Bertolt Brecht is considered to be one of the greatest playwrights and dramatists of the 20th century. So highly is he rated in the literary world that some intellectuals and scholars have described him as “a literary-theatrical equivalent to Picasso.”
Brecht’s dramatic style was somewhat unique. He relied more on the actors and their performance, switching their roles from time to time, testing the audience, forcing them to stay alert, almost as if he was asking the audience to participate in his plays along with the actors.
I remember several such trying moments while watching Brecht’s plays. If I were to take my mind off the stage, I missed a lot. And, if I hadn’t read the play earlier (which was usually the case) and, therefore, weren’t privy to Brecht’s treatment notes and scene descriptions, I really needed to stay alert.
That’s probably why, in order to keep the audience tuned in, Brecht’s plays have a lot of action on stage. With actors moving about, singing, choreography and text messages like newspaper headlines projected on screens as backdrops (there are very few stage-props), the audience just can’t take its mind off the stage.
Fortunately, directors of Brecht’s plays still follow his dramatic style today, keeping their audiences conscious of – and committed to – what is happening and what is being said on stage. Considering the fact that Brecht’s plays also force its audience into thinking during the play, the mind does wander, thereby requiring considerable effort on the audience’s part to stay tuned.
01 November 2008
30 October 2008
Bertolt Brecht: still socially relevant
If not anywhere else, you can be certain that German playwright Bertolt Brecht’s plays have a place in Kolkata, the capital of the Marxist-ruled state of West Bengal in eastern India. There, I remember my college days spent watching Brecht’s plays staged (usually) at the Max Muller Bhavan, as well as in other theatres, both in English and in the Bengali vernacular, with various contemporary interpretations.
Of all of Brecht’s plays, his The Threepenny Opera was the most popular, with Galileo coming in a reasonably-sound second place, both of which had us thinking in our seats during the play and on our feet while walking back home. For, such were – and still are – typical responses to Brecht’s plays. Brecht didn’t just entertain you, he set you thinking about what’s happening around you.
Even his greatest detractors couldn’t deny the fact that Bertolt Brecht delivered a balance of entertainment and instruction. Because, at the heart of every Brecht play and/or production was the belief that the audience had to be entertained (using ‘devices’ such as songs and humour), as well as moved to thinking about the theatre on one hand and, on the other, the society people were living in there and then – making his plays socially relevant with the times.
Commenting on European drama in the first quarter of the twentieth century, in an essay titled On Experimental Theatre, Brecht (1898-1956) wrote:
“For at least two generations the serious European drama has been passing through a period of experiment. So far the various experiments conducted have not led to any definite and clearly established result, nor is the period itself over. In my view these experiments were pursued along two lines which occasionally intersected but can none the less be followed separately. They are defined by the two functions of entertainment and instruction: that is to say that the theatre organized experiments to increase its ability to amuse, and others which were intended to raise its value as education.”
Bertolt Brecht believed these two functions of entertainment and instruction can – and need to – be married to produce the perfect play. But even more, Brecht believed that theatre had to make sense to people – to be relevant and contemporary to its audience.
To achieve this, Brecht wrote copious notes on his plays, giving directions to himself, the actors and directors, and even rewriting his plays, introducing his thinking, his responses to and his beliefs about the social and political happenings of the time. For instance, although he had written Galileo (one of his most famous plays) prior to the Second World War, he changed the ending and several other sections of the play after the United States dropped the atom bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
So, in reality, there is a Galileo I (Galileo Galilei written in 1937-38) and a Galileo II (Galileo re-written in 1945-46); although, today, what is accepted and staged as Galileo is actually Galileo II, Brecht’s later version. The effort Brecht put in to make his plays socially and politically relevant to the present times is a practice that is still followed by producers and directors who stage his plays today.
[Citation: 1. On Experimental Theatre by Bertolt Brecht, translated by John Willett, quoted from The Theory of the Modern Stage, edited by Eric Bentley, Penguin Modern Classics, 2008. 2. The Science Fiction of Bertolt Brecht by Eric Bentley in the Introduction to Galileo by Bertolt Brecht, English version by Charles Laughton, Grove Press, 1966.]
Of all of Brecht’s plays, his The Threepenny Opera was the most popular, with Galileo coming in a reasonably-sound second place, both of which had us thinking in our seats during the play and on our feet while walking back home. For, such were – and still are – typical responses to Brecht’s plays. Brecht didn’t just entertain you, he set you thinking about what’s happening around you.
Even his greatest detractors couldn’t deny the fact that Bertolt Brecht delivered a balance of entertainment and instruction. Because, at the heart of every Brecht play and/or production was the belief that the audience had to be entertained (using ‘devices’ such as songs and humour), as well as moved to thinking about the theatre on one hand and, on the other, the society people were living in there and then – making his plays socially relevant with the times.
Commenting on European drama in the first quarter of the twentieth century, in an essay titled On Experimental Theatre, Brecht (1898-1956) wrote:
“For at least two generations the serious European drama has been passing through a period of experiment. So far the various experiments conducted have not led to any definite and clearly established result, nor is the period itself over. In my view these experiments were pursued along two lines which occasionally intersected but can none the less be followed separately. They are defined by the two functions of entertainment and instruction: that is to say that the theatre organized experiments to increase its ability to amuse, and others which were intended to raise its value as education.”
Bertolt Brecht believed these two functions of entertainment and instruction can – and need to – be married to produce the perfect play. But even more, Brecht believed that theatre had to make sense to people – to be relevant and contemporary to its audience.
To achieve this, Brecht wrote copious notes on his plays, giving directions to himself, the actors and directors, and even rewriting his plays, introducing his thinking, his responses to and his beliefs about the social and political happenings of the time. For instance, although he had written Galileo (one of his most famous plays) prior to the Second World War, he changed the ending and several other sections of the play after the United States dropped the atom bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
So, in reality, there is a Galileo I (Galileo Galilei written in 1937-38) and a Galileo II (Galileo re-written in 1945-46); although, today, what is accepted and staged as Galileo is actually Galileo II, Brecht’s later version. The effort Brecht put in to make his plays socially and politically relevant to the present times is a practice that is still followed by producers and directors who stage his plays today.
[Citation: 1. On Experimental Theatre by Bertolt Brecht, translated by John Willett, quoted from The Theory of the Modern Stage, edited by Eric Bentley, Penguin Modern Classics, 2008. 2. The Science Fiction of Bertolt Brecht by Eric Bentley in the Introduction to Galileo by Bertolt Brecht, English version by Charles Laughton, Grove Press, 1966.]
23 October 2008
The Great Dictator, Arturo Ui
Adolf Hitler has fascinated many people – not only during his rise to leadership in Nazi Germany, but over the years. He has been, and still is, at the centre of much research and talk… and even filmmaking. Everyone from people who suffered during WW2 in Europe to historians, sociologists, psychologists, military strategists, management gurus to school children have heard of and discussed Hitler sometime or the other.
A niece of mine who had worked at a bookstore in Mumbai once told me that Hitler’s Mein Kampf was one of the highest-selling books at the store. What explains this? No idea. Except that, perhaps, in spite of his delusion, autocracy and cruelty, Adolf Hitler is a fascinating subject for many people. Some may revere him even today.
From all of this, and keeping aside my recent foray into Laurence Rees’ work (see my previous posts), two works of creativity stand out in my mind. First, The Great Dictator, a film by Charlie Chaplin released in 1940. And the other, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, a play by Bertholt Brecht written in 1941. While Chaplin’s film is an all-time great work of art and acting, winning favour from adults and children all over the world, Brecht’s play is less well-known, particularly among Indian audiences.
It’s a coincidence that both Adolf Hitler and Charlie Chaplin were born in April 1889 (a few days of each other); Hitler in what was then Austria-Hungary and Chaplin in London, UK. The two men did not meet each other. A story suggests that Chaplin decided to work on The Great Dictator when a friend of his, Alexander Korda, remarked on the physical similarities between the two men and, upon doing some research, Chaplin found that both Hitler and he had both struggled to achieve what they had attained in their respective fields.
The Great Dictator is a parody of Adolf Hitler. The film’s hero, played by Chaplin, is a dictator called Adenoid Hynkel; but the resemblance to the real Hitler is indeed fantastic. In fact, many of the other characters in the film bear resemblance to actual men in Hitler’s coterie. Although Chaplin deals with many of the issues from Hitler’s life and the history around that time, the focus in The Great Dictator is on the delusional mind of Adenoid Hynkel.
When The Great Dictator was released in 1940, or when Chaplin had started work on the film two years earlier, Hitler’s atrocities were not so well known. Apparently, Chaplin had later said that, had he known about the real atrocities of the Nazis, he may not have introduced so much comedy in the film. Needless to say, Hitler had banned The Great Dictator from being screened in all German-occupied territories. But, a rumour exists that Hitler had seen a screening of The Great Dictator once.
Unlike Chaplin, who had the freedom of making films in Hollywood, German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht, born nine years after Hitler and Chaplin, and a Marxist to boot, lived in fear of Nazi persecution. In 1933, when Hitler came into power, Brecht fled Germany, first to Denmark and then to Sweden, Finland and finally to the United States. It was in Finland in 1941 that Brecht wrote the play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. However, the play was not staged in English for another 20 years.
My introduction to The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui was 20-odd years ago in Kolkata, when the play was staged simply as Arturo Ui. Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is about a small-time gangster in Chicago, called Arturo Ui, who takes control of the cauliflower business in Chicago by getting rid of his opponents one by one. The play, and the characters within it, all have a strong resemblance to Hitler and his cronies, and the setting describes Germany just prior to Nazi rule.
Like The Great Dictator, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is a parody of Hitler and the Nazis, staged in a larger-than-life style, highlighting not just the evil ways that Hitler/Ui adopted in his rise to power, banning all opposition, but also the sense of the dramatic that he (both Hitler and Ui) seemed to possess and use to win his audience over. Of course, unlike Chaplin’s film, Brecht’s play has strong Marxist or anti-Fascist undertones, drawing parallels between actual German history and the scenes in his fictional play.
A niece of mine who had worked at a bookstore in Mumbai once told me that Hitler’s Mein Kampf was one of the highest-selling books at the store. What explains this? No idea. Except that, perhaps, in spite of his delusion, autocracy and cruelty, Adolf Hitler is a fascinating subject for many people. Some may revere him even today.
From all of this, and keeping aside my recent foray into Laurence Rees’ work (see my previous posts), two works of creativity stand out in my mind. First, The Great Dictator, a film by Charlie Chaplin released in 1940. And the other, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, a play by Bertholt Brecht written in 1941. While Chaplin’s film is an all-time great work of art and acting, winning favour from adults and children all over the world, Brecht’s play is less well-known, particularly among Indian audiences.
It’s a coincidence that both Adolf Hitler and Charlie Chaplin were born in April 1889 (a few days of each other); Hitler in what was then Austria-Hungary and Chaplin in London, UK. The two men did not meet each other. A story suggests that Chaplin decided to work on The Great Dictator when a friend of his, Alexander Korda, remarked on the physical similarities between the two men and, upon doing some research, Chaplin found that both Hitler and he had both struggled to achieve what they had attained in their respective fields.
The Great Dictator is a parody of Adolf Hitler. The film’s hero, played by Chaplin, is a dictator called Adenoid Hynkel; but the resemblance to the real Hitler is indeed fantastic. In fact, many of the other characters in the film bear resemblance to actual men in Hitler’s coterie. Although Chaplin deals with many of the issues from Hitler’s life and the history around that time, the focus in The Great Dictator is on the delusional mind of Adenoid Hynkel.
When The Great Dictator was released in 1940, or when Chaplin had started work on the film two years earlier, Hitler’s atrocities were not so well known. Apparently, Chaplin had later said that, had he known about the real atrocities of the Nazis, he may not have introduced so much comedy in the film. Needless to say, Hitler had banned The Great Dictator from being screened in all German-occupied territories. But, a rumour exists that Hitler had seen a screening of The Great Dictator once.
Unlike Chaplin, who had the freedom of making films in Hollywood, German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht, born nine years after Hitler and Chaplin, and a Marxist to boot, lived in fear of Nazi persecution. In 1933, when Hitler came into power, Brecht fled Germany, first to Denmark and then to Sweden, Finland and finally to the United States. It was in Finland in 1941 that Brecht wrote the play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. However, the play was not staged in English for another 20 years.
My introduction to The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui was 20-odd years ago in Kolkata, when the play was staged simply as Arturo Ui. Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is about a small-time gangster in Chicago, called Arturo Ui, who takes control of the cauliflower business in Chicago by getting rid of his opponents one by one. The play, and the characters within it, all have a strong resemblance to Hitler and his cronies, and the setting describes Germany just prior to Nazi rule.
Like The Great Dictator, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is a parody of Hitler and the Nazis, staged in a larger-than-life style, highlighting not just the evil ways that Hitler/Ui adopted in his rise to power, banning all opposition, but also the sense of the dramatic that he (both Hitler and Ui) seemed to possess and use to win his audience over. Of course, unlike Chaplin’s film, Brecht’s play has strong Marxist or anti-Fascist undertones, drawing parallels between actual German history and the scenes in his fictional play.
20 October 2008
The Mind of Adolf Hitler
“The Nazi regime was one that practised what one historian [most likely Martin Broszat] famously called ‘cumulative radicalism’, whereby each decision often led to a crisis that led to a still more radical decision… All the leading Nazis knew their Führer prized one quality in policy-making above all others: radicalism. Hitler once said that he wanted his generals to be like ‘dogs straining on a leash’ (and in this they most often failed him). His love of radicalism, plus his technique of encouraging massive competition within the Nazi leadership often by appointing two people to do more or less the same job, meant that there was intense dynamism in the political and administrative system – plus intense inherent instability.”
[Quoted from Auschwitz: The Nazis & The ‘Final Solution’ by Laurence Rees, BBC Books, 2005.]
“[Hitler] does not think things out in a logical and consistent fashion, gathering all available information pertinent to the problem, mapping out alternative courses of action, and then weighing the evidence pro and con for each of them before reaching a decision. His mental processes operate in reverse. Instead of studying the problem as an intellectual would do, he avoids it and occupies himself with other things until unconscious processes furnish him with a solution. Having the solution, he then begins to look for facts that will prove it is correct. In this procedure he is very clever, and by the time he presents it to his associates, it has the appearance of a rational judgment… His orientation is that of an artist and not that of a statesman.”
[Quoted from The Mind of Adolf Hitler by Walter C Langer, as stated in Michael S Wade’s management book Leadership’s Adversary: Winning the War between Leadership and Management, Nova Publishers, 2002.]
[Quoted from Auschwitz: The Nazis & The ‘Final Solution’ by Laurence Rees, BBC Books, 2005.]
“[Hitler] does not think things out in a logical and consistent fashion, gathering all available information pertinent to the problem, mapping out alternative courses of action, and then weighing the evidence pro and con for each of them before reaching a decision. His mental processes operate in reverse. Instead of studying the problem as an intellectual would do, he avoids it and occupies himself with other things until unconscious processes furnish him with a solution. Having the solution, he then begins to look for facts that will prove it is correct. In this procedure he is very clever, and by the time he presents it to his associates, it has the appearance of a rational judgment… His orientation is that of an artist and not that of a statesman.”
[Quoted from The Mind of Adolf Hitler by Walter C Langer, as stated in Michael S Wade’s management book Leadership’s Adversary: Winning the War between Leadership and Management, Nova Publishers, 2002.]
14 October 2008
Blindness
Why did no one fight back?
If over six million Jews were killed by the Nazis between 1939 and 1945 – over a million of them in Auschwitz concentration camp itself – surely some of these Jews could have formed resistance groups and risen up against the Nazis? But, why didn’t they? Why did they meekly surrender to the Nazis when the Nazis came marching into their towns and went knocking on their doors?
Was the might of the Nazis so overpowering that the Jews were paralysed by fear? Were the Jews so religious in principle and practice that they decided not to pick up arms against the Nazis, even to protect themselves and their loved ones? Were the Jews so widespread in Europe that they couldn’t come together in time to form a line of defence, or even sabotage Nazi initiatives against them?
What could explain the inconceivable passivity with which the Jews across Europe surrendered to the Nazis? Is this some giant mystery of the twentieth century?
In his autobiographical writing, Night, Elie Wiesel, survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, gives an example of the ‘blindness’ with which the people from his small town of Sighet, in Transylvania, responded to the Nazi aggression during WW2. He suggests that it was a sort of blindness – the inability of the people of Sighet to take cognisance of Nazi aggression and atrocities against the Jews around them – that drove the Jews to their horrible fate.
Here’s an excerpt from Elie Wiesel’s Night:
“Spring 1944. Splendid news from the Russian Front. There could no longer be any doubt: Germany would be defeated. It was only a matter of time, months or weeks, perhaps.
The trees were in bloom. It was a year like so many others, with its spring, its engagements, its weddings, and its births.
The people were saying, ‘The Red Army is advancing with giant strides… Hitler will not be able to harm us, even if he wants to…’
Yes, we even doubted his resolve to exterminate us.
Annihilate an entire people? Wipe out a population dispersed throughout so many nations? So many millions of people! By what means? In the middle of twentieth century!
And thus my elders concerned themselves with all manner of things – strategy, diplomacy, politics, and Zionism – but not with their own fate.”
[Citation: Night by Elie Wiesel, translated from the French by Marion Wiesel, Hill and Wang publishers, 2006.]
If over six million Jews were killed by the Nazis between 1939 and 1945 – over a million of them in Auschwitz concentration camp itself – surely some of these Jews could have formed resistance groups and risen up against the Nazis? But, why didn’t they? Why did they meekly surrender to the Nazis when the Nazis came marching into their towns and went knocking on their doors?
Was the might of the Nazis so overpowering that the Jews were paralysed by fear? Were the Jews so religious in principle and practice that they decided not to pick up arms against the Nazis, even to protect themselves and their loved ones? Were the Jews so widespread in Europe that they couldn’t come together in time to form a line of defence, or even sabotage Nazi initiatives against them?
What could explain the inconceivable passivity with which the Jews across Europe surrendered to the Nazis? Is this some giant mystery of the twentieth century?
In his autobiographical writing, Night, Elie Wiesel, survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, gives an example of the ‘blindness’ with which the people from his small town of Sighet, in Transylvania, responded to the Nazi aggression during WW2. He suggests that it was a sort of blindness – the inability of the people of Sighet to take cognisance of Nazi aggression and atrocities against the Jews around them – that drove the Jews to their horrible fate.
Here’s an excerpt from Elie Wiesel’s Night:
“Spring 1944. Splendid news from the Russian Front. There could no longer be any doubt: Germany would be defeated. It was only a matter of time, months or weeks, perhaps.
The trees were in bloom. It was a year like so many others, with its spring, its engagements, its weddings, and its births.
The people were saying, ‘The Red Army is advancing with giant strides… Hitler will not be able to harm us, even if he wants to…’
Yes, we even doubted his resolve to exterminate us.
Annihilate an entire people? Wipe out a population dispersed throughout so many nations? So many millions of people! By what means? In the middle of twentieth century!
And thus my elders concerned themselves with all manner of things – strategy, diplomacy, politics, and Zionism – but not with their own fate.”
[Citation: Night by Elie Wiesel, translated from the French by Marion Wiesel, Hill and Wang publishers, 2006.]
10 October 2008
To forget would…
“Why did I write it?
Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness, the immense, terrifying madness that had erupted in history and in the conscience of mankind?
Was it to leave behind a legacy of words, of memories, to help prevent history from repeating itself?
Or was it simply to preserve a record of the ordeal I endured as an adolescent, at an age when one’s knowledge of death and evil should be limited to what one discovers in literature?”
***
“For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would not only be dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”
[Quoted from Night by Elie Wiesel, survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, author, winner of The Nobel Peace Prize (1986); from the Preface to the new 2006 translation (from the French) by his wife Marion Wiesel.]
Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness, the immense, terrifying madness that had erupted in history and in the conscience of mankind?
Was it to leave behind a legacy of words, of memories, to help prevent history from repeating itself?
Or was it simply to preserve a record of the ordeal I endured as an adolescent, at an age when one’s knowledge of death and evil should be limited to what one discovers in literature?”
***
“For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would not only be dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”
[Quoted from Night by Elie Wiesel, survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, author, winner of The Nobel Peace Prize (1986); from the Preface to the new 2006 translation (from the French) by his wife Marion Wiesel.]
08 October 2008
Auschwitz
I’m reading Laurence Rees’ book Auschwitz: The Nazis & The ‘Final Solution’ and watching his BBC TV series at the same time. Of course, the book provides details the TV series cannot, keeping in mind the time-frame in which the video format had to be packaged. Still, the colour ‘enactments’ in the TV series are well-directed. Some of the old and hazy B&W video footages of Auschwitz (and elsewhere) in the TV series are heart-wrenching.
A December 2004 BBC press release has this to say about the TV series:
“The name Auschwitz is quite rightly a byword for horror,” says series producer Laurence Rees. “But the problem with thinking about horror is that we naturally turn away from it. Our series is not only about the shocking, almost unimaginable pain of those who died, or survived, Auschwitz. It’s about how the Nazis came to do what they did. I feel passionately that being horrified is not enough. We need to make an attempt to understand how and why such horrors happened if we are ever to be able to stop them occurring again.”
[Citation: BBC TWO press release – BBC Two unravels the secrets of Auschwitz, 3 December 2004. Auschwitz plaque photo courtesy Sunil Bahl.]
07 October 2008
War against the weak
The belief that human stock could be improved by careful breeding is not something devised by the Nazis alone. Much before the Nazis got onto it, eugenics, or the study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding, was practiced in the United States of America.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, frustrated by the influx of immigrants from various parts of the world (particularly from Asia and southern and eastern Europe), America had become quite concerned with the racial composition of the immigrants, and, in turn, its own population.
In response to this growing problem, a group of eugenics practitioners in America had decided to take serious measures in limiting immigration. What is of greater importance is that some of these measures actually led to a sort of ethnic cleansing of the American population.
In his 2003 book, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, American investigative author Edwin Black states that “eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in ‘colonies’, and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning.”
According to Black’s November 2003 article in the History News Network titled The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics, from which I’ve quoted above,
“Elitists, utopians, and so-called ‘progressives’ fused their smoldering race fears and class bias with their desire to make a better world. They reinvented [Sir Francis] Galton’s eugenics into a repressive and racist ideology. The intent: populate the earth with vastly more of their own socio-economic and biological kind – and less or none of everyone else.
The superior species the eugenics movement sought was populated not merely by tall, strong, talented people. Eugenicists craved blond, blue-eyed Nordic types. This group alone, they believed, was fit to inherit the earth.”
[Citation: The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics by Edwin Black, History News Network, 24 November 2003.]
You can also read a previous post of mine Eugenics, an American point of view.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, frustrated by the influx of immigrants from various parts of the world (particularly from Asia and southern and eastern Europe), America had become quite concerned with the racial composition of the immigrants, and, in turn, its own population.
In response to this growing problem, a group of eugenics practitioners in America had decided to take serious measures in limiting immigration. What is of greater importance is that some of these measures actually led to a sort of ethnic cleansing of the American population.
In his 2003 book, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, American investigative author Edwin Black states that “eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in ‘colonies’, and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning.”
According to Black’s November 2003 article in the History News Network titled The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics, from which I’ve quoted above,
“Elitists, utopians, and so-called ‘progressives’ fused their smoldering race fears and class bias with their desire to make a better world. They reinvented [Sir Francis] Galton’s eugenics into a repressive and racist ideology. The intent: populate the earth with vastly more of their own socio-economic and biological kind – and less or none of everyone else.
The superior species the eugenics movement sought was populated not merely by tall, strong, talented people. Eugenicists craved blond, blue-eyed Nordic types. This group alone, they believed, was fit to inherit the earth.”
[Citation: The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics by Edwin Black, History News Network, 24 November 2003.]
You can also read a previous post of mine Eugenics, an American point of view.
30 September 2008
A collective enterprise
Hitler’s hatred for Jews was hinted at and later communicated freely in his speeches. He blamed them for Germany losing WW1 and for draining his country economically, which he believed led to the suffering of the German people. For these reasons, in 1939, Hitler had been contemplating expulsion of Jews from Germany. Then, why did he, by mid-1941, change his mind to order the extermination of Jews? Wouldn’t a simple expulsion of the Jews from Germany have been enough? Why death?
Some people suggest, and some even insist that there is proof to show, that Hitler and the Nazis were greatly influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. That, Darwin’s theories of ‘natural selection’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ were behind the Nazi ideal of a master race – a pure(r) ‘Aryan’ race. That, Hitler and the Nazis had used Darwin’s theory to brainwash millions of Germans into believing that they were radically superior to other human beings in the world.
Apparently, though speaking against slavery, Darwin himself believed that some races like the blacks from Africa were genetically inferior to the white Caucasians. Hitler had built upon this theory to attack the Jews as a genetically inferior race. And, the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews during WW2 was a direct derivative of the German ideal of a superior race based upon Darwin’s theory. But the interesting thing is that, this belief was so widespread and so deep in the minds of the German people, the Jews simply had no chance.
And, that’s what’s so shocking about the extermination of the Jews!
British TV producer and author Laurence Rees brings this fact out in the open in his book and his BBC TV series, Auschwitz: The Nazis & ‘The Final Solution’. Rees’ book and films reinforce the fact that, although it’s true Hitler had given the order to exterminate the Jews, the actual killings were carried out by ordinary men (and women) collectively, without any remorse.
Here’s an excerpt from the ‘Introduction’ of Laurence Rees’ book:
“Tracing how Hitler, [his Chief of SS, Heinrich] Himmler, [Himmler’s deputy, Reinhard] Heydrich and other leading Nazis created both their ‘Final Solution’ and Auschwitz offers us the chance to see in action a dynamic and radical decision-making process of great complexity. There was no blueprint for the crime imposed from above, nor one devised from below and simply acknowledged from the top. Individual Nazis were not coerced by crude threats to commit murders themselves. No, this was a collective enterprise owned by thousands of people, who made the decision themselves not just to take part but to contribute initiatives in order to solve the problem of how to kill human beings and dispose of their bodies on a scale never attempted before.”
[Citation: Auschwitz: The Nazis & ‘The Final Solution’ by Laurence Rees, a BBC Book, 2005.]
Some people suggest, and some even insist that there is proof to show, that Hitler and the Nazis were greatly influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. That, Darwin’s theories of ‘natural selection’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ were behind the Nazi ideal of a master race – a pure(r) ‘Aryan’ race. That, Hitler and the Nazis had used Darwin’s theory to brainwash millions of Germans into believing that they were radically superior to other human beings in the world.
Apparently, though speaking against slavery, Darwin himself believed that some races like the blacks from Africa were genetically inferior to the white Caucasians. Hitler had built upon this theory to attack the Jews as a genetically inferior race. And, the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews during WW2 was a direct derivative of the German ideal of a superior race based upon Darwin’s theory. But the interesting thing is that, this belief was so widespread and so deep in the minds of the German people, the Jews simply had no chance.
And, that’s what’s so shocking about the extermination of the Jews!
British TV producer and author Laurence Rees brings this fact out in the open in his book and his BBC TV series, Auschwitz: The Nazis & ‘The Final Solution’. Rees’ book and films reinforce the fact that, although it’s true Hitler had given the order to exterminate the Jews, the actual killings were carried out by ordinary men (and women) collectively, without any remorse.
Here’s an excerpt from the ‘Introduction’ of Laurence Rees’ book:
“Tracing how Hitler, [his Chief of SS, Heinrich] Himmler, [Himmler’s deputy, Reinhard] Heydrich and other leading Nazis created both their ‘Final Solution’ and Auschwitz offers us the chance to see in action a dynamic and radical decision-making process of great complexity. There was no blueprint for the crime imposed from above, nor one devised from below and simply acknowledged from the top. Individual Nazis were not coerced by crude threats to commit murders themselves. No, this was a collective enterprise owned by thousands of people, who made the decision themselves not just to take part but to contribute initiatives in order to solve the problem of how to kill human beings and dispose of their bodies on a scale never attempted before.”
[Citation: Auschwitz: The Nazis & ‘The Final Solution’ by Laurence Rees, a BBC Book, 2005.]
25 September 2008
The Jewish Problem
The Holocaust or mass slaughter of Jewish people by the Nazis is a subject that cannot be ignored when we think of WW2 and its aftermath. At least from the European experience – i.e. keeping Asia and the Pacific aside. Although no one seems to know the facts exactly, historical records suggest that Adolf Hitler had given the order to annihilate the Jews himself, sometime towards the end of 1941. Perhaps a few months earlier.
Historical records also suggest that Hitler was working on an ideology of a pure race – a Nordic race, a master race of Scandanavians and Germans who were believed to be the fittest and most capable of leadership. Hence, it is believed, he ‘had it in’ for the Jews, the Gypsies, the Slavs, the homosexuals and a few other minor ethnic groups. The reason stated for the Holocaust was ethnic cleansing. In other words, it was a racial issue.
However, when we read about Germany during Hitler’s time, we learn that the country – and most of Europe – was in an economic recession. The context of films such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun (see my previous post) or more recent ones from Hollywood such as Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List and Steven Soderberg’s The Good German are, by no means, untrue. And worth noting, if we wish to understand what may (also) have led to the Holocaust.
During the recession, when much of Europe was recovering after WW1, a polarisation had taken place dividing the rich and the poor, and the German people ‘believed’ that the Jews had cornered all the money in their country. The entire commerce of Germany was in the hands of the Jews and, therefore, the Jews were responsible for their poor economic state and well-being. These sentiments were so strong that, when Hitler and the Nazis had proposed getting rid of the Jews, very few Germans had protested.
While surfing the internet recently, I found a document titled The Jewish Problem from Calvin College in Michigan, USA, which gives a pretty clear picture of the Jewish Problem in pre-Nazi Germany through the words of one Max Eichler from the German Propaganda Archive. Here are some excerpts:
“Background: The book from which this section is taken was intended to provide a citizen's handbook to the Third Reich, with many pictures illustrating the way Nazi Germany worked. This section presents the "Jewish Question" from a Nazi viewpoint. Citizens are told that Nazis measures against the Jews are reasonable and defensive — but there are also hints of what was to come.
The source: Max Eichler, Du bist sofort im Bilde (Erfurt: J. G. Cramer's Verlag, 1939) pp. 139-142…
…Yet after six years of a National Socialist government, the 700,000 Jews in Germany were worth 8 billion marks, while the nearly 80 million German citizens were worth only 200 billion marks. Each Jew on average had 4.57, or four-and-a-half times, as much as the average German. Jewish net worth, which had been 4 billion marks in 1918, had doubled, at the expense of the German people. Jews also owned substantial property (for example, more than half — about 60% — of Berlin belonged to the Jews, although they were only 3.8% of the population). That proves the extent to which Jewish parasites had exploited the German people.”
These facts could be true. For, not too long ago, I had heard similar sentiments expressed by an elderly Parsi lady I had met in Mumbai who (passed away several years ago but) had grown up in Germany prior to WW2. She was categorical in stating that the Jews had controlled all the businesses, had made huge sums of money charging astronomical amounts for the products and services they delivered (even the basic necessities), and had made the lives of ordinary German people (including her) miserable.
In her view – and, so it seems, in the views of millions of Germans ‘suffering’ at that time – Adolf Hitler may have come as their saviour.
[Citation: The Jewish Problem, a document from the German Propaganda Archive, Calvin College, Michigan, USA. And, in remembrance of TS – may her soul rest in peace.]
Historical records also suggest that Hitler was working on an ideology of a pure race – a Nordic race, a master race of Scandanavians and Germans who were believed to be the fittest and most capable of leadership. Hence, it is believed, he ‘had it in’ for the Jews, the Gypsies, the Slavs, the homosexuals and a few other minor ethnic groups. The reason stated for the Holocaust was ethnic cleansing. In other words, it was a racial issue.
However, when we read about Germany during Hitler’s time, we learn that the country – and most of Europe – was in an economic recession. The context of films such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun (see my previous post) or more recent ones from Hollywood such as Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List and Steven Soderberg’s The Good German are, by no means, untrue. And worth noting, if we wish to understand what may (also) have led to the Holocaust.
During the recession, when much of Europe was recovering after WW1, a polarisation had taken place dividing the rich and the poor, and the German people ‘believed’ that the Jews had cornered all the money in their country. The entire commerce of Germany was in the hands of the Jews and, therefore, the Jews were responsible for their poor economic state and well-being. These sentiments were so strong that, when Hitler and the Nazis had proposed getting rid of the Jews, very few Germans had protested.
While surfing the internet recently, I found a document titled The Jewish Problem from Calvin College in Michigan, USA, which gives a pretty clear picture of the Jewish Problem in pre-Nazi Germany through the words of one Max Eichler from the German Propaganda Archive. Here are some excerpts:
“Background: The book from which this section is taken was intended to provide a citizen's handbook to the Third Reich, with many pictures illustrating the way Nazi Germany worked. This section presents the "Jewish Question" from a Nazi viewpoint. Citizens are told that Nazis measures against the Jews are reasonable and defensive — but there are also hints of what was to come.
The source: Max Eichler, Du bist sofort im Bilde (Erfurt: J. G. Cramer's Verlag, 1939) pp. 139-142…
…Yet after six years of a National Socialist government, the 700,000 Jews in Germany were worth 8 billion marks, while the nearly 80 million German citizens were worth only 200 billion marks. Each Jew on average had 4.57, or four-and-a-half times, as much as the average German. Jewish net worth, which had been 4 billion marks in 1918, had doubled, at the expense of the German people. Jews also owned substantial property (for example, more than half — about 60% — of Berlin belonged to the Jews, although they were only 3.8% of the population). That proves the extent to which Jewish parasites had exploited the German people.”
These facts could be true. For, not too long ago, I had heard similar sentiments expressed by an elderly Parsi lady I had met in Mumbai who (passed away several years ago but) had grown up in Germany prior to WW2. She was categorical in stating that the Jews had controlled all the businesses, had made huge sums of money charging astronomical amounts for the products and services they delivered (even the basic necessities), and had made the lives of ordinary German people (including her) miserable.
In her view – and, so it seems, in the views of millions of Germans ‘suffering’ at that time – Adolf Hitler may have come as their saviour.
[Citation: The Jewish Problem, a document from the German Propaganda Archive, Calvin College, Michigan, USA. And, in remembrance of TS – may her soul rest in peace.]
20 September 2008
Reconstruction
Rachel Seiffert and Bernhard Schlink (see my previous post) aren’t the only ones to embed their sentiments of post-WW2 Germany in my mind. Long before I read Seiffert and Schlink, I remember seeing an outstanding film on the same subject by German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder called The Marriage of Maria Braun.
The Marriage of Maria Braun centres on a woman in Germany in the final years of WW2 and during its reconstruction. It’s about a young woman, Maria, who finds her country and her life in ruins, but still tries to make something of it single-handedly, using her brains and her charm (sexuality). Through various turns of fate and determination, she succeeds and prospers, only to lose everything in the end.
The film begins in a bleak winter Germany during WW2 where men are stealing planks of wood to build fires to stay warm, and women are selling themselves to earn a few marks to provide food for the family. In this desperation, Maria marries the love of her life, a soldier, Hermann Braun, only to lose him to the Russian Front.
Not long after, while she’s working in a bar for American soldiers to earn her keep, Maria receives word that Hermann is reported missing in action. Lonely and out of her mind, she takes up a kind Black American soldier as her lover. One night, while they are together, Hermann lands up unexpectedly and, in a heated struggle between them, the American soldier is killed. Hermann takes the blame and is jailed.
Finding her true love again, Maria vows to create a life for both of them when Hermann returns from jail. With the English she has learnt from the American soldier, Maria takes up a job as the secretary to the owner of a textile mill. Using her intelligence, hard work, perseverance and her sexuality to charm the owner, she rises from the rank of a secretary to become a prosperous businesswoman, accumulating wealth and power.
Just when she feels she has succeeded in reconstructing her life from its ruins and is ready to start a new life with Hermann, director Rainer Werner Fassbinder (who had drawn out the story for screenplay) brings in a twist in the tale. And, in classic Fassbinder style, everything comes crashing down.
The Marriage of Maria Braun is Fassbinder’s parable of reconstruction… of life, love and the soul of not just Maria Braun in the film, but also of his beloved country Germany after WW2. What Fassbinder tries to say in the film is that, in life and love, as it is in war and economics, reconstruction and prosperity come at a huge price.
The Marriage of Maria Braun centres on a woman in Germany in the final years of WW2 and during its reconstruction. It’s about a young woman, Maria, who finds her country and her life in ruins, but still tries to make something of it single-handedly, using her brains and her charm (sexuality). Through various turns of fate and determination, she succeeds and prospers, only to lose everything in the end.
The film begins in a bleak winter Germany during WW2 where men are stealing planks of wood to build fires to stay warm, and women are selling themselves to earn a few marks to provide food for the family. In this desperation, Maria marries the love of her life, a soldier, Hermann Braun, only to lose him to the Russian Front.
Not long after, while she’s working in a bar for American soldiers to earn her keep, Maria receives word that Hermann is reported missing in action. Lonely and out of her mind, she takes up a kind Black American soldier as her lover. One night, while they are together, Hermann lands up unexpectedly and, in a heated struggle between them, the American soldier is killed. Hermann takes the blame and is jailed.
Finding her true love again, Maria vows to create a life for both of them when Hermann returns from jail. With the English she has learnt from the American soldier, Maria takes up a job as the secretary to the owner of a textile mill. Using her intelligence, hard work, perseverance and her sexuality to charm the owner, she rises from the rank of a secretary to become a prosperous businesswoman, accumulating wealth and power.
Just when she feels she has succeeded in reconstructing her life from its ruins and is ready to start a new life with Hermann, director Rainer Werner Fassbinder (who had drawn out the story for screenplay) brings in a twist in the tale. And, in classic Fassbinder style, everything comes crashing down.
The Marriage of Maria Braun is Fassbinder’s parable of reconstruction… of life, love and the soul of not just Maria Braun in the film, but also of his beloved country Germany after WW2. What Fassbinder tries to say in the film is that, in life and love, as it is in war and economics, reconstruction and prosperity come at a huge price.
17 September 2008
Trials of the ordinary
I feel ashamed that I know so little about the aftermath of the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. No other nation has experienced such tragedy. No other people have experienced the agonies of living with their dead, their injured and their sick for so many years until reconstruction.
Yet, I’ve read so little about it – even in fiction. Tales of post-WW2 Japan, at least in English, seem hard to come by. Most of what I’ve read about WW2 and its after-effects has been British or American – narrating, decidedly, a victor’s point of view of war, suffering and reconstruction. This has made me wonder about the vanquished! Surely, they have tales of their own!
Fortunately, two books of fiction had caught my eye. Both were about Germany and, unquestionably, enlightening to read! Specifically, because they presented a perspective I’ve often overlooked: that the trials of the ordinary people, caught in war, are, inescapably, an integral part of the killings, the invasions, the espionage, the heroism, the sorrows and the romances.
The first book was Rachel Seiffert’s The Dark Room, and the second was Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader.
Rachel Seiffert’s The Dark Room was not really a novel, but three novellas distinct in their narratives. The first narrated the life of a handicapped boy who felt isolated as he was unable to take part in the action due to a physical deformity and, therefore, turned to photography and chronicled the war until his disillusionment when the Allies attacked Berlin.
The second narrated a journey by an adolescent girl who, stoically, took responsibility of travelling through war-torn Germany to reach her younger brothers and sister safely to her grandmother’s place. The third novella narrated the story of a schoolteacher in present-day Germany trying to absolve himself from the guilt of his grandfather’s war crimes.
Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader was different from Seiffert’s novellas. It was a unique story of a teenager’s relationship with an older woman who disappeared from his life one day, and then, many years later, when he was a law student, turned out to be a war criminal on trial. The story presented the young man’s confusion and, then, his slow understanding of the older woman’s need to keep secret a personal disability – even at the cost of punishment and personal grief, leading to a tragic end.
The Dark Room and The Reader were both sensitive and disturbing; and yet, two of the best books I’ve read on war.
Yet, I’ve read so little about it – even in fiction. Tales of post-WW2 Japan, at least in English, seem hard to come by. Most of what I’ve read about WW2 and its after-effects has been British or American – narrating, decidedly, a victor’s point of view of war, suffering and reconstruction. This has made me wonder about the vanquished! Surely, they have tales of their own!
Fortunately, two books of fiction had caught my eye. Both were about Germany and, unquestionably, enlightening to read! Specifically, because they presented a perspective I’ve often overlooked: that the trials of the ordinary people, caught in war, are, inescapably, an integral part of the killings, the invasions, the espionage, the heroism, the sorrows and the romances.
The first book was Rachel Seiffert’s The Dark Room, and the second was Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader.
Rachel Seiffert’s The Dark Room was not really a novel, but three novellas distinct in their narratives. The first narrated the life of a handicapped boy who felt isolated as he was unable to take part in the action due to a physical deformity and, therefore, turned to photography and chronicled the war until his disillusionment when the Allies attacked Berlin.
The second narrated a journey by an adolescent girl who, stoically, took responsibility of travelling through war-torn Germany to reach her younger brothers and sister safely to her grandmother’s place. The third novella narrated the story of a schoolteacher in present-day Germany trying to absolve himself from the guilt of his grandfather’s war crimes.
Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader was different from Seiffert’s novellas. It was a unique story of a teenager’s relationship with an older woman who disappeared from his life one day, and then, many years later, when he was a law student, turned out to be a war criminal on trial. The story presented the young man’s confusion and, then, his slow understanding of the older woman’s need to keep secret a personal disability – even at the cost of punishment and personal grief, leading to a tragic end.
The Dark Room and The Reader were both sensitive and disturbing; and yet, two of the best books I’ve read on war.
12 September 2008
Evil for the sake of good
“The decision to use evil for the sake of good requires that the decision-maker be willing to bear the brunt of evil.”
[Quote from Bernhard Schlink’s novel Homecoming.]
Should the United States have dropped the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Was it morally right to kill and injure hundreds of thousands of people with a single command? Was this wanton murder any different from Hitler’s Nazi Germany? After dropping the first one on Hiroshima to prove the point, was the second bomb on Nagasaki necessary?
These questions have been debated since August 1945 to no conclusive end. If we are to go by the fact that the United States has, till date, refused to apologise to the people of Japan for dropping the atom bombs, then we can be sure that the United States feels that they were justified in their action. It was, after all, to shorten the war and save thousands of lives!
It’s interesting to note that the atom bomb was actually intended for Hitler’s Germany. Hitler was evil and had to be stopped. Hitler’s own atomic programme had to be stopped. Even Albert Einstein – an advocate of peace – had urged the United States in their atomic-bomb research by writing to President Franklin D Roosevelt himself.
But Germany lost the war in Europe and surrendered to the Allied Forces in May 1945 – three months before the atom bomb was ready for use. So, Japan became the obvious target.
The United States still claims – as they did back in 1945 – that the dropping of the two atom bombs compelled Japan to surrender and bring World War 2 to its end. And so it did. On 15 August 1945, in his acceptance of surrender speech, Emperor Hirohito of Japan said, “The enemy now possesses a new and terrible weapon with the power to destroy many innocent lives and do incalculable damage.”
[Quote from Bernhard Schlink’s novel Homecoming.]
Should the United States have dropped the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Was it morally right to kill and injure hundreds of thousands of people with a single command? Was this wanton murder any different from Hitler’s Nazi Germany? After dropping the first one on Hiroshima to prove the point, was the second bomb on Nagasaki necessary?
These questions have been debated since August 1945 to no conclusive end. If we are to go by the fact that the United States has, till date, refused to apologise to the people of Japan for dropping the atom bombs, then we can be sure that the United States feels that they were justified in their action. It was, after all, to shorten the war and save thousands of lives!
It’s interesting to note that the atom bomb was actually intended for Hitler’s Germany. Hitler was evil and had to be stopped. Hitler’s own atomic programme had to be stopped. Even Albert Einstein – an advocate of peace – had urged the United States in their atomic-bomb research by writing to President Franklin D Roosevelt himself.
But Germany lost the war in Europe and surrendered to the Allied Forces in May 1945 – three months before the atom bomb was ready for use. So, Japan became the obvious target.
The United States still claims – as they did back in 1945 – that the dropping of the two atom bombs compelled Japan to surrender and bring World War 2 to its end. And so it did. On 15 August 1945, in his acceptance of surrender speech, Emperor Hirohito of Japan said, “The enemy now possesses a new and terrible weapon with the power to destroy many innocent lives and do incalculable damage.”
09 September 2008
On a clear day…
63 years ago, on a clear day, history was created. On that day, 6 August 1945, at 7:42 a.m., an atom bomb was dropped on a city called Hiroshima in Japan, killing more than 150,000 people – half of them on that day itself. All civilians. Thousands more died from injuries and radiation illnesses over the years.
The next day, US military officials had confirmed publicly that Hiroshima was devastated: at least 60% of the city was wiped off the map. An eyewitness account on Tokyo Radio had described the victim’s bodies as bloated and scorched, burned with huge blisters.
At least four Japanese cities were targeted by the United States: Kokura, Niigata, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The one chosen as target – ‘bomb primary’ – depended on weather conditions, as the pilot on the plane carrying the bomb needed clear visibility to drop its load. As Hiroshima was experiencing clear sunshine that morning, the luck of the draw went against its people. And, history was created.
On hearing the news of the attack on Hiroshima, US President Harry S Truman, returning home from Europe on board USS Augusta, had apparently announced that, “The experiment was an overwhelming success.” It is rumoured that President Truman had also said, “It is the greatest thing in history!” But this comment seems to have been deleted from most US records.
Japan had challenged that the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima was inhuman, an atrocity, a crime against God and man, a violation of international law, specifically Article 22 of the Hague Convention which outlawed attacks on defenseless civilians. President Truman, of course, defended himself, announcing on national radio that the bomb had been dropped on a “military base, not a large city.”
And then, on 9 August 1945, at 11:02 a.m., the United States dropped the second atom bomb on Nagasaki, killing another 80,000 people – with, possibly, an equal number succumbing to injuries from “blistering blast winds, heat rays and radiation” over the years. On 9 August 1945, Nagasaki, too, was experiencing a clear day with sunshine and, therefore, became ‘bomb primary’ (apparently, Kokura was primary target, but a moderate cloud had covered and obscured the city).
[Citation: The Hinge Factor: How Chance and Stupidity Have Changed History by Erik Durschmied; 63 Years Ago: Media Distortions Set Tone for Nuclear Age by Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher, 6 August 2008; and various sources from the internet.]
NOTE: On further research I find that the bomb on Hiroshima was dropped at 8:15 a.m. Hiroshima time (not at 7:42 a.m. as indicated in Erik Durschmied's book The Hinge Factor. There is photographic evidence to show that several clocks in Hiroshima had stopped at 8:15 a.m. - presumably when the bomb was activated on ground.
The next day, US military officials had confirmed publicly that Hiroshima was devastated: at least 60% of the city was wiped off the map. An eyewitness account on Tokyo Radio had described the victim’s bodies as bloated and scorched, burned with huge blisters.
At least four Japanese cities were targeted by the United States: Kokura, Niigata, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The one chosen as target – ‘bomb primary’ – depended on weather conditions, as the pilot on the plane carrying the bomb needed clear visibility to drop its load. As Hiroshima was experiencing clear sunshine that morning, the luck of the draw went against its people. And, history was created.
On hearing the news of the attack on Hiroshima, US President Harry S Truman, returning home from Europe on board USS Augusta, had apparently announced that, “The experiment was an overwhelming success.” It is rumoured that President Truman had also said, “It is the greatest thing in history!” But this comment seems to have been deleted from most US records.
Japan had challenged that the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima was inhuman, an atrocity, a crime against God and man, a violation of international law, specifically Article 22 of the Hague Convention which outlawed attacks on defenseless civilians. President Truman, of course, defended himself, announcing on national radio that the bomb had been dropped on a “military base, not a large city.”
And then, on 9 August 1945, at 11:02 a.m., the United States dropped the second atom bomb on Nagasaki, killing another 80,000 people – with, possibly, an equal number succumbing to injuries from “blistering blast winds, heat rays and radiation” over the years. On 9 August 1945, Nagasaki, too, was experiencing a clear day with sunshine and, therefore, became ‘bomb primary’ (apparently, Kokura was primary target, but a moderate cloud had covered and obscured the city).
[Citation: The Hinge Factor: How Chance and Stupidity Have Changed History by Erik Durschmied; 63 Years Ago: Media Distortions Set Tone for Nuclear Age by Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher, 6 August 2008; and various sources from the internet.]
NOTE: On further research I find that the bomb on Hiroshima was dropped at 8:15 a.m. Hiroshima time (not at 7:42 a.m. as indicated in Erik Durschmied's book The Hinge Factor. There is photographic evidence to show that several clocks in Hiroshima had stopped at 8:15 a.m. - presumably when the bomb was activated on ground.
06 September 2008
The Hinge Factor
We’ve grown up reading about wars in history books, with narratives of how great kings and great generals have been responsible for victories against all odds. We’ve read tales about their conquests, their courage and their heroism. We’ve accepted their courage, their commitment, their skill, their strategic decision-making capabilities and their leadership as the realities of battles they’ve fought and won. We’ve taken these factors for granted.
But, what really decides the outcome of a battle? What decides the fate and lives of thousands – sometimes millions – of people in a battle, during war, or even after?
In his book, The Hinge Factor: How Chance and Stupidity Have Changed History, Erik Durschmied presents an antithesis to the factors we often take for granted: that men with brilliance and courage and determination and leadership win battles. He suggests that, often, it is the unexpected and the unpredictable and the absurd in a battle that swings victory in favour of the opposition – changing the outcome of events and the course of history.
Durschmied suggests that the outcome of a battle and the fate of millions of people are not always determined by great men and their heroic qualities (as we tend to read in history books and believe), but more often, by improbable and unexpected happenings. In the prologue of The Hinge Factor: How Chance and Stupidity Have Changed History, he writes:
“Some chroniclers wish us to believe that battles are won by valor and the brilliance of war lords, on whom they bestow the accolade of ‘genius’ when they are triumphant. They record the victor as being brilliant and the loser as not. And yet, there is no secret formula to the victorious outcome of a battle – except that much depends on who commits the bigger blunder. Or, to put no finger point on it, many battles have been decided by the caprice of weather, bad (or good) intelligence, unexpected heroism or individual incompetence – in other words, the unpredictable. In military terms, this phenomenon is known as: The Hinge Factor.”
But, what really decides the outcome of a battle? What decides the fate and lives of thousands – sometimes millions – of people in a battle, during war, or even after?
In his book, The Hinge Factor: How Chance and Stupidity Have Changed History, Erik Durschmied presents an antithesis to the factors we often take for granted: that men with brilliance and courage and determination and leadership win battles. He suggests that, often, it is the unexpected and the unpredictable and the absurd in a battle that swings victory in favour of the opposition – changing the outcome of events and the course of history.
Durschmied suggests that the outcome of a battle and the fate of millions of people are not always determined by great men and their heroic qualities (as we tend to read in history books and believe), but more often, by improbable and unexpected happenings. In the prologue of The Hinge Factor: How Chance and Stupidity Have Changed History, he writes:
“Some chroniclers wish us to believe that battles are won by valor and the brilliance of war lords, on whom they bestow the accolade of ‘genius’ when they are triumphant. They record the victor as being brilliant and the loser as not. And yet, there is no secret formula to the victorious outcome of a battle – except that much depends on who commits the bigger blunder. Or, to put no finger point on it, many battles have been decided by the caprice of weather, bad (or good) intelligence, unexpected heroism or individual incompetence – in other words, the unpredictable. In military terms, this phenomenon is known as: The Hinge Factor.”
03 September 2008
Changing the course of history – by chance
In a film as recent and as mediocre as Wanted, directed by Timur Bekmambetov, actor Morgan Freeman’s character ‘Sloan’ talks of taking control and changing the course of history forever. For, the ability to do so is the ultimate show, and possession, of power.
If nothing else, history has been, and still is, about change. However, not all changes in history have been brought on by people – from their desires and their deeds. Much of it has happened by ‘existence’. Some of it has been accidental. Some of it has happened due to a combination of factors which were outside human control.
In his book Serendipities: Language and Lunacy, semiotics professor and author Umberto Eco mentions an instance in history when history has not been entirely in human control – that of Christopher Columbus ‘discovering’ the Americas – in the chapter ‘The Force of Falsity’ from which I’ve quoted in another blog:
“And so you see how complicated life is, and how fragile are the boundaries between truth and error, right and wrong. Though they were right, the sages of Salamanca were wrong; and Columbus, while he was wrong, pursued faithfully his error and proved to be right – thanks to serendipity.”
This fact, that Columbus discovered the Americas by chance, is not an isolated example but seems to be a common occurrence in history.
For instance, the Stone Age cave paintings in Altamira, Northern Spain – one of the greatest historical discoveries – were found accidentally when, in 1879, a 9-year-old girl crawled into a cave while exploring her father’s estate. The Stone Age cave paintings in Lascaux, Southern France, were found in 1940 by a teenager (and his friends) when he followed his dog into the cave.
Similar examples of chance discoveries are quoted by war journalist and author Erik Durschmied in his 1999 book The Hinge Factor: How Chance and Stupidity Has Changed History, and by British mathematics professor Jacob Bronowski in his famous 1973 BBC TV series The Ascent of Man, which was later published as a book in 1974. They make interesting reading (or viewing), for both academics and laymen, about how history is shaped through the years.
If we are to believe great scholars like Eco, Durschmied and Bronowski, be it exploring the new world or war upon nations or man’s scientific and technological achievements, much of the course of history may have changed simply by chance, and not because of great strategies by powerful and ambitious men.
If nothing else, history has been, and still is, about change. However, not all changes in history have been brought on by people – from their desires and their deeds. Much of it has happened by ‘existence’. Some of it has been accidental. Some of it has happened due to a combination of factors which were outside human control.
In his book Serendipities: Language and Lunacy, semiotics professor and author Umberto Eco mentions an instance in history when history has not been entirely in human control – that of Christopher Columbus ‘discovering’ the Americas – in the chapter ‘The Force of Falsity’ from which I’ve quoted in another blog:
“And so you see how complicated life is, and how fragile are the boundaries between truth and error, right and wrong. Though they were right, the sages of Salamanca were wrong; and Columbus, while he was wrong, pursued faithfully his error and proved to be right – thanks to serendipity.”
This fact, that Columbus discovered the Americas by chance, is not an isolated example but seems to be a common occurrence in history.
For instance, the Stone Age cave paintings in Altamira, Northern Spain – one of the greatest historical discoveries – were found accidentally when, in 1879, a 9-year-old girl crawled into a cave while exploring her father’s estate. The Stone Age cave paintings in Lascaux, Southern France, were found in 1940 by a teenager (and his friends) when he followed his dog into the cave.
Similar examples of chance discoveries are quoted by war journalist and author Erik Durschmied in his 1999 book The Hinge Factor: How Chance and Stupidity Has Changed History, and by British mathematics professor Jacob Bronowski in his famous 1973 BBC TV series The Ascent of Man, which was later published as a book in 1974. They make interesting reading (or viewing), for both academics and laymen, about how history is shaped through the years.
If we are to believe great scholars like Eco, Durschmied and Bronowski, be it exploring the new world or war upon nations or man’s scientific and technological achievements, much of the course of history may have changed simply by chance, and not because of great strategies by powerful and ambitious men.
29 August 2008
10 ideas that changed the course of history
What we see, and act upon, is more a product of what is inside our heads rather than what’s out there. We think we see the real world but, actually, we see what we want to see. Often, we tune out big chunks of the environment; either because we are not comfortable with it, or because we are too fixated on something else.
All through history, we have shown a reluctance to accept new ideas or adopt new lifestyles. We have tended to stay with what we are comfortable with… even if it has caused us problems, limited our growth, or invited danger. Because, we believe, changing our view of the world opens us up to uncertainty and risk.
However, all has not been lost. There have been enlightening moments – even movements – in history which have ensured that we have evolved, and progressed, as the human race.
A couple of months ago, The Observer in the UK (now part of Guardian) published a series of interviews announcing what they felt were ideas that changed the course of history. The ideas were listed as
1. Plato’s Philosophy
2. Sun-centred (Copernican) Theory of the Universe
3. Cartesian Cogito
4. Theory of Universal Gravitation
5. Adam Smith’s Laissez-Faire Economics
6. Women’s Liberation
7. Marxist Analysis of Capitalism
8. Theory of the Unconscious
9. Theory of Relativity
10. World Wide Web.
An article on these ideas titled, Blue sky thinking: 10 ideas that changed the course of history, is available online on the Guardian website and makes interesting reading.
[Citation: Blue sky thinking: 10 ideas that changed the course of history – interviews by Ally Carnwath, Lucy Halfhead and Katie Toms, The Observer, 22 June 2008, article from the Guardian website.]
All through history, we have shown a reluctance to accept new ideas or adopt new lifestyles. We have tended to stay with what we are comfortable with… even if it has caused us problems, limited our growth, or invited danger. Because, we believe, changing our view of the world opens us up to uncertainty and risk.
However, all has not been lost. There have been enlightening moments – even movements – in history which have ensured that we have evolved, and progressed, as the human race.
A couple of months ago, The Observer in the UK (now part of Guardian) published a series of interviews announcing what they felt were ideas that changed the course of history. The ideas were listed as
1. Plato’s Philosophy
2. Sun-centred (Copernican) Theory of the Universe
3. Cartesian Cogito
4. Theory of Universal Gravitation
5. Adam Smith’s Laissez-Faire Economics
6. Women’s Liberation
7. Marxist Analysis of Capitalism
8. Theory of the Unconscious
9. Theory of Relativity
10. World Wide Web.
An article on these ideas titled, Blue sky thinking: 10 ideas that changed the course of history, is available online on the Guardian website and makes interesting reading.
[Citation: Blue sky thinking: 10 ideas that changed the course of history – interviews by Ally Carnwath, Lucy Halfhead and Katie Toms, The Observer, 22 June 2008, article from the Guardian website.]
27 August 2008
Minority status
The issue of ‘background books’ that Umberto Eco raises in his book Serendipities: Language and Lunacy (see my earlier post ‘Travellers’) is not confined only to those who travel outside their countries. It is, rather, a notion – a concept, a view – that governs our attitudes and behaviour towards others, other situations and other things.
It is a notion that shapes, and is shaped by, convention. It is a notion that dictates what is thought to be true – in spite of emerging evidence to the contrary. It is a notion that hinders our ability, as perfectly normal human beings, to act rationally.
History is replete with examples of such notions impeding human progress: from Galileo being condemned for championing the Copernican model of the universe (which puts the Sun at the centre and the Earth in orbit around it), to Darwin’s theory of ‘natural selection’ being interpreted as anti-Christian, to modern-day feminists being ridiculed for challenging the subordinated role of women in our societies.
In each case, our background books have been overbearing, reducing new ideas and discoveries, which spring forth every now and then, to minority status.
It is a notion that shapes, and is shaped by, convention. It is a notion that dictates what is thought to be true – in spite of emerging evidence to the contrary. It is a notion that hinders our ability, as perfectly normal human beings, to act rationally.
History is replete with examples of such notions impeding human progress: from Galileo being condemned for championing the Copernican model of the universe (which puts the Sun at the centre and the Earth in orbit around it), to Darwin’s theory of ‘natural selection’ being interpreted as anti-Christian, to modern-day feminists being ridiculed for challenging the subordinated role of women in our societies.
In each case, our background books have been overbearing, reducing new ideas and discoveries, which spring forth every now and then, to minority status.
26 August 2008
Melbourne is UNESCO City of Literature
Well, I’ll be damned! Last week – on 20 August 2008 – Melbourne (Australia) was declared UNESCO City of Literature.
The happy news was reported in an article, Melbourne hooks the books by Jason Steger, in Australian newspaper The Age, flaunting Melbourne’s rightful place as the second UNESCO City of Literature – the first being Edinburgh (Scotland) in 2004. [UNESCO’s website hasn’t been updated with the information on Melbourne yet.]
According to The Age, “The timing could hardly have been better had it appeared in the final chapters of a best-selling thriller. Three days before the opening of the Melbourne Writers Festival, UNESCO has named Melbourne as its second City of Literature.”
The newspaper went on to state that, “[Victoria’s] Arts Minister Lynne Kosky said the decision was confirmation of the value of a lot of people who have been working in the literature industry – writers and publishers and those who support writing and publishing.”
Furthermore, reported The Age, “Ms Kosky said there were not many places internationally, and nowhere in Australia, that had a comparable space for literature and ideas. Melbourne’s status as a City of Literature would have cultural and economic benefits for Melbourne and Victoria.”
Couldn’t India’s New Delhi or Kolkata or Chennai qualify just as easily as Melbourne or Edinburgh? What qualifies a city as a UNESCO City of Literature anyway?
According to UNESCO (as indicated on its website),
“The following list of criteria and characteristics serves as a guide for cities interested in joining the network as a City of Literature:
• Quality, quantity and diversity of editorial initiatives and publishing houses;
• Quality and quantity of educational programmes focusing on domestic or foreign literature in primary and secondary schools as well as universities;
• Urban environment in which literature, drama and/or poetry play an integral role;
• Experience in hosting literary events and festivals aiming at promoting domestic and foreign literature;
• Libraries, bookstores and public or private cultural centres dedicated to the preservation, promotion and dissemination of domestic and foreign literature;
• Active effort by the publishing sector to translate literary works from diverse national languages and foreign literature;
• Active involvement of media, including new media, in promoting literature and strengthening the market for literary products.”
Read The Age article on Melbourne, the second UNESCO City of Literature here.
Visit the UNESCO Culture Literature page here.
[Citation: Melbourne hooks the books by Jason Steger, The Age; UNESCO City of Literature webpage.]
The happy news was reported in an article, Melbourne hooks the books by Jason Steger, in Australian newspaper The Age, flaunting Melbourne’s rightful place as the second UNESCO City of Literature – the first being Edinburgh (Scotland) in 2004. [UNESCO’s website hasn’t been updated with the information on Melbourne yet.]
According to The Age, “The timing could hardly have been better had it appeared in the final chapters of a best-selling thriller. Three days before the opening of the Melbourne Writers Festival, UNESCO has named Melbourne as its second City of Literature.”
The newspaper went on to state that, “[Victoria’s] Arts Minister Lynne Kosky said the decision was confirmation of the value of a lot of people who have been working in the literature industry – writers and publishers and those who support writing and publishing.”
Furthermore, reported The Age, “Ms Kosky said there were not many places internationally, and nowhere in Australia, that had a comparable space for literature and ideas. Melbourne’s status as a City of Literature would have cultural and economic benefits for Melbourne and Victoria.”
Couldn’t India’s New Delhi or Kolkata or Chennai qualify just as easily as Melbourne or Edinburgh? What qualifies a city as a UNESCO City of Literature anyway?
According to UNESCO (as indicated on its website),
“The following list of criteria and characteristics serves as a guide for cities interested in joining the network as a City of Literature:
• Quality, quantity and diversity of editorial initiatives and publishing houses;
• Quality and quantity of educational programmes focusing on domestic or foreign literature in primary and secondary schools as well as universities;
• Urban environment in which literature, drama and/or poetry play an integral role;
• Experience in hosting literary events and festivals aiming at promoting domestic and foreign literature;
• Libraries, bookstores and public or private cultural centres dedicated to the preservation, promotion and dissemination of domestic and foreign literature;
• Active effort by the publishing sector to translate literary works from diverse national languages and foreign literature;
• Active involvement of media, including new media, in promoting literature and strengthening the market for literary products.”
Read The Age article on Melbourne, the second UNESCO City of Literature here.
Visit the UNESCO Culture Literature page here.
[Citation: Melbourne hooks the books by Jason Steger, The Age; UNESCO City of Literature webpage.]
25 August 2008
Travellers
“We (in the sense of human beings) travel and explore the world, carrying with us some ‘background books’. These need not accompany us physically; the point is that we travel with preconceived notions of the world, derived from our cultural tradition. In a curious sense we travel knowing in advance what we are on the verge of discovery, because past reading has told us what we are supposed to discover. In other words, the influence of these background books is such that, irrespective of what travellers discover and see, they will interpret and explain everything in terms of these books.”
– Umberto Eco in Serendipities: Language and Lunacy (translated by William Weaver)
– Umberto Eco in Serendipities: Language and Lunacy (translated by William Weaver)
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