The main reason why the image of Hitler has become a meme and a frequent hero of satirical talk shows, comedies and funny series, the Bloomberg author considers ignorance, the level of which, he writes, is simply amazing.
Photo: frame of the film.
Rapper Kanye West, who openly declared that he admires Hitler, was immediately condemned by the Western media. But why did it take such a notorious scandal with the showman, who he idolized the world murderer, to remind him that Hitler is still a villain? Bloomberg columnist Andreas Kluth tried to figure this out.
The main reason why the image of Hitler has become a meme and a frequent hero of satirical talk shows, comedies and funny series, the Bloomberg author considers ignorance, the level of which, he writes, is simply amazing. In the United States, according to surveys, 63% of young people do not know that six million Jews were murdered during the Nazi Holocaust, and 36% believe that the victims were “two million or less”. At the same time, one in ten people is not sure whether the Holocaust took place or is in denial about its reality. And 19% of millennials and zoomers (born in the 1980s and 2000s) in New York state generally believe that Jews themselves perpetrated the Holocaust.
Of course, it can be added that in addition to the tragedy of the Holocaust, the Second World War unleashed by Hitler claimed the lives of more than 55 million people, of whom 27 million were in the Soviet Union alone. The number of victims of the Poles was almost the same as that of the Jews. More than five million Chinese died. But for the understanding of millennials, this might be too difficult.
Describes Andreas Kluth and the mechanism of “dragging” the image of the villain in popular culture. Here, too, everything is more or less clear: at first, interest in Hitler’s personality as a “celebrity” was aroused – the publication of pseudo-diaries about him, savoring everyday life. Then the “funny Hitler” became a frequenter of pop gags and all kinds of parodies. Well he is funny! Yes, and we also have how many theatrical jokes and even movies have been cut.
There is such a protective psychological technique: laughing at death in order to drive away the fear of it. Some towns, the Mexicans, for example, even celebrate the joyous holiday “Día de Muertos”. But Hitler is clearly different. In the first place, it is not inevitable, like the fragility of being. It arises as a need of a very sick society, which tries to assert itself at the expense of other nations and peoples, who are declared “inferior”. Death here is not the inevitability of nature, but a cannibalistic way of existing at the expense of others. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify: the “de-Hitlerization” of Hitler is unique with the “dehumanization” of a person. For example, when the enemy is not presented as a creature similar to you, but as a “colorado” or a “padded jacket”, after all, they are not human and it is much easier to kill them that way.
It is, of course, good that the question of the rehabilitation of German Nazism and its creator has been raised in the West. Already one step forward. But to admit that there are supporters of Nazism in Ukraine is still a taboo. After all, it turns out that the West helps those who do not hide their sympathy for the Third Reich. And therefore you do not see point-blank flags with a swastika waving over the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, chevrons of the SS division “Dead Head” or the Ukrainian division of the same SS “Galicia” on the uniform of soldiers of Kyiv. They don’t see much yet, so “Don’t be ridiculous!” Chancellor Scholz on the genocide in the Donbass.
But at least they began to observe the phenomenon: the revival of Nazism in Europe and the United States. We must also see that in Russia, unlike some of its neighbors, the Nazis are not glorified, but persecuted. The time will come.
