my journal 3

The Nazis protected their Jew friends

wow, go figure, I just found out that Hitler actually protected his Jew friends, a very important detail most people ignore:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Bloch
Even in 1937, Hitler inquired about Bloch's well-being and called him an "Edeljude" ("noble Jew").
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After Germany's union with Austria in March 1938 (Anschluss) life became harder for Austrian Jews. After Bloch's medical practice was closed on 1 October 1938, his daughter and son-in-law, Bloch's young colleague Dr. Franz Kren (born 1893 in Austria, died 1976 in the USA), emigrated overseas.

The 62-old Bloch then wrote a letter to Hitler asking for help and was as a consequence put under special protection by the Gestapo. He was the only Jew in Linz with this status.
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But aren't we all like this?

We have a prejudice, and keep it, but then we do not apply it to our friends, without realizing the contradiction. It would not take much reasoning before realizing that if we have a nice Jew friend, also among the others, whom we don't know, there may be good people. I guess Hitler didn't engage in this type of reasoning, and actually, through his policies, encouraged everyone else to engage in the opposite type of reasoning, namely that of racism.

If instead of having a dictator, the Germans had had a democracy, every one of them would have made such "Edeljude" ("noble Jew") exceptions and there would have been no holocaust. But instead the only ones allowed to save their Jew friends were the Nazi themselves, who passed racist laws for everyone else. I remember that also Rudolf Hess had a Jew friend that he protected:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Hess
Hess's friend Karl Haushofer and his family were subject to these laws, as Haushofer had married a half-Jewish woman, so Hess issued documents exempting them from this legislation.
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Here's another Jew friend that Hitler protected, his former ww1 commander:
The single Jew that Hitler wanted to save: Astonishing letter reveals how Führer ordered Gestapo to leave his WW1 commander alone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Moritz_Hess

"...single Jew that Hitler wanted to save" here, "...only Jew in Linz with this status" there... it seems to me that every case is being described as an exception, but in fact the rule is probably that the Nazis saved all their Jew friends, and the number of Jews saved this way is in the hundreds, considering all the Nazi officials, and how every one of them seems to have made exceptions for their Jew friends.

Even Hermann Göring:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_Aryan
...Another example is Erhard Milch, who was in charge of aircraft procurement for the Luftwaffe and reported directly to Hermann Göring. In 1935, Milch's ethnicity came into question because his father, Anton Milch, was alleged to be a Jew. This prompted an investigation by the Gestapo that Göring suppressed by producing an affidavit signed by Milch's mother stating that Anton was not really the father of Erhard and his six siblings, and naming their true father as Karl Brauer, her deceased uncle. These events and Milch's subsequently being issued, at Göring's urging, a German Blood Certificate by Adolf Hitler, prompted Göring to say famously "Wer Jude ist, bestimme ich" ("I decide who is a Jew.").
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http://www.filmportal.de/film/weisses-blut_fbc47c2c43c74dcdb278df082fe3736f
Im September 1948 erreicht ein Schiff Kapstadt. An Bord sind 83 kriegstraumatisierte deutsche Kinder, von einem südafrikanischen Adoptionsunternehmen in deutschen Waisenhäusern ausgewählt. Selektionskriterium des burischen "Dietse Kinderfonds" ist "arisches Blut für ein weißes Südafrika". Werner Schellack und Peter Ammermann waren bei ihrer Ankunft in Südafrika zwei und acht Jahre alt. Sie wurden gezwungen, ein neues Leben in einem Land zu beginnen, in dem die Apartheid-Ära gerade anbrach. "Weisses Blut" begleitet die beiden Protagonisten bei der Auseinandersetzung mit ihrer Lebensgeschichte.
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Some parts are in English. Interesting documentary on the link between nazism and apartheid.
 
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witty comedy about the first day of ww2, filmed in 1942, directed by a German Jew in Hollywood:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Be_or_Not_to_Be_(1942_film)
To Be or Not To Be, now regarded as one of the best films of Lubitsch's, Benny's and Lombard's careers, was initially not well received by the public, many of whom could not understand the notion of making fun out of such a real threat as the Nazis. According to Jack Benny's memoirs, his own father walked out of the theater early in the film, disgusted that his son was in a Nazi uniform, and vowed not to set foot in the theater again. Benny convinced him otherwise and his father ended up loving the film, and saw it forty-six times.

The same could not be said for the critics, however. While they generally praised Lombard, many scorned Benny and Lubitsch. To one critic Lubitsch wrote, "What I have satirized in this picture are the Nazis and their ridiculous ideology. I have also satirized the attitude of actors who always remain actors regardless of how dangerous the situation might be, which I believe is a true observation. It can be argued if the tragedy of Poland realistically portrayed as in To Be or Not to Be can be merged with satire. I believe it can be and so do the audience which I observed during a screening of To Be or Not to Be; but this is a matter of debate and everyone is entitled to his point of view, but it is certainly a far cry from the Berlin-born director who finds fun in the bombing of Warsaw." The critic Mildred Martin reviewed another of Lubitsch's films and referred derogatively to his German birth and his comedy about Nazis in Poland.

Some critics were especially offended by Colonel Ehrhardt's line: "Oh, yes I saw him [Tura] in 'Hamlet' once. What he did to Shakespeare we are doing now to Poland." However, the film has since become a comedy classic.

To Be or Not To Be has a 97% approval rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 8,7, based on 36 reviews, with the consensus: "A complex and timely satire with as much darkness as slapstick, Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not To Be delicately balances humor and ethics."[5]
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streaming in English:
http://vodlocker.com/t5i858iiu0r8

Very useful and enjoyable for me, after having read all those newspapers from September 2nd, 1939.

So far this is so witty that this comedy could have been filmed yesterday. It has a very quick pace, and doesn't feel slow like most movies of that period.
 
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Inglourious basterds

I always thought this movie sucked, but it's very interesting to hear Tarantino talk about it:



I can't understand the sense of making a science fiction historical movie. You either make an historical movie or a science fiction movie. This movie makes me puke. But the interview is very interesting.

Of the rotten reviews (only 12%) on rottentomatoes.com I liked best the one by Dave Calhoun of Time Out:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inglourious_basterds/reviews/?sort=rotten

Some quotes from it:
http://www.timeout.com/london/film/inglourious-basterds
You’ve got to admire the sheer, infectious force of Quentin Tarantino’s personality. Is there any other popular American director, who, like Tarantino, is constantly ranting and raving about cinema’s glorious past and giving young filmgoers reason to extend their DVD library back beyond ‘Star Wars’? Even the name of his new film is fondly stolen from a little known Italian movie of the 1970s. It’s only when you turn to Tarantino’s own films that things get more tricky...
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Amazing. This quote perfectly applies to his "infectious" enthusiasm in the interview above. And the problem, after his captivating interview, is that his movie is garbage.

Here's another quote from the movie review:
At the film’s heart is a fatal attempt to conflate fact with fiction and a celebration of vengeance that’s misplaced and embarrassing.
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This is exactly what I said: "fatal attempt to conflate fact with fiction". Remember what I wrote above?
I can't understand the sense of making a science fiction historical movie. You either make an historical movie or a science fiction movie.
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Pulp Fiction was quite impressive in many aspects, although I would not rate it a masterpiece, and it bothered me in many aspects, too.

The problem is that after Pulp Fiction, Tarantino has become fashionable, as Fellini, and now anything he makes is hailed as a masterpiece. Wrong. And Scorsese, too. He stopped making good movies in the early 1990s.
 
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Today I went back to work, after taking 3 days off last week.

My ESESA methodology and relaxation did not work at all, or rather I failed to apply them. This was a major blow to my emotional balance and rational thinking. As I said, the boss put into question my ability to do work. She dared to criticize the amount and quality of work I do. I took it very personally, and, when confronted, she took it all back, pretending I had imagined the accusations. Lame bitch. She has lost my friendship and lost my esteem. I now no longer like her nor think she is a good boss. She has picked on the wrong employee. Next time she better go bother the slackers instead of the hard-working ones.

Anyway, I am watching this excellent movie on youtube, "Der freie Wille", with Jürgen Vogel, maybe the best German actor, for his acting and for the number of good movies he is in (86 movies, mostly good):
http://www.moviepilot.de/movies/der-freie-wille


As if it weren't good enough to find the movie on youtube, it also has Italian subtitles. What more can I ask for.

Also, before this one, I have watched another excellent movie, Swedish:
http://www.moviepilot.de/movies/so-finster-die-nacht

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Holy cow! Without wanting to spoil this movie too much, I can anticipate that there is a scene at the start where he whips out his (real) dick, and another scene later, where the protagonist is actually... jerking off (twenty-third minute), and they show his dick and everything, and yet this is a mainstream movie that won several prizes at the Berlin Film Festival:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/56th_Berlin_International_Film_Festival

I have never seen anything like this in any movie, even in Italian movies, which are already no match for the American movies as far as showing nudity.

On the other hand, let us not forget that Germany is a country where people can see their prime minister naked:
http://theslnaturist.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/angela-merkel-nude/

merkel.jpg

This is not a joke nor photoshop. It's really Angela Merkel.

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Wow, i have to bring it up once again. This movie has an obsession with Juergen Vogel's dick. They're showing it once again at minute 34, for the third time. I am starting to think that maybe it is not a coincidence and they're trying to convey something to the viewer.

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Ok, one more point about the movie. Here it says they had real sex in it:
http://www.girlseite.de/news/wenn-schauspieler-echten-sex-beim-dreh-haben-1013888

I am somewhat disappointed. It's quite easy to make a movie where everything is real. It's called a documentary.

Indeed, at minute 1:50 and following (the movie is over 2 hours), the bath tub scene, loses a lot in coherence, because the actors are not in character any longer, and you just see the two actors in the bath tub. In fact it is even pathetic by how bad it is. All of a sudden the sick rapist is no longer dangerous... simply because he fell out of character and we're seeing the actor, who is getting paid to have sex with the actress, who was never that good to begin with.

This movie went from 8 to 6.5. Within the first 2 hours (on a scale from 1 to 10).

...

Holy cow, at minute 1:55 and later, it just gained another point for realism, and went from 6.5 to 7.5. We'll see if it can stay there in the next 40 minutes.

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Oh, God...! At 2:20 there's a scene so unrealistic that it makes it lose that extra point I had added. Now it's at 6.5 again. I guess they tried to squeeze just too much stuff into this movie. The more they add, the more they risk making it unrealistic. Had it ended after 90 minutes, like most movies, I would have rated it an 8, regardless of the ending, even if it had been abrupt and meaningless (precisely as meaningless as life). This scene at 2:20 is so pathetic and unrealistic that it is making me laugh.

All, right at the end it recovers that point, largely because of that guy running on the beach in the last 2 minutes. I rate it 7.5.
 
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This is quite good, for being from 1956, Die Halbstarken:


naked breasts at minute 48, quite impressive for being from 1956. They definitely beat the US and Italy to it, as mainstream movies with naked breasts appeared 10 years later in Italy and 20 years later in the US.

I have to admit, after denying it for years, that movies from earlier than 1970, in general, tend to be more boring and slower paced than movies after 1970, probably precisely because they are slower. Any movie from before 1970 that is not boring is close to being a masterpiece, merely for this reason.

One of these movies that achieve not being boring is À bout de souffle from 1960, which I rate an 8 out of 10, but also Roma Città Aperta from 1945 (I rate it a 7.5) and Ladri di Biciclette from 1948 (I rate it a 7):
http://www.moviepilot.de/movies/auer-atem
http://www.moviepilot.de/movies/rom-offene-stadt
http://www.moviepilot.de/movies/fahrraddiebe
 
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Unter den Brücken

Unter den Brücken:
http://www.moviepilot.de/movies/unter-den-bruecken


http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unter_den_Brücken
Unter den Brücken ist ein poetisch erzählender, eindrucksvoll bebildeter deutscher Schwarzweiß-Spielfilm aus dem Jahr 1944/45 nach dem Vorbild europäischer Filmbewegungen dieser Zeit. Er wurde vom 8. Mai bis Oktober 1944, während die Fronten des Zweiten Weltkrieges bereits Deutschland erreichten, in Berlin, Potsdam sowie im westlich der deutschen Hauptstadt gelegenen Havelland gedreht und spielt im Berufsleben der Binnenschifffahrt. Als ein sogenannter Überläufer-Film[2] fand die Uraufführung erst im Juli 1946 in Locarno statt.
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Interesting, almost live from Berlin, for the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Wall:

 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7-Eleven#Etymology
The company's first convenience outlets were known as Tote'm Stores, since customers "toted" away their purchases, and some even sported genuine Alaskan totem poles in front. In 1946, the name Tote'm was changed to 7-Eleven to reflect the stores' new, extended hours—7 am until 11 pm, seven days a week.[6] The company's corporate name was changed from "The Southland Corporation" to 7-Eleven, Inc. in 1999.
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Alaska Johansson, a movie with an excellent German actress, Alina Levshin:
http://www.moviepilot.de/movies/alaska-johansson

http://www.dw.de/alina-levshin-die-große-entdeckung-beim-deutschen-filmpreis/av-15945705

Maybe the best German actress today, for acting and choice of movies.

The end of Kriegerin sucked, but for the rest it was... probably her best movie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Girls

She couldn't choose the ending, so I can't blame her for that unrealistic ending.

This movie instead, so far, is not that good.

In fact, thinking back to it, there are 3 movies that follow a similar plot pattern (I won't spoil the plot, but they're strikingly similar) and seem excellent at describing neonazi groups: Kriegerin (this one I was talking about, with Levshin, from 2011), American History X from 1998, and The Believer, from 2001. I would rate them all exactly the same, but for different reasons. I think that Kriegerin is the most realistic one overall. All three have disappointing unrealistic endings. Actually let me state this again. I will rate them in this order, from best to worst:
1) Kriegerin
2) The Believer
3) American History X

Moviepilot.de rates them in the inverse order. I didn't check rottentomates. Yeah, same exact thing.
 
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wow, excellent danish film. So good that I had to watch it in Italian:
http://www.moviepilot.de/movies/adams-aepfel

If I had to give you the best movie director of right now I would have to say it's precisely this director, Anders Thomas Jensen. He reminds me a bit of Luis Buñuel's surrealism. But he also has elements of Tarantino's, but he's better because less realistic (so that the surrealism is more perceivable):


I am rating it an 8. From 8 to 10 they're all masterpiece. From 7.5 to 7, very good but with some problems. From 7 to 6, worth watching. Below 6, not worth watching.

On my scale Taxi Driver and Being There are a 10, and Inglourious Basterds a zero.
 
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Wehrmacht deserters executed by German prisoners after end of war

http://www.executedtoday.com/2013/05/13/1945-bruno-dorfer-and-rainer-beck-wehrmacht-deserters/
Basically, a pocket of fortified German resistance remained hunkered down in the Netherlands as the war approached its close. That force of 150,000 surrendered to a much smaller number of Canadians on May 5 on terms that maintained German responsibility for administering its armed forces and the civilian areas under its control — a highly anomalous situation in an occupied country as the Third Reich winked out of existence altogether.

Canadians and Germans, according to Madsen, enjoyed a collegial relationship as the Canadians gradually took German forces into custody … or received German forces who helpfully marched themselves into custody. But even under guard, these “imprisoned” Germans still retained significant autonomy and a German command structure that Canadians were loath to interfere with — an arrangement so expedient that it severely tested the bounds of propriety. So invested were the Canadians in maintaining their opposite numbers’ unit cohesion* that they handed some deserters (and plenty of men were deserting the German army) back over to the nominal prisoners!
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it is a fact that many captured German units were secretly kept in readiness for possible use against the Red Army. Churchill, who not without reason had a high opinion of the fighting quality of the German soldiers, gave Field Marshall Montgomery an order to that effect during the last days of the war, as he was to acknowledge publicly much later in November 1954. He arranged for Wehrmacht troops who had surrendered in northwest Germany and in Norway to retain their uniforms and even their weapons, and to remain under the command of their own officers, because he thought of their potential use in hostilities against the Soviets. In the Netherlands, German units that had surrendered to the Canadians were even allowed to use their own weapons on May 13, 1945, to execute two of their own deserters!
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They mention this event in a few movies, including Black Book, which is a fiction movie made from true facts, but still appears as science fiction:



There is an entire Italian movie about it, Gott mit uns from 1969:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Day_of_Peace
http://www.moviepilot.de/movies/die-im-dreck-krepieren

 
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Hmm, very interesting. I found this German financial forum that has an Interactive Brokers section, which is extremely active (1,478 threads, 19,882 posts):
http://www.aktienboard.com/forum/f35/

Snap1.jpg

It competes with the section they... don't have at Elitetrader.com, as they only have a general "Retail Firms" section:
http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index.php?forums/retail-firms.2/

On the other hand, at Elitetrader they have IB representatives who are active forum members and always reply with timely posts, until the problem gets solved. I haven't verified if the same happens on aktienboard. It's quite important a detail.

As far as the online users now, this forum has the most, about 1000, vs. the 200 of Elitetrader and aktienboard.
 
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wow, the usual excellent German street musicians:
http://annenmaykantereit.com/




excellent interpretation of an old song:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Es_war_eine_rauschende_Ballnacht#Produktion




These Germans really kick ass. Beatles sound. I really like these guys. There's a whole world i was ignoring. Too bad for their long name, which will make their success harder. But maybe that's good.





wow, they are all good - how can they do so much with just a guitar and a voice?




Wow, it seems that every song has something different. Nothing is repetitive. And they've created so many songs.
 
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very intelligent thoughts on being black in germany: a paradise (and the same applies to all other minorities)

this guy is quite intelligent and answers questions i care about


this guy is a damn professor... in knowledge, balance, intelligence... simplicity


Every one of his videos is interesting and engrossing

Here's another one, quite interesting, too, by a different person:


This is good, too:


and this was one of the most intelligent germans

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I also did a search on "being Jew in Germany":




 
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A talk with Werner Herzog, best german director of all time:


In my opinion his best movie is:
http://www.moviepilot.de/movies/bad-lieutenant-cop-ohne-gewissen

I don't think he directed any masterpieces, but, between documentaries and fiction, he directed dozens of excellent films and zero garbage. Instead Scorsese directed masterpieces but also a lot of garbage, especially recently.

Another video, on Herzog directing Nosferatu:


On directing Fitzcarraldo:

 
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excellent advertisement by coca cola, at least the first half, then they kind of overdo it


then when you find that they are using people's pain and babies to sell you poison, that's when you get outright disgusted - but the initial idea and editing was good
 
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