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Behind the Aegis

(53,823 posts)
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 03:47 AM Nov 2013

Kristallnacht: 75 years ago in pictures








(Above: Arrest of Jews in Baden-Baden, Germany, escorted by the SS after Kristallnacht with a sign stating: G-d does not forgive us)


(Above: Jewish men being deported from Baden-Baden after Kristallnacht)


(Synagogue in Siegen, Germany)


(Above: Berlin, Germany, the ruins of the Fasanenstrasse Synagogue)














(Above: The bottom tagline: "The Jews are our misfortune.&quot
29 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Kristallnacht: 75 years ago in pictures (Original Post) Behind the Aegis Nov 2013 OP
I saw a scanned version of "Der Giftpilz" on the internet a few years ago krispos42 Nov 2013 #1
Thanks for posting 1000words Nov 2013 #2
The third photograph, above the New York Times newspaper cover... slor Nov 2013 #3
And the others? Behind the Aegis Nov 2013 #5
I hope I did not convey disrespect... slor Nov 2013 #6
It's ok. Behind the Aegis Nov 2013 #22
A Holocaust revisionist on DU!?! slor Nov 2013 #23
Yeah, I meant to put that in my post and forgot! Sorry. Behind the Aegis Nov 2013 #24
Rec... freshwest Nov 2013 #4
K&R Warren DeMontague Nov 2013 #7
K&R meti57b Nov 2013 #8
In 1979 a rabbi let me view the inside of an Augsburg synagogue. no_hypocrisy Nov 2013 #9
This was just two years after the Berlin Olympics which the US refused to boycott. Bluenorthwest Nov 2013 #10
K&R octoberlib Nov 2013 #11
k&r HappyMe Nov 2013 #12
k and r dembotoz Nov 2013 #13
Kick & recommended. William769 Nov 2013 #14
Heartbreaking. ScreamingMeemie Nov 2013 #15
k&r Starry Messenger Nov 2013 #16
never forget Sunlei Nov 2013 #17
What I don't get is JNelson6563 Nov 2013 #18
After the war, the two sides went about it differently DFW Nov 2013 #28
VERY interesting DFW! JNelson6563 Nov 2013 #29
Great OP, BtA, and what's more: PCIntern Nov 2013 #19
Thanks! Behind the Aegis Nov 2013 #25
They comprised less than 1% of Germany's population . . . Brigid Nov 2013 #20
They blamed us for the loss of WWI. Behind the Aegis Nov 2013 #26
This was a huge hit from a German band called 'BAP' in 1982. Call Me Wesley Nov 2013 #21
Amazing Packerowner740 Nov 2013 #27

krispos42

(49,445 posts)
1. I saw a scanned version of "Der Giftpilz" on the internet a few years ago
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 04:00 AM
Nov 2013

I think I saved it somewhere on my computer.

It was fairly disgusting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Giftpilz

https://archive.org/details/DerGiftpilz

The extraordinary danger of controlled media.

slor

(5,504 posts)
3. The third photograph, above the New York Times newspaper cover...
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 06:19 AM
Nov 2013

I have seen multiple times described as a photo from the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.

Behind the Aegis

(53,823 posts)
5. And the others?
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 06:59 AM
Nov 2013

I find more show it to be associated with Kristallnacht, but it certainly could be Warsaw.

slor

(5,504 posts)
6. I hope I did not convey disrespect...
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 08:15 AM
Nov 2013

I simply wanted to point out my understanding and knowledge of the photo, one I have seen many times. Indeed it is my sincerest belief that we need to document such atrocities as accurately as we can, out of respect for the victims, and, to hopefully bring those responsible to justice.



Edit: I actually just saw the same picture at another angle and I am almost certain that this is
not Kristallnacht.

Behind the Aegis

(53,823 posts)
22. It's ok.
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 03:31 PM
Nov 2013

I may have been a bit on edge and misread your intent. On another thread, I and another poster were dealing with a honest-to-G-d Holocaust revisionist! So to say I was a bit peeved is an understatement. The research I did after your comment, granted it was not scientifically through, but the majority of sites that use this picture do so in regards to Kristallnacht. Only a handful, mostly Eastern European sites (so I couldn't read what was being said), used the picture from the Uprising. Two of those sites said it actually preceded the uprising. So, it well may be from the Warsaw Uprising.

slor

(5,504 posts)
23. A Holocaust revisionist on DU!?!
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 03:38 PM
Nov 2013

I hope that this person was tombstoned! There should be zero tolerance on this matter. I was sadly exposed to the Final Solution very early in my life (age 5 or 6) and it had a profound effect on me. I knew then that monsters were real and it made fearful of the world.


Edit: I do agree that I also found the picture associated with Kristallnacht, and Warsaw, but I will explain why I will rule out the former. The soldiers appear to be part of the unit commanded by ss gruppenfuhrer jurgen stroop during his brutal operations in Warsaw during 1943. I also do not recall seeing any women or children in pictures that I have seen of Kristallnacht arrests. That is not to say that the nazis and many German civilians were not perfectly willing to do just that, I just think that it was still too soon for them to do so openly.

Behind the Aegis

(53,823 posts)
24. Yeah, I meant to put that in my post and forgot! Sorry.
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 03:39 PM
Nov 2013

Yeah, Skinner showed his ass the door. Again, I apologize for jumping the gun, so thank you for not getting defensive with me.

no_hypocrisy

(45,770 posts)
9. In 1979 a rabbi let me view the inside of an Augsburg synagogue.
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 08:29 AM
Nov 2013

It was still in ruins from Kristallnacht. I don't know whether they were keeping it in such a state for preservation and history or whether they abandoned the building.

 

Bluenorthwest

(45,319 posts)
10. This was just two years after the Berlin Olympics which the US refused to boycott.
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 09:12 AM
Nov 2013

Mr Brundage of the Olympic Committee traveled to Germany and reported that there was no discrimination against Jews in Germany, and in fact he claimed that the 'bad reports' about the Nazis were falsely contrived by a conspiracy between press and the Jews to besmirch Hitler's reputation.

Sunlei

(22,651 posts)
17. never forget
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 01:16 PM
Nov 2013


Suddenly someone shouted that a Jewish family was living on the ground floor of the apartment building across the street from the synagogue. Watching the fire, the crowd was backed against the building. Someone else shouted: „Let’s get them!" Everyone turned around. Those closest surged through the building entrance. I could hear heavy blows against the apartment door. In my imagination I pictured a frightened family hiding in a room as far as possible from the entrance door - hoping and praying that the door would withstand, and I prayed with them. I vividly remember the crashing violent noise of splintering wood followed by deadly silence, then suddenly wild cries of triumph. An elderly bald-headed man was brutally pushed through the crowd while fists rained down on him from all sides accompanied by antisemitic epithets. His face was bloodied.

What has remained and will forever remain in my memory is the image of the thick column of smoke standing on top of the center cupola of that beautiful synagogue and the bloodied bald head of an unknown Jew.


Ernest Günter Fontheim
(Aufbau, No 26, December 18, 1998)

Jewish Groups in Berlin
09/10. November 1938

JNelson6563

(28,151 posts)
18. What I don't get is
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 01:25 PM
Nov 2013

how did the people of Germany ever gain redemption in the eyes of the rest of the world?

Julie

DFW

(54,047 posts)
28. After the war, the two sides went about it differently
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 05:25 PM
Nov 2013

In the west, many former Nazi functionaries got jobs, but many others were arrested and jailed or executed. In all West German schools, kids were taught extensively about the Nazis and told exactly what had happened. There were probably a lot of uncomfortable discussions at the dinner table after school, but the Allies demanded it be this way. My two kids attended an elementary school here in my little town in Germany. It is called the Anne Frank elementary school, and all the kids learn about Anne Frank, what happened to her and why. As a final irony, the building now housing the Anne Frank school was the Gestapo headquarters during the war.

In the former East Germany, they devised an easier solution: they just adopted Nazi uniforms (except for the helmets) and their goose-stepping and control-freak ways, and declared themselves all loyal socialists--"no Nazis here!" And so by denying any Nazis to exist on their territory, they ignored the latent Nazi sentiment in Eastern Germany until after the regime crumbled, and the neo-Nazis grew quickly to become a social problem (currently under control).

My father-in-law was an apolitical farmer's kid who was drafted against his will into the Wehrmacht at age 17, and sent as cannon fodder to Stalingrad. He returned at age 18, minus a leg, and cursed the Nazis under his breath whenever he saw any reminder of them. His greatest wish was that his grandchildren would all be girls so they would never have to serve in the military (a wish he was granted, as fate would have it). My wife's mom was the youngest in her family and lost three brothers and her house to bombing during the war. A whole family of pacifists was born when my wife's parents met, and they conspired to get my wife's brother a health deferment so that he couldn't be drafted (West Germany had compulsory military service at the time).

Here's a little tidbit of irony: in the 1980s, a former SS officer tried to found a neo-Nazi party in Western Germany. As the Nazi Party is strictly forbidden here, they had to look around for something else to call themselves. They found their inspiration right in Ronald Reagan's United States and called themselves "Die Republikaner." No joke. Die Republikaner. Luckily, they never got enough of the vote to even rise above the radar, and now are mostly little more than a bad memory.

JNelson6563

(28,151 posts)
29. VERY interesting DFW!
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 10:27 PM
Nov 2013

Thank you for taking the time to write all of that out. Fascinating!

Not surprised to learn an old school nazi took some inspiration from Reagan.

You should write a book! You've had a very interesting life!

Julie

PCIntern

(25,341 posts)
19. Great OP, BtA, and what's more:
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 01:32 PM
Nov 2013

it is in juxtaposition with the "Down with Netanyahu" threads which excoriate Israel for attempting to maintain itself throughout the very types of terrorism that brings the US routinely TO ITS KNEES. One asswipe shows up at LAX and the whole country inhales a deep breath and starts rending its clothes and recriminations ensue for weeks and months. One jerkweed puts a bomb in his shoe and then old ladies will have to disrobe in our airports in perpetuity. The Israelis have been fighting off terrorist groups since 1948 continuously, with many deadly attacks, certainly enormously greater per capita than those here...but that is all right with these folks, since..well...since...well, just BECAUSE. But as you know, they do it successfully and strategically. And that pisses some people off here no end.

Behind the Aegis

(53,823 posts)
25. Thanks!
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 04:24 PM
Nov 2013

Yes, there are those who lurk among us, wolves in semi-sheep's clothing. They are the ones that blame us for Kristallnacht and the Holocaust. Just think, the last of the survivors are moving on, what will happen after?

Brigid

(17,621 posts)
20. They comprised less than 1% of Germany's population . . .
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 01:32 PM
Nov 2013

And yet, supposedly they were the cause of all of Germany's problems.

Call Me Wesley

(38,187 posts)
21. This was a huge hit from a German band called 'BAP' in 1982.
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 01:43 PM
Nov 2013

It's in German dialect, but below are the English lyrics I could find.



t happens to me I think something is rattling
That something's getting lost inside of me
A noise, not even loud,
Sometimes this rattling is so familiar to me
Seldom so that you immediately comprehend

You wake up, you rub your eyes and see
In a painting between Brueghel and Bosch
You see no one to set great by sirens
Because the sound of the all-clear costs only half as much
It smells of Crystal night

In the calm before the storm, what's that?
On the quiet someone leaves the town
Dignitaries incognito hurry past
Officially they don't like to be involved
When the angry populace - be prepared! -
Is rioting and yelling near the boiling point:
"Hail! Mort!" and boundlessly lecherous shouts for revenge
Trembling of envy
In the Crystal night

But those who're disturbed by what's different to them
Who swim with the tide as is right and proper
Who see gays as criminals
Strangers as scum
Need someone to lead them astray

And then there's no cavalry rescuing
No Zorro will care about
He will be pissing a "Z" in the snow
And then for coolness pass out
"Who cares? Crystal night"

In the church with the Franz-Kafka-clock without hand
With only strokes upon it, there is a blind man reading "The shock-headed Peter" to a deaf one
Behind a triple-locked door
And the guardian with the bunch of keys thinks he's really some kind of genius
Because he powders the ways out and sells them for claustrophobia
In the Crystal night

Meanwhile, perhaps at the market square,
Unmasked, today with its real face
Picking up stones, sharpening the knife
For those who are already squealed
The lynch-mob practices for the Last Judgement
And to load them they're only hastily moored, the galleys have long their steam up
And they're waiting for slaves in the harbor, for the trash of the unequal combat
Of the Crystal night

Where Darwin has to pay for everything
No matter if people are expelled or tormented
Where money hides behind the power
Where strength is as important as everything
Distorted by ducking and standing to attention
Where hymns are even played on a comb
Where in barbarous greed for profit, you can hear them yell "Hosanna!" and "Crucify him!"
When you see there any advantage at all
There'll be daily a Crystal night
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