9 ms·

Footage of life in Nazi Austria, thanks to a new video archive

100 points by Oatseller 11y ago

nicklaf 11y ago
I should not have to install Adobe Flash player just to view images.
- tedunangst 11y ago
  Use an iPhone...
  - nicklaf 11y ago
    That's an oddly ironic suggestion, seeing that Apple's decision not to include Flash support in the original iPhone was probably our best hope for killing the damn thing. I don't see any excuse for lazy web designers using Flash just for a static image gallery. My browser is perfectly capable of rendering images without a proprietary plugin.
    - frozenport 11y ago
      Oh humbug! I don't see any excuse for lazy users not be using Flash.
      - nicklaf 11y ago
        That's not the point. Installing Flash player is, of course, very easy to do; it's just that doing so comes only at the cost of slightly decreased security and stability. Of course, Adobe could have avoided these issues, had they only chosen to release Flash player under an open source license. At this point it's simply legacy software being phased out in favor of HTML5, and is mostly just a nuisance. Thankfully, ever since Youtube released their HTML5 player, I can't think of a single time in which I was denied access to critically important content because it was locked inside a SWF.
- Raphmedia 11y ago
  It's not images but videos wrapped in an old flash player. Still, they should have alternatives by now.
  - nicklaf 11y ago
    Ah. That's a lot more forgivable, so, my mistake. You certainly are correct that alternatives for Flash video exist too. Youtube is a great exemplar of this, but sadly, even their competitors (such as Vimeo or Dailymotion) seem to bother.
jacquesm 11y ago
The switch from 'left' to 'right' hand side driving: http://efilms.ushmm.org/film_player?movieID=33&movieSig=EF-NS_033_OeFM&movieSpeed=24 http://efilms.ushmm.org/film_player?movieID=33&movieSig=EF-N...
- the_mitsuhiko 11y ago
  This is really cool to watch. I tried to find this video for a long time.
dmix 11y ago
The Nazi's had some excellent graphic design, the typography in most of those ads around the city are excellent. Modern display advertisements really do make cities uglier.
- tobr 11y ago
  A lot of totalitarian propaganda has that attractive, simple but striking design; it's not hard to understand how it can sway people. And hand painted signage always looks classy, even when it isn't hate speech...
  - Someone 11y ago
    I'm not sure I agree with that. Yes, even the simplest signage can be beautiful (nice example: https://vimeo.com/126922477; https://vimeo.com/126922477; see also http://www.henrysignpainter.com http://www.henrysignpainter.com), but creating it requires talent and exercise.
pinkrooftop 11y ago
Interesting and related is the voting card from the Anschluss referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Anschluss_referendum,_1938#/media/File:Stimmzettel-Anschluss.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Anschluss_referendum,...
- jacquesm 11y ago
  No trick left unused.
pnathan 11y ago
> In the late 1930s, despite several attempts by some leaders to maintain Austrian independence, Nazi influence within the Austrian government and among the populace was too strong. The Nazis entered Austria on March 12, 1938 and absorbed the country into Germany the following day; the annexation was known as the Anschluss. A manipulated plebiscite administered a month later indicated that over 99 percent of Austrians were in favor of the situation. And though questions persist about the Austrians’ willingness to be a part of Nazi Germany, the raw footage in these films presents at least one side of the story. I've been reading a history of Central Europe lately, and one of the interesting points that it brings out is that in the 1800s there was a desire on the part of some to unify the different German states within the general German world; this included Austria, and this unification for a greater German state was called Anschluss. Particularly after Austria-Hungary broke up in the WW1 aftermath, this was up for discussion a lot. I was quite surprised to read that; it suggested that the annexation of Austria was not a Nazi invention at all and had much more historic roots. (I'd love to hear more from someone who knows more; this is just cribbed from history books).
- fit2rule 11y ago
  The modern Austrian will be the first to tell you that Austria was the first victim of Nazi aggression .. and ignore the welcome that was put out by a majority of the Austrian populace for Hitler, but there really is a deeper truth that the reason they are telling you that Austria was a victim is that the de-Nazi'fication of Austria after the war required the then-growing generations to discard the culture of their parents, which did indeed welcome Nazi ideology with open arms. Austrians' have been programmed to think that their country was the first victim in the war - lest they perpetuate the ideologies that allowed such an easy victory for the Nazi's in the first place. No Austrian wants to admit the long-standing cultural roots of imperialism and fascism that took hold of their country - and still reflect in its darker depths. Authoritarianism is still the mode of the day; group-think and the mob mind very much still grips the Austrian zeitgeist, as it has for centuries.
  - pnathan 11y ago
    > No Austrian wants to admit the long-standing cultural roots of imperialism and fascism that took hold of their country - and still reflect in its darker depths. Authoritarianism is still the mode of the day; group-think and the mob mind very much still grips the Austrian zeitgeist, as it has for centuries. Boy, that's a hard thing to say about an entire country. You sure you don't want to get some sources for that one?
josefdlange 11y ago
The first time I read this headline I thought it said "Nazi Australia" which would be weirder.
- dghughes 11y ago
  I was working with a vendor from Austria for the last two weeks and he said sometimes people arrive there by mistake instead of Australia.
BorisMelnik 11y ago
I would love to see a historian make a documentary out of this with some good voice over commentary. I enjoyed watching some of these clips but couldn't guess as to what was the context in a lot of them.
- VLM 11y ago
  It would be an extension or cousin of the BBC "World At War" series from the mid 70s, episode 16 which covered life in germany or 18 which covered occupied territory life. I guess better added as an appendix to ep 18. WaW is a truly excellent documentary, however be prepared that it not a new wave American style documentary ... there will be no historical re-enactments, no computer graphics, no nostalgic soundtrack, no camera panning across photographs ... I wish we had more "real" documentaries like WaW, its almost a completely separate genre from the modern american style.
- rurban 11y ago
  There are a lot of much better documentaries with proper comments available. Many intellectual Austrians have the DVD set of Hugo Portisch' TV documentaries about Austrians History (Oesterreich I + II), and most have seen it on TV. I have seen most of the pictures from this Smithsonian collection already. Maybe because the Austrian Film Archive worked with them. Esp. the pictures with the huge Swastica flags all over the streets are very well known. But I as Austrian I enjoyed their German wartime video and picture archive, which I haven't seen before.
the-dude 11y ago
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/new-amateur-film-collection-challenges-narratives-about-life-nazi-austria-180957193/?no-ist http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/new-amateur-film-colle... Seems to skip the bloody advertisement.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
stefs 11y ago
> “It’s pretty controversial. Austrians have for the most part perceived themselves as Hitler’s first victims, and as you can see through a lot of these films it was really not entirely that way. There was a lot of immediate sort of acceptance of the Nazi philosophy,” says Zarwell. when i learned about WW2 in school in the 90s we weren't really thaught that we were hitlers "first victims". we did learn about the widespread vote manipulation and effective propaganda, but also that there were the pictured parades to welcome the "occupiers" and that big parts of the population openly welcomed him into the country.

100 points by Oatseller 11y ago

nicklaf 11y ago

I should not have to install Adobe Flash player just to view images.

tedunangst 11y ago
Use an iPhone...
- nicklaf 11y ago
  That's an oddly ironic suggestion, seeing that Apple's decision not to include Flash support in the original iPhone was probably our best hope for killing the damn thing. I don't see any excuse for lazy web designers using Flash just for a static image gallery. My browser is perfectly capable of rendering images without a proprietary plugin.
  - frozenport 11y ago
    Oh humbug! I don't see any excuse for lazy users not be using Flash.
    - nicklaf 11y ago
      That's not the point. Installing Flash player is, of course, very easy to do; it's just that doing so comes only at the cost of slightly decreased security and stability. Of course, Adobe could have avoided these issues, had they only chosen to release Flash player under an open source license. At this point it's simply legacy software being phased out in favor of HTML5, and is mostly just a nuisance. Thankfully, ever since Youtube released their HTML5 player, I can't think of a single time in which I was denied access to critically important content because it was locked inside a SWF.
Raphmedia 11y ago
It's not images but videos wrapped in an old flash player. Still, they should have alternatives by now.
- nicklaf 11y ago
  Ah. That's a lot more forgivable, so, my mistake. You certainly are correct that alternatives for Flash video exist too. Youtube is a great exemplar of this, but sadly, even their competitors (such as Vimeo or Dailymotion) seem to bother.

jacquesm 11y ago

The switch from 'left' to 'right' hand side driving: http://efilms.ushmm.org/film_player?movieID=33&movieSig=EF-NS_033_OeFM&movieSpeed=24 http://efilms.ushmm.org/film_player?movieID=33&movieSig=EF-N...

the_mitsuhiko 11y ago
This is really cool to watch. I tried to find this video for a long time.

dmix 11y ago

The Nazi's had some excellent graphic design, the typography in most of those ads around the city are excellent. Modern display advertisements really do make cities uglier.

tobr 11y ago
A lot of totalitarian propaganda has that attractive, simple but striking design; it's not hard to understand how it can sway people. And hand painted signage always looks classy, even when it isn't hate speech...
- Someone 11y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with that. Yes, even the simplest signage can be beautiful (nice example: https://vimeo.com/126922477; https://vimeo.com/126922477; see also http://www.henrysignpainter.com http://www.henrysignpainter.com), but creating it requires talent and exercise.

pinkrooftop 11y ago

Interesting and related is the voting card from the Anschluss referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Anschluss_referendum,_1938#/media/File:Stimmzettel-Anschluss.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Anschluss_referendum,...

jacquesm 11y ago
No trick left unused.

pnathan 11y ago

> In the late 1930s, despite several attempts by some leaders to maintain Austrian independence, Nazi influence within the Austrian government and among the populace was too strong. The Nazis entered Austria on March 12, 1938 and absorbed the country into Germany the following day; the annexation was known as the Anschluss. A manipulated plebiscite administered a month later indicated that over 99 percent of Austrians were in favor of the situation. And though questions persist about the Austrians’ willingness to be a part of Nazi Germany, the raw footage in these films presents at least one side of the story. I've been reading a history of Central Europe lately, and one of the interesting points that it brings out is that in the 1800s there was a desire on the part of some to unify the different German states within the general German world; this included Austria, and this unification for a greater German state was called Anschluss. Particularly after Austria-Hungary broke up in the WW1 aftermath, this was up for discussion a lot. I was quite surprised to read that; it suggested that the annexation of Austria was not a Nazi invention at all and had much more historic roots. (I'd love to hear more from someone who knows more; this is just cribbed from history books).

fit2rule 11y ago
The modern Austrian will be the first to tell you that Austria was the first victim of Nazi aggression .. and ignore the welcome that was put out by a majority of the Austrian populace for Hitler, but there really is a deeper truth that the reason they are telling you that Austria was a victim is that the de-Nazi'fication of Austria after the war required the then-growing generations to discard the culture of their parents, which did indeed welcome Nazi ideology with open arms. Austrians' have been programmed to think that their country was the first victim in the war - lest they perpetuate the ideologies that allowed such an easy victory for the Nazi's in the first place. No Austrian wants to admit the long-standing cultural roots of imperialism and fascism that took hold of their country - and still reflect in its darker depths. Authoritarianism is still the mode of the day; group-think and the mob mind very much still grips the Austrian zeitgeist, as it has for centuries.
- pnathan 11y ago
  > No Austrian wants to admit the long-standing cultural roots of imperialism and fascism that took hold of their country - and still reflect in its darker depths. Authoritarianism is still the mode of the day; group-think and the mob mind very much still grips the Austrian zeitgeist, as it has for centuries. Boy, that's a hard thing to say about an entire country. You sure you don't want to get some sources for that one?

josefdlange 11y ago

The first time I read this headline I thought it said "Nazi Australia" which would be weirder.

dghughes 11y ago
I was working with a vendor from Austria for the last two weeks and he said sometimes people arrive there by mistake instead of Australia.

BorisMelnik 11y ago

I would love to see a historian make a documentary out of this with some good voice over commentary. I enjoyed watching some of these clips but couldn't guess as to what was the context in a lot of them.

VLM 11y ago
It would be an extension or cousin of the BBC "World At War" series from the mid 70s, episode 16 which covered life in germany or 18 which covered occupied territory life. I guess better added as an appendix to ep 18. WaW is a truly excellent documentary, however be prepared that it not a new wave American style documentary ... there will be no historical re-enactments, no computer graphics, no nostalgic soundtrack, no camera panning across photographs ... I wish we had more "real" documentaries like WaW, its almost a completely separate genre from the modern american style.
rurban 11y ago
There are a lot of much better documentaries with proper comments available. Many intellectual Austrians have the DVD set of Hugo Portisch' TV documentaries about Austrians History (Oesterreich I + II), and most have seen it on TV. I have seen most of the pictures from this Smithsonian collection already. Maybe because the Austrian Film Archive worked with them. Esp. the pictures with the huge Swastica flags all over the streets are very well known. But I as Austrian I enjoyed their German wartime video and picture archive, which I haven't seen before.

the-dude 11y ago

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/new-amateur-film-collection-challenges-narratives-about-life-nazi-austria-180957193/?no-ist http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/new-amateur-film-colle... Seems to skip the bloody advertisement.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

stefs 11y ago

> “It’s pretty controversial. Austrians have for the most part perceived themselves as Hitler’s first victims, and as you can see through a lot of these films it was really not entirely that way. There was a lot of immediate sort of acceptance of the Nazi philosophy,” says Zarwell. when i learned about WW2 in school in the 90s we weren't really thaught that we were hitlers "first victims". we did learn about the widespread vote manipulation and effective propaganda, but also that there were the pictured parades to welcome the "occupiers" and that big parts of the population openly welcomed him into the country.