Nazism – The Hip Quotient

The Gift of Anne Frank: Writing Till the Stoney End

Dana Spiardi — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 18:04:34 +0000

Anne Frank, the Jewish teen diarist who documented her experiences hiding from the Nazis during World War II, would have turned 87 today. She has long been an inspiration to me. I believe I first learned of her story as a kid after watching the movie The Diary of Anne Frank, which starred Millie Perkins. I then purchased the book that inspired the film, and shortly thereafter I bought my very own first diary. I wrote as often as I could, mostly about the trivialities of my day: Randy S. got yelled at for hurling spitballs in class, and that ilk.

Later, when I got my Smith-Corona for Christmas of 1972 and learned to type, I found that I could more quickly capture my thoughts and emotions, which by now were gushing like torrents. I looked forward to that private period before bedtime, when I would sit in my room uninterrupted and bare my soul. (Today this is known as journaling and people get rich writing books and teaching seminars on how to do it.) I listened to my records as I wrote, and began each entry with a song lyric, like this one that expressed my adolescent confusion:

January 30, 1977
Wake up late without a smile
Telephone rings
You run like a child
On the street, into the day
The people I meet
Have nothing to say
–“Soul of the Sea” by Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart, 1976

Yes, I related to Anne. We both had dark hair and eyes. We were both yearning to be free. We both wrote as a form of escape and self-therapy. And we seemed to have the same character; from all I’ve read, she was outspoken, opinionated, moody, and high-spirited. In other words, quite a handful, just like me.

And we were soul mates. Anne’s diary entry from April 5, 1944, completely captures the dreams and doubts that consumed me as a 13-year-old. It’s as if I’d written every word of it myself.

I finally realized that I must do my schoolwork to keep from being ignorant, to get on in life, to become a journalist, because that’s what I want! I know I can write…but it remains to be seen whether I really have talent…

And if I don’t have the talent to write books or newspaper articles, I can always write for myself. But I want to achieve more than that. I can’t imagine living like Mother, Mrs. van Daan and all the women who go about their work and are then forgotten. I need to have something besides a husband and children to devote myself to! …

I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death! And that’s why I’m so grateful to God for having given me this gift, which I can use to develop myself and to express all that’s inside me!

When I write I can shake off all my cares. My sorrow disappears, my spirits are revived! But, and that’s a big question, will I ever be able to write something great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer?

It’s the question she poses in that last line that I still ponder daily: will I ever be able to write something great? I know that’s an ego-driven preoccupation, but aren’t all writers egocentric in their need to be read, in their desire (in Anne’s words), to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people? Today, I still have the ghost of the writer’s self-doubt that plagued Anne. Every time I finish an article for this blog, the worries begin: What if I can’t write another one? What if I run out of ideas or my abilities dry up? This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It keeps me working and striving to improve. Bruce Springsteen has expressed these same sentiments time and again. “Have iron-clad confidence; but doubt — it keeps you awake and alert,” he once told a group of aspiring musicians.

My teenage diary was filled with expressions of happiness and pride over incidents ranging from special (Mr. S. told me to keep writing and I’ll be published by the time I’m 25! – March 10, 1976) to superficial (today I wore my green corduroy outfit; it always brings me luck! – December 15, 1973).

And more often than not, my pages were full of hopeless, ugly thoughts (I really don’t see that anything good will ever, ever happen to me in the future – February 3, 1977). Today, reading those rants of self pity, I feel foolish as I compare my silly problems to those of Anne Frank’s. The world was crumbling around her, and still she managed to embrace a glimmer of hope. On July 15, 1944, she wrote:

It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.

Anne continued to write in her diary until the day she and her family were seized from their hideout in Amsterdam and sent to the Nazi death camps: her father Otto to Auschwitz and she and her sister and mother to the Liebau camp and later to Bergen-Belsen, where she died of typhus a few months before British soldiers liberated the camp in April 1945.

Like Anne, I will continue to write till my stoney end.

© Dana Spiardi, June 12, 2015

Heil, Heil, Rock-n-Roll. What’s with Brit Rockers and the Third Reich? Part Two

Dana Spiardi — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 03:00:35 +0000

Should I trash my entire collection of David Bowie recordings because I abhor the fascist comments he made over 30 years ago? In part 2 of an article examining British rock stars’ fascination with Nazi imagery, we’ll take a look at three English superstars who’ve have made some mighty disturbing comments over the years.

The innately-suave Bryan Ferry, leader of the popular U.K. band Roxy Music, used to refer to his West London recording studio as “The Führerbunker,” which was the name of Hitler’s Berlin bunker. He once told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag: “The Nazis knew how to put themselves in the limelight and present themselves. The way in which the Nazis stage-managed and presented themselves, my gentleman! I’m talking about Leni Riefenstahl films and Albert Speer’s buildings and the mass rallies and the flags – simply fantastic.” At the time of the interview, Ferry had been contracted by British retailer Marks and Spencer (founded by Russian Jewish refugee Michael Marks) to model its “Autograph” menswear line. England’s Jewish community was appalled by his comments and demanded the House of Commons make a motion urging people to boycott M&S and refuse to buy Ferry’s albums. He responded with a statement: “I apologize unreservedly for any offense caused by my comments on Nazi iconography, which were solely made from an art history perspective. I, like every right-minded individual, find the Nazi regime, and all it stood for, evil and abhorrent.” Despite his mea culpa, Marks and Spencer cut all ties with him. That’s some heavy karma for a fashionista like Bryan.

While guitar virtuoso Eric Clapton never extolled the tenets of Nazism per se, he’s certainly expressed some very fascist views. In a drunken rant during a concert in Birmingham, England, in August 1976, he voiced his support of Britain’s conservative minister Enoch Powell, who had denounced the country’s anti-discrimination legislation and liberal immigration policy. Clapton told the audience: “Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white. I used to be into dope, now I’m into racism. It’s much heavier, man. F..king wogs, man. F..king Saudis taking over London. Bastard wogs. Britain is becoming overcrowded and Enoch will stop it and send them all back.” Booze notwithstanding, what motivates a seemingly normal person to lash out like this? Admittedly, England was a mess in the ’70s. It’s a fascist’s nature to seek scapegoats during times of trouble. Clapton clearly took a lesson from their book, and vented his wrath on the immigrants.

His outrageous diatribe helped mobilize the creation of Rock Against Racism (today known as Love Music Hate Racism), an organization spearheaded by British photographer Red Saunders, Roger Huddle and members of Kartoon Klowns. Clapton later apologized, saying his remarks were meant as a joke, and that he was ignorant of politics at that time. Yet, in 2007, he told a reporter that he is still a fan of Enoch Powell, whom he does not consider a racist.

And finally, there’s The Thin White Duke, David Bowie, who may have taken the “white” thing a bit too far. In April 1976, he was traveling by rail when customs officials at the Poland/Russia border held up the train for several hours while they seized his collection of Nazi books and memorabilia. Bowie claimed he was using the material as research for a possible film project about Nazi PR meister Joseph Goebbels. A worthy try on his part, but it’s hard to believe that claim after reading his comments in the press decades ago. In an interview conducted by Cameron Crowe for the September 1976 issue of Playboy, Bowie declared, “Britain is ready for a fascist leader…After all, fascism is really nationalism.” He went on to say, “Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars” and “You’ve got to have an extreme right front come up and sweep everything off its feet and tidy everything up.” To quote a Bowie song, this bordered on rock and roll suicide.

I was, and still am, a huge Bowie fan, and only recently learned of his dabbling in fascism. Of course, he eventually apologized for his statements, blaming his outlandish behavior on his preoccupation with the occult, excessive cocaine use, and his fascination with German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who coined the term Übermensch (super-man) – a word used by Hitler to describe his Aryan master race. (Nietzsche himself was not anti-Semitic and deplored German nationalism.) Bowie told an interviewer, “I have made my two or three glib, theatrical observations on English society and the only thing I can now counter with is to state that I am NOT a fascist.”

So, what are we to make of these rockers and their interest in Third Reich nostalgia? A number of my close family members are Jewish. Should I feel a sense of guilt about admiring some of the performers cited in this article — many of whom have long inspired me with their music and fashion? I want to believe these people were merely acting up (often with the aid of chemicals), experimenting with shocking, subversive personae, and flipping the finger to mainstream society – as most rockers are destined to do. I admit I’m conflicted.

A hundred years before the birth of rock and roll, German composer Richard Wagner was all the rage in Europe, with his soaring, richly orchestrated operas. He was an anti-Semite, harshly critical of Jewish artistic contributions to German culture. Many years later Adolph Hitler would embrace Wagner’s music as the perfect soundtrack to his nationalist movement. Woody Allen once joked, “I just can’t listen to any more Wagner, you know…I’m starting to get the urge to conquer Poland.” His music was extremely controversial among Jews and was completely banned in Israel for many years. However, in recent decades many Jews have come to recognize that it’s possible to distinguish between the racist nature of Richard Wagner and the beauty of his creation. In 1981, Zubin Mehta performed parts of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde as an encore at a concert in Tel Aviv. Many audience members walked out, but most stayed till the end. In 2000, Holocaust survivor Mendi Rodan conducted Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, and in August 2001 Daniel Barenboim conducted a concert in Tel Aviv that included an excerpt form Tristan und Isolde. While Wagner’s music still incites controversy in Israel, his works are broadcast on government-owned radio and television stations.

A very liberal friend of mine once trashed all of her Van Morrison CDs when it was rumored he planned to perform at George Bush’s 2001 inauguration (he didn’t). Should I, a staunch proponent of civil liberties, burn my beloved collection of Bowie and Clapton LPs because I loathe the views they expressed three decades ago? No. Because, despite what many artists would like to believe, they’re imperfect humans like everybody else — not “gods,” as the Clapton graffiti adorning a London train station once declared.

When it comes to accepting or banishing British rockers for their fascination with Nazi imagery and ideology, I leave it to you to come to your own conclusions.