Nazi

[Todd A]

I think separating the art from the artist is tricky and everyone will have different ideas about what does and doesn't impact their appreciation of the work.

I think separating art from artist is easy. I have nothing to do with any artist, nor do I, nor can I influence what they did or what they might do. I can only assess their art. I listen to compositions by Gesualdo and Wagner and Saint-Saens, all vile dead people. Some German artists and some French artists (eg, Cortot, a craven collaborator) and some other European musicians from the 30s and 40s were also vile. I am not aware of any of them holding senior political policy making roles at the time, though perhaps a few did. Some more recent artists like James Levine or William Preucil or Charles Dutoit have engaged in vile behavior, yet I listen to their work still. I even watch Roman Polanski movies. I suspect multiple artists out there have engaged in shady behavior. None of it matters.

 

[alanbeeb]

Spill the beans on Camille.... What did the vile Saint-Saens do? I haven't heard.

 

[Todd A]

Saint-Saens once stated "I am not a homosexual but a pederast." He also is reported to have engaged in what would now be called sex tourism during his trips to North Africa.

 

[The Captain]

I think separating art from artist is easy. I have nothing to do with any artist, nor do I, nor can I influence what they did or what they might do. I can only assess their art. I listen to compositions by Gesualdo and Wagner and Saint-Saens, all vile dead people. Some German artists and some French artists (eg, Cortot, a craven collaborator) and some other European musicians from the 30s and 40s were also vile. I am not aware of any of them holding senior political policy making roles at the time, though perhaps a few did. Some more recent artists like James Levine or William Preucil or Charles Dutoit have engaged in vile behavior, yet I listen to their work still. I even watch Roman Polanski movies. I suspect multiple artists out there have engaged in shady behavior. None of it matters.

Hmm.. well all I can reply with here, is the gulf between what the Nazis did & your use of such a mild word as 'shady' in juxtaposition with the magnitude of their atrociousness, sits rather uneasily with me.

Capt

 

[Todd A]

Hmm.. well all I can reply with here, is the gulf between what the Nazis did & your use of such a mild word as 'shady' in juxtaposition with the magnitude of their atrociousness, sits rather uneasily with me.

Capt

If you can provide any evidence that any artists of the 30s and 40s in Germany or elsewhere in Europe were in senior political positions of the Nazi regime and either made decisions that contributed to the Holocaust and war strategy or directly took part in specific crimes, that would open up a substantive debate. Otherwise, all that's on offer is basically virtue signaling.

 

[The Captain]

If you can provide any evidence that any artists of the 30s and 40s in Germany or elsewhere in Europe were in senior political positions of the Nazi regime and either made decisions that contributed to the Holocaust and war strategy or directly took part in specific crimes, that would open up a substantive debate. Otherwise, all that's on offer is basically virtue signaling.

Don't be a silly fish.

Capt

 

[Todd A]

Don't be a silly fish.

Capt

Virtue signaling it is.

 

[lawrence001]

Stick them in our local auction. They seem to always have some weird nazi stuff. Makes you wonder where it all comes from. Did Hitler really escape and see out his years in Sidcup? Makes you think...

Lots of British troops picked up what has become nazi memorabilia as trophies or prizes at the end of the war and during the occupation of Germany.

Hitler can't have come to Sidcup as he was smuggled out of Berlin in a Fieseler Storch by Hanna Reitsch and taken to South America on an experimental U boat (with a lot of nazi gold) where an ex pat German plastic surgeon operated on him, and he continued to live until his death in 1965. One of his body doubles was murdered and the body left only partly burnt for the Russians to find in Berlin. I thought everybody knew that.