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Television Under The Swastika

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July 14th, 2008 29 comments link to (permalink) posted by david


“Michael Kloft’s documentary on the history of Nazi television…As early as the ‘thirties, a bitter rivalry raged for the world’s first television broadcast. Nazi Germany wanted to beat the competition from Great Britain and the U.S. – at all costs.”

Spiegel TV has tracked down rare Nazi TV footage, complete with everything from bizarre cabaret acts to interviews with people like Albert Speer. Pop culture done by Nazis, the banality of showbiz evil.

tags: history ironic

29 responses so far »

  • Patriarchal Oppressor : Aug 31, 2008 at 4:17 pm

    The beginnings of modern Bread And Circuses. Now I understand the ‘programming’ in ‘television programmimg’.

  • YellowOnline : Sep 11, 2008 at 1:44 pm

    My god, this is some great historical footage.

  • Jomark Osabel : Oct 15, 2008 at 12:09 pm

    Its great to learn some lesson from history.

  • Paul : Oct 16, 2008 at 12:08 pm

    Amazing! What an informative piece. Very interesting history of technology. These Nazis were so forward thinking with their technology – TV, rockets, jet technology – and yet so backward and evil with their social agenda, Eugenics and Final Solution. Interesting paradox – thank God they are history.

  • aleks : Oct 16, 2008 at 12:59 pm

    I think Hitler know something about some people(The Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Warburgs, Krups ,Morgan)the same one still repress people all over the world.This is why he hate them.

    http://www.whale.to/b/morgan.html

  • admin : Oct 16, 2008 at 2:19 pm

    @Aleks. I don’t normally lose my temper on this site but you are flaccid, invertebrate, pond scum.

    There is no jewish conspiracy or cabal of secret bankers but there are, in a time of economic crisis, real dangers of people being victimized. There may be many people such as investment bankers who have indirectly destroyed the lives of many people through reckless speculation, but they did not have to conspire or belong to any race.

    Now it is you that is engaging in a far more sinister and conspiratorial form of reckless speculation which has, in the past destroyed the lives of millions, directly.

  • jefe : Oct 17, 2008 at 2:56 pm

    Jeez, talk about timing…right after a “thank god they’re history”, aleks shows us we shouldn’t be so complacent that the delusional, poisonous fantasies of the Nazis are a thing of the past. I guess we should thank him for the reminder.

  • FU What Now! : Nov 8, 2008 at 5:26 pm

    @ Admin. “I don’t normally lose my temper on this site, but you are flaccid inertebrate, pond scum” LOL, LMAO
    You sir, are a Idiot. Look whats going on Right now with the Worlds Economy. Look who “runs” the Federal Reserve and the World Banks.
    Hitler was RIGHT, and you are ether a jew or a other moron brainwashed by the jewish controlled Media. Wake Up!

  • tom appleton : Dec 21, 2008 at 5:18 am

    i don’t really wish to prolong the exchange with young aleks, whom i imagine to be a 28-year-old croatian IT person, as his english is clearly faulty (i.e. never acquired in school) but well-advanced from frequent use. the european fascist underground is clearly spread far beyond germany and especially virulent in the former communist countries. pity the discussion has thus been effectively hijacked & shut down, as i felt that TELEVISION had essentially learnt all of its tricks right here in its nascent phase, and bears, even today, a chilling similarity — right around the world — to the medium pioneered by the nazis. the discussion of this early material deserves to be on-going, to be taken up and expanded, well beyond this limited forum.

  • Blazovan Praznick, IT Croatia : Mar 21, 2009 at 12:41 am

    It’s true, it is amazing how the anglophone world remains locked in this same stage of cultural development as the Nazis to this day. The US-Americans and British have really perfected everything that the Nazis pioneered, TV being another point to nail the case.

  • Steaming Pile : Sep 14, 2009 at 1:17 am

    @aleks, @FU* – You people are proof that one man's cautionary tale is another's operations manual. Kind of how 1984 has been implemented with startling accuracy by the Bush administration in the years following 9/11. It almost makes me want to believe the Truthers. Almost. You can't even say "thank God" that those people are no longer in power; look at how they have been able to assemble appreciable-sized crowds of lumpenproleteriat in their "tea party" demonstrations. The price of liberty is indeed eternal vigilance.

  • Mike D. : Mar 14, 2010 at 7:51 pm

    You forget the key difference between Nazi television and U.S. television. Nazi television existed to sell ideology. U.S. television exists to sell products. It can't tell people what to think — it has to cater to tastes. If showing clips of Diana Ross and the Supremes sells more soap powder or Coca-Cola or cereal, than the suits at CBS will throw Jim Crow out the window when programming the Ed Sullivan show. That couldn't have happened in Nazi Germany.

  • Guest : Mar 19, 2010 at 3:26 pm

    Well, it's the Nazis. Any attempts to portray something they've dabbled in as anything but sinister and evil would face a pretty big backlash from certain… groups? Organizations? Segments of the population?

  • phil : Jul 5, 2010 at 2:02 am

    i think you're an idiot…

  • phil : Jul 5, 2010 at 2:10 am

    I agree but I also disagree. Obviously US television is not engaged in the same blatant propaganda as the nazis were. On the other hand it is certainly not a neutral medium and it does MUCH more than 'cater to people's taste'. TV is a very powerful medium that has tremendous influence on public opinion. The war in Iraq was definitely sold to us through TV. That's just one example.
    At the same time for everyday Germans in the 3rd Reich it was probably not so obvious that those TV programs were all propaganda. Undoubtedly many people took what was shown to them as fact. And judging from some posters on here, some people STILL believe the nazi lies…sad to say.

  • phil : Jul 5, 2010 at 2:12 am

    What exactly are you trying to say?

  • Mark H. : Jul 16, 2010 at 12:50 pm

    Auf der einen Seite loben sie die alten Aufnahmen dafür, dass sie lange Einblendungen hatten, ohne viele Schnitte. Andererseits springt diese Sendung selbst von Aufnahme zu Aufnahme und von Thema zu Thema.

  • mtlwriterguy : Jul 20, 2010 at 5:54 pm

    Hi Paul, it's arguable that the Nazis weren't so great at applying regular, non-crazy science and technology either. Sure, they developed rockets, rocket planes, jets, radio-controlled "cruise missiles", fully automatic rifles, the list goes on and on. But they largely squandered their resources on megaprojects like the V2 rocket — which could never have been decisive in the war, no matter how early it had been developed — and let things like the jet fighter program languish. The British bombed and shot the hell out of them with the all-wood Mosquito fighter, in service as early as 1941, and the Nazis never matched it for speed, endurance or flight ceiling. Their jet engines were overdesigned and burned out fast, their rocket planes could only stay aloft for about 4 minutes. Also, most of their so-called superweapons were developed too late, most becoming operational long after they had lost any chance of winning the way.

    And of course, they chased away most of their brilliant physicists like Einstein and dismissed atomic physics as "Jewish science," so lost any chance to develop nuclear weapons even before the war started.

  • mtlwriterguy : Jul 20, 2010 at 6:02 pm

    So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that the Zionist Occupation Governent won't let us talk about cars, because the Nazis drove cars. Or sex, because the Nazis had sex. Or cake, because good, blonde Nazi hausfraus baked cake.

    ZOG says we must only talk about things the Nazis NEVER DID, is that it?

    I guess that leaves Gypsy dancing and going to synagogue, right?

  • mtlwriterguy : Jul 20, 2010 at 6:12 pm

    You're even an idiot inside your own little ubermensch fantasyland.

    Alfried Krupp (not "Krups") head of the huge Krupp industrial works, was an ardent Nazi and an early member of the SS. He only escaped being hanged as a war criminal (for his company's use and savage abuse of slave labour) because of a filing error. He wasn't indicted by the deadline and couldn't be prosecuted at the first round of trials, the only ones with the death penalty. So, yeah, Hitler knew plenty about him. They spent a lot of quality time together.

    Moron.

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  • chris : May 22, 2012 at 4:30 am

    Have you watched Fox News ??
    Who owns this "fair and balanced" information (propaganda)
    channel ???

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  • Camelspider : May 22, 2012 at 4:30 am

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabal

    By that definition it would be accurate to say that there is in fact conspiratorial actions, otherwise known as good business, to defraud, rape, pilage and otherwise
    take advantage of not only this country, but moreso the vast majority of third world nations of this great Earth. You don't have to take my word for it…look at the records
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  • Alexander : Apr 23, 2012 at 10:04 am

    Fascinating stuff. The Nazis were amazing in every way.

    The wrong side won the war.

    Remember, the victors write the history!

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