Beautiful! With a nasty nor’easter bearing down on you this weekend, keep this image in mind. Summer will come again.
Some Japanese Gardens somewhere greener.
Expect some arch comments.
Funny, but this picture of a beautiful moon bridge brought to mind my old History of Art Professor, a highly focused chap whose sole criteria for judging a regime was apparently how well they took care of their public monuments.
Thus, he found nothing wrong with Mussolini because he took care of the public monuments in Italy.
I guess that’s akin to approving of Mussolini because “he made the trains run on time,” i.e. basing your evaluation of someone or some thing based on just one criteria, and not judging things based, instead, on a broad range of such criteria.
BTW–This also brings to mind Toshi Yoshida’s contemporary Japanese woodblock print of a similar bridge
Looks like Monet’s bridge over the lily pond. It was restored by Rockefeller in the 1920s after Monet’s son died.
Re: Mussolini
The socialist govt. of Mussolini (fascism = anti-capitalism + socialism) was seen a a model form of govt by many in FDRs administration. Mussolini illustrated how a powerful govt -unfettered by the the petty notions of individual rights / liberties – run by “experts” of the correct political persuasion could accomplish great things. The correct political persuasion being, of course, socialism.
Mussolini’s govt. heaped all sorts of praise on FDRs New Deal (and so did the Nazi press in Germany).
Here is a video of “100 Kyoto Gardens”: it includes the famous Ryoan-ji Zen garden, “a refined type of Japanese Zen temple garden design generally featuring distinctive larger rock formations arranged amidst a sweep of smooth pebbles (small, carefully selected polished river rocks) raked into linear patterns that facilitate meditation.” It’s a long video, but the beauty of the gardens is accompanied by gentle background music. The video maker says, “This video has an excellent effect on sleep-inducing,” but I think it is a beneficial “rest cure” for those of us who are tired of all the political uproar, COVID hysteria, crime, and general unpleasantness.
Mussolini’s govt. heaped all sorts of praise on FDRs New Deal (and so did the Nazi press in Germany).
Did you read them in the original languages?
The socialist govt. of Mussolini (fascism = anti-capitalism + socialism) was seen a a model form of govt by many in FDRs administration. Mussolini illustrated how a powerful govt -unfettered by the the petty notions of individual rights / liberties – run by “experts” of the correct political persuasion could accomplish great things. The correct political persuasion being, of course, socialism.
There is a four-digit population of discretionary appointees in any administration. FDR hired some ringers. They all do.
The Depression-era nadir was reached in the United States in 1933 and in Italy in 1934. Over the period running from 1934 to 1939, per capita product in Italy grew at a rate of 3.4% per year. From 1933 to 1939, per capita product in the United States grew at a rate of 5.6% per year. What ever factors lie behind those metrics (including the reality that the economic implosion in the United States during the period running from 1929 to 1933 / 34 was far more violent than that in Italy – a 33% loss in per capita product v. an 8.5% loss), the Roosevelt Administration’s policy mix was by all appearances working out better than was Italy’s.
Note, the usual rap on the Roosevelt Administration was that they improvised a great deal and erected public bureaucracies with fuzzy missions and indistinct lines of authority. (Arthur Schlesinger fancied this was 3-D chess by FDR. Others just thought it bad management). I’d be very dubious about framing it as the elaborate manifestation of a social scheme with ready analogues abroad.
I’ll take a wild stab and say that the photo was taken at the Huntington Botanical Gardens in Pasadena. I visited once. And Neo told us she was in CA recently.
Regardless of the actual, like a few others this put me in mind of Monet at Giverny.
I had a book by an art critic on Monet. For this period of the artist’s life he wrote something to the effect: Numerous critics find the endless lily pad paintings mystifying. Why did he paint them and, especially, so many of them. I’ve never questioned the paintings. Not because I am more discerning but because I lived near, and spent much time at, Monet’s grounds at Giverny. Being there, seeing it, makes it all clear.
He goes on to describe the almost spiritual beauty of the area and the glorious light.
Recently,
Pres. Biden has implored the Congress to “Make the Equal Rights Amendment into law.”
That’s right, dude.
You couldn’t get your big plans done, like- ending the filibuster in Congress, or getting your “build back better” law, so keep offering “big, BIG, plans” to your base voters.
The ERA likely won’t pass, either.
Grasping at straws doesn’t make a guy look like a success. Oh goodness.
Thus endeth the lesson.
“Pres. Biden has implored the Congress to “Make the Equal Rights Amendment into law.””
That’s pitiful. I’d bet even a lot of hardcore liberal feminists think it’s embarrassing to bring up the ERA right now.
Mike
Those are awesome Xylougos. I love bridges. Great combo of art and engineering. Thanks for the link.
@ Tyler,
Some years ago I did a deep dive into the history of the Social Security program, the various legislative proposals, rationales, advocates, and arguments.
Spent literal hours downloading documents and reports from the SSA website as well as others.
One document I was never able to get was one report which had to do with the fascist Italian model written by an investigator who went to Italy. The ttle was there, the page always came up 4O4.
I tried a repeat some years later and even more of what I had recalled as the potentially controversial reports, reminiscences, and justification papers, had seemingly either disappeared or been recategorize.
Your comment reminds me I have a lot of 3.5 disks and CDs I need organize and transfer.
I don’t think that the centralizing and even fascistic tendencies of the Roosevelt administration are in much dispute. The argument would be whether the impulse arose from a “well intentioned” resort to expediency in the face of a crisis, or whether it reflected a deep seated psychological orientation on the part of the Roosevelts ( intentional plural) themselves and their administrators.
I think it was by and large, the latter.
Another failed attempt to edit. This lousy device seduced me into using it again by working properly for awhile. The crash you are about to hear will be the sound of it smashing against the pavement.
” May be due to an attacker intercepting your communication”
As if anyone would bother… LOL
I don’t think that the centralizing and even fascistic tendencies of the Roosevelt administration are in much dispute.
I’m happy to dispute them.
While we’re at it, the initial efforts at social insurance schemes in the occidental world were composed by Bismarck’s ministries in Wilhelmine Germany.
“Pres. Biden has implored the Congress to “Make the Equal Rights Amendment into law.””
Your memory dies now to then. We had a dear friend who could talk coherently about where her family had lived in 1937, when she was 12. She couldn’t remember what she said to you five minutes earlier. It’s possible that 1977 is more viscerally real to him than is last year.
Xylourgos–
Thank you for the link to the Greek stone bridges. The pictures reminded me of three years of high school Latin and the teacher’s photos of Roman bridges (as well as Roman roads) still in use. Here’s a link to an article about extant Roman bridges in Italy itself– I expect Mike Plaiss might be interested in the construction details too. “Roman bridge construction also incorporated pozzolana, a type of concrete developed by the Romans that revolutionized construction. Remember the Pantheon? Pozzolana! The volcanic ash concrete also held up well under water, allowing Roman-built pilings to continue doing their uplifting job to this day.”
Reminds me of the Japanese Stroll Garden at the Hammond Museum in North Salem NY https://www.hammondmuseum.org/gardens
I used to go almost every year, especially for the Blessing of the Animals.
TommyJay:
You are correct about where it was taken, but I took it some years ago.
I got an interesting letter from the IRS yesterday. It seems I have a credit balance and they don’t have my 2020 tax return.
Hmm… I sent in a check with the return, which was cashed. So, I get to re-sign and re-send the return, but I am including a copy of the front and back of the cashed check showing that the IRS promptly deposited it. Thank goodness for the banks digitally save the check.
Has anyone else have this problem with IRS – I suspect it because they are still impacted from the pandemic.
Thank you, Snow on Pine and Xylourgos, for sharing those beautiful bridge pictures.
John Tyler,
Re: “The socialist govt. of Mussolini (fascism = anti-capitalism + socialism) was seen a a model form of govt by many in FDRs administration. Mussolini illustrated how a powerful govt -unfettered by the the petty notions of individual rights / liberties – run by “experts” of the correct political persuasion could accomplish great things.”
Slight but important correction; Mussolini illustrated how a powerful govt … run by “experts” of the correct political persuasion could temporarily accomplish great things.
History has repeatedly demonstrated that one man can, in the short term, accomplish more than can be achieved by any other form of governance. It is in the long run wherein that form of governance fails. That is because when tyranny reigns supreme,
innovation and entrepreneurship flounder and productivity declines. In the long run, fascism and all collectivist forms of governance are the least productive forms of governance.
Open thread, so I will share this story.
Earlier this week I was invited to be editor in chief of a nationally known online magazine of the arts. In perusing back issues, I found excellent sections on and of poetry, music, and the visual arts. The fiction and nonfiction/essays were of mixed quality, as is usually the case with these publications.
And then I came across the “special section” on the “armed insurrection” of 6 January 2021.
I am used to editing material with which I disagree, but I won’t prominently attach my name to a cesspool of class bigotry and hatred, not to mention demonstrable (and demonstrated) falsehoods. And it seemed to me that even trying to open up the editorial perspective would mean constantly tangling with people (especially the publisher) in ways that would necessarily involve challenging deeply and emotionally held biases and beliefs.
Life is too short. I politely declined the offer but wish I had not felt the need to do so.
I see my decision as an example of what it can cost to be a political changer, and this situation as an example of how truly nasty some of the “nicest people” can be.
MollyG:
A difficult but unsurprising situation. Unless a publication is explicitly to the right, it will be that way. And even some supposedly conservative publications toe the left line on certain topics.
MollyG:
I quite understand. Sorry it happened.
I’m taking a “life is too short” position myself more often these days.
Some very satisfying bridges in that collection, Xylourgos.
Slight but important correction; Mussolini illustrated how a powerful govt … run by “experts” of the correct political persuasion could temporarily accomplish great things.
The growth rate in per capita product in Italy during the period running from 1922 to 1939 was 1.7% per year. That in Britain was 1.8% per year. France’s was 1.7% per year. Now these are cherry-picked (the comparable figure for the United States was 0.6% per year), but it’s not difficult to locate parliamentary states who were competing well with Italy at the time. All the Scandinavian states were doing as well or better than Italy. So was the Netherlands. So was New Zealand. So was Hungary (a quite illiberal but parliamentary state).
So sorry, MollyG.
My husband was invited to write for an online website that professed explicitly it would be a politically neutral forum for all sides. It was a little unclear who funded it, and in any case, there was only a risible promise of “shares” for the contributors, no actual pay. But it’s nice to write under any sort of aegis, and he agreed.
Imagine his surprise when shortly after the 2020 election, the editor emailed him and told him he must take out a passage in a post referring to it as “contested.” “It is contested because people are contesting it,” my husband argued. The editor refused to reconsider, and my husband quit. Peanuts compared to your situation, but still.
Something very strange is going on.
Really sorry about that, MollyG.
Thanks for the sympathy, huxley and Nancy B. and Rufus T. Firefly. But in fact I am quite relieved and feeling much lighter and turning my attention back to assembling my next collection of poems. Because, as noted, life is too short . . .
But in fact I am quite relieved and feeling much lighter…
MollyG:
I get that too.
Last summer I flat stopped talking to six or seven people at my morning cafe because of political differences and their bad manners. One of them started literally screaming at me on the patio because I questioned what he said Trump said.
They were also playing passive-aggressive games of only asking me personal questions about what I wore, how I looked, where I sat, what I ate, how I exercised and more, then making personal comments about any of my habits they noticed. Then asking more personal questions.
A little of that is OK and normal, but they were past that.
I got sick of it and just stopped talking to them. No hellos, no goodbyes, no whatevers. This is my cafe too and I’m going to sit here, do my work and maybe talk to people who don’t screw with me.
It was such a relief. I’m sure they still notice me and perhaps talk about me now and then, but that’s not my problem anymore. I can relax and enjoy my peace.
MollyG, if you ever care to post one of your poems in an Open Thread, I would be curious.
Given the line of sight issues at these wavelengths, whoever knocks out the other side’s guidance satellite constellations first is unbeatable.
On the off chance that the Wise Latinas are actually on the ball behind the scenes, it’s worth wondering if Elon’s huge constellation of ‘Internet’ satellites can at the flick of a switch do more than what it says on the box. All that government largesse he’s hoovered up… just possible might be a quid pro quo or two buried deep down.
Art Deco
Kipling had a poem about the social insurance issue. Took a view not often seen.
“An Imperial Rescript”
My father grew up in the Depression. He was born in 1920. His father ran a grocery store which would seem to be fat city, given the options. But taking care of the rest of the family not so fortunate kept them pretty broke. He was self sufficient by age fifteen. Knew some people–married couples running small businesses–who committed suicide.
He and his two brothers were pretty good at football which is how they were in college. Got some help. Two of the three were in combat but, doing college ROTC, started later and so that may have saved their lives.
He knew guys who, when benefits started, sent first check to the grocery store, the second to the landlord and the third for clothes. Hard to argue centralization with folks in that’s situation.
Meantime, the CCC took a heck of a lot of guys out of the cities–where they might have been recruited to be street muscle for one movement or another–and made them productive. Learned some basic education–literacy. Most of their paycheck was sent to their families which added dignity to both parties as opposed to a government issued welfare check.
Yeah, there were some follow-on negatives but in the event, it seemed to work. I know there are those who say FDR extended the Depression, but that depends on “woluld have” assertions about the roads not taken.
Richard Aubrey,
I put a lot of stock in first hand experience. When I was a kid I heard many grown-ups speak of FDR many times. All seemed to believe he did a good job of guiding the nation through a difficult time. They trusted him and found his radio broadcasts comforting.
Nothing against historians and others looking at the past and working to filter out bias and emotion, but the impressions of those who were there matter also. Everyone I have ever heard speak about living during FDR’s Presidency spoke well of him and his leadership.
Molly G: “… and turning my attention back to assembling my next collection of poems.”
If they are poems about stones and arches, they will probably hold up well, and for a long time. If they are poems about gardens and meditating, they will undoubtedly be timeless.
@Rufus:
“I put a lot of stock in first hand experience. When I was a kid I heard many grown-ups speak of FDR many times. All seemed to believe he did a good job of guiding the nation through a difficult time. They trusted him and found his radio broadcasts comforting.”
Ever listened back in the Seventies and Eighties to old German grandfathers of your friends reminiscing about getting a job building Autobahns and being able to eat again? 🙂 Their only complaint was that he didn’t win.
FDR won. We live in his (and Wilson’s… and a bunch of other people’s world). Of course he’s Good.
There’s an old B&W movie from the mid-30s which might give you some food for thought:
I’m not one for revisionist fantasizers… I am however one for going back to contemporary sources, ephemera, other cultural artifacts. the Victors *always* re-write and memory hole. Doesn’t matter who they may be.
Seriously… that movie is just as bonkers fantasy porno @#$% Oh Please Don’t Spank Me Mister Big Bad Man stuff as The Man in the High Castle — just reflected in a fun house mirror.
It’s simpler to just decide that back in the 30s *everyone* was insane. Mad and Bad. Times of stress will do that.
Rufus T.: ” Everyone I have ever heard speak about living during FDR’s Presidency spoke well of him and his leadership.”
I grew up under his presidency. My family was apolitical, excerpt for my maternal grandfather. He was a conservative. Learned from being the son of a father who was a master carpenter back in the days before the automobile. His father was a man who exemplified self-reliance. He built buildings and houses in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota. Wherever they went he earned a living with his skill and muscle. They had six children to feed and clothe.
Anyhow, my grandfather was a chip off the old block. He had little good to say about Roosevelt, except that he chose good leaders during WWII. My grandfather was an electrician who managed to save enough to start his own hardware store that scraped by during the depression mostly because his wife kept the books, watched every penny, and ran a laundry on the side. He chose his wife well. 🙂
You should read “The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression” by Amity Shlaes. It will open your eyes to how greatly Roosevelt expanded the federal government, and in doing so, probably extended the depression.
Roosevelt was a good communicator. His fireside chats during WWII were unifying. His speech after Pearl Harbor was an excellent call to arms. His wartime presidency saved his reputation, IMO.
Zaphod:
Old German grandfathers of friends reminiscing about how they built the Autobahn? And saying all that was wrong with Hitler was that he didn’t win? Maybe where you grew up, or in Argentina, but not here.
I doubt there’s a single person here who would have been privy to such reminiscences. One reason might be that, for a lot of commenters here, it would have been their fathers’ generation and not grandfathers’ generation who were young adults during the war. Another reason might be that the Germans who came to the US postwar were probably not of the group that would be audibly and fondly reminiscing about the glorious Hitler years to the children and grandchildren of their American neighbors. If they were so inclined, they probably kept it to themselves.
Lastly, FDR certainly had many flaws, and he started many policies that ultimately led the US in the wrong direction. But he was no Hitler, and those Americans of that generation with fond memories of him were responding to his leadership against the Nazis and to their perception that he helped end the Depression. Whether he actually helped end it or helped prolong it is an issue on which reasonable people can differ.
“If they were so inclined, they probably kept it to themselves.”
Precisely. Losers (in the literal sense of having lost) tend to have to do that.
Nobody is calling Roosevelt a Hitler, least of all me. Still perhaps you should go and watch the movie I referenced which R himself wholeheartedly endorsed.
It was a mad old time. All round.
I grew up amongst (among many others) people who had originated in East Prussia and the Baltics. Suffice it to say, their and your worldviews about the 30s and about the eventual Victory of the Good Guys being all wondrous would differ. But then they would, wouldn’t they?
Earlier than that, I grew up amongst people whose grandparents got to experience the first Concentration Camps at the beginning of C20. Suffice to say that their views on British Empire not all rosy.
I’ve seen headlines about the ‘race’ with the Chinese to retrieve from the ocean the downed F35 fighter jet in the South China Sea.
A race? Seriously?
This one seems too clear to me with all we would lose if they get ahold of it.
We tell the Chinese they’ll be shot out of the water if they get near.
I hope that’s what’s happening.
Re: F-35 story. History repeats. 1976 New F-14 with new Phoenix missile over the side of the JFK near Scapa Flow and the rush to recover them before the Rooskies got them.
Zaphod. Shlaes–which I have not read but seen reviewed–says FDR extended the Depression. As with any revisionism, it requires the author’s “would have” be correct. And since it’s the author’s idea, of course it would have worked.
Point is, what the people living then thought. People whose livestock were slaughtered in order to force a rise in prices might have wondered. So would anybody.
The question is whether there’s an eggs-and-omelets ingredient in the “would/should have” possibly different from the same question applied to “did happen”
And extending the Depression is one thing, its depth is another. Do you shorten it at the cost of a bout of “hurts now but you’ll be glad later” worsening of circumstances? How much of one justifies not doing the other?
Reminded of a couple of lines from a country song; Something like
“Daddy got a job with the TVA
Bought a ice box and a Chivolay”
Point being, before the TVA he had not a job, not an ice box, nor a set of wheels not pulled by an over-the-hill mule.
My father knew a dentist during WW II who’d been unable to get a gig after dental school and was set by one of the new agencies to go trying to do dental hygiene in the mountain south. He was trying to figure out which bush’s twigs, when chewed correctly, made the best tooth brush, the locals being unable to afford the real thing.
Years ago, my wife and I stopped, during our off-interstate travels, at a TVA location. Watching a barge locked through isn’t as interesting as it sounds, so we looked in their little museum. Pix of the old days. Reminded of another song;
We don’t get these wind-grainy faces
By living too good.
Appalling.
Somehow for some reason Z can’t bother yo notice the different survival rates between the British concentration camps, American internment camps, German camps of his good old days, the Soviet gulag, and the Turkish system used on the Armenians. Because “they all” were crazy and we get to write the history. Nope they all weren’t the same, Z.
Who is running concentration camps today Z, Xi?
Whether he actually helped end it or helped prolong it is an issue on which reasonable people can differ.
The reasonable people in this case should keep the following in mind:
1. National income accounting is not some scam to fool you.
2. The policy mix which produces the most rapid recovery in production, income, and employment is the optimal one. Institutions run by human beings may do comparatively better or worse at this task. They seldom make optimal choices.
3. Unless you choose the optimal policy mix, your recovery will be slower than it otherwise would have been.
4. In an attempt to appreciate possibilities, have a gander at the economic performance numbers of other countries.
5. Recall that there’s a mess of academic / professional literature literature out there in macroeconomics and economic history attempting to suss out the strength of the vectors influencing outcomes.
==
6. If you’re assessing Roosevelt in particular, recall that at the time he was sworn in, real per capita product had been declining for 3.5 years and had fallen 1/3 in that time. About 1/4 of the labor force was out of work. That wasn’t his doing. The only aspect of that you might attribute to him would be the wave of bank failures during the period running from November 1932 to March 1933, inspired in part by the anxiety that he would act to devalue the currency. In order to stop it, he’d at the very least have had to lie his ass off and pledge not to.
You should read “The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression” by Amity Shlaes. It will open your eyes to how greatly Roosevelt expanded the federal government, and in doing so, probably extended the depression.
There are better uses of your time. Have a gander at her bibliography. She read an antheap of secondary literature and contemporary news reports. She did not at any time make herself familiar with the trajectory of production, income, and employment. Very little academic literature on macroeconomics or economic history, very little in the way of statistical manuals. If you want to understand the era well enough to intermediate between academic / professional discourse and the general reader, you need to be familiar with and able to critically evaluate the high brow stuff. Shlaes never got to first base.
Neo: “I doubt there’s a single person here who would have been privy to such reminiscences.”
Eh, I’ve bumped into a few cases, in Europe and the States. Examples: I encountered Germans of that generation in Munich in the 1980s who reminisced fondly about how nice life was “damals” (“back then”), before they started losing. One old coot sang the Horst Wessel Lied under his breath when we shared a bench at a beer garden. He was drunk, however, and it *is* a catchy tune. In the States, there was a Baltic German professor at the Large Midwestern University where I used to work–a postwar immigrant–who was fairly well known for her nostalgia about the Good Old Days. A friend and I used to imitate her: “Ach, Riga Zwei und Vierzig–das waren SCHOENE Zeiten!” (“Ach, Riga in 1942–such a lovely time!”). The mother of another friend was a postwar GI bride who had grown up in Dresden. She used to talk about how great things were before the tide turned (and her hometown got blitzed). Finally, I once shared a table at a crowded breakfast buffet at a hotel in Warsaw with a middle-aged German guy who, having ascertained that I was Jewish, proceeded to tell me a long story about how his wife’s family was cruelly driven from their beautiful ancestral home in Silesia in 1945 and how wonderful everything had been before that unhappy turn of events. He mentioned in passing that his wife’s father had been a high-ranking SS officer. So it’s not apocryphal. I never heard anybody say “the only bad thing is that we lost” in so many words, however. That would have been going too far. But it was strongly implied.
Hubert,
I speak German and have spent a fair amount of time there. Whenever I am in foreign countries I go out of my way to get a “local experience” as much as possible, and I think folks open up more when someone speaks their native tongue.
Unfortunately, my experience mirrors yours. I’ve heard a lot of admiration for der Fuhrer. The worst was wandering into a bar in Salzburg and, after a few awkward moments piecing together that it was basically a Reich-friendly pub. A few old guys even wore parts of their uniforms; boots, pants, shirts… And one guy started singing the Horse Wessel Lied as I walked out.
I have also spoken with many Germans from that generation who despise Hitler for what he did to the world and their homeland and everyone in my age group (born after the war’s end) was typically disgusted by him. On one assignment I worked in a small town near the Dutch border, and I sensed, however, some of the younger folks there might pull the lever for a fourth Reich if it were on the ballot.
Despite their age or feelings on Hitler, almost every German I have met is in consensus that the United States is the current cause of the world’s woes, and they are all experts on the “holocaust” (their word not mine) we Americans imposed on the American Indians and will gladly tell you about it for hours.
I should add: another disturbing thing. In the postwar generations I have heard more than one lament the continued “persecution” of Germans. Although they seem to sincerely hate Hitler and what happened during the war, they feel they continue to get blamed and suffer for something that happened before they were born. My thought is, “Well, you did try to take over the world twice in the last century and nearly exterminated an entire race of people. One can understand that some folks might hold a grudge.” But I do sense some are growing tired of the association. Scary stuff.
Rufus:
The WW2 Facebook pages are full of this stuff…they aren’t sorry.
Rufus: yeah, well, Austria. Those photos of people crying as the Wehrmacht rolled into Vienna during the Anschluss of 1938? Those were tears of joy. And then we gave them an alibi after the war, so they’ve never really had to deal with it. And they never will. As for your visit to the “brown” bar, they might have been putting on a show for the visiting Ami. There was some of that too where I was.
I lived and worked in Germany for almost five years. Not just in Germany, but in Munich, the spiritual and administrative home of the Nazi party. Despite the episodes I mentioned, I loved living there and never felt uncomfortable or threatened. I was *interested* in the experiences of people who had lived through 1933-1945 and wanted to hear what they had to say. I didn’t expect or want them to be sorry or express contrition or remorse. I probably wouldn’t have believed it anyway. I wanted them to be *honest*, and wish they had felt able to speak more freely about it. The only time I felt real anger was during the Jenninger Affair in November 1988, on the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht (brief allusion at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Jenninger; longer write-up in German at https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rede_am_10._November_1988_im_Deutschen_Bundestag). I wasn’t angry at Jenninger’s speech, which was the first honest speech I’d heard from a German politician about the Nazi period. I was angry at the absolutely predictable and dishonest reaction to the speech from the West German political establishment–their “swamp”–and my dumbass co-religionists in Germany and the States. “Willful misunderstanding, pearl-clutching, and public piling-on” doesn’t begin to describe it.
I don’t believe in collective guilt or collective punishment. As far as I was and am concerned, Germans who weren’t around then or who didn’t participate in the crimes of the Nazi regime weren’t guilty and shouldn’t have been made to feel guilty. As for the actual perpetrators and so-called “Schreibtischtaeter” (writing-desk murderers): I wanted to hear from them especially, and was angry that they were silenced as part of the great postwar U.S.-West German blandification project. I believe in facing the ugly stuff straight-up and head-on, not in sweeping it under the rug so that everybody can feel better about themselves. Which is probably why I’m not personally offended by Zaphod’s comments on this forum.
Rufus: yeah, well, Austria. Those photos of people crying as the Wehrmacht rolled into Vienna during the Anschluss of 1938? Those were tears of joy.
“Personally offended;” takes all kinds, until those kinds are verboten. There are of course, subtle very nuanced deeper levels of meaning in some of Z’s talking points that the unsophisticated (proles) can’t understand (“grok”). Do tell.
Raus!
It would be interesting to hear what commenter “expat,” a long time resident in Germany (West) might say. If she wishes to comment.
Hubert:
I recommend two books to you – or anyone interested in the subject of how Germans felt about Nazis and Hitler. Perhaps you’re already familiar with them, but anyway the first is this one, and the second is this.
The Austrian Nazi Party failed to win any seats in the November 1930 general election, but its popularity grew in Austria after Hitler came to power in Germany. The idea of the country joining Germany also grew in popularity, thanks in part to a Nazi propaganda campaign which used slogans such as Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer (“One People, One Empire, One Leader”) to try to convince Austrians to advocate for an Anschluss to the German Reich. Anschluss might have occurred by democratic process had Austrian Nazis not begun a terrorism campaign. According to John Gunther in 1936, “In 1932 Austria was probably eighty percent pro-Anschluss”.
…Gunther wrote that by the end of 1933 Austrian public opinion about German annexation was at least 60% against. On 25 July 1934, Dollfuss was assassinated by Austrian Nazis in a failed coup. Afterwards, leading Austrian Nazis fled to Germany but they continued to push for unification from there. The remaining Austrian Nazis continued terrorist attacks against Austrian governmental institutions, causing a death toll of more than 800 between 1934 and 1938.
Dollfuss’s successor was Kurt Schuschnigg, who followed a political course similar to his predecessor. In 1935 Schuschnigg used the police to suppress Nazi supporters. Police actions under Schuschnigg included gathering Nazis (and Social Democrats) and holding them in internment camps. The Austrofascism of Austria between 1934–1938 focused on the history of Austria and opposed the absorption of Austria into Nazi Germany (according to the philosophy Austrians were “superior Germans”). Schuschnigg called Austria the “better German state” but struggled to keep Austria independent.
In an attempt to put Schuschnigg’s mind at rest, Hitler delivered a speech at the Reichstag and said, “Germany neither intends nor wishes to interfere in the internal affairs of Austria, to annex Austria or to conclude an Anschluss.”….
Hitler told Goebbels in the late summer of 1937 that eventually Austria would have to be taken “by force”….
Following increasing violence and demands from Hitler that Austria agree to a union, Schuschnigg met Hitler at Berchtesgaden on 12 February 1938, in an attempt to avoid the takeover of Austria. Hitler presented Schuschnigg with a set of demands that included appointing Nazi sympathizers to positions of power in the government. The key appointment was that of Arthur Seyss-Inquart as Minister of Public Security, with full, unlimited control of the police. In return Hitler would publicly reaffirm the treaty of 11 July 1936 and reaffirm his support for Austria’s national sovereignty. Browbeaten and threatened by Hitler, Schuschnigg agreed to these demands and put them into effect….
On 9 March 1938, in the face of rioting by the small, but virulent, Austrian Nazi Party and ever-expanding German demands on Austria, Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg called a referendum (plebiscite) on the issue, to be held on 13 March. Infuriated, on 11 March, Adolf Hitler threatened invasion of Austria,…
To secure a large majority in the referendum, Schuschnigg dismantled the one-party state. He agreed to legalize the Social Democrats and their trade unions in return for their support in the referendum.[4] He also set the minimum voting age at 24 to exclude younger voters because the Nazi movement was most popular among the young….
The plan went awry when it became apparent that Hitler would not stand by while Austria declared its independence by public vote. Hitler declared that the referendum would be subject to major fraud and that Germany would never accept it. In addition, the German ministry of propaganda issued press reports that riots had broken out in Austria and that large parts of the Austrian population were calling for German troops to restore order. Schuschnigg immediately responded that reports of riots were false.
Hitler sent an ultimatum to Schuschnigg on 11 March, demanding that he hand over all power to the Austrian Nazis or face an invasion. The ultimatum was set to expire at noon, but was extended by two hours. Without waiting for an answer, Hitler had already signed the order to send troops into Austria at one o’clock.[43] Nevertheless, the German Führer underestimated his opposition.
As Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edgar Ansel Mowrer, reporting from Paris for CBS, observed: “There is no one in all France who does not believe that Hitler invaded Austria not to hold a genuine plebiscite, but to prevent the plebiscite planned by Schuschnigg from demonstrating to the entire world just how little hold National Socialism really had on that tiny country.”
Schuschnigg desperately sought support for Austrian independence in the hours following the ultimatum. Realizing that neither France nor Britain was willing to offer assistance, Schuschnigg resigned on the evening of 11 March, but President Wilhelm Miklas refused to appoint Seyss-Inquart as Chancellor. At 8:45 pm, Hitler, tired of waiting, ordered the invasion to commence at dawn on 12 March regardless. Around 10 pm, a forged telegram was sent in Seyss-Inquart’s name asking for German troops, since he was not yet Chancellor and was unable to do so himself. Seyss-Inquart was not installed as Chancellor until after midnight, when Miklas resigned himself to the inevitable. In the radio broadcast in which he announced his resignation, he argued that he accepted the changes and allowed the Nazis to take over the government ‘to avoid the shedding of fraternal blood [Bruderblut]’. Seyss-Inquart was appointed chancellor after midnight on 12 March….
The troops were greeted by cheering Austrians with Nazi salutes, Nazi flags, and flowers… the Austrian government had ordered the Austrian Bundesheer not to resist…
Before the first German soldier crossed the border, Heinrich Himmler and a few Schutzstaffel (SS) officers landed in Vienna to arrest prominent representatives of the First Republic, such as Richard Schmitz, Leopold Figl, Friedrich Hillegeist, and Franz Olah. During the few weeks between the Anschluss and the plebiscite, authorities rounded up Social Democrats, Communists, other potential political dissenters, and Austrian Jews, and imprisoned them or sent them to concentration camps. Within a few days of 12 March, 70,000 people had been arrested. The disused northwest railway station in Vienna was converted into a makeshift concentration camp…
The Austrians’ support for the Anschluss was ambivalent; but, since the Social Democratic Party of Austria leader Karl Renner and the highest representative of the Roman Catholic church in Austria Cardinal Theodor Innitzer both endorsed the Anschluss, approximately two-thirds of Austrians could be counted on to vote for it.[61] What the result of the plebiscite meant for the Austrians will always be a matter of speculation. Nevertheless, historians generally agree that it cannot be explained exclusively by simply either opportunism or the desire of socioeconomics and represented the genuine German nationalist feeling in Austria during the interwar period. Also, the general anti-Semitic consensus in Austria meant that a substantial amount of Austrians were more than ready to “fulfill their duty” in the “Greater German Reich”. How many Austrians behind closed doors were against the Anschluss remains unknown, but only one “unhappy face” of an Austrian in public when the Germans marched into Austria has ever been produced. According to some Gestapo reports, only a quarter to a third of Austrian voters in Vienna were in favour of the Anschluss. According to Evan Burr Bukey, no more than one-third of Austrians ever fully supported Nazism during the existence of the Third Reich.
My guess is that those in the cheering crowds were either pro-Nazi pro-German or pretending to be, and those who were against stayed home in fear.
According to John Gunther in 1936, “In 1932 Austria was probably eighty percent pro-Anschluss”.
That was an ass pull from Mr. Gunther; no reason to take it at face value. Pan German sentiment in 1930 amounted to about 15% of the electorate. Mr. Gunther fancies that the ratio of pan-Germans to the rest increased by more than 20-fold in two years.
Huburt:
Obviously, though, if someone traveled in Germany and talked to Germans of that generation, then that person would be likely to be privy to such reminiscences. However, I was replying to Zaphod and referring to the States, which was Zaphod’s specific reference when he wrote about listening to “old German grandfathers of your friends” reminiscing about building the Autobahn.
Neo: thanks for the references, especially the book on how the Nazi seizure of power played out at the local level. I’ve only read the Klemperer diaries–actually, “skipped around in them” would be more accurate than “read”. My book knowledge of life and popular attitudes in the Third Reich is patchy, being largely based on William Shirer’s “Berlin Diary”, George Kennan’s memoirs, Marie Vassiltchikov’s “Berlin Diaries 1940-1945” (elite attitudes and the German resistance to Hitler), and literary works (e.g. Heinrich Böll’s postwar novels). I’ve also read Goetz Aly’s work on the everyday machinery of annihilation, Omer Bartov’s work on the Wehrmacht, and Peter Reichel’s work on Nazi aesthetics and its applications in daily life. Finally, I read Speer’s memoirs for the view from a surviving member of the inner circle (now there was an ice-cold sonofabitch). By the way: for a good movie treatment of life in a small town under the swastika, see Edgar Reitz’s miniseries “Heimat” (1984)–its accuracy is highly vouched for by my family’s longtime German neighbor in Massachusetts, who was born in Hamburg in the late 1930s and whose family spent the war in a small town in southwestern Germany, away from the bombing.
On your other points:
It is certainly true that one was more likely to encounter nostalgia for the Nazi period in Germany and Austria than in the States, but I occasionally encountered it among emigres in the States (and Canada) as well. It would be erroneous to assume that it didn’t find expression here.
“My guess is that those in the cheering crowds were either pro-Nazi pro-German or pretending to be, and those who were against stayed home in fear.” Well, the second part of your guess is almost certainly true. I do not doubt that there were plenty of people—and not just in the targeted populations—who were horrified, outraged, and terrified by the rise of Nazism in Germany. Our neighbor’s family was just one example of that. It is equally clear that there were also plenty of people who shared the regime’s hatreds and/or felt that their lives improved in tangible ways under Nazism. Those are the people we mostly didn’t hear from after the war, but there were enough of them to permit what happened to happen (cf. Browning’s “Ordinary Men”, Goldhagen’s “Hitler’s Willing Executioners”, and Bartov’s work on the Wehrmacht’s complicity in carrying out the final solution). Sense of powerlessness: if you are implying parallels with the current situation in this country, I have to agree.
Deco: thanks for the clip of Schuschnigg. A noble sentiment from an Austrian patriot, but: did Austria in fact remain Austria? The “bis in den Tod” part certainly applied to between 250,000-260,000 of the 950,000 Austrians who volunteered for the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS, but they didn’t die under the red-white-red. Being a numbers guy, you know that Austrians were disproportionately represented in the SS and the death-camp administrations. Those attitudes didn’t magically evaporate after 1945.
Om: there’s a lot of fancy footwork in Zaphod’s comments, but don’t be fooled by that. His views are quite clear and not at all subtle. And yes, it would be useful to have a contemporary perspective from Germany. My impressions are ~35 years old.
Hubert:
A great deal of They Thought They Were Free focuses on Germans who, postwar, still thought Hitler and Nazism weren’t all that bad. It’s quite an interesting book. And The Nazi Seizure of Power is one of the most frightening I’ve ever read, although it’s rather dry in the telling.
Hubert:
Regarding Z and his “subtle” viewpoints I was being sarcastic but didn’t add the (sarc) flag. My bad.
“expat” doesn’t comment often but frequency is not correlated to quality IMO.
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Beautiful! With a nasty nor’easter bearing down on you this weekend, keep this image in mind. Summer will come again.
Some Japanese Gardens somewhere greener.
Expect some arch comments.
Funny, but this picture of a beautiful moon bridge brought to mind my old History of Art Professor, a highly focused chap whose sole criteria for judging a regime was apparently how well they took care of their public monuments.
Thus, he found nothing wrong with Mussolini because he took care of the public monuments in Italy.
I guess that’s akin to approving of Mussolini because “he made the trains run on time,” i.e. basing your evaluation of someone or some thing based on just one criteria, and not judging things based, instead, on a broad range of such criteria.
BTW–This also brings to mind Toshi Yoshida’s contemporary Japanese woodblock print of a similar bridge
See https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7c/fd/dd/7cfddd38bb9a910dbbd84790d315f833.jpg
Earlier, Hiroshige had his own take at https://data.ukiyo-e.org/artelino/images/16750g1.jpg
Not to mention Monet’s take.
Looks like Monet’s bridge over the lily pond. It was restored by Rockefeller in the 1920s after Monet’s son died.
Re: Mussolini
The socialist govt. of Mussolini (fascism = anti-capitalism + socialism) was seen a a model form of govt by many in FDRs administration. Mussolini illustrated how a powerful govt -unfettered by the the petty notions of individual rights / liberties – run by “experts” of the correct political persuasion could accomplish great things. The correct political persuasion being, of course, socialism.
Mussolini’s govt. heaped all sorts of praise on FDRs New Deal (and so did the Nazi press in Germany).
Here is a video of “100 Kyoto Gardens”: it includes the famous Ryoan-ji Zen garden, “a refined type of Japanese Zen temple garden design generally featuring distinctive larger rock formations arranged amidst a sweep of smooth pebbles (small, carefully selected polished river rocks) raked into linear patterns that facilitate meditation.” It’s a long video, but the beauty of the gardens is accompanied by gentle background music. The video maker says, “This video has an excellent effect on sleep-inducing,” but I think it is a beneficial “rest cure” for those of us who are tired of all the political uproar, COVID hysteria, crime, and general unpleasantness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3uJUrvI2zc&ab_channel=YuraraSarara
Mussolini’s govt. heaped all sorts of praise on FDRs New Deal (and so did the Nazi press in Germany).
Did you read them in the original languages?
The socialist govt. of Mussolini (fascism = anti-capitalism + socialism) was seen a a model form of govt by many in FDRs administration. Mussolini illustrated how a powerful govt -unfettered by the the petty notions of individual rights / liberties – run by “experts” of the correct political persuasion could accomplish great things. The correct political persuasion being, of course, socialism.
There is a four-digit population of discretionary appointees in any administration. FDR hired some ringers. They all do.
The Depression-era nadir was reached in the United States in 1933 and in Italy in 1934. Over the period running from 1934 to 1939, per capita product in Italy grew at a rate of 3.4% per year. From 1933 to 1939, per capita product in the United States grew at a rate of 5.6% per year. What ever factors lie behind those metrics (including the reality that the economic implosion in the United States during the period running from 1929 to 1933 / 34 was far more violent than that in Italy – a 33% loss in per capita product v. an 8.5% loss), the Roosevelt Administration’s policy mix was by all appearances working out better than was Italy’s.
Note, the usual rap on the Roosevelt Administration was that they improvised a great deal and erected public bureaucracies with fuzzy missions and indistinct lines of authority. (Arthur Schlesinger fancied this was 3-D chess by FDR. Others just thought it bad management). I’d be very dubious about framing it as the elaborate manifestation of a social scheme with ready analogues abroad.
I’ll take a wild stab and say that the photo was taken at the Huntington Botanical Gardens in Pasadena. I visited once. And Neo told us she was in CA recently.
Yes, here is another photo.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-igmPEaGDx44/ViUC_zFuNyI/AAAAAAAAJG4/aSfgFEXXyoc/s1600/gwa%2B2015%2B212.JPG
Regardless of the actual, like a few others this put me in mind of Monet at Giverny.
I had a book by an art critic on Monet. For this period of the artist’s life he wrote something to the effect: Numerous critics find the endless lily pad paintings mystifying. Why did he paint them and, especially, so many of them. I’ve never questioned the paintings. Not because I am more discerning but because I lived near, and spent much time at, Monet’s grounds at Giverny. Being there, seeing it, makes it all clear.
He goes on to describe the almost spiritual beauty of the area and the glorious light.
Recently,
Pres. Biden has implored the Congress to “Make the Equal Rights Amendment into law.”
That’s right, dude.
You couldn’t get your big plans done, like- ending the filibuster in Congress, or getting your “build back better” law, so keep offering “big, BIG, plans” to your base voters.
The ERA likely won’t pass, either.
Grasping at straws doesn’t make a guy look like a success. Oh goodness.
Thus endeth the lesson.
Nice bridge. Check these ones also….
https://www.boredpanda.com/i-photographed-some-of-the-most-beautiful-old-stone-bridges-of-northern-greece/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic
“Pres. Biden has implored the Congress to “Make the Equal Rights Amendment into law.””
That’s pitiful. I’d bet even a lot of hardcore liberal feminists think it’s embarrassing to bring up the ERA right now.
Mike
Those are awesome Xylougos. I love bridges. Great combo of art and engineering. Thanks for the link.
@ Tyler,
Some years ago I did a deep dive into the history of the Social Security program, the various legislative proposals, rationales, advocates, and arguments.
Spent literal hours downloading documents and reports from the SSA website as well as others.
One document I was never able to get was one report which had to do with the fascist Italian model written by an investigator who went to Italy. The ttle was there, the page always came up 4O4.
I tried a repeat some years later and even more of what I had recalled as the potentially controversial reports, reminiscences, and justification papers, had seemingly either disappeared or been recategorize.
Your comment reminds me I have a lot of 3.5 disks and CDs I need organize and transfer.
I don’t think that the centralizing and even fascistic tendencies of the Roosevelt administration are in much dispute. The argument would be whether the impulse arose from a “well intentioned” resort to expediency in the face of a crisis, or whether it reflected a deep seated psychological orientation on the part of the Roosevelts ( intentional plural) themselves and their administrators.
I think it was by and large, the latter.
Another failed attempt to edit. This lousy device seduced me into using it again by working properly for awhile. The crash you are about to hear will be the sound of it smashing against the pavement.
” May be due to an attacker intercepting your communication”
As if anyone would bother… LOL
I don’t think that the centralizing and even fascistic tendencies of the Roosevelt administration are in much dispute.
I’m happy to dispute them.
While we’re at it, the initial efforts at social insurance schemes in the occidental world were composed by Bismarck’s ministries in Wilhelmine Germany.
“Pres. Biden has implored the Congress to “Make the Equal Rights Amendment into law.””
Your memory dies now to then. We had a dear friend who could talk coherently about where her family had lived in 1937, when she was 12. She couldn’t remember what she said to you five minutes earlier. It’s possible that 1977 is more viscerally real to him than is last year.
Xylourgos–
Thank you for the link to the Greek stone bridges. The pictures reminded me of three years of high school Latin and the teacher’s photos of Roman bridges (as well as Roman roads) still in use. Here’s a link to an article about extant Roman bridges in Italy itself– I expect Mike Plaiss might be interested in the construction details too. “Roman bridge construction also incorporated pozzolana, a type of concrete developed by the Romans that revolutionized construction. Remember the Pantheon? Pozzolana! The volcanic ash concrete also held up well under water, allowing Roman-built pilings to continue doing their uplifting job to this day.”
https://italoamericano.org/the-marvel-of-roman-bridges/
Reminds me of the Japanese Stroll Garden at the Hammond Museum in North Salem NY https://www.hammondmuseum.org/gardens
I used to go almost every year, especially for the Blessing of the Animals.
TommyJay:
You are correct about where it was taken, but I took it some years ago.
I got an interesting letter from the IRS yesterday. It seems I have a credit balance and they don’t have my 2020 tax return.
Hmm… I sent in a check with the return, which was cashed. So, I get to re-sign and re-send the return, but I am including a copy of the front and back of the cashed check showing that the IRS promptly deposited it. Thank goodness for the banks digitally save the check.
Has anyone else have this problem with IRS – I suspect it because they are still impacted from the pandemic.
Thank you, Snow on Pine and Xylourgos, for sharing those beautiful bridge pictures.
John Tyler,
Re: “The socialist govt. of Mussolini (fascism = anti-capitalism + socialism) was seen a a model form of govt by many in FDRs administration. Mussolini illustrated how a powerful govt -unfettered by the the petty notions of individual rights / liberties – run by “experts” of the correct political persuasion could accomplish great things.”
Slight but important correction; Mussolini illustrated how a powerful govt … run by “experts” of the correct political persuasion could temporarily accomplish great things.
History has repeatedly demonstrated that one man can, in the short term, accomplish more than can be achieved by any other form of governance. It is in the long run wherein that form of governance fails. That is because when tyranny reigns supreme,
innovation and entrepreneurship flounder and productivity declines. In the long run, fascism and all collectivist forms of governance are the least productive forms of governance.
Open thread, so I will share this story.
Earlier this week I was invited to be editor in chief of a nationally known online magazine of the arts. In perusing back issues, I found excellent sections on and of poetry, music, and the visual arts. The fiction and nonfiction/essays were of mixed quality, as is usually the case with these publications.
And then I came across the “special section” on the “armed insurrection” of 6 January 2021.
I am used to editing material with which I disagree, but I won’t prominently attach my name to a cesspool of class bigotry and hatred, not to mention demonstrable (and demonstrated) falsehoods. And it seemed to me that even trying to open up the editorial perspective would mean constantly tangling with people (especially the publisher) in ways that would necessarily involve challenging deeply and emotionally held biases and beliefs.
Life is too short. I politely declined the offer but wish I had not felt the need to do so.
I see my decision as an example of what it can cost to be a political changer, and this situation as an example of how truly nasty some of the “nicest people” can be.
MollyG:
A difficult but unsurprising situation. Unless a publication is explicitly to the right, it will be that way. And even some supposedly conservative publications toe the left line on certain topics.
MollyG:
I quite understand. Sorry it happened.
I’m taking a “life is too short” position myself more often these days.
Some very satisfying bridges in that collection, Xylourgos.
Obligatory Chinese bridges here:
https://www.viewofchina.com/traditional-chinese-bridge/
And there’s this famous Song Dynasty painting (much copied and reproduced)
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Along_the_River_During_the_Qingming_Festival
http://theme.npm.edu.tw/exh107/npm_anime/AlongtheRiver/en/index.html
Valerie Hansen Walks You Through the Qingming Scroll
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rp4nMn-Gms
Slight but important correction; Mussolini illustrated how a powerful govt … run by “experts” of the correct political persuasion could temporarily accomplish great things.
The growth rate in per capita product in Italy during the period running from 1922 to 1939 was 1.7% per year. That in Britain was 1.8% per year. France’s was 1.7% per year. Now these are cherry-picked (the comparable figure for the United States was 0.6% per year), but it’s not difficult to locate parliamentary states who were competing well with Italy at the time. All the Scandinavian states were doing as well or better than Italy. So was the Netherlands. So was New Zealand. So was Hungary (a quite illiberal but parliamentary state).
So sorry, MollyG.
My husband was invited to write for an online website that professed explicitly it would be a politically neutral forum for all sides. It was a little unclear who funded it, and in any case, there was only a risible promise of “shares” for the contributors, no actual pay. But it’s nice to write under any sort of aegis, and he agreed.
Imagine his surprise when shortly after the 2020 election, the editor emailed him and told him he must take out a passage in a post referring to it as “contested.” “It is contested because people are contesting it,” my husband argued. The editor refused to reconsider, and my husband quit. Peanuts compared to your situation, but still.
Something very strange is going on.
Really sorry about that, MollyG.
Thanks for the sympathy, huxley and Nancy B. and Rufus T. Firefly. But in fact I am quite relieved and feeling much lighter and turning my attention back to assembling my next collection of poems. Because, as noted, life is too short . . .
But in fact I am quite relieved and feeling much lighter…
MollyG:
I get that too.
Last summer I flat stopped talking to six or seven people at my morning cafe because of political differences and their bad manners. One of them started literally screaming at me on the patio because I questioned what he said Trump said.
They were also playing passive-aggressive games of only asking me personal questions about what I wore, how I looked, where I sat, what I ate, how I exercised and more, then making personal comments about any of my habits they noticed. Then asking more personal questions.
A little of that is OK and normal, but they were past that.
I got sick of it and just stopped talking to them. No hellos, no goodbyes, no whatevers. This is my cafe too and I’m going to sit here, do my work and maybe talk to people who don’t screw with me.
It was such a relief. I’m sure they still notice me and perhaps talk about me now and then, but that’s not my problem anymore. I can relax and enjoy my peace.
MollyG, if you ever care to post one of your poems in an Open Thread, I would be curious.
Datapoint:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3164918/chinese-scientists-develop-6g-technology-hypersonic-weapons
Not to worry… Diversity will triumph.
Given the line of sight issues at these wavelengths, whoever knocks out the other side’s guidance satellite constellations first is unbeatable.
On the off chance that the Wise Latinas are actually on the ball behind the scenes, it’s worth wondering if Elon’s huge constellation of ‘Internet’ satellites can at the flick of a switch do more than what it says on the box. All that government largesse he’s hoovered up… just possible might be a quid pro quo or two buried deep down.
Art Deco
Kipling had a poem about the social insurance issue. Took a view not often seen.
“An Imperial Rescript”
My father grew up in the Depression. He was born in 1920. His father ran a grocery store which would seem to be fat city, given the options. But taking care of the rest of the family not so fortunate kept them pretty broke. He was self sufficient by age fifteen. Knew some people–married couples running small businesses–who committed suicide.
He and his two brothers were pretty good at football which is how they were in college. Got some help. Two of the three were in combat but, doing college ROTC, started later and so that may have saved their lives.
He knew guys who, when benefits started, sent first check to the grocery store, the second to the landlord and the third for clothes. Hard to argue centralization with folks in that’s situation.
Meantime, the CCC took a heck of a lot of guys out of the cities–where they might have been recruited to be street muscle for one movement or another–and made them productive. Learned some basic education–literacy. Most of their paycheck was sent to their families which added dignity to both parties as opposed to a government issued welfare check.
Yeah, there were some follow-on negatives but in the event, it seemed to work. I know there are those who say FDR extended the Depression, but that depends on “woluld have” assertions about the roads not taken.
Richard Aubrey,
I put a lot of stock in first hand experience. When I was a kid I heard many grown-ups speak of FDR many times. All seemed to believe he did a good job of guiding the nation through a difficult time. They trusted him and found his radio broadcasts comforting.
Nothing against historians and others looking at the past and working to filter out bias and emotion, but the impressions of those who were there matter also. Everyone I have ever heard speak about living during FDR’s Presidency spoke well of him and his leadership.
Molly G: “… and turning my attention back to assembling my next collection of poems.”
If they are poems about stones and arches, they will probably hold up well, and for a long time. If they are poems about gardens and meditating, they will undoubtedly be timeless.
@Rufus:
“I put a lot of stock in first hand experience. When I was a kid I heard many grown-ups speak of FDR many times. All seemed to believe he did a good job of guiding the nation through a difficult time. They trusted him and found his radio broadcasts comforting.”
Ever listened back in the Seventies and Eighties to old German grandfathers of your friends reminiscing about getting a job building Autobahns and being able to eat again? 🙂 Their only complaint was that he didn’t win.
FDR won. We live in his (and Wilson’s… and a bunch of other people’s world). Of course he’s Good.
There’s an old B&W movie from the mid-30s which might give you some food for thought:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Over_the_White_House
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-first-hollywood-film-to-imagine-a-fictional-president-was-some-weird-propaganda
Worth a watch.
I’m not one for revisionist fantasizers… I am however one for going back to contemporary sources, ephemera, other cultural artifacts. the Victors *always* re-write and memory hole. Doesn’t matter who they may be.
Seriously… that movie is just as bonkers fantasy porno @#$% Oh Please Don’t Spank Me Mister Big Bad Man stuff as The Man in the High Castle — just reflected in a fun house mirror.
It’s simpler to just decide that back in the 30s *everyone* was insane. Mad and Bad. Times of stress will do that.
So… how are we all feeling today? 🙂
@Cornflour:
Ever heard of this guy?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_S._Mozer
Absolute genius born in Nebraska.
Rufus T.: ” Everyone I have ever heard speak about living during FDR’s Presidency spoke well of him and his leadership.”
I grew up under his presidency. My family was apolitical, excerpt for my maternal grandfather. He was a conservative. Learned from being the son of a father who was a master carpenter back in the days before the automobile. His father was a man who exemplified self-reliance. He built buildings and houses in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota. Wherever they went he earned a living with his skill and muscle. They had six children to feed and clothe.
Anyhow, my grandfather was a chip off the old block. He had little good to say about Roosevelt, except that he chose good leaders during WWII. My grandfather was an electrician who managed to save enough to start his own hardware store that scraped by during the depression mostly because his wife kept the books, watched every penny, and ran a laundry on the side. He chose his wife well. 🙂
You should read “The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression” by Amity Shlaes. It will open your eyes to how greatly Roosevelt expanded the federal government, and in doing so, probably extended the depression.
Roosevelt was a good communicator. His fireside chats during WWII were unifying. His speech after Pearl Harbor was an excellent call to arms. His wartime presidency saved his reputation, IMO.
Zaphod:
Old German grandfathers of friends reminiscing about how they built the Autobahn? And saying all that was wrong with Hitler was that he didn’t win? Maybe where you grew up, or in Argentina, but not here.
I doubt there’s a single person here who would have been privy to such reminiscences. One reason might be that, for a lot of commenters here, it would have been their fathers’ generation and not grandfathers’ generation who were young adults during the war. Another reason might be that the Germans who came to the US postwar were probably not of the group that would be audibly and fondly reminiscing about the glorious Hitler years to the children and grandchildren of their American neighbors. If they were so inclined, they probably kept it to themselves.
Lastly, FDR certainly had many flaws, and he started many policies that ultimately led the US in the wrong direction. But he was no Hitler, and those Americans of that generation with fond memories of him were responding to his leadership against the Nazis and to their perception that he helped end the Depression. Whether he actually helped end it or helped prolong it is an issue on which reasonable people can differ.
“If they were so inclined, they probably kept it to themselves.”
Precisely. Losers (in the literal sense of having lost) tend to have to do that.
Nobody is calling Roosevelt a Hitler, least of all me. Still perhaps you should go and watch the movie I referenced which R himself wholeheartedly endorsed.
It was a mad old time. All round.
I grew up amongst (among many others) people who had originated in East Prussia and the Baltics. Suffice it to say, their and your worldviews about the 30s and about the eventual Victory of the Good Guys being all wondrous would differ. But then they would, wouldn’t they?
Earlier than that, I grew up amongst people whose grandparents got to experience the first Concentration Camps at the beginning of C20. Suffice to say that their views on British Empire not all rosy.
I’ve seen headlines about the ‘race’ with the Chinese to retrieve from the ocean the downed F35 fighter jet in the South China Sea.
A race? Seriously?
This one seems too clear to me with all we would lose if they get ahold of it.
We tell the Chinese they’ll be shot out of the water if they get near.
I hope that’s what’s happening.
Re: F-35 story. History repeats. 1976 New F-14 with new Phoenix missile over the side of the JFK near Scapa Flow and the rush to recover them before the Rooskies got them.
Zaphod. Shlaes–which I have not read but seen reviewed–says FDR extended the Depression. As with any revisionism, it requires the author’s “would have” be correct. And since it’s the author’s idea, of course it would have worked.
Point is, what the people living then thought. People whose livestock were slaughtered in order to force a rise in prices might have wondered. So would anybody.
The question is whether there’s an eggs-and-omelets ingredient in the “would/should have” possibly different from the same question applied to “did happen”
And extending the Depression is one thing, its depth is another. Do you shorten it at the cost of a bout of “hurts now but you’ll be glad later” worsening of circumstances? How much of one justifies not doing the other?
Reminded of a couple of lines from a country song; Something like
“Daddy got a job with the TVA
Bought a ice box and a Chivolay”
Point being, before the TVA he had not a job, not an ice box, nor a set of wheels not pulled by an over-the-hill mule.
My father knew a dentist during WW II who’d been unable to get a gig after dental school and was set by one of the new agencies to go trying to do dental hygiene in the mountain south. He was trying to figure out which bush’s twigs, when chewed correctly, made the best tooth brush, the locals being unable to afford the real thing.
Years ago, my wife and I stopped, during our off-interstate travels, at a TVA location. Watching a barge locked through isn’t as interesting as it sounds, so we looked in their little museum. Pix of the old days. Reminded of another song;
We don’t get these wind-grainy faces
By living too good.
Appalling.
Somehow for some reason Z can’t bother yo notice the different survival rates between the British concentration camps, American internment camps, German camps of his good old days, the Soviet gulag, and the Turkish system used on the Armenians. Because “they all” were crazy and we get to write the history. Nope they all weren’t the same, Z.
Who is running concentration camps today Z, Xi?
Whether he actually helped end it or helped prolong it is an issue on which reasonable people can differ.
The reasonable people in this case should keep the following in mind:
1. National income accounting is not some scam to fool you.
2. The policy mix which produces the most rapid recovery in production, income, and employment is the optimal one. Institutions run by human beings may do comparatively better or worse at this task. They seldom make optimal choices.
3. Unless you choose the optimal policy mix, your recovery will be slower than it otherwise would have been.
4. In an attempt to appreciate possibilities, have a gander at the economic performance numbers of other countries.
5. Recall that there’s a mess of academic / professional literature literature out there in macroeconomics and economic history attempting to suss out the strength of the vectors influencing outcomes.
==
6. If you’re assessing Roosevelt in particular, recall that at the time he was sworn in, real per capita product had been declining for 3.5 years and had fallen 1/3 in that time. About 1/4 of the labor force was out of work. That wasn’t his doing. The only aspect of that you might attribute to him would be the wave of bank failures during the period running from November 1932 to March 1933, inspired in part by the anxiety that he would act to devalue the currency. In order to stop it, he’d at the very least have had to lie his ass off and pledge not to.
You should read “The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression” by Amity Shlaes. It will open your eyes to how greatly Roosevelt expanded the federal government, and in doing so, probably extended the depression.
There are better uses of your time. Have a gander at her bibliography. She read an antheap of secondary literature and contemporary news reports. She did not at any time make herself familiar with the trajectory of production, income, and employment. Very little academic literature on macroeconomics or economic history, very little in the way of statistical manuals. If you want to understand the era well enough to intermediate between academic / professional discourse and the general reader, you need to be familiar with and able to critically evaluate the high brow stuff. Shlaes never got to first base.
Neo: “I doubt there’s a single person here who would have been privy to such reminiscences.”
Eh, I’ve bumped into a few cases, in Europe and the States. Examples: I encountered Germans of that generation in Munich in the 1980s who reminisced fondly about how nice life was “damals” (“back then”), before they started losing. One old coot sang the Horst Wessel Lied under his breath when we shared a bench at a beer garden. He was drunk, however, and it *is* a catchy tune. In the States, there was a Baltic German professor at the Large Midwestern University where I used to work–a postwar immigrant–who was fairly well known for her nostalgia about the Good Old Days. A friend and I used to imitate her: “Ach, Riga Zwei und Vierzig–das waren SCHOENE Zeiten!” (“Ach, Riga in 1942–such a lovely time!”). The mother of another friend was a postwar GI bride who had grown up in Dresden. She used to talk about how great things were before the tide turned (and her hometown got blitzed). Finally, I once shared a table at a crowded breakfast buffet at a hotel in Warsaw with a middle-aged German guy who, having ascertained that I was Jewish, proceeded to tell me a long story about how his wife’s family was cruelly driven from their beautiful ancestral home in Silesia in 1945 and how wonderful everything had been before that unhappy turn of events. He mentioned in passing that his wife’s father had been a high-ranking SS officer. So it’s not apocryphal. I never heard anybody say “the only bad thing is that we lost” in so many words, however. That would have been going too far. But it was strongly implied.
Hubert,
I speak German and have spent a fair amount of time there. Whenever I am in foreign countries I go out of my way to get a “local experience” as much as possible, and I think folks open up more when someone speaks their native tongue.
Unfortunately, my experience mirrors yours. I’ve heard a lot of admiration for der Fuhrer. The worst was wandering into a bar in Salzburg and, after a few awkward moments piecing together that it was basically a Reich-friendly pub. A few old guys even wore parts of their uniforms; boots, pants, shirts… And one guy started singing the Horse Wessel Lied as I walked out.
I have also spoken with many Germans from that generation who despise Hitler for what he did to the world and their homeland and everyone in my age group (born after the war’s end) was typically disgusted by him. On one assignment I worked in a small town near the Dutch border, and I sensed, however, some of the younger folks there might pull the lever for a fourth Reich if it were on the ballot.
Despite their age or feelings on Hitler, almost every German I have met is in consensus that the United States is the current cause of the world’s woes, and they are all experts on the “holocaust” (their word not mine) we Americans imposed on the American Indians and will gladly tell you about it for hours.
I should add: another disturbing thing. In the postwar generations I have heard more than one lament the continued “persecution” of Germans. Although they seem to sincerely hate Hitler and what happened during the war, they feel they continue to get blamed and suffer for something that happened before they were born. My thought is, “Well, you did try to take over the world twice in the last century and nearly exterminated an entire race of people. One can understand that some folks might hold a grudge.” But I do sense some are growing tired of the association. Scary stuff.
Rufus:
The WW2 Facebook pages are full of this stuff…they aren’t sorry.
Rufus: yeah, well, Austria. Those photos of people crying as the Wehrmacht rolled into Vienna during the Anschluss of 1938? Those were tears of joy. And then we gave them an alibi after the war, so they’ve never really had to deal with it. And they never will. As for your visit to the “brown” bar, they might have been putting on a show for the visiting Ami. There was some of that too where I was.
I lived and worked in Germany for almost five years. Not just in Germany, but in Munich, the spiritual and administrative home of the Nazi party. Despite the episodes I mentioned, I loved living there and never felt uncomfortable or threatened. I was *interested* in the experiences of people who had lived through 1933-1945 and wanted to hear what they had to say. I didn’t expect or want them to be sorry or express contrition or remorse. I probably wouldn’t have believed it anyway. I wanted them to be *honest*, and wish they had felt able to speak more freely about it. The only time I felt real anger was during the Jenninger Affair in November 1988, on the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht (brief allusion at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Jenninger; longer write-up in German at https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rede_am_10._November_1988_im_Deutschen_Bundestag). I wasn’t angry at Jenninger’s speech, which was the first honest speech I’d heard from a German politician about the Nazi period. I was angry at the absolutely predictable and dishonest reaction to the speech from the West German political establishment–their “swamp”–and my dumbass co-religionists in Germany and the States. “Willful misunderstanding, pearl-clutching, and public piling-on” doesn’t begin to describe it.
I don’t believe in collective guilt or collective punishment. As far as I was and am concerned, Germans who weren’t around then or who didn’t participate in the crimes of the Nazi regime weren’t guilty and shouldn’t have been made to feel guilty. As for the actual perpetrators and so-called “Schreibtischtaeter” (writing-desk murderers): I wanted to hear from them especially, and was angry that they were silenced as part of the great postwar U.S.-West German blandification project. I believe in facing the ugly stuff straight-up and head-on, not in sweeping it under the rug so that everybody can feel better about themselves. Which is probably why I’m not personally offended by Zaphod’s comments on this forum.
Rufus: yeah, well, Austria. Those photos of people crying as the Wehrmacht rolled into Vienna during the Anschluss of 1938? Those were tears of joy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v8ekzvtKjw
This is also Austria in 1938
“Personally offended;” takes all kinds, until those kinds are verboten. There are of course, subtle very nuanced deeper levels of meaning in some of Z’s talking points that the unsophisticated (proles) can’t understand (“grok”). Do tell.
Raus!
It would be interesting to hear what commenter “expat,” a long time resident in Germany (West) might say. If she wishes to comment.
Hubert:
I recommend two books to you – or anyone interested in the subject of how Germans felt about Nazis and Hitler. Perhaps you’re already familiar with them, but anyway the first is this one, and the second is this.
Hubert; Rufus; Art Deco:
Some background on Austria and the Nazi takeover:
My guess is that those in the cheering crowds were either pro-Nazi pro-German or pretending to be, and those who were against stayed home in fear.
According to John Gunther in 1936, “In 1932 Austria was probably eighty percent pro-Anschluss”.
That was an ass pull from Mr. Gunther; no reason to take it at face value. Pan German sentiment in 1930 amounted to about 15% of the electorate. Mr. Gunther fancies that the ratio of pan-Germans to the rest increased by more than 20-fold in two years.
Huburt:
Obviously, though, if someone traveled in Germany and talked to Germans of that generation, then that person would be likely to be privy to such reminiscences. However, I was replying to Zaphod and referring to the States, which was Zaphod’s specific reference when he wrote about listening to “old German grandfathers of your friends” reminiscing about building the Autobahn.
Neo: thanks for the references, especially the book on how the Nazi seizure of power played out at the local level. I’ve only read the Klemperer diaries–actually, “skipped around in them” would be more accurate than “read”. My book knowledge of life and popular attitudes in the Third Reich is patchy, being largely based on William Shirer’s “Berlin Diary”, George Kennan’s memoirs, Marie Vassiltchikov’s “Berlin Diaries 1940-1945” (elite attitudes and the German resistance to Hitler), and literary works (e.g. Heinrich Böll’s postwar novels). I’ve also read Goetz Aly’s work on the everyday machinery of annihilation, Omer Bartov’s work on the Wehrmacht, and Peter Reichel’s work on Nazi aesthetics and its applications in daily life. Finally, I read Speer’s memoirs for the view from a surviving member of the inner circle (now there was an ice-cold sonofabitch). By the way: for a good movie treatment of life in a small town under the swastika, see Edgar Reitz’s miniseries “Heimat” (1984)–its accuracy is highly vouched for by my family’s longtime German neighbor in Massachusetts, who was born in Hamburg in the late 1930s and whose family spent the war in a small town in southwestern Germany, away from the bombing.
On your other points:
It is certainly true that one was more likely to encounter nostalgia for the Nazi period in Germany and Austria than in the States, but I occasionally encountered it among emigres in the States (and Canada) as well. It would be erroneous to assume that it didn’t find expression here.
“My guess is that those in the cheering crowds were either pro-Nazi pro-German or pretending to be, and those who were against stayed home in fear.” Well, the second part of your guess is almost certainly true. I do not doubt that there were plenty of people—and not just in the targeted populations—who were horrified, outraged, and terrified by the rise of Nazism in Germany. Our neighbor’s family was just one example of that. It is equally clear that there were also plenty of people who shared the regime’s hatreds and/or felt that their lives improved in tangible ways under Nazism. Those are the people we mostly didn’t hear from after the war, but there were enough of them to permit what happened to happen (cf. Browning’s “Ordinary Men”, Goldhagen’s “Hitler’s Willing Executioners”, and Bartov’s work on the Wehrmacht’s complicity in carrying out the final solution). Sense of powerlessness: if you are implying parallels with the current situation in this country, I have to agree.
Deco: thanks for the clip of Schuschnigg. A noble sentiment from an Austrian patriot, but: did Austria in fact remain Austria? The “bis in den Tod” part certainly applied to between 250,000-260,000 of the 950,000 Austrians who volunteered for the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS, but they didn’t die under the red-white-red. Being a numbers guy, you know that Austrians were disproportionately represented in the SS and the death-camp administrations. Those attitudes didn’t magically evaporate after 1945.
Om: there’s a lot of fancy footwork in Zaphod’s comments, but don’t be fooled by that. His views are quite clear and not at all subtle. And yes, it would be useful to have a contemporary perspective from Germany. My impressions are ~35 years old.
Hubert:
A great deal of They Thought They Were Free focuses on Germans who, postwar, still thought Hitler and Nazism weren’t all that bad. It’s quite an interesting book. And The Nazi Seizure of Power is one of the most frightening I’ve ever read, although it’s rather dry in the telling.
Hubert:
Regarding Z and his “subtle” viewpoints I was being sarcastic but didn’t add the (sarc) flag. My bad.
“expat” doesn’t comment often but frequency is not correlated to quality IMO.