August 26, 2005
The Softer Side of Hitler
Award-winning filmmaker Laurence Rees spent 15 years tracking down and interviewing the surviving members of the lost tribe of Nazis for a new series on British TV, Inside the Nazi State. But why would the former Nazis talk to him now? Says Rees:
"I think it must be something to do with your life history having a pattern and at the end of it you look back and remember the things that had a real impact on you. You become reflective about what was really important. And, of course, they wanted to explain themselves to their grandchildren, who were looking at them and saying: 'I love you but I can't understand why you became a Nazi.' "
Writes Fenton Bailey: Gabriel Rotello and I had an interesting encounter with a former Nazi when we were making our film about how Hitler might have been – probably was, actually – gay. Gabriel scored an interview with Roland Misch, the phone operator in the bunker in the final days. He lived in the suburbs of Hamburg in a neat little suburban house. (More after the jump)
"[Hitler] wasn't a monster." Misch said. "He is presented and built up by others in such a way and depicted in a way that he wasn't. So much is written. But he wasn't a monster. When you were close to him, he basically was a very simple person. A very simple person. He was no monster. We had a very good, nice boss. We couldn't complain.
"We all had tailored suits and when I first got there the chief adjutant told me, 'Those military shoes that you are wearing. The boss doesn't like when you walk across the rugs with them.' I was supposed to go to the office and get a chit for other shoes, so I wouldn't wear military-type shoes on those rugs.
"He was nice and I cannot say anything otherwise. All that time I only heard him raise his voice twice. But other than that, during the daily updates and discussions, everything was calm. It was rare that a loud word was heard."
Oh, those Nazis!
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Comments
-- Tuffy | August 26, 2005 3:18 PM
Sounds right to me.
-- Anonymous | August 26, 2005 6:23 PM
Did you ever go to Bergen Belsen when you were there? As horrific as the death camps were this small concentration camp was so much more impacting to me. As you walked up to it in the dense forest of northern Germany the birds and animals frolicking, you thought you might be approaching a little park.
After walking through a tree lined path you come to the open area where there are mounds rising up from short brick wall with numbers everything goes deathly quiet. Even the grass refused to grow green where the huts of those like Ann and Margot Frank I can't say lived, in between empting the rail cars of the dead.
This one place where every nation in the world did come together and placing a monument with a prayer in every language for those unmarked and only numbered graves.
I too have spoken to former Nazi's that spoke about those days almost fondly and I could not help but be repulsed. You are stronger of stomach than I Fenton.
-- Anonymous | August 26, 2005 7:39 PM
If we learned anything from "American Psycho" wasn't it that the murderous can have excellent taste?
-- Anonymous | August 27, 2005 8:15 AM
Hitler probably hated himself for being gay and directed it towards others. Pretty simple I'd say.
-- Liz | August 27, 2005 10:00 AM
Hitler's genocidal efforts are not unique in history, they belong in a continuum of European eradication of "inferiors" that runs through colonial history.
Germans learnt the fundamentals of "lebensraum" and racial extinction from sending their sociologists over here to observe the eradication of the native americans. They coined the term "Lebenraum" after observing how it was successfully achieved in the USA.
Freidrich Ratzel published "Der Lebensraum" in 1901 which depicted the eradication of American Indians and justified the usurpation of their lands by "superior" European Americans. This book became one of Hitler's favorites.
-- Anonymous | August 29, 2005 10:59 AM
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-- Oregon | February 1, 2007 12:08 AM
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-- Oregon | February 1, 2007 12:08 AM
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-- Papaypm | July 6, 2007 1:32 AM
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-- Papaypm | July 6, 2007 1:33 AM
Of course, what kind of knee-jerk reactionary would I be if I didn't observe some situational similarity to George Bush: A very nice, personable, albeit simple man, under whose administration great moral sins are freely committed.