History of the German Freikorps * * *

The book begins at the end of WWI as civil unrest is spreading within Germany
due to widespread dissatisfaction with the war among the civilians and the soldiers. During this time, there was a strong communist/revolutionary movement within the naval soldiers and within the working class. As with the Russian communist revolution, the German communist revolution-that-wasn't started with mutinies aboard naval ships. Towards the end of WWI, losing the war seemed inevitable and naval soldiers began to balk at dying for a lost cause. The first large mutiny occurred at Kiel on October 29, 1918 when the navy ordered a last, and at that point suicidal, battle against the British blockade. The 'Red' soldiers took over the ships and the port. This revolt was put down by the Kaiser but unrest continued to spread -- until the Kaiser was forced into exile on November 9, 1919 and the monarchy was replaced by a fragile republic, the Wiemar Republic.
Out of this chaos, the Friekorps were born.

The young republic was facing multiple uprising from various revolutionary groups: the communists, the Spartacists, the Red naval soldiers and the Workers' parties. These groups were engaging in mass revolts in Berlin and were taking over government offices. The regular army was ineffective and riddled with 'Red' sympathizers. Instead ex-military officers formed their own scratch militia, called Freikorps or Free Corps. These were made up of young, hard men who had been tempered in the trenches of WWI. These newly minted Freikorps were sent to quell the civil unrest -- with a heavy hand. The Freikorps became famous for their violence and independence -- and their virulent disdain for the Wiemar Republic government. At their height in 1920, there were about half a million Freikorps soldiers in militia of various sizes up to battalion strength. Some of these only lasted a few months, while others lasted to the Versailles Treaty after which they were eventually absorbed into the regular Army.

"A Brief History of the Birth of the Nazis: How the Freikorps Blazed a Trail for Hitler" tell sthe history of the Friekorps from their inception in 1919 to their official dissolution in 1920 by the Versailles Treaty through their change to illegal political terrorist militia in the 1920s and then to their final end in the summer of 1934 when the Nazis carried out a purge known as the Night of Long Knives. The first half of the book is mostly about their various military actions up to 1920: from their military action in Poland to mercilessly putting down the Ruhr Red revolts in the spring of 1920. The second half of the book concerns the post-Versailles Treaty period. The Versailles Treaty strictly limited the number of soldiers that Germany was allowed to maintain, and the Wiemar government was certainly not inclined to turn a blind eye to the Freikorps. The Friekorps were a threat to the government, and had been involved in multiple putz attempts to overthrown the republican government and replace it with a fascist government.

By the early 1920s, the majority of the Freikorps had been disbanded or integrated into the Wehrmacht. However, many Freikorps evolved into illegal anti-republican groups and some of these were terrorist right-wing groups that that assassinated republican officials. These illegal Friekorps groups were important to the nascent National Socialist Party (Nazis). Specifically, the Bavarian Freikorps were critical in the Munich Beerhaus putz in 1923 when Adolf Hitler attempted to seize power by force. After this failed, and Hitler sent to prison, Hitler decided to seek power within the political system and distanced himself from the more unruly elements of the Freikorps. Nonetheless many Freikorps officers went on to become leaders in the Nazi party and of the SS.

This book was a real eye-opener for me. I was not aware of the extent of civil unrest in Germany at the end of WWI or of the communist revolts that occurred in 1919 and the early 1920s. The history of these revolts gave me a very different image of pre-WWII Germans than I had before. In Berlin Diary, the memoir of a US journalist, we see only the stereotypical view of German citizens fawning over Hitler in mass assemblies and there is certainly no evidence of widespread resistance. The history of the Freikorps shows a completely different German citizenry. For example, in March 1920 in what is known as the Kapp Putz, a Freikorps militia tried to overthrow the republican government by force and succeeded in taking over the government headquarters in Berlin and sending the leadership running. However, they were faced with massive passive resistance by government employees who stalled in carrying out their orders. Then a Berlin-wide strike was called and the city was shut down. After a few days of civilian resistance, the putz leaders were forced to leave. On the otherhand, the image we see of the Freikorps is striking similar to that seen later in the Nazi party and SS. Lieutenant Mann, an officer of the Freikorps leading the failed Kapp Putz, said afterwards "If we had only shot more people [meaning civilians], everything would have been alright." It was a lesson they put to use in quelling the Ruhr revolt a few weeks later and one that the Nazis took to heart also.

Hanover Street *

What can I say? I was overcome with Indy nostalgia. Last week, I went to see the new Indy IV movie and so thoroughly enjoyed it that I decided to re-watch Indy I. Alas, as I expected, the local video store was out of it. Thus I found myself poking around on Netflix Instant Viewing for a Harrison Ford movie to watch. My choices were Air Force 1 (seen it and hate it), Devil's Own (seen it and hate it), or Hanover Street, a 1979 movie WWII romance movie with Harrison Ford and Christopher Plummer. That sounded kind of interesting. Reviews suggested it was lite-romance fluff but entertaining to people who like that sort of stuff. I wasn't sure if I was the sort of movie viewer who likes that sort of stuff, but I decided to find out.

Wow. This was unbelievable horrible. The sets and costumes were great, but the the two leads (Ford and some woman) delivered their lines like they were reading them. There was negative charisma between them and they were supposed to be madly in love. And the plot...ok, I can't criticize the plot. Inane, sappy plots are part of the lite-romance genre. That said, the plot was inane and sappy. Christopher Plummer was alright, or at least not painful to watch, but one wonders why he would have taken such a role in 1979, after blockbuster roles such as in Sound of Music and Pink Panther.

So really avoid this one. There are many other entertaining mindless romance movies for you to enjoy -- no need to revisit the late-1970s for that. Only see this if you are curious if you can see a glimmer of Han Solo (1977) two years later. Answer: No. Oh wait, there is a reason to see this. I've watched many of Ford's movies over the years (even the terrible ones like this), and this one has the best snogging scene I know of. He gets into it -- unlike later films where he fakes it.

Come and See * * * * *

Ethnic cleansing of the Slavs living in the Eastern European lands including Poland, the Baltics, Ukraine, Belarus, Czechoslovakia and western Russian (to the Urals) was outlined in Hilter's Generalplan Ost as part of his long-term plan for creation of Lebensraum for Greater Germany. This plan involved removal of 70-90% of the existing Slavic population in these areas. Much of this was to be carried out after the war (after Germany's presumed victory) but pacification and elimination of certain areas was to be carried out during the war, in particular in Poland, Ukraine and Belarus.

Belarus (was Belarussia) has the sad distinction of being the country where the Generalplan Ost and the genocide of Slavs was most effectively implemented during WWII. 25-33% of the population of Belarus was killed in the war (about 2.2 million killed), the Belarus intelligentsia and Jewish segments of society were entirely eliminated, every city was devastated and large portions of Belarus were laid waste in a scorched earth policy (Belarus official website on the genocide). In some of the worst war crimes committed in WWII, in628 villages across Belarus SS troops rounded up and burned alive every inhabitant as punishment for partisan actions. Another 4667 villages were burnt to the ground with less than 100% of their inhabitants killed. The website on the Khatyn memorial even has archival video taken by SS troops of the plan in action: Plan Ost.


Come and See (1985) is a movie about WWII as experienced in Belarus. It follows a teenage boy who joins the partisans. It shows the horror of the SS annihilation of villages through the eyes of this naive boy. As you might expect, there is a fairly well developed partisan-mythology in Belarus (Robin Hood with a gun). However although Come and See is sympathetic to the partisans, this is not your typical air-brushed film of the heroic partisans saving the day from the evil Germans. Come and See tries to paint a realistic picture of war, without any romance. In that sense, it is has a documentary quality almost, and like all "realistic" war films, it is decidedly anti-war. There is nothing, nothing remotely romantic about being a partisan in this movie because war itself is horror. During the course of the 2 days covered by the movie, we watch as Florya ages physically before our eyes. With each new horror -- the death of someone next to him, watching villagers rounded up and burned, the loss of his family, the gang rape of young girl -- his face becomes distraught, then crazed and finally wooden.


Come and See is one of the most famous modern movies about the Eastern Front. It is very well done and the cinematography and acting is excellent. But I had been warned by Kaja that Come and See is a disturbing movie. It was, however, not as distressing as I was bracing for. I was expecting to be forced to watch people burning alive, children getting their heads split open with rifle butts, or the gang rape of young girls. We see the after effect of these things and we see dead bodies, but the film doesn't actually show these horrors happening. I never needed to hit the "stop" button on the remote in order to avoid any really distressing scenes. That is a real accomplishment because the temptation would be to want to 'rub people's faces' in the horror: "look, look, LOOK!" But it is more powerful, I think, because instead it focuses on how Florya reacts and copes (or not) to seeing these horrors.

Overall this a must-see movie for those interested in the Eastern Front and the effect of WWII on Eastern Europe, along with Stalingrad, Mein Kreig, and Shoah.

References

Generalplan Ost
Hilter's Generalplan Ost
Online documents and transcripts about Generalplan Ost
Except from Janusz Gumkowkski and Kazimierz Leszczynski's POLAND UNDER NAZI OCCUPATION
Belarus : a partisan reality show
The Khatyn massacre website

Pupendo * * *

"One day a little tapeworm poked her head out of an anus, looked around at the big wide world. She popped back in and raced to find her mother. 'Oh, mommy tapeworm what is that great and lovely blueness that is all around outside?' 'That my darling is the sky.' 'Oh mommy tapeworm, what is that beautiful yellow orb in the sky?' 'That my darling is the sun.' 'But why mommy, why do we live here, here in the dark?' 'Oh my darling, because this, this is our HOME...yes, my darling, up someone's ass.' -- a joke told by an insurance appraiser from the movie Pupendo.


This movie is a comedy-drama about the 1980s in Czechoslovakia, and that little joke sums up the Czech perspective pretty well. Yes, we're living in crap, but nonetheless it's home. The story follows a talented Prague artist, Bedrich Mara, who in the heady years around the 1968 Prague Spring was one of the top artists in the country with his work shown in the west. But he refused to make the necessary compromises (join the communist party presumably) and has fallen out of favor with the authorities. He loses his job, is ostracized from the art community, and barely brings home enough for his family by making kitschy clay things, like a money bank that looks like a butt. The movie tells the story of a summer in which on a bit of a lark, he brings home a bum. The bum turns out to be an art historian caught at a particularly low point. And through a bitter-sweet series of events, he helps Bedrich return to the international art world -- although at costs that have a certain black humor to them.

Pupendo is by the same director that made Pelisky, and it feels like a follow-up. Pelisky was a comedic-drama about life in the summer of 1968, while Pupendo is a drama-comedy about life in the 80s. But I think one reason Pelisky was more successful was that Pelisky combined funny with a very obvious tragedy -- the 1968 invasion. In Pupendo, the juxtaposition of funny and serious is not as effective -- perhaps because the tragedy of the 1970s and 1980s, the post-1968 period of "Normalization", is difficult to capture on film unlike tanks rolling down streets. "Normalization" is an Orwellian term because it refers to squelching the "abnormal" ideas of freedom of speech and civil liberty that dominated the the attempt at humanizing Czech communism (Jan-Aug 1968). I once heard a Czech describe the difference between the Stalinist oppression in the 1950s versus the Normalization oppression in the 1970s. In the 1950s, you were executed but there was a certain logic and predictability to what activities would get you killed. In the 1970s, you were ostracized rather than executed, but punishment was completely capricious. You think you are fine, and then some innocuous comment, or forgetting to put up a flag, gets you on the blacklist.

For this reason, I think the film probably has mainly home-market appeal, unlike Pelisky which is likely to be quite funny and tragic to non-Czechs also. Also Pelisky has Miroslav Donutil, one of the most famous Czech comedic actors, who is hilarious in the movie.

Pupendo refers to a Czech "game" in which a heavy coin -- in this case a 5kc piece which is about like a Sacajawea or Loonie -- is thrown swiftly down onto the bare belly of the "recipient". If done correctly, the coin lands flat and gives a frightful sting. Video of pupendo being played. Why this movie-vignette about life in the 1980s in Czechoslovakia is named after this slightly sadomasochist game is unclear. Presumably it is meant as some kind of metaphor, but I couldn't quite get it.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress * * *

Not wanting to sleep the other night, I flipped through Netflix instant viewing and saw that "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" was available. The book is excellent -- a real page-turner. It tells the autobiographical story of two young men (about 19 yrs old) who are sent to a remote village in the mountains to be "re-educated" in the early 1970s. This was part of Mao's Cultural Revolution during which time he waged an all out assault on anyone with higher education, i.e. doctors, lawyers, musicians, engineers, writers, etc. They were labeled as "reactionaries" or "black elements". Their houses confiscated and property destroyed. They were forced into menial labor and all aspects of their lives constrained. In the late 1960s, Mao instituted the "Up to the mountains and down to the villages" policy. The children of the intelligentsia were sent away to be work in the countryside and not allowed to study. This period lasted 10 yrs and effectively exiled a entire generation.

This film only touches briefly on the horror and degradation inflicted upon people by the Cultural Revolution -- during a scene in which one of the boys breaks down and cries. Instead it is a coming of age story about two boys, well young men. Luo, the son of a dentist, is handsome and witty. Ma, the son of a surgeon, is quiet and an excellent violinist (who later escapes to France and becomes a violinist in real life). One funny scene occurs in the beginning when the villagers are examining the boys stuff. They find the violin and are about to burn it, when Luo saves it and offers that Ma will play Mozart for them. "Hmm, Mozart, that sounds reactionary", says the village chief. "No, the song is 'Mozart is Thinking of Chairman Mao'".

The film follows about a year of their four years in the mountains. During this time, they are saved from the intellectual poverty of village life by a suitcase full of illegal Western novels -- Stendhal, Kipling, Dostoevsky, and ... Balzac. Such books were destroyed by the communists so were very hard to come by and obviously would be a one-way ticket to jail if discovered. They boys acquire the suitcase by stealing it from another boy, the son of a poet, who is being re-educated in a nearby village. These books change their lives -- and the life of a young woman, the granddaughter of the local tailor. The boys fall in love with her and decide to educate her by reading the books to her. This has a series of unexpected consequences and one of the themes of the book and film is the power of education to change a person. Although in this case, it is not education per se, but rather opening one's eyes to the existence of a wider world.

The film follows the book quite closely, but diverges at the end by telling us what happened to the boys. Ma leaves China and emigrates to France where he becomes a somewhat successful violinist. Luo becomes a dentist like his father. The little seamstress left for the city and eventually emigrated to Hong Kong. This adds nice closure that the film was missing.

Overall I found the film entertaining. I had not intended to watch the whole thing in one sitting (it was after midnight when I started watching), but I ended up doing so as I was so engaged.

******
Watched on Netflix instant viewing. Subtitled.

Judgment at Nuremberg * * * *

It took me a really long time to watch this film, even though it was an Oscar winning film on a topic I'm fascinated by, namely the Nuremberg trials. It's 3 1/2 hours long and basically the whole thing is filmed in the courtroom. I just didn't see how it would not bore me to tears. But Kaja was visiting and was interested to have seen it too. Neither of us wanted to see it; we wanted to have seen it as part of our filmatic education. So with a partner to bolster our courage in the face of boredom, a six-pack and a big bowl of popcorn, we decided to work our way through it over three nights and set the DVD rolling at 11pm one night. We were transfixed through whole film and ended up watching it straight through, not finishing until after 2am.

Why is this such a good movie? Gosh, it's really hard to put your finger on. The acting is great. Spencer Tracy is very believable as a well meaning and thoughtful small-town judge, who is really trying to understand the German people and is trying to not pre-judge them. The German lawyer is played by Maximilian Schell, an Austrian-born actor. He is magnetic in the film, and he won an Oscar fo r Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance. The screenplay is also thoughtful and doesn't make any cheap shots (unlike the abysmal Taking Sides, which was on a similar topic). The screenplay also garnered an Oscar.

Oh, yes, the plot. There is a trial of three Nazi judges who are being charged with going along with the Nazis and thereby allowing the Nazis to pervert justice so that instead of communists, jews, disabled, etc being just summarily locked away, their persecution was given the patina of a proper and fair legal hearing. Two of the main cases being discussed have to do with forced sterilization. Mainly we (the viewer) are sitting in on the court cases and listening to the arguments by each side. There are a few scenes in prison with the three men on trial, a few scenes of parties, but by and large it's in a courtroom. But it is riveting commentary on the moral culpability of professionals within a terrible system.

I didn't feel like the film tried to tell me what to think and how to judge the men on trial. In the end, I sympathized with many of the arguments of the German lawyer, and I felt the American judge took a moral high-ground that is a bit unrealistic*. I think that was one of the points of the film, to make one think about these issues and show that it is not so cut-and-dried. The path to moral corruption is walked one little step at a time and at each turn, you may even be making what you think is the most moral choice in that situation. So in fact, when you finally do become an active participant in the actions of a corrupt State, it can be almost by surprise and without you ever really making a conscious choice to be such a participant.

*Kaja's comment: This was mostly likely requisite for the era in which it was released. It was a time where the US stood as an ultimate moral compass and empowered to pass judgment by being the victors. If we think about the how the nature of our politics and public has changed from then to now, I think that we would see our protagonist judge in a 2008 film tested and succumb to the human sympathies that we extend to other individuals in the middle of personal dilemmas.

Derzu Uzala * * *

Derzu Uzala (1975) is a film by the great Japenese director, Akira Kurosawa, that is set right around the turn of the century (1902 to 1910) in eastern Siberia. It is the story of a Russian surveyor who is mapping the far east and north and is based on the memoirs of a Russian explorer, Vladimir Arsenyev. During one expedition, the surveying group runs into a native hunter, Derzu, who becomes their guide. He is a gentle soul who has known hardship--his wife, son and daughter died from smallpox years ago. Since then he has become a hunter/trapper.

The movie follows the surveyor and Derzu through a series of trips and adventures through the wild Russian landscape--though dense dark forests, wild rivers, and the endless northern tundra. I watched it on a very small screen which was a shame; the landscapes deserve to be seen on a big screen. Derzu is quite old and after a number of years, he loses his keen eyesight and can no longer hunt. The surveyor takes him into his home with his wife and son in a the city, but Derzu is like a trapped bird in the city. Eventually he must return to the woods.


To my eyes, the movie was mainly about grand nature and the smallness of man within it. The part of the film where Derzu and Arsenyev are in the tundra and get caught out after dark especially plays on this theme. The turn of the century was a time of enormous change in Russia--just before the 1914 revolution and the start of the industrial period. The death of Derzu can be seen as a metaphor for the death of nature that occurred at this time. That this is a surveyor team can also be seen as a metaphor--nature's mysteries are reduced to lines on a piece of paper.

Most of the outdoor filming occurs in the Russian far east (just west of Japan) in the Primorsky Kray region. This is interesting to see. Filming also occurs in Siberia, although I could not find out exactly where. Kurosawa really captures the vastness of Siberian tundra.

Why 3 stars? This is considered a classic film by a great director. However, my own take was that the cinematography was super but the acting and story was nothing special. I would watch it again but this time with a projector so I could enjoy the shots of the vast Russian landscape.

This clip from the film will give you a pretty good sense of the film:

The Greatest Czech: Jara Cimrman

Commentary by Kaja

In the heat of an early and humid summer, I had my first encounter with the famed Jara Cimrman, the Czech Genius. I’d heard the tales and only seen the dents in the sofa left by Cimrman’s fame before, but last night I went to a production of one of his plays, AKT.

I emerged from the show, but this elusive Bigfoot of great minds remained as ephemeral as before. The reason? The persona of Cimrman is a creation of the great Czech actors Zdeněk Svěrák and Ladislav Smoljak. They created the character during an era of satirical self-reflection and the transitional post-WWII era. While originally intended as a caricature of Czech people, history, and culture, he became and remains an immensely popular national hero. This is most evident when considers that Jara Cimrman would have won the Czech Television contest to choose THE GREATEST CZECH. Including candidates from pop-singers, kings, and other national heroes, Cimrman was disqualified from the competition only because he never truly existed. The prize went to the runner up, King Charles IV, founder of the Charles University and Charles Bridge in Prague during the 1300s.

The story goes that Cimrman was ridiculed and eschewed throughout his life. Thus, he passed into and out of this life understated and with only a bang or two. However, as with many great geniuses, Cimrman rose to glory only after his death when, in 1966, Dr. Evzen Hedvabny (Dr. Silky) discovered a locked chest containing many of Cimrman’s works. The brilliance of these works were instantly recognizable—needing little more than a glance at a title—and Cimrman became recognized as one of the world’s most accomplished men (certainly the greatest for the Czechs) as a poet, a composer, playwright, not to mention a philosopher and inventor.

In order to further expound and present Cimrman’s greatness to society, a panel of experts (in each field) was assembled to lecture on these accomplishments. Thus, the composition of the performance was as follows: lecture, intermission, and performance. Most likely needless to say, the panel of experts was composed of the actors. This first section was perhaps the most interesting and entertaining. Playing on inter-discipline tensions and differences, the academic territoriality became increasingly evident with each presentation. Of course, each performance was replete with stereotypes; most notably, the spacey engineer.

The second half was a performance of one of Cimrman’s discovered plays—contextualized, of course, by the preceding lecture. AKT, as the play is named, presents an elderly couple in a painter’s loft atelier. In one corner is a covered painting. The couple is anxious. Mind you, this is a seasoned and well-respected, all-male ensemble. From here on out, imagine all events saturated with cross-gender humor.

Much waiting and three guests later, the plot thickens. The first guest is a teacher with a touch of pedophilia. The second, a fat realtor. And the last, a sex-crazed psychoanalytic. Each believes that their invitation is related to their field and that they have arrived at this mysterious place, on some mysterious day, at some mysterious time to make a little extra money under the table.

The rest of the play revolves around an uncompleted painting of a nude woman: the elderly wife as a young woman. The elderly artist states, that each time he set out to finish the painting he was seized by a fit of passion and that one of the three guests was the result of these “artistic” sessions. And there we have it! The plot: gentleman, I am your father. She is your mother.

I am not averse to sexual insinuation and lowbrow humor. However, when juxtaposing the two halves, I find the turn of phrase and intellectual foray more interesting than the latter. An example of the intellectual texture is the layers of meaning captured by the name "Cimrman". The name conveys a duality of heritage that is representative of the Czech nation. Jara Cimrman was the son of an Austrian mother, Marlen Jelinek (a Czech name meaning young stag) and a Czech father, Leopold Zimmerman (a German name meaning carpenter). The name “Cimrman” is the Czech phonetic version of his father's German name. While considering himself Czech and associating most with his Czech heritage, he is so confused by his ancestry and education that he speaks German with Czech-isms and Czech with German-isms, supported by a fair number of quotations on a number of topics. This linguistic word play persists throughout, even in the text of AKT itself. This first part, I believe, most fully engenders Czech people, history, and zeitgeist.

The most striking part of the performance was realizing a connection between Cimrman and another Czech folk hero: the good soldier Svejk. Both characters are created personas supposedly representative of the Czech nation. Yet, Svejk and Cimrman are antithetical. One is the greatest Czech in accomplishment and societal contribution. The other is a bumbling good-natured fool who, despite his repeated screw-ups, always manages to survive and escape harsh consequences. Cimrman’s success is his active and intellectual engagement with the world and its events. Svejk’s success stems from his complete disengagement from anything beyond his immediate surroundings. I have puzzled over this ostensible contradiction since the performance. I have yet to reconcile how both can stand shoulder-to-shoulder, filling the same role in modern Czech folklore.

I recommend that everyone read Jaroslav Hasek’s The Good Soldier Svejk. I would also recommend that you visit the Theater of Jara Cimrman, but unfortunately this is limited to those who understand Czech (or Slovak).