KZ Dachau 1933

**N.C. Wyeth** · 07-15-2009, 07:02 PM

I agree. Critical and introspective thought is paramount . . . most importantly for us collectors and enthusiasts.

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 07-15-2009 07:02 PM

We also buy and trade your items and full collections!

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 07-15-2009, 07:12 PM

....plus some pretty comprehensive reading in serious books about Germnany and Europe's history in the 20th century. If someone is seriously interested in the latter, send me a personal note and I can furnish you the titles of twenty or thirty books to read so you can make sense of Dachau and its meaning in German history.

The Sydnor book is a good place to start. And a biography of Eicke, which is pretty blood curdling, too, actually.

Once more, I refer to the statements I made a while back in this thread, which were rogered up to by Adrian as concerns politics.

We live today in a time of crisis in which many of the ideas that were the motive force behind Dachau are again abroad in the wider world.

Those ideas do NOT belong on this website.

Many innocent Germans died especially in the last phase of the war, but their needless deaths cannot be tallied up against the totalitarian and inhuman goals of the Nazi regime, and especially how Bavaria in 1933 and 1934 was the testing ground for the process of state sponsored terror that the SS represented for the many other victims in their number.

I am no proponent of collective guilt, to be sure, but one has only to deepen one's self in Himmler speeches and writings to get some sense of what was in train here. And many of his speeches are now on line, and they repay quite well your listening to them, if you have some doubts about his strategic plan.

The fact the guy was also a coward in the final phase of all of this, and tried to worm out of it should also be levied against all the poses of superman in other contexts. At least Shickelgruber had the guts to marry his sweetie and blows his brains out.

Further, discussions of politics as well as interpretations of history, versus propaganda and mass persuasion should go elsewhere on this site, if at all.

And, if Dachau seems sanitized, since most of the original camp was eradicated because of disease and filth afterward, then go to Mauthausen near Linz and you can take the full measure of how awful this system of camp was, even they are not per se the Aktion Reinhard camps of such places as Sobibor and Belzec. Mauthausen is more intact, and with the Steinbrueck is more frightening, awful and wretched than Dachau because of the nexus between the slave labor system and profit for the architectural aims of Nazi imperialism and racism.

A close friend of mine was a surgeon in the US Army at the time and did liberate Dachau in 1945.

**N.C. Wyeth** · 07-15-2009, 07:29 PM

I agree about Mauthausen . . . a visit is a much different experience than found at Dachau.

I hope the link was not out of bounds - politics, propaganda, and mass persuasion are not my intent, and rest far from any of my interests.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 07-15-2009, 07:38 PM

by N.C. Wyeth

I agree about Mauthausen . . . a visit is a much different experience than found at Dachau.

I hope the link was not out of bounds - politics, propaganda and mass persuasion was not my intent, and far from my interest.

Thanks. My comment was not directed at you, Mr. Wyeth, but at others, whose interest in this material is often linked to a political agenda in which soft Holocaust denial is a prominent feature. I know you are fine collector and a person genuinely interested in the regalia and its meaning in the best and widest sense. Your posts are always first rate, judicious, informed and make a real contribution here. My thanks.

The internet is a major vector for neo Nazis, and they should keep to their own websites, far from here. Such is part of our job, I think, so we can have a place to reflect on the regalia and its meaning more or less within the framework of human rights and constitutional freedoms that makes the internet a force in the first place. The alternative is there and pretty frightening, too.

I teach a graduate class on propaganda and mass persuasion, so all of this is very much on my mind especially when I look at the internet. Goebbels and others would be delighted with the durability of their ideas, which still have great currency in the wider world and which You Tube has given a second lease on life.

I am glad you were able to travel to Germany and see these things. The other point: the reality of Germany today is so very far removed from 1933 as to make one wonder how it all really happened there in the first place. But then, again, we confront in 2009 some very disturbing similarities of war, political crisis, social dislocation, and economic crisis with the search for scape goats that are all too familiar and surely concern many nations. In this Germany of today is a place of remarkable tolerance and success of the rule of law, especially because of Dachau. Bavaria is a wonderful place. I just came back from Munich, actually. I have the bills here to prove it.

Once more, Mr. Wyeth thanks for your posts and please grace us in future with your interests and your inputs of great merit.

**N.C. Wyeth** · 07-15-2009, 07:50 PM

Thank you for the kind words. In my former profession, I spent many hours in the study of mass persuausion and propaganda - a tool the graphic artist struggles to achieve, albeit in a totally different fashion. I think I would find your class interesting. Mall-shoppers at Christmas, and the variety of influences being subliminally manipulated upon them are always a treat to observe . . . I agree - Bavaria is a magnificent place. At times, I have considered a permanent relocation . . . hefty bills and all! Hope you had a great time - it would be difficult not to . . .

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 07-15-2009, 07:59 PM

by N.C. Wyeth

Thank you for the kind words. In my former profession, I spent many hours in the study of mass persuausion and propaganda - a tool the graphic artist struggles to achieve, albeit in a totally different fashion. I think I would find your class interesting. Mall-shoppers at Christmas, and the variety of influences being subliminally manipulated upon them are always a treat to observe . . . I agree - Bavaria is a magnificent place. At times, I have considered a permanent relocation . . . hefty bills and all! Hope you had a great time - it would be difficult not to . . .

Thanks for yours. As you well know, the graphic arts for commercial purposes were raised to an exceptionally high level in Europe of the era. Such people were in service of the regime, as well as such social misfits as Eicke and the peasant kids he inculcated with a doctrine of contempt for human rights in the service of racial supermacy and state terror. That is what is really shocking about Nazism, is how many components of modern society found expression in the deliberate attempt to disenfranchise, imprison and then, later, murder on an ever growing scale groups in society deemed to be enemies or unworthy of the exertions of state and society. It is also true that such was possible upon a foundation that already existed in such societies, but the 20th century was able to reach new lows in human barbarity not the least because the idea was sold with mass persuasion that relied on images and methods taken from commercial advertising. Munich itself was a center of the art world in central Europe, and it hardly needs saying that the chief propagandist and ideologue himself had no small aptitude in all of this, even if the academy in Vienna would not let him in.

My father was an artist, actually.

If I can swing it, I want to move to either Berlin or Vienna, where one can take a real interest in all of these things.

**vady** · 07-15-2009, 08:05 PM

history is not holy writ, save for the benighted or those refusing to consider others' POVs. some of these views are noxious. (it's always nice to have others agree with you, nie?)

still, no shame in revising what's known, or clarifying what suffers from gaps. in fact, it's the historian's professional obligation to revise in light of new discoveries; happens all the time. with the end of the USSR, for ex., vast new material is prompting large-scale revisionism in many spheres (even UFOs!). it's our obligation as sentient beings to weigh and measure newly-disclosed information - even (or especially) if it goes against Received Wisdom or our personal grain.

I don't say it is EASY; the hunt for Truth seldom is. motives or bone fides or selectivity of contrarian website owners can be questioned, sure. and maybe should be. then, if german, soviet, khmer rouge, saddam hussein's, or others' crimes turn out to be still more horrific, more grotesque than previously known, so be it. ditto, if even marginally less.

in short, the enshrinement of specific crimes, or condemnation of specific peoples is not only anti-historical. it lurches very close to prejudice, and raises questions of exploitation for political gain. not exactly history's proper role is it.

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."

and, just as a parenthetical: I think all here would agree war itself is the greatest crime; and more specifically, our greatest failure as males. build cities then destroy them; then do it over again. nice...

sorry to have got so far longwindedly off-thread.

by hassiman

I understand... I would never request for removal... but just ask for critical thinking vis a vis any possible revisionism.. which for some reason seems to be on the upswing.

**guscanoesp** · 07-15-2009, 08:59 PM

Gentlemen,

Images only tell part of the story, but they do give us a hint of what happened there. I will never cease to recommend the documentary made by the Hollywood director George Stevens in Europe whaen he was sent to film the war, filmed with his 16mm colour camera. It is called "D-day to Berlin".

One of the most intense footage is the one taken only hours after the liberation of the Dachau camp. It is beyond description. The liberators were so angry tha they killed several guards on the spot. Maybe some of the guards in those photos fell under american bullets or the rage of the recently liberated inmates.

I have met some spanish republicans who were imprisoned there and the stories they told me are overwhelming.

Regards,

Gus

**BOB COLEMAN** · 07-15-2009, 09:15 PM

by hassiman

Mr. Wyeth,

I have not read everything on the link you have provided but from what I have read it seems that this site is an example of anti-holocoust revisionism that flies in the face of long and well documented historical fact.

It is in poor taste and even poorer knowledge of history.

hassiman-
I see that you are a new member to this site. So may I first welcome you to what is likely the most civil site that deals with the study and collecting of artifacts of the 3rd Reich. That said, please to not make deragatory general statements about this site and the membership. There is no underlying sentiments of revisionist history here. Such comments are an insult to all of us. The Nazi KZ Lager system was a great horror to the civilized world. Eisenhower was extremely wise man to march every soldier and civilian he could through the camps to be eyewitnesses to what he knew would be future pro-Nazi revisionism. This does not exclude the right of members to also discuss what Allied forces did to those they found in charge. The ethics of any such behavior are an arguement for another time and place. I certainly can understand how battle hardened soldiers could react when coming upon the horrors of Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, etc. etc.
Once again welcome. Please do not attempt to confuse an interest in study and history with revisionism. Individuals with such an illusion are not welcome here and will be immediately banned from the site.

**vady** · 07-15-2009, 10:06 PM

thanks for that bob. well said, wise and concise; as ever.

by BOB COLEMAN

hassiman-
I see that you are a new member to this site. So may I first welcome you to what is likely the most civil site that deals with the study and collecting of artifacts of the 3rd Reich. That said, please to not make deragatory general statements about this site and the membership. There is no underlying sentiments of revisionist history here. Such comments are an insult to all of us. The Nazi KZ Lager system was a great horror to the civilized world. Eisenhower was extremely wise man to march every soldier and civilian he could through the camps to be eyewitnesses to what he knew would be future pro-Nazi revisionism. This does not exclude the right of members to also discuss what Allied forces did to those they found in charge. The ethics of any such behavior are an arguement for another time and place. I certainly can understand how battle hardened soldiers could react when coming upon the horrors of Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, etc. etc.
Once again welcome. Please do not attempt to confuse an interest in study and history with revisionism. Individuals with such an illusion are not welcome here and will be immediately banned from the site.