Hitler loses his head.

[MA-Caver]

Man rips head from Hitler wax figure
Full Story here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080705/od_nm/hitler_head_dc
Sat Jul 5, 8:08 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - A man tore the head from a controversial waxwork figure of Adolf Hitler on the opening day of Berlin's Madame Tussauds museum Saturday, police said.
Just minutes after the museum opened, the 41-year-old German man pushed aside two security men guarding the figure before ripping off the head in protest at the exhibit, a police spokesman said. The police were alerted and arrested the man.
The waxwork figure of a glum-looking Adolf Hitler in a mock bunker during the last days of his life was criticized as being in bad taste. A media preview of the new branch of Madame Tussauds Thursday was overshadowed by a row over the exhibit.
Critics said it was inappropriate to display the Nazi dictator, who started World War Two and ordered the extermination of Europe's Jews, in a museum alongside celebrities, pop stars, world statesmen and sporting heroes.
Dressed in a grey suit, the figure of Hitler gazed downwards with a despondent stare, his arm outstretched on a large wooden table with a map of Europe on the wall of his gloomy bunker.

There's a video of the story as well attached to the article. Shows the new Tussauds works and they're bloody brilliant works of art, where actors, political figures and other notables are seemingly lifelike... maybe too lifelike. The one of Hitler was indeed showing the defeated man, probably just hours before his suicide. Yet the display still was enough to bring out the ire of a (ironically) German man to rip the head off.
Perhaps it was inappropriate to display this monster but again it's history and it cannot be denied. People DO have a morbid curiosity of things like that. To look upon the face of evil as it were. The display shows the man in defeat not in his triumph (however short lived it was). Photographs of the Russian army lifting their flag on top of the Reichstag empathizes this just to the figure's right.

I think it helps remind us not to forget. None of it. The Holocaust, the War, the way that he undermined his way to the highest position of his country and took control of people's lives, by taking away their freedoms and their ability to think for themselves and their rights to protest whatever it was that their government was doing.
Obviously for the German people the pain (of embarrassment) is still there. That millions died at their grandparent's hands that Germans and Germany will for a long time be associated with Nazism and the Swastika and not for the fine engineerings that they should (rightly) be associated with today.
Still was it inappropriate? Should've it been displayed later on in years where the memories are not as fresh?

 

[Sukerkin]

I can see some of both sides of this coin.

I utterly concur that the evils that were done should not be forgotten, for if they are then powerful nations are doomed to repeat the same mistakes with similar consequences.

However, I have never been comfortable with 'horrors as entertainments' and as respectable as Tussauds is these days, it's still, in my book, far from a sober presentation of history - more Disneyworld than British Museum so to speak.

The actions of the man in the story I cannot condone for they are, in essence, criminal damage but I can understand the emotions that could inspire such.

 

[arnisador]

Similar thoughts here--first was understanding the man's actions, then an over-riding sense of "But isn't it more important to be reminded to never forget?"

 

[CoryKS]

You know who else liked to destroy things he didn't like...?

 

[Sukerkin]

Stalin? Bush? Caesar? King Phillip of Spain? ...

Just kidding, I know what you meant but I couldn't resist - I beg of you do not "Ni!" me for I shall build thee a shrubbery.

 

[MA-Caver]

Stalin? Bush? Caesar? King Phillip of Spain? ...

Just kidding, I know what you meant but I couldn't resist - I beg of you do not "Ni!" me for I shall build thee a shrubbery.

Build? Nay ... bring them a shrubbery...bring it. :uhyeah: Watch out for the terrible monster by the cave though... aye it's 'orrible to be sure!

 

[Sukerkin]

Beware too the manual for the Holy Hand-grenade of Antioch (especially the bit regarding counting) .

 

[morph4me]

We should remember the atrocities, but I think we can do that without immortalizing the architect. While I don't condone the vandalism of the museums property, I think it was in bad taste to include Hitler, especially where emotions are bound to run that high.

 

[Cryozombie]

I dunno... I have to wonder, is including Hitler in the exibit any worse than the Torture Museums you see where they have implements of torture and depict their uses on wax figures? I toured one once, and it was interesting to say the least, but it is, in its own way glorifying/profiteering off of the brutality of mankind... I wonder if they had a Wax figure of Torquemada if that would be destroyed too, or if his attrocities are far enough in the past no one would care... and if so, will Hitler be an acceptable display in another 500 years?

*shrug* Just thinking out loud here, so to speak.

 

[MA-Caver]

I dunno... I have to wonder, is including Hitler in the exhibit any worse than the Torture Museums you see where they have implements of torture and depict their uses on wax figures? I toured one once, and it was interesting to say the least, but it is, in its own way glorifying/profiteering off of the brutality of mankind... I wonder if they had a Wax figure of Torquemada if that would be destroyed too, or if his atrocities are far enough in the past no one would care... and if so, will Hitler be an acceptable display in another 500 years?

*shrug* Just thinking out loud here, so to speak.

I had the same thoughts with my OP perhaps we're just too early in doing this... but still it's so easy to make the same mistake twice. Some folks will shake their heads saying Naaahh no way. Yeah, maybe they're right, no way... after-all it happened to Germany only twice in less than 30 years.

But you go to the history or discovery channel and there are shows and programs all about Hitler and his cronies. The lost films of Hitler, the last hours in the bunker, the rise and fall of the third reich, interviews with his closest (surviving) associates, his doctors, his aides and on and on.. The man is probably more widespread and inimately known now than he was then. Isn't that glorifying?

 

[Empty Hands]

This wasn't at a war memorial or a Jewish cemetary so I really don't see what the problem is. Depictions of Hitler are used in many works of art, particularly movies, even when they are not directly about WWII or even serious. How about when Indiana Jones gets the Grail Diary signed by accident by Hitler in "The Last Crusade"? Terrible outrage?

I just don't see what the problem is.

 

[Gordon Nore]

Personally, I think it is beneficial to have the Hitler was figure on display. I'm now teaching a generation of children who do not the familial connection to WWII that I grew up with. My parents were children of the Depression and the second World War, so it was a part of my family history. The name, "Hitler," already had resonance for me before I ever learned about him in school.

Nowadays, when we prepare for Remembrance Day services, my kids see the World Wars as ancient history. To acknowledge Hitler as an important historical figure is NOT the same as celebrating his beliefs or actions.

 

[Grenadier]

The Germans sometimes go too far, in trying to deny history. Nobody outside of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can dispute that the Third Reich was a time of horror, and that many attrocities occurred, but for one's own people to try to scrub history?

Like it or not, Adolf Hitler is an important part of history. The people of the world shouldn't pretend that he never existed, nor should they deny that the horrible things that were committed by his cronies ever happened.

If anything, his legacy shows what can happen when someone comes along at the right place and time, and is able to take advantage of a desperate populace. If we refuse to learn from such situations, then we're doomed to repeat them.

Regardless of what we try to do, there will always be more people the likes of Adolf Hitler, and sometimes, the best way to combat them is by learning from the past, not running from it.

 

[MA-Caver]

The Germans sometimes go too far, in trying to deny history. Nobody outside of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can dispute that the Third Reich was a time of horror, and that many attrocities occurred, but for one's own people to try to scrub history?

Like it or not, Adolf Hitler is an important part of history. The people of the world shouldn't pretend that he never existed, nor should they deny that the horrible things that were committed by his cronies ever happened.

If anything, his legacy shows what can happen when someone comes along at the right place and time, and is able to take advantage of a desperate populace. If we refuse to learn from such situations, then we're doomed to repeat them.

Regardless of what we try to do, there will always be more people the likes of Adolf Hitler, and sometimes, the best way to combat them is by learning from the past, not running from it.

I recall the upset at groups that were trying to "deny the holocaust ever happened" or saying "it wasn't as bad as they said it was" and variations there of. It ticked off A LOT of people that's for sure. Those are the very small minority that wishes the Third Reich was still standing.

To me I think the German people were not in a state of denial but in a state of deep embarrassment. Like having a red-wine stain on your beautiful new white carpet... can't ever get rid of it... so try to cover it up with a piece of heavy furniture... problem is that everyone was at the party so everyone knows it happened, and that piece of furniture is just in the way. So now it's trying to live with it as opposed to dealing with it. Call it an effort to have some national pride in current efforts and achievements but that ugly stain is still there for all to see. I'd imagine that it's very difficult to deal with as a country.
Same with the Japanese and their denials of the atrocities committed in China (Nanking to name one). There's tons of photographic and eyewitness evidence to prove that it indeed happened. But the Japanese people go on and work hard at being the economic powerhouse that they are.
The U.S. has it's own "war crimes" that go back to the 1800's and the attempted genocide of the American Indians and their tribes. We weren't just trying to herd them into reservations ... there are documented incidents where battalions have rode into Indian villages with the express purpose of slaughtering anything and everything that wasn't a U.S. Calvary Soldier or their horse. I think as a country we've dealt with it pretty well. We can't deny it (anymore) and we don't really try to.

Germany might still be struggling with that as a nation. They've been divided after the war and was the center-piece of the cold war and now restored whole again but they'll never be trusted to have their full military might as they did before (same with Japan).