So the Nazis were all, "If we can't have this art, no one can!"? What a bunch of babies!
Actually just one extra bad Nazi. The leader of the resistance fighters actually went over his head to his boss, a high up SS officer, to stop him. An incredibly risky thing to do, but it helped stall the plan to flood the mines.
You should come over some night and have Hec tell you the whole story in greater detail, possibly over cocktails or something. It's amazing how many other Nazis were willing to sneak around behind the one fanatical guy's back secretly and utterly sabotaging his blow-all-the-art-up plans, including passing info to the Allies and the Resistance.
Personally, I think blasphemy laws are absurd... but here's an especially absurd example:
Pakistani doctor held under blasphemy law
Pakistani authorities have arrested a doctor on suspicion of violating the country's contentious blasphemy laws after he threw away the business card of a man who shared the name of the Prophet.
Yep, someone who's name was Mohamed gave someone a business card. Then the person threw the card away. That's all that happened.
It's reassuring to realize that even among the Nazis there were those who said, "No, this is the heritage of humanity, this is bigger than us." Like the guys who gave up Neufschwanstein when the Americans were ready to blow the place up.
And my sister is dethroned in the ridiculously stupid and potentially lethal driving decisions sweepstakes.
Woot! We're #1...oh, wait a minute....
One of my colleagues from grad school works on art and the Resistance in France. The stories are fascinating.
It's amazing how many other Nazis were willing to sneak around behind the one fanatical guy's back secretly and utterly sabotaging his blow-all-the-art-up plans, including passing info to the Allies and the Resistance.
At that point it was pretty obvious who was going to win the war, I would think.
It's reassuring to realize that even among the Nazis there were those who said, "No, this is the heritage of humanity, this is bigger than us."
Considering those same individuals were perfectly OK with exterminating large numbers of actual human beings...I'm not reassured.
That's so annoying! I had stuff in the queue! Which is no longer there! Hmph.
I submitted something! Don't lose it, butterfingers.
I reblogged yours, and it reminded me of the missing one! So that's something. But the queue is supposed to post automatically, dammit!
Considering those same individuals were perfectly OK with exterminating large numbers of actual human beings...I'm not reassured.
Yeah, disheartening is nowhere near a big enough word for how awful that is. But I'm still weirdly fascinated by the gray areas that even the worst of the worst can carve out for themselves. That a few of them were so fanatical that they were ready to destroy the art as a fuck-you to the entire universe; many more were true believers and perfectly at ease with destroying actual human beings but couldn't bring themselves to demolish art; that some of them stayed apparently active and loyal to protect their families but secretly helped the resistance for all kinds of random reasons (architects and art historians turned soldiers who balked, one former higher-up who looked around the table at a fancy dinner party one night, realized everything they were eating off of, down to the smallest teaspoon, had been stolen from the Rothschilds, and gagged).
I wish like hell they'd fought as hard for the humans as they did for the art, but it was such a huge, poisonous, horribly infectious evil that I find the stories of the people who were deep on the inside and carved out any small corner of resistance and refusal weirdly compelling.
