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I think the movie portrays them pretty accurately, from Captain von Trapp's perspective in 1938: thuggish, low-class, irresponsible, violent, and regrettably al
by clock_tower 10y ago
I think the movie portrays them pretty accurately, from Captain von Trapp's perspective in 1938: thuggish, low-class, irresponsible, violent, and regrettably alluring to the young. The really foul stuff hadn't started yet -- and you'd have to know a lot more about the Nazi inner circle than von Trapp did (or cared to) in order to know that it was coming.
- tptacek 10y agoReprising https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13475183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13475183: It's true that the Nazi regime got worse (very) shortly after 1938, but it's not true that Nazi Germany prior to 1938 was only superficially bad. The history of the era suggests that Nazi Germany in 1938 was like North Korea in the 1970s: a functioning murderous fascist dictatorship.
- pvg 10y agoThis is a point that probably isn't made clearer by analogy since 1970s North Korea was well ahead of 1938 Nazi Germany in totalitarianism (and camps).
- clock_tower 10y agoI wasn't meaning to say that they were "only superficially bad", but that they were extremely ill-omened -- the sort of organization that was capable of almost anything, and that no gentleman would associate with. But, as you point out, they were very bad very early -- Roehm and the Sturmabteilung were purged in 1934 (!), and Kristallnacht was late 1938 (while restrictions on Jewish store owners etc. were earlier). "North Korea in the '70s" sounds about right -- I'd underestimated just how quickly things happened with that regime. The mere "no gentleman" phase was probably over before they came to power...