West German Film Ali: Fear Eats The Soul

Sven Lindqvist’s “Exterminate all the Brutes” explores the idea that genocides have been deeply rooted in European thinking over the last century. It is written in the form of a travel dairy and a historical examination of European racism over the past two centuries. Lindqvist argues that the harrowing racism that led to the Holocaust in the twentieth century had its roots in European colonial policy of the preceding century. The act of genocide itself is not a new one. When we think of genocide today we think Rwanda and the Holocaust. Genocides have been validated by the idea of racial superiority, colonial expansion and imperialism. The most civilized of men are capable of the most brutal acts.

The book written by Christopher R. Browning titled Ordinary Men is an interesting, engaging, anomaly in the genre of non-fiction books pertaining to the topic of World War Two and the Holocaust. Browning’s analysis of what possessed ordinary German men, who’s ideas where non pertinent in relation to Nazism is one worthy of academic study and discourse. Browning is delving into the intricacies of what specifically pushed “ordinary” men in the Reserve Police Battalions 101 of Nazi Germany to perpetrate the action of moving thousands of Polish Jewry into box cars, and sequentially taking part in perhaps the worst enormity in human history. Browning’s argument is an ever unsettling one, an argument that reveals to the reader what “normal” people

we begged the white man to leave us alone, saying we could get no more rubber, but the white men and their soldiers said, ‘Go! You are only beasts yourselves; you are nyama (meat).’” This sense of superiority allowed the imperialists to justify to themselves the atrocities that they were committing. Furthermore, the Nazi regime slowly dehumanized these fellow Europeans until they were dehumanized enough so that they could be killed. This effort was done methodically, since it took an entire eight years after Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1933 for the Jews to begin being killed in 1941. The length of time this took is interesting since it shows how the average German population did not have anti-semitic views they were willing to act upon until much after Hitler came to power. The Nazi’s were able to change this by incrementally disparaging Jews whether it be through the laws they passed or the math textbooks that were handed out to children. This systematic effort showed how the Nazi’s had to had to change the average German ways of thinking, while the imperialists implicitly believed they were superior immediately after arriving in the Congo.

In the book Ordinary Men, Christopher Browning tackles the question of why German citizens engaged in nefarious behavior that led to the deaths of millions of Jewish and other minorities throughout Europe. The question of what drove Germans to commit acts of genocide has been investigated by numerous historians, but unfortunately, no overarching answer for the crimes has yet been decided upon. However, certain theories are more popular than others. Daniel Goldhagen in his book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, has expounded that the nature of the German culture before the Second World War was deeply embedded in anti-Semitic fervor, which in turn, acted as the catalyst for the events that would unfold into the Holocaust. It is at this

World War II was, unarguably, one of the most devastating periods in world history; it’s erasable from the minds of those who were alive during that time and to the people who merely learn about it in social studies classes. But before the desolation of World War II, the world was only suspicious of Adolf Hitler’s plans, and Hitler laid off this skepticism by hosting the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin, capturing “the true Olympic spirit”, but there were still a few who held conjectures about Hitler. In Daniel James Brown’s book, The Boys in the Boat, Brown uses a quotation by Richard Wingate to set the mood and create foreshadowing of the destruction to come.

The Jewish ethnic population of the world was reduced by one-third in the world’s most worst and known genocide, the Holocaust. Night by Elie Wiesel describes his firsthand experience going through multiple concentration camps that systematically murdered individuals of Jewish cultural heritage, and while groups such as queer people, Romani ethnic groups, individuals with disabilities, black people, as well as the Slavs, were persecuted, Night explains being apart of the Ashkenazi Jewish ethnic group. Eliezer Wiesel discusses the theme of racial inequality in his memoir Night, through his use of descriptive, vivid, yet simple statements that use foreshadowing to trope different experiences. Wiesel is expressing to the readers of his personalized traumatic experience, as well as urging it never happen to any marginalized group, not in the future or present.

Those of half and quarter Jewish descent remain largely forgotten in the history of the Third Reich and genocide of the Holocaust. Known as Mischlinge, persons of deemed “mixed blood” or “hybrid” status faced extensive persecution and alienation within German society and found themselves in the crosshairs of a rampant National Socialist racial ideology. Controversially, these people proved somewhat difficult to define under Nazi law that sought to cleave the Volk from the primarily Jewish “other”, and as the mechanization toward Hitler’s “Final Solution” the Mischlinge faced probable annihilation. The somewhat neglected status of Mischlinge necessitates a refocusing on German racialization as well as reconsideration of the implications

In WWII, Human Rights were the last thing on the mind of Hitler and the Nazis’. The Nazis had a strong hatred for Gypsies, Homosexuals, and Jews, so much so that they felt entitled to abuse and treat them inhumanly. Eleanor Roosevelt wanted to act against those who were minimizing human

Motivating Hitler: How The American Eugenics Movement Laid the Framework for Hitler’s Quest for A “Master Race”.

Jews were viewed as an inferior race and an alien threat to German racial purity and its community. After years of Nazi rule in Germany, during which Jews were consistently persecuted, Dictators Adolf Hitler’s “final solution”– known as the Holocaust, took place in the mass killing centers constructed in the concentration camps. With this in mind, we must acknowledge that we the people must not come the breakdown of letting any form of corrupt government that lacks in morals and values towards human rights infringe our integrity. Meaning that we must stand up for our rights and beliefs, and that the color of our skin, our accents, and/or our sexual status should not dictate how we must live our lives. America’s involvement in World War II can be viewed as an act of desperate means on a country who was over powered by their, Dictator and his army known as the

“What all contributions to this study of race in early cinema have in common is the grounding of their analysis in history” (Bernardi, page 10). Bernardi’s quote relates to how understanding the sociohistorical context of American History X is crucial to understanding how whiteness and eurocentrism is constructed in the narrative. The historical background of American History X dates back to the reign of the Nazi Party in Europe. After German defeat in World War I, Nazism arose and Neo-Nazi factions were established in countries all over

Throughout the following months and years, as Hitler ascended even higher into power, Beck and Massaquoi are both able to get a better feel for the discrimination and persecution that people of their kind were intended to face under Hitler’s regime. However, the two authors respond to their newfound inferiority and subsequent discrimination in different manners. Beck chooses to embrace his Jewish roots, while Massaquoi begins to despise his darker looks that prevent him from assimilating with his classmates in organizations such as the Hitler

The 1974 melodrama film Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Angst essen Seele auf) produced and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder follows German charwoman Emmi Kurowski and her struggles against society concomitant with her relationship with Moroccan guest worker Ali. Situated in West Germany and filmed the year after the halt on the recruitment of guest workers, this movie can be interpreted as a response to the debates and issues surrounding the presence of foreign workers. Native germans frequently disputed and contended the treatment, contributions, and potential to integrate into the German society that historically rejected the identity as a country of immigration. The staircase clips from Ali: Fear Eats the Soul highlight the susceptibility

During WWII Hitler used words, bestial language, and propaganda to influence Germany’s thoughts of different types of racial groups. Readers may think this was done through pure force and war, though the true master lies on paper or in speech. This is especially exemplified through The Book Thief, which is set in the same time period. Throughout the course of the book words, propaganda, and bestial language are evident in displaying the serious and intense tone of the story, and how they can manipulate people as if they were parasites. When Rudy Steiner performed the “Jesse Owens Incident”, little did he know that Adolf Hitler had used the 1936 olympics as propaganda to discriminate other races.

Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Bastards entails a Jewish revenge fantasy that is told through a counterfactual history of events in World War II. However, this story follows a completely different plot than what we are currently familiar with. Within these circumstances, audiences now question the very ideas and arguments that are often associated with World War II. We believe that Inglourious Basterds is a Jewish revenge fantasy that forces us to rethink our previous understandings by disrupting the viewers sense of content and nature in the history of World War II. Within this thesis, this paper will cover the Jewish lens vs. American lens, counter-plots with-in the film, ignored social undercurrents, and the idea that nobody