Recent comments in /f/Documentaries

Maccabee2 t1_iqseuzs wrote

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yesitsyourmom t1_iqsa5lg wrote

I am American. I’m not assuming they don’t watch at all. But more would be better. There aren’t a lot of young people watching PBS documentaries. Especially about the Holocaust. I see the Jeffrey Dahmer show us doing well though….

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PoorPDOP86 t1_iqs8902 wrote

>does he talk about how much Hitler was influenced by America's "Manifest Destiny" in the mid 19th century, and used it as a justification for the calls for Lebensraum, or "Living Space", for Germans?

Probably mentions it but knowing that Burns isn't some shill for the "Europe never does anything wrong" crowd he probably also mentions the centuries of persecutions of Jews and minority groups in all of Europe.

Is there a difference? A natural conflict between two cultures that results in the near elimination of one versus the systemic and planned genocide of an entire people. Uh duhhhh I don't know /s. The propaganda is strong with Reddit today.

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Jacques_Ellul t1_iqs87ns wrote

I linked a historical scholar who goes piece by piece through the creation of the Nazi laws. They openly discussed US race law in the policy discussions. This isn't speculation, we have the documents. Mere doctrinal dismissals have no bearing when the historical record is clear.

It wouldn't make sense if the Nazis didn't study its machinations. They also learned about modern propaganda through studying American and British techniques. None of this should be controversial but all countries without exception don't contain anything that could be called 'history' its mythology and symbol management. It's rather easy to see this when we look at other countries but near impossible to notice operating in daily life precisely because its so familiar.

There's certainly more detailed analysis of the subject that exist than the following but it remains rather insightful.

https://old.reddit.com/r/theoryofpropaganda/comments/xqnzci/racism_has_not_receded_but_actually_progressed_in/

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PoorPDOP86 t1_iqs7l51 wrote

>Or that the Nazis used the Southern US as a model when creating the original racial laws.

No, they didn't. You really expect anyone who has ever read any history about Central Europe from the 6th Century to the 20th to actually believe that it was "The Americans" that inspired a nation in a region where persecutions and eliminations of unwanted people was the norm to do what it did? Gods, the Euros are desperate to claim innocence at all times.

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PoorPDOP86 t1_iqs72ml wrote

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mursilissilisrum t1_iqs42p7 wrote

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Jacques_Ellul t1_iqs2vzh wrote

Would it be to optimistic to expect anything but a whitewash when the doc discusses the US role in relation to the Holocaust?

Many aren't aware that the NYT only published six stories that clearly identified Jewish geocide. That only 12 of the 500 Presidential press conferences during WWII did a journalists ask about the Jews. Or that the Nazis used the Southern US as a model when creating the original racial laws. They thought America was too extreme.

[Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law] (http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=1143E3E4FF767A913B58AC2806315EE4)

[The Cambridge History of the Second World War: Volume 2, Politics and Ideology] (http://library.lol/main/65E173CE2B5B5B61F02CF0ADB361D4FC)

[They Thought They Were Free] (http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=BB1197CDD90D41BDB7B50CCEC0F47BC2)

News of the Holocaust: Why FDR Didn't Tell and the Press Didn't Ask -- Can't get the link to work but a search on google should return a result.

[Post documenting WWII policy planning, revealing that the motivations were entirely pragmatic and/or imperialist in nature] (https://old.reddit.com/r/theoryofpropaganda/comments/smysv8/this_is_excellent_a_dissertation_from_columbia/)

[Declassified US Psy Evaluation of Adolf Hitler that correctly predicted he'd kill himself] (https://ia800607.us.archive.org/21/items/B-001-003-894/B-001-003-894.pdf)

> Numerous appeals for bombing the gas chambers, or the rail lines and bridges leading to them, were sent to U.S. officials by American Jewish organizations throughout the spring, summer, and fall of 1944.

> Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy was designated to reply to the requests. He wrote that the bombing idea was "impracticable" because it would require "diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations." He also claimed the War Department's position was based on "a study" of the issue. But no evidence of such a study has ever been found by researchers.

> In reality, McCloy's position was based on the Roosevelt administration’s standing policy that military resources should not be used for "rescuing victims of enemy oppression."

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