Stephen Fry - The language in Nazi Germany

Stephen Fry talks about the power of words in Nazi Germany relating to the Jews.

An extract from Stephen Fry's talk on his BBC series Planet Word.

Full video podcast available here:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=473109627

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Stephen
• Fry
• Planet
• word
• jews
• death
• camps
• nazi
• holocaust
• language
• Ww2

[enisylo]

@JingleJangleGirl I've always ensured that I've referred to the Nazis when only speaking about particular atrocities and about politics. I'm not sure why people fail to differentiate between Germans and the Nazis, it's almost like referring to all British people by the current political party in power at the time...

[JeanySullivan]

I wonder if there will be such a book with "Letters from Guantanamo Bay". Also these monsters will seem to be behaving like humans towards their families, but still torture and murder often innocent people there.

[darkridr25]

@TOMHYLE88 I see the points you are making, and yes: Now that America has shifted to Fascism, we can expect similar atrocities here in the not-so-distant future. Guantanimo is only the beginning. But we're much better informed than the Germans were back then, which makes it more difficult to accomplish.

That time will become imminent when our internet connections are fully blocked -- as that's literally our lifeline to the outside world....

[Sammyboy27007]

@TOMHYLE88 Juan Peron was a Fascist

[TOMHYLE88]

as if that's all Nazi-ism was about. Millions of dead American Indians, Vietnamese, Philippinos, and Arabs and millions of forced-immigrant (how do you like that term?) enslaved Africans beg to differ.

[TOMHYLE88]

we deride free will and tell people to get "on their meds" prescibed by the system to treat our discontent with the system.

We imprison more of our people than any other industrial nation, usually without trial; most criminal cases are "solved" by plea bargaining, and often by the provision of testimony in exchange for quid pro quo (typically in terms of reduced sentences for squealers, etc.)

But if anyone compares us to Nazis, we cry out "we didn't kill six million Jews!" As if that's all it

[TOMHYLE88]

We Americans are divided bitterly by race, class, political party, and cultural issues.

We freely and publicly mock the "mentally ill", the homeless, and the poor.

We glorify lying and manipulation as "social skills"

We belittle morality and ethics as childish, while pretending to be one of the most religious nations.

We invade and attack other countries, and the reasons given are always, invariably later proven to be deliberate lies by our leader (ALWAYS!)

We deride free will and tell people to

[TOMHYLE88]

Ethnic and other social hatreds were exploited to divide and conquer the people, and give their hate a focus other than their crooked leaders. When you want to expand and coquer you start by practicing on the foreigners that are handy in your own country.

Essential to the Nazi state was propeganda and the manipulation of public information, beliefs, and attitudes.

Now we live in an "information society" with "imbedded" reporters, corporate lobbying, and constant advertising and "spin"

[TOMHYLE88]

The danger of misinterpretting Nazi-ism as particularly German or particularly anti-Jewish (Arabs and Berbers and Semites) is that we thereby ignore what it was really about. And those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.

Nazi-ism was fascism. It was about corporate control of the state, state control of the individual, and individual power run rampant. These are the things it was about.

Poverty and land theft were the economic engines used by the elite to motivate their followers

[TOMHYLE88]

To associate the horrors of the Nazis to Germans particularly is ignorant and dangerous. There is nothing especial about Germans that caused them to be abusive and ultimately genocidal toward the minorities in Europe. It was very simply the very typical human tribal superior attitude run just a little bit more wild than usual, and exploited, encouraged, and manipulated by cynical men interested in power who did not care one way or the other about Jews or Gypsies as such, but only about power.

[JeanySullivan]

that's a good point. a bit like the words "whore" or "slut" used to demean women.