Electric Human Suit

3 notes

In documentaries portraying the Third Reich, Hitler is cast as a master magician; these documentaries typically include scenes in which Hitler is speaking at huge mass meetings. (…) Cuts mix Hitler screaming with regiments marching under the sign of the swastika. Instead of providing a translation of his verbal crescendos, the sequence is overlaid with a speaker talking about something different.

All this combines to demonize Hitler as an evil wizard spellbinding an unwitting German people to become his zombified servants until they are liberated from the spell by the Allied victory after which, suddenly, there were no German Nazis left among the populace.

How convenient it would be if this image were correct. National socialism could be defeated with garlic. Watchdog groups could be replaced with a few vampire killers, and resources being directed into anti-racist community programs could be directed at something else. (…)

The truth, however, is that millions of ordinary German workers, farmers and businessmen supported the national socialist program. (…) They were people who probably considered themselves good citizens, which is far more frightening than had they merely been demons.