It says a huge amount about the confidence of the royal family, that they feel able to respond to their Nazi home movie with nothing other than outrage that anybody should see it. They make no denial they were giving Nazi salutes, no statement that the royal family did not support the Nazis. Of course the young children had no idea of the implications. But the adults most certainly did. The missing figure is the cameraman, future King George, who was filming his wife and brother displaying the family sympathies.
The royal family were of course German themselves – completely so. Since George I every royal marriage in line of succession had been conducted in strict accordance with the Furstenprivatrecht, to a member of a German royal family. The Queen Mother, who was of course not expected to feature in promulgating the line of succession, was the first significant exception in 220 years. She was evidently trying hard to fit in. But I am not sure German-ness has much to do with it. Nazi sympathies were much more common in the aristocracy than generally admitted. Their vast wealth and massive land ownership contrasted with the horrific poverty and malnutrition of the 1930’s, led the aristocracy to fear a very real prospect of being stood against a wall and shot. Fascism appeared to offer social amelioration for the workers with continued privilege for the aristocrats. It is completely untrue that its racism, totalitarianism and violence was unknown in 1933-4. They knew what they were doing.
Happily fascism was defeated. The royal family is of course only the tip of the iceberg of whitewashed fascist support – without even starting on industrialists, newspaper proprietors, the Kennedys, etc. etc. But the Buckingham Palace option of outrage that anybody should ever remember is very sad – still more sad that such a position gets such popular support.
We never did get round to shooting the aristocrats.
I am an optimist in politics. My experience of life has taught me that altruism is a far stronger human urge than selfishness. Modern political fashion is based on the denigration of the urge to cooperation, and I do not believe will survive.
Which leads me to believe we are now living in an embarrassing past. Future generations will look back at the massive and exponentially expanding gap between rich and poor, at the super state security services and near total surveillance, at the violent wars waged in ill-disguised annexation of resources, and be amazed that people could support it. I also think that enormous shame will attach to all those who support the excruciatingly slow genocide of the Palestinians. That will be part of our embarrassing past.
Apropos of nothing in particular, students of history may find this more than interesting. It’s a detailed CIA report on Hitler, and is pretty objective, unlike subsequent narratives. Should be read as background for Grass’s ‘Tin Drum’, and maybe Grass had access to this report? One very crucial page is missing, however.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/CIAHitler.pdf
Bollocks, Fred. He banned trade unions on 2nd May 1933 and arrested their leaders. He banned all other political parties on the 14th July the same year.
A bit like if the SNP were to just declare themselves the official opposition despite only having 56 seats.
And they haven’t. Bollocks again. You’re really struggling, aren’t you?
Radio-4 appears stuck on “Mr. Blair says” for the first half of its news bulletins today.
The Establishment is terrified that Labour will become a leftwing party, and the last twenty years’ subliminal shifting of public opinion has been a waste of time. But will Blairing make it any less likely? I think not. Not at the grass roots.
The argument that Greece should be using a greater percentage of ‘generic’ drugs is so lacking insight and compassion as to be abhorrent.
Greek health service doctors have been made redundant and many hospitals closed. Those Greeks who are ill and lacking financial resources are dying.
http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2013/09/11/dying-in-the-streets-of-greece-due-to-troika-cuts-shortages-in-health-care-sector/
Who cares eh?
Our NHS is ring-fenced… That is until our political stooges are commanded to privatise lucrative NHS health services and introduce fee demanding private practices.
Thanks Mary 9:15am
“Bollocks, Fred. He banned trade unions on 2nd May 1933 and arrested their leaders. He banned all other political parties on the 14th July the same year.”
No he replaced trade unions with DAF, the German Labour Front.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Labour_Front
What part of ‘banned’ are you having difficulty with, Fred? He banned the unions and arrested the leaders. Which is what I said. What he replaced them with is immaterial. If I were arguing a la Fred, I would now say, Fred thinks the DAF was obviously a vast improvement on the unions and therefore Fred thinks Hitler was a great guy. Making Fred a Nazi by his own process of free-association.
You’re pwned, Fred.
For further reading on the DAF and its precursor, the genuinely interested can skip Wikipedia and start here…
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=B2RiYX6aC68C&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=DAF+union+ley&source=bl&ots=Ca4jjiEIqh&sig=M6w23IazgQG7UR6KZyR6PKtFK4o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCAQ6AEwADgKahUKEwixpcL42-7GAhUG1RQKHeY1CRo#v=onepage&q=DAF%20union%20ley&f=false
a conservative and authoritarian labour policy….resulted in the moral corruption of the workers….
Despite appearances, visitors might be relieved to know that not all Scots are actually Nazis.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hitler%20Piss
The “Hitler was a socialist” argument is one I’ve only heard from very far right wing activists. It’s obvious why – they don’t want Nazis associated with their own philosophies (which they are), and would very much like to discredit the left.
Fred – would you describe yourself as being of a right-wing persuasion?
Embarrassing Past Flashes Before Eyes Supplement:
https://www.rt.com/uk/310443-tony-blair-labour-leadership/
It’s RT. Sorry, but haven’t the stomach for UK Establishment take on the serial liar and fraud:
If your heart is with Corbyn, get a transplant,’ Tony Blair tells Labour supporters
If your heart is with Blair, too late. It’s been sold already. And here’s that *we* again, along with a lot of *what you want to do, Squire*, on the side:
“We need to regain economic credibility. There is a perfectly sound case for saying we should have tightened policy before the crash; there is absolutely no case whatever for effectively accepting that Labour ‘caused’ it. But we cannot address the future unless we are clear about the past and unless we show we’re completely confident in economic policy,” he said.
*We* were in Kenya talking to Uhuru Kenyatta yesterday, blessing the pilgrims at the ostentatious nuptials of our son (with extra police) on Saturday, and our wife got General Karake, who is wanted on an international warrant for extensive war crimes, out of jail this month. Our friend, Viktor Ponta, PM of Romania, who employed us as an advisor earlier in the year,was last Monday charged with fraud, tax evasion and money laundering dating back to 2007-2011. See here for other countries contributing to Tony’s confident (personal) economic policy:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/an-apology/comment-page-2/#comment-537063
Let’s hear it for the workers!
The truth is that on the political circle, the far-right and the far-left meet at the bottom, in the part marked “tyranny”. There isn’t really much between them, the most extreme forms of each being virtually indistinguishable.
To my mind Hitler was indeed a socialist, but with a nationalist and racist flavour that many on the extreme left share, particularly with regard to the Jews. Some of the comments on here that hint at the greedy/devious/manipulative Jew are barely distinguishable from the Nazi propaganda cartoons of the 1930s.
But it is not important. The far-left have enough of their own monsters from history without lumping them with another.
Thankfully most of us in this country are on the centre left and centre right, so no need to worry about the loonies for the time being.
“RoS- and instead of making ludicrous comparisons with Nazi Germany why don’t you get off your arse and visit the place. The Home Office even provides a free shuttle bus from the local station, if you’re interested”
____________________________
OldMark, Well, well well, not an once of sympathy from you regarding the plight of immgrants, that are detained at Dungavel, instead you add a link to to a bus that takes you there, such compassion.
Of course regarding your reply,you probably haven’t even bothered to do your homework on the abuse going on at Dungavel, which if you’d checked even by just googling the words “Dungavel Abuse” would’ve given you more links than you could’ve poked a stick at.
Of course you probably think it’s all made up and those pesky immigrants are, well, lying through their teeth.
Anyway if you want to take the Home Office’s word for it that everythings, a okay at Dungavel, that’s fine by me, however, just in case you decide not to here’s a link to start you off.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/kate-alexander/like-chicken-surrounded-by-dogs
Good comments, Fred. Surely if someone is “pwned” then it ought to be self-evident, rather than the pwn-er having to indicate that that person has been pwned.
As I’ve said, neocons don’t give up. They have been conflating communism with socialism for decades and their Legion of Propaganda has been harping on National Socialism as the same species.
It’s not that hard to spot the enablers. They still use the out-dated slur ‘Commie!’, and show a similar obsession and longing for their Cold Wars, not to mention hot wars.
Interesting fact: Christoph of Hesse was the head of the Forschungsamt office in the Luftwaffe. That was the agency that eavesdropped on people and conducted signals intelligence, Nazi Germany’s NSA.
Fred, Anon is whining and wagging its tail. Take it for a walk like a good lad…
Hitler was a fierce enemy of Marxism in both its Communist and Social Democratic forms, but he was a socialist in the sense that he felt it was necessary to compete with Marxism for the loyalty of the common people, including workers, and to provide substitutes for what Marxism promised those people. So Nazism promoted an egalitarian ideology, benefits for the workers, and national pride.
however, just in case you decide not to here’s a link to start you off.
RoS- that Open Democracy link you gave is tendentious bollocks. The Headline ‘like a chicken surrounded by dogs’ refers to the experience of a single female inmate, and the ‘dogs’ she is referring to were the other, male, inmates (who you and the OD reporter apparently regard as worthy future citizens) and not the screws.
Given that many of the inmates there are convicted criminals who after serving prison sentences are awaiting removal to their home countries, and not refugees from countries we’ve attacked (which you claim most of them are) her comment is understandable. But as an attempt to make it appear that Dungavel is a concentration camp, where the inmates are brutalised by the screws and the punitive regime, the OD link fails miserably.
Nazism promoted an egalitarian ideology, benefits for the workers, and national pride.
It wasn’t all bad, Lysias. There was genocide, the mass murder of Russian PoW’s, the invasion of several neighbouring countries for their own good….but I agree, making the trains run on time was unforgiveable.
Everyone and everything is safe in Babcock’s hands at Devonport.
Devonport workers entombed in submarine ballast tank
22 July 2015
Contractor Babcock International refits Britain’s nuclear submarine fleet at Devonport
Two workers were accidentally entombed inside the ballast tank of a nuclear submarine, it has emerged.
Colleagues had mistakenly sealed the tank at Devonport base in Plymouth, where Britain’s nuclear submarines are refitted.
/..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-33601712
Shooting the Aristocrats
I, myself believe progressive British society should learn from the Greek betrayal. We must abandon appeasement and hope. We’ve got to stop accepting these kinds of corporate banking post-modern neo-liberal political organizations, which are basically affluent upper-class without any sense of real politics.
So called austerity measures are a delusion. This Conservative government has money for wars and nuclear defence, has money to lend to other countries that have resources that can be plundered and has NO money for schools, hospitals and social services including welfare for the sick and disabled.
The truth needed to understand large government debts, is that it is impossible for the Bank of England or British government to go broke, simply because they have the licence to print money.
Nowadays they don’t even have to do that; electronic money is simply created within a computer, by typing in the amount on a keyboard. Ever since money was invented, 2,500 years ago, in the form of coins, governments have always had the ability to make their own money and use it however they like.
As an example, consider Germany, who suffered most in the Great depression (1933), where did the money come from to equip the best military force in Europe? The Nazi government simply printed it and it worked in the short term.
The trick to printing money or ‘Quantitative easing (QE)’ to use the deceptive term, is to keep workers wages low and tax the low paid to take money out of the economy; this and keeping interest rates low or zero, is essentially all that is required to prevent money becoming devalued through inflation.
Thus debt is not real and used as a smoke screen for unemployment where jobs are thin on the ground restricting the power of working people. When agent Cameron promises to raise the ‘living wage’ he is (a) lying and (b) relying on legislation and ‘inconvenience’ propaganda to prevent workers strikes.
I am convinced the British elite engineered the banking collapse. This was the catalyst to impose austerity onto the public, push unemployment even higher and cut public services. It seems that in their greed, this rich elite are willing to force things as far as they can possibly go. They are now willing to engineer another banking crisis so they can claim we need even more austerity. And if they can get away with this, without any penalty, there is nothing to stop them doing it again and again while fixing our minds on terror and preventing ISIS/IS/ISIL beheading grand-mother, sister Jenny or cousin George.
“The Establishment is terrified that Labour will become a leftwing party…But will Blairing make it any less likely? I think not. Not at the grass roots”
And it’s the grass roots that matter this time round. The days of the electoral college, with a third of the votes going equally to the general membership, the unions and Labour MPs are gone. This time it’s One Member One Vote, pure and simple.
More democratic and transparent and much more difficult for powerful interests to control. Labour MPs in particular are severely emasculated by the new rules, no wonder they and the rest of the Establishment are panicking.
http://labourlist.org/2015/05/how-will-the-leadership-election-work/
Danny Finkelstein, recently ennobled Murdoch scribbler, is challenged on his slight against Jeremy Corbyn.
https://twitter.com/MarkJDoran/status/623800510802460672
@ Mark Golding – 12:22 pm
You are spot on Mark and quite correct to challenge the content of the copy and paste about the Greek health service from the resident on here.
Remember though that Tin Men have no hearts.
Excellent post Mark Golding at 4.00 pm.
Also strange how nobody seems to notice Miss Castello’s post at 11.47 am.
Which explains in some detail how they rigged the Scottish referendum.
They used the postal ballots:
http://tapnewswire.com/2015/07/how-the-scottish-referendum-was-rigged/
It was the spooks wot done it. Probably
“Also strange how nobody seems to notice Miss Castello’s post at 11.47 am.”
I think that’s because people are desperately trying to argue that Scottish Nationalism is different to other forms of Nationalism and people trying to replace democracy with propaganda doesn’t further their cause.
Let me see if I’ve got this straight…
a) Scots who are proud of their country, and concerns themselves with the poor and disadvantaged = NAZI
b) Royalty, who are champions and friends of Hitler, proudly photographed performing a Sieg Heil = “Children waving at something in the sky”
You expect this crap to be taken seriously by anyone, Fred?
” He banned the unions and arrested the leaders.”
But DAF was the unions, he took the unions under government control just like Stalin did and he made strikes illegal just like Stalin did.
“Fred – would you describe yourself as being of a right-wing persuasion?”
Are you totally incapable of addressing the issues without attacking the person?
Take a look at the German flag between 1935 and 1945, what colour was it?
Asking whether a person is right wing or not, is not a personal attack, Fred. But it would explain the motives with which they come to an argument. People have a tendency to believe what they want to believe.
What has the colour of the Nazi flag got to do with anything, apart from maybe if someone wanted to make a base slur by association?