From MORRIS list

[Ted Samsel]

More fuel for the fire:

Forwarded message:
> From <@uga.cc.uga.edu::owner-morris at INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU> Mon Jun  5 07:52 EDT 1995
> Message-Id: <199506051152.HAA15287 at larry.infi.net>
> Date:         Mon, 5 Jun 1995 07:40:37 EDT
> Reply-To: Steve Corrsin <SDCBC%CUNYVM.BITNET at uga.cc.uga.edu>
> Sender: Morris Dancing Discussion List <MORRIS%INDYCMS.BITNET at uga.cc.uga.edu>
> From: Steve Corrsin <SDCBC%CUNYVM.BITNET at uga.cc.uga.edu>
> Subject:      Return of the Hauptsturmfuhrer
> To: Multiple recipients of list MORRIS <MORRIS%INDYCMS.BITNET at uga.cc.uga.edu>
> Content-Type: text
> Content-Length: 1902
> 
> A few of you all may have read my largely no-dance-content posting last
> week, about ex-SS men and sword dancing.  To recap, a German academic,
> Hans Schwerte, has been found out; he was actually one H. Schneider,
> who had been in WW2 with "Das Ahnenerbe," the intellectual wing of the
> SS, along with Richard Wolfram, who remains today the biggest name in
> German-language sword dance writing.
> 
> No connection between the two men came up in the original NY Times article,
> beyond the fact that they both belong to "Das Ahnenerbe."  Sunday, however,
> another article noted: Schwerte was "a leader of the so-called
> Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage) unit, whose responsibilities ranged from
> analyzing folk dances for traces of Germanic influence to carrying out
> grotesque experiments on prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp.
> 
> "Mr Schwerte--or should it be Hauptsturmfuhrer (captain) Schneider?--says
> his duties were more on the folk dance side."  Etc., with evidence
> indicating otherwise.  And in fact, bizarre as it sounds now, in
> at least the occupied Netherlands and Belgium, sword dances were used
> as evidence of "Greater Germanic Cultural Unity" in various programs to
> support the spread of Nazi ideology among the populace.  You'll read
> all about it in my book.
> 
> Old man Wolfram did his bit to support the concentration camp biz, too.
> In 1944, he was responsible for "reeducating" Norwegian
> students who had attempted to resist the Nazification of Norwegian
> higher ed.  Those who resisted said reeducation ended up in various
> camps; many died.
> 
> Whenever I get irritated with the sort of silliness that Cecil Sharp
> (for example) tended to write about sword and morris dance, or the
> nasty internal politics that prevailed in the EFDSS in Sharp's day,
> I stop and think: true, but unlike his "equivalent" in central Europe,
> Prof. Wolfram... you can imagine.
> 
> A cheerful thought for a Monday.
> 
> Steve Corrsin
>