From: John Grigg (starman2100@lycos.com)
Date: Sat Jan 05 2002 - 13:57:38 MST
Dwayne wrote:
Just curious, are you actually recommending to us as a story of powerful inspiration the life of an unreconstructed and defiant nazi?
"wisdom and inner strength at such a young age."
um....
(end)
I'm away from the list for a few days and I find this to greet me! Dwayne, I don't understand how you draw this conclusion!!! Where do you get the idea that Olaf Henny is an "unreconstructed and defiant nazi?" Olaf was extremely young when the Nazi party was in power, too young to know what was really going on. So, in his innocent child-state it was very easy for Nazi memes to find a place in his mind.
After the war he realized the evil and destruction the Nazi's had caused Germany and other people and nations. With this youthful wisdom(and being older) he resisted the political evil of that day, Soviet-lead communism.
Dwayne, to be honest you have offended me. I have a feeling you did not take the time to carefully read the post I sent. Obviously, you skipped over this part of Olaf's writing.
Olaf Henny wrote:
99% of the rest of us had absolutely no idea, what was happening to them afterwards and the fraction of one percent, who were directly involved in those atrocities, did well for themselves by not talking about it, unless they wanted to share the fate of their victims.
(end)
And as Mike Lorry said, do you have additional information I do not have?? I would very much like a response from you...
sincerely,
John
On Fri, 04 Jan 2002 20:56:50
dwayne wrote:
>Hi,
>
>Just curious, are you actually recommending to us as a story of powerful
>inspiration the life of an unreconstructed and defiant nazi?
>
>"wisdom and inner strength at such a young age."
>
>um....
>
>Dwayne
>
>
>John Grigg wrote:
>>
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> This is a very powerful autobiographical story Olaf Henny shared on cryonet. This man as a boy resisted the intense pressures to join the Communist youth organization of his day. I am astonished he could have had such wisdom and inner strength at such a young age. If anyone deserves to be put in biostasis to see the future, it is Olaf Henny. I believe the citizens of the future will be as astonished by him as the people of the present-day.
>>
>> sincerely,
>>
>> John
>>
>> Message #18273
>> Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2002 16:21:24 -0800
>> From: Olaf Henny <olafh@otvcablelan.net>
>> Subject: Message #18258 from Mike Darwin
>> References: <20020101100001.63313.qmail@rho.pair.com>
>>
>> I am responding to Mike Darwin's posting concerning the
>> significant achievements of Leni Riefenstahl in cinematic opinion
>> forming, without the benefit of having read any of the books
>> about her. However I have personally been exposed to the
>> euphoric atmosphere her film productions created among the German
>> public. Even though I was just a small child at the time, I
>> sensed the powerful, uplifting impact they had on the adults in
>> my life.
>>
>> While the architect Albert Speer designed the monumental setting
>> of the parade grounds featured in "Triumph of the Will", he was
>> not the founder of the propaganda technique used in her films.
>> That was clearly the creation of 'Reichspropagandaminister Dr.
>> Joseph Goebbels', an unequalled genius in mass manipulation. His
>> technique was later also widely used by the communist leadership.
>> I was exposed to it on both sides, as an enthusiastic and willing
>> target by the Nazis* and later as a hostile exposed to communist
>> propaganda. The power of it is enormous.
>>
>> Just a quick introduction to my situation at the time: In 1950 I
>> was one of only seven students in my school, who were still
>> refusing to join the FDJ, the communist youth organization, and
>> found myself under immense pressure to do so. Instead I changed
>> schools and ended up in a class, where there were 6 of us still
>> on the outside. Only a couple of month thereafter I was again
>> the lone resisting student in my class. I was clearly no friend
>> of the system.
>> On occasion of the May 1st 1951 Workers Day
>> parade, we were marching in true totalitarian style, ten or
>> fifteen abreast, past a stage occupied the then president of the
>> GDR, Wilhelm Pieck, and his entourage. Chanting all around us,
>> the loudspeaker proclaimed: "The president of the German
>> Democratic Republic salutes the students of the Goethe Schule
>> (our school)". Around me everybody was clapping with hands
>> raised above their heads. It was mass frenzy and although I
>> resented the guy, as I have resented few in my life, my impulse
>> at the time was to raise my hands and join in the clapping. I
>> resisted and clenched my briefcase instead, but I realized then
>> how profound the impact of mass manipulation can be.
>>
>> It does not work in our present situation, because the profound
>> building of a new world by a new generation concept is missing
>> or no longer credible as a mass movement setting. In communism
>> it was the new world, where everybody has equal rights and
>> shares in the wealth for a better and brighter future. With the
>> Nazis it was the prosperous future achieved through healthy
>> living and strengthening of body and mind in order to evolve into
>> a stronger people .
>>
>> Those, who were not there, and know of Nazi atrocities will have
>> difficulty understanding the mind set of the German people of the
>> time. The 6 or 7 % of the population, who were directly exposed
>> to those atrocities mostly disappeared quietly over night and
>> faded from the memories of the general population. 99% of the
>> rest of us had absolutely no idea, what was happening to them
>> afterwards and the fraction of one percent, who were directly
>> involved in those atrocities, did well for themselves by not
>> talking about it, unless they wanted to share the fate of their
>> victims.
>>
>> *The rest of us (the then adults anyway) have experienced in the
>> years prior to Hitler s election in 1932: 60 to 70% unemployment,
>> galloping inflation, during which you started in the morning after
>> negotiating a wage, which would feed the family for a day, and in
>> the evening, when you got paid, it was barely enough to buy one
>> cigarette. Tumults in the streets fist fights between Nazis and
>> Communists, the Weimar Republic out of control. Then in just six
>> short years Germany rose from being the economically most
>> devastated industrialized country to the one with the highest
>> living standard with full employment. That was the foundation
>> for the fanatic enthusiasm, with which the people supported the
>> Nazis, and why their believe in the final victory of Germany was
>> unwavering for so long.
>>
>> Albert Speer, Hitlers architect, is also credited with bringing
>> the German war production into high gear and condemned for using
>> slave labour to achieve that. In 1942, when he took over and
>> when the bombing of industrial plants in the from Britain easy to
>> reach Rhein/Rhur areas by the Allies started in earnest, the monthly
>> production of tanks (the smallish P4) was under 100. By 1944 it
>> had risen to 400 of the much bigger Koenigstiger, despite the
>> relentless bombing.
>>
>> Best,
>> Olaf
>>
>> --
>> Click here for your very own create-a-date adventure from MatchMaker
>> Go to http://ecard.matchmaker.com/dating.html
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 13:37:32 MST