WWII question

[piece-itpete]

William L. Shirer calls the Nazis 'armed intellectuals'.

Pete

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

William L. Shirer calls the Nazis 'armed intellectuals'.

Pete

"Shirer smuggled his diaries and notes out of Germany and used them for his Berlin Diary, a firsthand, day-by-day account of events inside the Third Reich during five years of peace and one year of war. It was published in 1941. Historians comparing the original manuscript with the published text discovered that Shirer made many changes, such as covering up his favourable early impressions of Hitler. Much of the text about the pre-1934–38 period was first written long after the war began." Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_L._Shirer

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

William L. Shirer calls the Nazis 'armed intellectuals'.

Pete

They rounded up and killed intellectuals, Pete.

[nailer]

Originally Posted by finnbow

They rounded up and killed intellectuals, Pete.

In Good, Viggo Mortensen plays an intellectual who became a Nazi.

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by nailer

In Good, Viggo Mortensen plays an intellectual who became a Nazi.

I would say that Mortensen plays an intellectual who was targeted and co-opted by the Nazis. They gave him rank and privileges in return for his help with the pretense that Nazism had intellectual support.

It's an illustration of the lengths the Nazis went to, and their success at, corrupting German society in general. In general, evil people feel the very existence of good people to be a rebuke, and they try to make them evil too. They then can sooth themselves with the thought that those who think themselves morally superior actually are not.

[nailer]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

William L. Shirer calls the Nazis 'armed intellectuals'.

Pete

He also referred to them as gangsters.