wretchard: "Human nature itself seems to have changed the least."
Since I was born, I have listened to educated people, supposedly informed people, state and assert and allege and ACT AS IF humans are 'born into "original sin", broken and losing and needing to be fixed"
That often hidden assumption affects much of what we do and don't even attempt to do today, thinking that it will just slide back to 'broken' because of 'human nature'.
This is why Christ (in His New Name) teaches us "Noble have I created thee, wherefore wouldst thou abase thyself?"
If God creates humans noble, with an innate desire and ability to do good, then there is hope for humankind.
So I find myself asking, "If you could see the future, YOUR future, would you look?"
The Good, the neutral-well-meaning, and the Nazi/Communist bad of 1938... the Good would have to look out onto fields and mounds of dead and suffering, created in part by the noticeable lack of courage in confronting the Bad!
It is difficult enough to see where we are and what we're doing, NOW, without wilfully disregarding pertinent portions of recent history!
Humans aren't noble savages, Carridine. The belief that they are has caused more problems than you can possibly imagine.
Humans need to be conditioned to be noble and virtuous. Otherwise, they are animals.
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Cedarford,
The difference between 1938 and 2002 is, of course, that in 1938 the Brit's uncertainty led to appeasement and inaction.
In 2002, Bush decided that, when dealing with post 9/11 threats, uncertainty itself was the enemy.
Strong, decisive action, even when predicated on an error, is much more favorable than waiting around for events to happen to you. Especially nowadays, when threats don't announced themselves before they strike.
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Of course, the obvious rebuttal to that last sentence is "Pearl Harbor."
But I think you get my point. Terrorism in the age of nuclear and biological weaponry is entirely different than a naval sneak attack.
The Jew as Chattel in (medieval) Europe
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The situation in the south of Europe was not quite the same as in the north, for the Jewish communities had been established there since Roman times, the main difference with their neighbors being religion; and it was only toward the very end of the Middle Ages (sometimes even against the wishes both of the local population and the gentry) when they were destroyed or expelled by mandate from above. In northern Europe, however, Jewish communities were often artificial in the sense that Jewries were deliberately introduced, expelled, and then reintroduced, for the sole purpose of usury to benefit the overlord: the Jew thus was a sponge through which the Christian ruler sucked up money and then, after squeezing the sponge dry, threw it away. Starting in the thirteenth century and most common in the fourteenth century, those communities became pawns in the hands of lords, churchmen, and city burghers, who vied with one another for the profits from Jewish usury, usually ranging from ten percent and more of their total income. The Jews were forced to charge higher interest rates, and then still higher, in order to pay the crushing taxes: indeed, in some cases Jewish communities were deliberately encouraged to increase these rates to feed their overlords.
The inevitable result was that the granting of Jewish resident charters became mere speculations and when they were wrung out, the Jews were expelled. (4) As is obvious, the gentile population, plucked clean by this usury, had even less love for their oppressors than did the overlords using them. Since by the late Middle Ages certain powerful Christian families--Italians and those from southern France called the "pope's usurers"--already controlled commercial loans, the ill-will was heightened. The strong residue of this hatred in Germany was a factor in the coming to power of a man like Adolf Hitler many centuries later.
The underlying tragedy involved in the granting of these charters, aside from their limited nature, was that they could be modified or revoked at the caprice of the overlord, for in both the theory and practice of medieval law the Jew was without fixed rights. In what might almost be considered a prologue to a Zionist tract of the late nineteenth century, a charter of John II of France in 1361 stated: "They have not country nor one single place in all Christianity where they can live, frequent and dwell, and it is only by the pure and singular license of the Seigneur or Seigneurs who desire to bear them as subjects that they will be gathered and received." (5) His predecessor Saint Louis put the matter more bluntly in his Statutes: "The Jew has nothing of his own and what he acquired, it is the king who acquires." (6) It thus became the custom for the Jews themselves and their property to be transferred as chattel.
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Under the Holy Roman Empire the emperor claimed an unconditional right over the Jews but often surrendered this right as part of the power politics involved among the various bodies within the empire. This sometimes degenerated into a farce with results more or less vicious depending on the circumstances. In the late thirteenth century, when Albert of Hapsburg was fighting with Adolf of Nassau as to which would be the emperor, the property and loans outstanding of Jews killed in the riots attending this struggle were a key in Albert's victory and consolidation of power. Emperor Charles IV in 1349 gave the archbishop of Trier (Treves) the goods of Jews "who have already been killed or may still be killed"; in the same year he offered the Margrave of Brandenburg the choice of the three best houses in Nuremberg "when there is next a massacre of Jews there." (7) Perhaps the most extreme position was taken by Margrave Albert III Achilles of Brandenburg who in 1463 declared that each new Holy Roman Emperor had the right to burn the Jews on his accession, to expel them, or to take a third of their property--and as the emperor's emissary he graciously chose the third alternative.
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c4 spews:
No one in Germany imagined the Final Solution back then -
September 10, 1935
THE NUREMBERG LAWS
Ben S. Austin
The Congress of the National Socialist Workers' Party (NAZI) convened in Nuremburg, Germany on September 10, 1935. Among the many items of business on the Nazi agenda was the passage of a series of laws designed (a) to clarify the requirements of citizenship in the Third Reich, (b) to assure the purity of German blood and German honor and (b) to clarify the position of Jews in the Reich. These three laws, passed on September 15, 1935, and the numerous auxillary laws which followed them are called the Nuremberg Laws. They are reprinted here in their entirety. Please take special note of the similarity between these laws and the Jim Crow Laws which were passed in the United States following the Compromise of 1877, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy vs Ferguson (1896) and remained in effect until the court reversed the "separate but equal doctrine in Brown vs the Board of Education of Topeka (1954). It is clear that Hitler used the Jim Crow segregation statutes as his model for defining Jews in the Third Reich.
c4 spews:
No one in Germany imagined the Final Solution back then -
September 10, 1935
THE NUREMBERG LAWS
Ben S. Austin
The Congress of the National Socialist Workers' Party (NAZI) convened in Nuremburg, Germany on September 10, 1935. Among the many items of business on the Nazi agenda was the passage of a series of laws designed (a) to clarify the requirements of citizenship in the Third Reich, (b) to assure the purity of German blood and German honor and (b) to clarify the position of Jews in the Reich. These three laws, passed on September 15, 1935, and the numerous auxillary laws which followed them are called the Nuremberg Laws. They are reprinted here in their entirety. Please take special note of the similarity between these laws and the Jim Crow Laws which were passed in the United States following the Compromise of 1877, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy vs Ferguson (1896) and remained in effect until the court reversed the "separate but equal doctrine in Brown vs the Board of Education of Topeka (1954). It is clear that Hitler used the Jim Crow segregation statutes as his model for defining Jews in the Third Reich.
By 1938, the world outside Germany should have known something of Hitler's sentiments and intentions toward the Jews. As early as 1935, the Nazis had passed the infamous Nuremberg Laws regarding racial purity and, in subsequent statutes, defined the Jews as non-citizens. In the three months prior to the conference at Evian, several specific statutes were passed which were clearly intended to deprive Jews of their economic livelihood and to remove them from a competitive position in the German economy. Despite these widely known facts, the conference closed on July 15 without deciding on any policy for assisting Jewish deportees.
aristide
for once I must disagree with you.
Prior to 9-11-01 the threat was well announced.
The threat is also well announced today.
It was well announced in 1938 as well. Mr Churchill saw it, as did others. He may have read Hitlers writing.
The threat to US was easily visible in NYC in 1991 when the WTC was attacked, it was visible in Somalia, and the two African countries where the Embassies were bombed. It was visible in the Kobar Towers barracks bombing in KSA, was visible in Pakistan obtaining nuclear weapons, was visible in the Afghan Taliban's destruction of the Buddist icons, it was visible in the Kashmere conflict. It was definately visible in Yemen when the USS Cole was almost sunk. It is visible to anyone that is willing to read Dr Z's writing.
Some of US just refused to see it, before 9-11-01, some of US refuse to see the threat today.
1938 appears to have been a pivotal year for the Nazi movement and for Jews. The frantic efforts to force Jews out of the Reich set in motion two additional processes. First, Hermann Goering, assumed wide-ranging powers over the German economy and began his process of "Aryanization" of Jewish economic resources. Numerous policies were instituted in an effort to pauperize Germany's Jews and cut them off from the German economy. In April, Jews were required to register with the government all personal property valued at 5,000 marks or more. In June, required registration of all Jewish-owned firms was made law. In July, the medical licenses of Jewish doctors were declared invalid. This was extended to lawyers in September. On November 12, 1938, Goering convened a conference in Berlin to plan the systematic "Aryianization" (Ger. arisierung) of Jewish businesses. These policies extended into 1939: in February Jews were required to surrender all gold and silver to the government. These policies seem to contradict the avowed desire of the government to deport Jews to other countries. Without money for transportation and resettlement, Jews could not afford to emigrate.
To further this process, Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, instigated the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 9-10, 1938. At the infamous meeting of top Party leaders on November 12 following Kristallnacht, Goering announced Hitler's wishes on the subject of how to proceed with the Jewish Question:
The Jewish question is to be summed up and coordinated once and for all and solved one way or another...If the German Reich should in the future become involved in conflict abroad then it is obvious that we in Germany will first of all make sure of settling accounts with the Jews. Apart from that, the Fuehrer is now at last to make a major move abroad, starting with the powers that have brought up the Jewish question, in order to get around to the Madagascar solution. He explained this to me in detail on November 9. There is no longer any other way.(quoted in Christopher Browning, "The Final Solution," Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Israel Gutman, ed.), New York: Macmillan, 1990, Vol.II, p. 490. [The "Madagascar solution" was a widely publicized plan to ship all German Jews to the island of Madagascar, off the east African coast. Madagascar had formerly been a French colonial possession. There were other similar plans for an African colony -- Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa. BSA]
Prior to the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria, emigration was voluntary. Important steps were taken toward a "final solution" when the decision was made first to force Jews to emigrate and, second, to pauperize Jews to the point that emigration was impossible. The crucial turning point in this process was the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Hitler's predictions before the Reichstag early in 1939 contain an ominous forboding of the next stages of the Final Solution:
Today I will once more be a prophet! If the international Jewish financiers inside and outside Europe should again succees in plunging the nations into a world war, the result will not be the bolshevization of the earth and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race throughout Europe.
Events which were soon to follow suggest that Hitler had already begun consideration of an all-out extermination of Jews upon the outbreak of war.
"some of US refuse to see the threat today"
???
We clear thinkers on the left have seen the threat of Bushitler since day 1.
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OT:
Tony, in case you're out there:
"I mentioned earlier that Ray Kurzweil will be on Book TV at 10:15 Eastern tonight. Now David Boaz emails that Milton Friedman will be on Charlie Rose tonight at 11."
- Instapundit
(If we had TV I'd watch it)
The online archive looks interesting:
http://www.booktv.org/history/archive.asp
VDH, among others.
Pork,
There was nothing new in what Hitler did. He was just following an old european pattern. Read the article I linked to. Hitler's contribution to the matter was the industrialization of the process.
Here's a link to a catalogue of historical genocides. In sheer numbers, Stalin's campaign against the Ukranians equals or even dwarfs the Jewish holocaust. Even Leopold may have killed more in the Belgian Congo. But the Jewish people were relatively more articulate than some other peoples who went unnoticed into that dark night. They could write plays, keep diaries, make movies. For a while afterward they sought to defend themselves chiefly with words, so that infamy itself might prove a shield against what is, after all, the time honored human practice of wiping out whole populations. And because they knew how fragile were the guarantees of civilization they acquired nuclear weapons. The referendum on the United Nations can be tallied in the number of nations who are willing to rely upon it soley for their survival.
Cedarford was right in saying that Hitler underestimated how expensive the Second World War would be. And I think that President Ahmadinejad of Iran has underrated the costs of wiping a certain 'shitty little country' off the map. I don't think human nature has changed much since 1938 nor have our powers of foresight demonstrably improved.
cedarford: In our time we thought of the Iraq War as an easy high tech victory with our "magnificent soldiers and wonder weapons".
It was an easy high-tech victory. The guerrilla war phase has been extended somewhat, but has certainly been far lower in friendly casualties than just about any guerrilla war I know of. The conventional phase plus the guerrilla war phase has cost far less lives than either either Korea or Vietnam. That some conservatives were silly enough to think that we would see Desert Storm levels of casualties is an indication of their over-optimism, not of the difficulty of the Iraqi campaign, which has been a cakewalk compared to most guerrilla wars.
The best case did not pan out, but neither the worst, where comparisons were made to Stalingrad during the conventional phase, and Vietnam during the guerrilla phase. During the conventional phase, Iraqi forces were crushed like bugs. During the current guerrilla phase, Iraqi guerrillas are inflicting as many KIA on American forces in a year as the Vietnamese Communists did in a single month. The Vietnam comparison simply doesn't hold, except in the sense that they are both guerrilla wars. The other fact that leftists like to leave out is that most guerrilla wars are won by the government, not the guerrillas.
Wretchard,
What percentage of the Ukrainian population did Stalin manage to kill? Was it anything close to 90%?
Cedarfard,
The Germans and Russians suffered just as horrendously as the British or French in WW1. Why do you think avoiding another Continental War wasn't quite so high on their set of priorities?
Aristides: Wholeheartedly AGREE!
As a linguist, I learned years ago that the Sanskrit roots for HU-M'N
translate to "GOD"-"creature/animal"
Experience has verified that when HUmans develop their God-like nature, behave in a God-like way and show forth rational compassion, we are angelic.
When we turn toward and express unfettered '-man/m'n" urges, we are brutal, brutish, inhumane and cruel.
***
Pork Rinds: "As early as 1935, the Nazis had passed the infamous Nuremberg Laws regarding racial purity and, in subsequent statutes, defined the Jews as non-citizens."
For years now, Iran has lived under a constitution which defines (racially pure) citizens as Muslims, Christians, Jews (yep!) and Zoroastrians, effectively defining Baha'is as non-citizens!
The parallels are neither imagined nor projected, Sir. Iran's theo-racist drift is unmistakable and deadly! And now they want NUKES!
Doug,
I originally posted to the other thread about the myth of Nam vets not being respected - to counter Wretchard's buying of the proposition of "Taxi Driver" - all Nam vets are scary. (And I for one get the St. Crispin's Day feeling about Vietnam Vet, not the scary Deerhunter/Platoon feeling.)
The universal "spitting on" Nam vets was not true in my big city neighborhood, and based on their numbers in Congress today, most Americans respect Nam vets.
That's all, just a correction of history, lest an error slip through HERE of all places, in the Belmont Club.
Wretchard is an Aussie, we can't let Hollywood shape his understanding of America!
pork rinds for allah your information on the Nuremberg laws was good (I had read about some of those while in school - but I had forgotten the details).
I suspect that those who supported Neville Chamberlain probably knew in the back of their minds what was happening but simply refused to acknowledge the harsh realities. And, your rebuttal to cedarF are well taken.
Mika asks: What percentage of the Ukrainian population did Stalin manage to kill? Was it anything close to 90%?
Yes, that is a valid point. Although, Stalin probably did kill more people on a sheer numbers basis, he did not not wipe an entire group of people (or 90% them).
Moving on to Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hitler have a eire resemblance. They both stated their goal of wiping the Jews off the map. If Ahmadinejad does obtain nukes I think he will try to make good on that goal.
Cedarfard,

This explanation you just gave, is it your personal assessment and belief, or is that load of hooey just you're faithful mouthing of the standard Nazi propaganda line, to give their side of the story?
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