Yellow Journalism - part 04
Apr. 16th, 2020 09:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sailorkittyAka, The Nazi Issue.
It is a universal truth in my neck of the woods that neo-Nazis are, on the whole, quite stupid. Dangerous, and stupid. This is a trait they have in common with many of those sharing their views. Case in point being the time Nazi Germany tried to make their own, improved, Nazi version of Titanic.
By re-telling the story of Titantic, it was possible to show what heartless capitalists those Americans scheming for the disaster were (Because of course there had to be conspiracies involved). It was also possible to add a Heroic German to Save The Day and in the words of the Ghost Busters NES game, 'Prooved the justice of our culture'. The Kriegsmarine could take a lot of their sailors out of battle to be extras/on-set advisors and even lend a battleship that was an actual 'improved version' of the Titantic(It's not like there was a war on, or anything). Everyone happy? Fabulous.
Except no.
Firstly, In a modest attempt at saving costs, a 20-foot model of the actual Titanic was created. It had to punted into a lake. So a huge slipway was specially designed in Berlin, by specialists who could be helping the war effort. Our director, an alcoholic named Selpin, insisted on only filming at night. The electronics on this Super Special model kept failing, and the weather made it impossible to film for long stretches of time. Also, the allies were bombing which you'd think would be mean 'Strict Blackout or The Allies Can Bomb You'. And it did, for everyone else. But you see, this film was so special that Goebbels gave Selpin special permission to keep the lights on.
Miraculously, the set did not get bombed. This allowed them to move on with the next phase, wherein Sailors and Soldiers were removed from a front with an increasingly desperate manpower shortage, and made to be extras and on-set advisors. These soldiers had PTSD and were generally young men from a military environment. They were now placed in an environment with considerably looser rules, access to alcohol, and opportunities to sexually harass the female staff. Managing them was a total chore. Selpin lasted an entire week, after which he let loose an amazing anti-Nazi, anti-Wehrmacht, anti-Everything-this-film-stood-for rant that got him interrogated by Goebbels himself.
Selpin was jailed and later found in his cell having 'committed suicide' in a way that many agreed was probably just old-fashioned murder (Nazi tradition). The cast and crew were livid at this, causing Geobbels to step in by threatening to get personal with anyone who had dared shun the guy who reported Selpin. As you do when you really want a film to get finished.
During this whole clusterfuck, Hitler had decided that a 2-front war was totally the best option in this situation, because it's not like that plan ever failed in the past. Stalingrad begun, and Nazi Germany's day in the sun was nearing it's end. Might this not be a good opportunity to end production of a film that had from start to finish eaten more money than most soldiers did in a year?
Nah, quitting is for communists. Goebbels appointed an unknown director to finish the film, which eventually against all odds did happen in October 1942. Upon viewing it, Goebbels realized that scenes of panicked people about to lose everything was maybe not the best thing to show civilians who were being heavily bombed and growing increasingly worried about the whole 'we are losing' situation. Especially given that the story's theme of incompetent leadership dooming their charges eked a little too close to Hitler & Co.
Nazi Titanic, a film meant to demonstrate the Brillance and Competance of Heroic (Nazi) Germany, was subsequently banned in Germany. The total cost of the film was nearly 4 million Reichsmarks (14 million euros in 2009). It is known as one of the most expensive film of its time.
In 1940, the Channel islands were invaded by Nazi Germany. There is much to say about the strange situation involving deportations, anti-Jewish laws, forced labour camps, and eventually concentration camps on what was technically British soil, but the main point we're going to talk about today is: The Resistance.
Generally, you'd expect a resistance movement to spring forth, such as it had in France or Belgium. Unfortunately, the Islands lacked that kind of manpower, among other things. France could rally a wide number of youths to fight the German army, the Channel islands could not (Their manpower had in many cases already left to fight for England). Resistance, though harshly punished if found out, was mainly passive. Sheltering escaped slave labourers, publishing underground news from the BBC, spreading V shapes in secret when possible, and very pointedly speaking only local languages not known to the Germans.
While much should be said about the brave islanders who risked their lives to deliver the news or care for escaped slave labourers, the following heroes seemed relevant to readers.
-Lucille "Claude" Cahun and her girlfriend/wife Suzanne Malherbe. They had both thought of the 'registering religion' census in 1940 as bullcrap, so the fact that they were both Jewish had somehow failed to come up. They used their spare time to produce anti-German leaflets from English-to-German translations of BBC reports, pasted together to create poetry that criticised Nazi Germany. They also dressed up and went to attend German millitary events in Jersey, smuggling said leaflets into soldiers' pockets, dropping them onto chairs, and happily telling soldiers that shooting their officers was totally the best thing to do right now. Unfortunately, their neighbours grew tired of hearing happy giggles at night, and denounced them in 1944. They were sentenced to death, but managed to get downgraded to prison and released in 1945.
-Miriam Milbourne risked her life to save a small herd of the rare Golden Guernsey goat by hiding them for several years. Throughout occupation, food shortages, and the threat of being deported to god-knows-where (Aka German Poland), this woman was extremely devoted to keeping her hobby alive. You kind of have to respect that.
-A farmer hid his bull in a haystack for years, only letting it out at night. (I'm going to go ahead and assume that the 'bull' was actually two British airmen, because this is an 'Allo 'Allo plot.)
It is a universal truth in my neck of the woods that neo-Nazis are, on the whole, quite stupid. Dangerous, and stupid. This is a trait they have in common with many of those sharing their views. Case in point being the time Nazi Germany tried to make their own, improved, Nazi version of Titanic.
By re-telling the story of Titantic, it was possible to show what heartless capitalists those Americans scheming for the disaster were (Because of course there had to be conspiracies involved). It was also possible to add a Heroic German to Save The Day and in the words of the Ghost Busters NES game, 'Prooved the justice of our culture'. The Kriegsmarine could take a lot of their sailors out of battle to be extras/on-set advisors and even lend a battleship that was an actual 'improved version' of the Titantic(It's not like there was a war on, or anything). Everyone happy? Fabulous.
Except no.
Firstly, In a modest attempt at saving costs, a 20-foot model of the actual Titanic was created. It had to punted into a lake. So a huge slipway was specially designed in Berlin, by specialists who could be helping the war effort. Our director, an alcoholic named Selpin, insisted on only filming at night. The electronics on this Super Special model kept failing, and the weather made it impossible to film for long stretches of time. Also, the allies were bombing which you'd think would be mean 'Strict Blackout or The Allies Can Bomb You'. And it did, for everyone else. But you see, this film was so special that Goebbels gave Selpin special permission to keep the lights on.
Miraculously, the set did not get bombed. This allowed them to move on with the next phase, wherein Sailors and Soldiers were removed from a front with an increasingly desperate manpower shortage, and made to be extras and on-set advisors. These soldiers had PTSD and were generally young men from a military environment. They were now placed in an environment with considerably looser rules, access to alcohol, and opportunities to sexually harass the female staff. Managing them was a total chore. Selpin lasted an entire week, after which he let loose an amazing anti-Nazi, anti-Wehrmacht, anti-Everything-this-film-stood-for rant that got him interrogated by Goebbels himself.
Selpin was jailed and later found in his cell having 'committed suicide' in a way that many agreed was probably just old-fashioned murder (Nazi tradition). The cast and crew were livid at this, causing Geobbels to step in by threatening to get personal with anyone who had dared shun the guy who reported Selpin. As you do when you really want a film to get finished.
During this whole clusterfuck, Hitler had decided that a 2-front war was totally the best option in this situation, because it's not like that plan ever failed in the past. Stalingrad begun, and Nazi Germany's day in the sun was nearing it's end. Might this not be a good opportunity to end production of a film that had from start to finish eaten more money than most soldiers did in a year?
Nah, quitting is for communists. Goebbels appointed an unknown director to finish the film, which eventually against all odds did happen in October 1942. Upon viewing it, Goebbels realized that scenes of panicked people about to lose everything was maybe not the best thing to show civilians who were being heavily bombed and growing increasingly worried about the whole 'we are losing' situation. Especially given that the story's theme of incompetent leadership dooming their charges eked a little too close to Hitler & Co.
Nazi Titanic, a film meant to demonstrate the Brillance and Competance of Heroic (Nazi) Germany, was subsequently banned in Germany. The total cost of the film was nearly 4 million Reichsmarks (14 million euros in 2009). It is known as one of the most expensive film of its time.
In 1940, the Channel islands were invaded by Nazi Germany. There is much to say about the strange situation involving deportations, anti-Jewish laws, forced labour camps, and eventually concentration camps on what was technically British soil, but the main point we're going to talk about today is: The Resistance.
Generally, you'd expect a resistance movement to spring forth, such as it had in France or Belgium. Unfortunately, the Islands lacked that kind of manpower, among other things. France could rally a wide number of youths to fight the German army, the Channel islands could not (Their manpower had in many cases already left to fight for England). Resistance, though harshly punished if found out, was mainly passive. Sheltering escaped slave labourers, publishing underground news from the BBC, spreading V shapes in secret when possible, and very pointedly speaking only local languages not known to the Germans.
While much should be said about the brave islanders who risked their lives to deliver the news or care for escaped slave labourers, the following heroes seemed relevant to readers.
-Lucille "Claude" Cahun and her girlfriend/wife Suzanne Malherbe. They had both thought of the 'registering religion' census in 1940 as bullcrap, so the fact that they were both Jewish had somehow failed to come up. They used their spare time to produce anti-German leaflets from English-to-German translations of BBC reports, pasted together to create poetry that criticised Nazi Germany. They also dressed up and went to attend German millitary events in Jersey, smuggling said leaflets into soldiers' pockets, dropping them onto chairs, and happily telling soldiers that shooting their officers was totally the best thing to do right now. Unfortunately, their neighbours grew tired of hearing happy giggles at night, and denounced them in 1944. They were sentenced to death, but managed to get downgraded to prison and released in 1945.
-Miriam Milbourne risked her life to save a small herd of the rare Golden Guernsey goat by hiding them for several years. Throughout occupation, food shortages, and the threat of being deported to god-knows-where (Aka German Poland), this woman was extremely devoted to keeping her hobby alive. You kind of have to respect that.
-A farmer hid his bull in a haystack for years, only letting it out at night. (I'm going to go ahead and assume that the 'bull' was actually two British airmen, because this is an 'Allo 'Allo plot.)
no subject
Date: 2020-04-16 09:54 pm (UTC)