Fools, and Nazis, rush in...

[Andy K]

I used that example to point out that in modern Germany/Austria, Hindus could be singled out as breaking the law.
Hiding symbols of the past away will not change the past.
Remember: Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

 

[RML]

Andy, as much as you are right, so is Roman. The swastika is a loaded symbol, especially in Germany and those countries occupied by the Germans during WW2. Displaying a swastika will immediately give people in these countries associations with Nazism and never/hardly ever with Hinduism. It will not be appreciated at best and at worst could land you in a court of law.

 

[Roman]

Andy, see my second post, about hiding away stuff!
Oh, and I think the Hindu swastika won't be confused with the nazi one - or do you think there are a lot of cameras, weapons, uniforms or Hitler pictures with Hindu swastikas on them?

Roman

 

[Paul T.]

Andy, you know that's a specious argument. The swastika, in a German context as we have here, is a Nazi symbol. The German Eagle isn't. If you find the collection of Wehrmacht memorabilia tasteful, but that of the SS distasteful, then you've drawn a fine line which most people would consider arbitrary.

IN any case, I'm certainly not suggesting that collecting cameras with swastikas should be banned. I just consider it silly. And how silly is demonstrated by the fact that someone will pay huge sums for a 1950s Zorki C dressed up with one.

 

[BAPIEMAI]

Hmmm I do not consider myself racist (although I do hate Brazil after last nights footbal match) but I like all Nazi stuff going from uniforms to cameras, I do not own anything because I don't have the funds for it but I would like a genuine Nazi Leica.

That makes me a neo-nazi, I think not. I just fancy the dark side of Europe's history. I will make a somewhat childish analogy to proove my point. Didn't you all liked Darth Vader and the bad Stormtropers in Star Wars. It is the same thing for me and the Nazi stuff.

 

[Roman]

The difference is that one (Star Wars) is fiction, and the other reality, that cost the lives of millions of people who were murdered is the most brutal ways; there's nothing to fancy about that!

Roman

 

[Socke]

Ok, to the political part of this thread.

Mass murder is mass murder, sometimes it is better organized like the holocaust in Germany sometimes less as in Ruanda.
Some use gaschambers, some bombs, some guns and so on.

I'm interested in making the world a better place without killing people!

 

[Roman]

Oh, and about SS vs. Wehrmacht - the thin line between those two is almost impossible to draw - as historians have proven in numerous instances, the Wehrmacht was noct just an innocent army of soldiers fighting in a war - the Wehrmacht itself was very active in doing ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe, and commiting crimes against humanity - and not even always on order of the SS, but out of its own impulse.
Of course, the big exhibition about these crimes that was shown in many German and Austrian cities was potested against by numbers of old and new nazis.

Don't let yourself get fooled - we are not talking about some old, harmless junk here - we are talking about paraphernalia for a group of political criminals who are making a very strong resurgence in Central Europe, who maybe are not so much a threat to democracy (the European Union, thankfully, will prevent that); but by undermining political and parlamentary institutions (I think Jörg Haider is known even in the US, and he is the most harmless of a bunch of even worse nazi scum in politics), they are slowliy trying to change laws, public opinion and society in their favor again.

Roman

 

[BAPIEMAI]

Mass murder was always in human history even in todays time. It is the same thing that terrorists did to America in 9 11 and it is the same thing that America is doing to Iraq.

I do agree though that Nazi crimes were hideous but in that extent was not the A-bombs in Hiroshima and Nagashaki the same.

Today we view Alexander the Great as a ... great man but how different was he from Hitler. Thousands of people died back then but since it is so long ago it does not have the impact of WWII.

This has nothing to do with collecting stuff, even Nazi stuff. Of course I would not shoot around with a Nazi camera out in the open because that would be provocative.

Also I did not fancy the murder of millions of innocent people during WWII I just like the appearance of Nazi stuff not what they represent.

 

[Roman]

Ok, to the political part of this thread.

Mass murder is mass murder, sometimes it is better organized like the holocaust in Germany sometimes less as in Ruanda.
Some use gaschambers, some bombs, some guns and so on.

I'm interested in making the world a better place without killing people!

Socke, there is a qualitative difference between a society that was based on a planned mass murder and war from the beginning (like the German Reich was - the theories were there already before Hitler seized power in 1933, and the whole economy - and the benefits it brought to his admirers - was based on plans to rob the Jews, build up the armed forces - and thereby generate jobs in the industry - with loaned money that could not have been paid back - with the outspoken intention to start a war to conquer countries to gain 'Lebensraum im Osten'); a mass murder that was organized logistically and bureaucratically, intentionally involving as many people as possible
- and a spontaneous outbreak of violence (liek in Ruanda).
Yes, the holocaust is different - in the thinking that was behind it, in its intention, and in the way it was done, and no, it can not be compared to other incidents of mass murder in history.

Roman

 

[Andy K]

The point is a symbol is a symbol. Banning it will not get rid of the beliefs it represents. It will only drive them underground.
Two thousand years ago believers using one symbol (a six pointed star) were instrumental in the crusifiction of the leader of believers using another symbol (a fish). The result was a new belief and symbol (the cross) which was driven underground. Both those first two symbols are still prevalent today. The third, the crusifix is now known worldwide. The beliefs would have continued with or without their respective symbols.
I think America has the right idea, where free expression and speech are tolerated. They have active neo-Nazis over there, but because it is out in the open they are pretty much limited to a few fat-gutted crackpots living in remote 'compounds', who are ridiculed by the majority. The authorities also know who and where they are.

 

[Paul T.]

The ready comparison of people we dislike to Nazis, is dangerous. It belittles the evil of this credo, which subverted a great civilisation. I marched against the war in iraq, and I am aware that many civilians died, but to compare the deaths of civilians in Iraq to the Holocaust is odious, and gets us nowhere.

I admit that, as a child, I used to like German uniforms. They had the most glamorous ones. They had good graphic design and great propaganda. But the glamour soon palls when you understand what it's selling.

 

[BAPIEMAI]

Unfortunatelly every count of mass murder in wars IS 'organized logistically and bureaucratically, intentionally involving as many people as possible'. It is that the Nazis lost the war and the crime is now the holocaust and not the A-bomb. It would be the other way around if the Nazi had won (although I think the world would be in a worse state than it is today)

I think the whole discussion is similar to the one we had some weeks ago about guns. A lot of people love guns in here but are not gangsters or right-winged hillbilies. I don't like guns but I like Nazi stuff that does not make me Nazi, commie bastard or anything like that.

The important thing is that we know history and not let this outrage happen again, this has nothing to do with collecting stuff.

 

[Roman]

The point is a symbol is a symbol. Banning it will not get rid of the beliefs it represents. It will only drive them underground.
Two thousand years ago believers using one symbol (a six pointed star) were instrumental in the crusifiction of the leader of believers using another symbol (a fish). The result was a new belief and symbol (the cross) which was driven underground. Both those first two symbols are still prevalent today. The third, the crusifix is now known worldwide. The beliefs would have continued with or without their respective symbols.
I think America has the right idea, where free expression and speech are tolerated. They have active neo-Nazis over there, but because it is out in the open they are pretty much limited to a few fat-gutted crackpots living in remote 'compounds', who are ridiculed by the majority. The authorities also know who and where they are.

Think of advertising - a symbol is there to draw buyers; just the same here: a symbol, and the whole loaded atmosphere around it, will draw people with an interest - and will make them open to indoctrination; I think it is very important to forbid those symbols, and to hunt down and prosecute those criminals with a vengeance. If they are going undergound, well get some agents that sniff them out.
And I don't think anybody who is denying a certain group of people the right to life (like the Nazis did with Jews, homosexuals, handicapped, gypsies, etc.) has any right for freedom of speech. No tolerance for intolerance!

BTW, you do know that your argument about jews crucifying Christ is not the accepted contemporary view of at least the Catholic church, and was one of the stream of thought that lead to increasing antisemitism in the 19th c. - the roots of the Nazi ideology?

Sorry, I have to run off to work now, but we can discuss off-list via e-mail, if you want to...

Roman

 

[Andy K]

Yes, the holocaust is different - in the thinking that was behind it, in its intention, and in the way it was done, and no, it can not be compared to other incidents of mass murder in history.

Roman

Yes it can. Just ask the Armenians, the Tutsis, the Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge, the victims of the Spanish Inquisition, the Moslems during the Christian Crusades.
Genocide is genocide, no matter what clothes it wears.

 

[BAPIEMAI]

You said '...But the glamour soon palls when you understand what it's selling.'

It is true to some extent, but in todays world some famous shoe manufacturers use child labor but nobody seems to care. At least buying authentic Nazi gear does not help neo-Nazis.

 

[Roman]

Unfortunatelly every count of mass murder in wars IS 'organized logistically and bureaucratically, intentionally involving as many people as possible'. It is that the Nazis lost the war and the crime is now the holocaust and not the A-bomb. It would be the other way around if the Nazi had won (although I think the world would be in a worse state than it is today)

.

You are mixing something up here: it was the Nazis who started the war, with the outspoken intention to conquer Europe; it was the A-bomb that ended the war in the Pacific. Big difference! And the holocaust being a crime does not depend on who won the war.
Basically, you are saying 'whoever has the power (eg. by winning the war) decides what's right or wrong' - not the most ethical stand-point!

Roman

 

[Laika]

Sorry for posting on topic but does anyone else find it odd that they always seem to use the butt ugly Zorki C or 2C when making up these fake Leica II cameras? .. If Leica made a camera with that boxy top cover I wouldn't want one. I've seen a few plain Leica II copies based on a Zorki 1 that look very passable unless you know your Leica's, the FED 1 based copies are easier to pick with the dished collar around the shutter button, but the Zorki C or 2C??

I think I'll stay out of the politics on this one, I spent a day at Auschwitz/Birkenau last month 🙁

 

[Paul T.]

Laika, I agree. I mentioned Victor Klemperer's diaries; he was a Jewish German who lost many friends at that place. But his diaries are actually quite inspiring. They raise issues we're unlikely to resolve here.

I think sellers use the Zorki C simply because it's worth less than other Zorkis, because they messed with the basic Leica look, and because they're reasonably common. Some of the creations that come out of the Ukraine or Russia are intriguing. I wish we could find the guys who do all this work and get them to machine us a bunch of Contax-to-LTM adapters from old Kievs!

 

[Andy K]

You are mixing something up here: it was the Nazis who started the war, with the outspoken intention to conquer Europe; it was the A-bomb that ended the war in the Pacific. Big difference! And the holocaust being a crime does not depend on who won the war.
Basically, you are saying 'whoever has the power (eg. by winning the war) decides what's right or wrong' - not the most ethical stand-point!

Roman

You are forgetting something Roman. History is written by the winners.
As George Orwell wrote in Nineteen Eighty-Four: 'He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.'