The 3D Spies of WW2

[Monte Davis]

Time matters too, of course: in 1865-1900,  had anyone in the northern
states of the US displayed a Confederate flag (other than as a trophy), it's
very likely that Union veterans would have taken violent issue with it.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of Kai Frederik Lorentzen
Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 11:18 AM
To: Monte Davis; 'P-list'
Cc: 'Bekah'; 'David Morris'
Subject: Re: The 3D Spies of WW2


Yes, context seems to be decisive. The law is not clear, and when the
concrete legal situation is doubtful a trial will take place. I remember one
where an anti-fascist entrepeneur was put in front of court, though
eventually not punished, because he had sold T-shirts with the slogan 'Don't
give Nazis a chance!' ("Gib Nazis keine Chance!") which were illustrated
with a a figure putting a crossed out swastika into a waste bin. By the way,
this is all about public appearance: It's not illegal to own Nazi
paraphernalia, - just to show them in public. The swastika can also be
completely unproblematic in a legal sense when the context has definitely
nothing to do with Nazi ideology: The museum shop of Hamburg's ethnological
museum (Völkerkundemuseum), for instance, sells an original Indian bag
devoted to a Hindu deity which shows on both sides swastikas in all four
corners of the picture. As far as I know, no one ever protested against
this. But of course people here are very touchy about it. While the
anglophone S&M scene, at least a not too small part of it, enjoys parties
where people do wear SS uniforms, this practice is hardly common in Germany.
Too traumatic to be a turn-on.

Since the debate here is about National Socialism and pop culture, let me
name three groups and decades that were into the process of redefining the
(post Nazi) swastika into a pop cultural symbol of not specified rebellion:

- Hells Angels (1950s)

- Californian Surfers (1960s)

- Glam Rock and Punk people (1970s)


On 23.07.2013 16:25, Monte Davis wrote:
> I'm guessing that Wolfenstein and 'Indiana Jones' get different 
> treatment because video games are more tightly linked than movies to 
> Those Scary Kidz
> Today: at some inarticulate level of German consciousness, the 
> swastika a teenager sees on the computer or Xbox screen playing late 
> at night alone in his bedroom is somehow more insidious, more 
> dangerous, than in the
> (presumably) more public, more shared-with-adults experience of a movie.
>
> Symbols -- especially symbols with history (or histories) attached --  
> are multivalent, even less constrained by expectations of consistency 
> and coherence than words are. Think about the Confederate flag here: 
> it means something different, and provokes different responses, when 
> flown over the South Carolina capitol than it does on the denim jacket 
> of a North Dakota teenager (or on Prince Harry's outfit at that 
> embarrassing costume party in 2005). For the latter it's almost 
> totally free of either historical or racial context, and signifies 
> only "I'm a small-r rebel, and this shows I don't care what the
Establishment thinks."
>
> Ditto (here) for bikers' Wehrmacht helmets and other Third Reich
trappings.
> Ditto for Mao's Little Red Book on US campuses circa 1970: it was a 
> way of saying to LBJ and Nixon that "the enemy of my enemy (namely 
> you) is my friend." Never mind that this particular friend had 
> recently finished starving 20-40 million of The People, and was busily 
> using *his* crowds of angry young people much the way Hitler had used the
SA before purging it.
>
> Then of course there's Hitler in Thailand...
> http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-16/national/40606745_1_chia
> ng-mai
> -ayutthaya-thailand-s
>
>
> demands foir cionsiust5enty
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bekah [mailto:bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 8:49 AM
> To: Monte Davis
> Cc: 'David Morris'; 'P-list'
> Subject: Re: The 3D Spies of WW2
>
> In Germany, many things related to Nazism are illegal, for obvious
reasons.
> It's illegal to belong to a neo-Nazi organization, and it's illegal to 
> own Nazi paraphernalia except for purposes of historical interest 
> (such as for a
> museum.) But here's where things get a bit less clear. There seems to 
> be some kind of law against displaying a swastika, but under what 
> circumstances? The game Wolfenstein 3D was banned in Germany because 
> it depicted swastikas, and the new Return to Castle Wolfenstein will 
> be sold in Germany with all swastikas removed. However, when I lived 
> in Germany, I could go to the local video store and rent "Indiana 
> Jones and the Last Crusade," which features a giant Nazi parade in 
> Berlin with swastikas everywhere. Why is that legal and Wolfenstein 3D is
not?
> __________________
> http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=134617
>
>
>