...As the two editors Worthen and Muir pointed out, Jewish rescue played a significant role in this separation discourse. Although only small number of Jewish-Finnish soldiers expressed a moral struggle in fighting alongside their German “comrades,” they were interpreted as representing the high morality of the entire Finnish people. This interpretation, argued Worthen and Muir, disguised Finnish long tradition of antisemitism that had restricted the Jewish in a “figurative ghetto.” It was only due to the lack of human resources that the “figurative ghetto” seemly to be temporarily broken down. The wartime emergency, however, did not end the racial boundary. By ordering the Finnish-Jewish soldiers to fight along with the Germans, the Finnish government...
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...the war, mud is described in it’s “horrifying form” (York 2). Mud has been covered into a fatal attribute, instead of its conventional symbolic meaning of life. It is described as “the colour of steel” (York 2) and as having a “stank of sulphur and chlorine” (York 3). Earth is represented in a corrupt form due to the effects of the war. Similarly, towards the same section of the novel, we begin to see a parallel transformation to that of Robert Ross’s character. The first evidence of this transformation, due to the violent forces around him, is Robert’s abrupt decision to kill the innocent German soldier. Findley describes this as “he fell. He turned. He saw the German reaching over the lip of the crater. Something exploded” (Findley 132). The way in which Findley portrays Rober’s action is as if he was unaware of what he had done. His subconscious reaction was to kill the german soldier. This can be contrasted with Robert’s reaction prior to the incident. His action shocks him and after he realizes what he has done he, “[sits] with his head...
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...his paper will examine the topic of heroism in Stanley Kubrick’s films Paths Of Glory and Full Metal Jacket by comparing the visual styles and narrative structures and offer insight into Kubrick’s views on war. Paths Of Glory is a 1957 film based on the First World War focusing on the political struggles of the French army as they battle the German army. It is a study of the bravery and cowardice that exists within the ranks of the army, as well as the results of extreme amounts of fear. The focus is primarily in the barracks and the court. The plot focuses on a group of soldiers who are charged with cowardice. No man is perfect, but war magnifies qualities such as honour and deceit, and this film illustrates this phenomena in a very clean, proper way. Paths Of Glory does not show actual combat very much, unlike Full Metal Jacket. Full Metal Jacket is a study of what becomes of a soldier at war. Set in the Vietnam War, it begins with a focus on the training of a platoon of U.S. marines and continues to follow the service of Private Joker in his experiences in Vietnam as he goes about his service. Full Metal Jacket is a well paced film that studies the violence of war, portraying the physical as well as the mental dangers in a hyper realistic way. One overarching element that ultimately combines both of these films is their emotional poignancy. Both are highly engaging, yet thoroughly disturbing films. These are two demonstrations against war, revealing the subject in an...
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...America in 1942 Initially, the outbreak of World War II did not bring about any large changes in the German economy. Germany had spent six years preparing for war, and a large portion of the economy was already devoted to military production. During the war, as Germany acquired new territories (either by direct annexation or by installing puppet governments in defeated countries), these new territories were forced to sell raw materials and agricultural products to German buyers at extremely low prices. Fiction as Reconstruction of History: Narratives of the Civil War in American Literature by Reinhard Isensee Even after more than 140 years the American Civil War continues to serve as a major source of inspiration for a plethora of literature in various genres. While only amounting to a brief period in American history in terms of years, this war has proved to be one of the central moments for defining the American nation since the second half of the nineteenth century. The facets of the Civil War, its protagonists, places, events, and political, social and cultural underpinnings seem to hold an ongoing fascination for both academic studies and fictional representations. Thus, it has been considered by many the most written-about war in the United States. The War That Never Goes Away: The Significance of the Civil War for the Cultural Imagination in the United States Despite the overwhelming body of academic work on the Civil War produced in the United States (and...
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...opinions of the German people during the early Weimar Republic. Sociologists, such as Siegfried Kracauer, have praised this film for its artistic form and political message. The expressionist stylings of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari are both immediate and abundant throughout the film. Gothic themes enter the storyline within the first scene when a man is observing the movements of the spirit of his fiancee. Title cards with disorderly designs narrate much...
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...the Western Front, is based on the 1929 novel by World War I German veteran, Erich Maria Remarque. The narrative portrays the nature of WWI from the perspective of a young German boy from his enlistment and deployment to the Western Front in 1916. It explores many concepts of the war including trench warfare, total war, and the overall long term mental and physical effects of war. Minus minor flaws where minimal information is given, the film appears to be a historically accurate portrayal of Trench Warfare and Total War. The film accurately portrays major elements of WWI, giving historically accurate insight into life in the trenches, war tactics, and gas warfare. The film accurately depicts the trenches as home to, not only the soldiers, but also to disease spreading rats and lice. Those fighting in WWI faced the devastating trench foot condition which was treatable only by amputation; the film truthfully portrays this issue as the duckboards which were used in an attempt to avoid this are shown on the trenches’ muddy and puddled ground. “No Man’s Land”, the term referring to the gap of land between the trenches of the opposing armies, is distinctly portrayed as lifeless, with smoking artillery induced craters, and the bodies of fallen soldiers left strewn across it. As the war progressed, bodies had to be left as it became too dangerous to collect them. Precisely as it was during the war, the film shows soldiers going “over the top”, as they attempted to climb out of the trenches...
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...A black Volkswagen approaches an army checkpoint at the Swiss-German border where a bunch of American soldiers, perhaps three or more, cluster around a metal barrier. In the background, a piano and upright bass duet fills the pitch-dark night with a mellow Speak Low. The driver is a woman, perhaps in her early forties, with slicked, raven black hair, a chiseled face and thick eyebrows. She takes a quick inquisitive look to her right before she pulls up. Someone is sitting right next to her, but who? As the soldier asks for their passports, the camera shifts to unveil a face covered in blood-soaked bandages, a body wrapped in blankets, a piercing gaze — a shattered, tentative body of a woman in the passenger seat. Oblivious to the driver’s...
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...Timothy Snyder, author of “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin” has written a book that examines the full range of destruction committed by the Stalin Regime and Hitler Reich between the periods of 1930-1950. Snyder does not look to examine the immoral ramifications between Hitler’s extermination of the Jews and the Stalinist extermination of the kulaks but instead looks to compare the industrial exploitation of the atrocities and their unique occurrences. Through a powerful narrative that thoroughly researches the Nazi and Soviet atrocities side by side, Synder shows how the two regimes committed the same kinds of crimes, during the same periods, in the same region which resulted in the mass killings of the bloodlands. The economic transformation put forth by Hitler and Stalin examined in the book, produced immoral consequences of their...
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...Bryce Beeman HIUS 222-B02 9/21/15 An American Soldier in World War 1: Book Review World War 1 was supposed to be the war to end all wars, but what it really did was propel the world into a generation of military innovation which lead to World War 2. It created a military monster in the United States and put them at the forefront of all world issues to come. Although many books and memoirs of the war have been written, there have been few that encompass a personal perspective along with providing an overview of what was happening during the war like the book An American Soldier in World War 1. Following the letters of soldier George Browne, Editor David L. Snead was able to create a picture of ordinary everyday problems surrounding the soldiers while including the big picture of the war and how these soldiers were helping the allied forces win. The United States officially entered World War 1 in April of 1917 after much deliberation and a little pushing by the allied forces. George Browne, who we follow through his letters to his girlfriend Martha, enlisted in the army in July and was assigned to the 117th Engineers Regiment, 42nd division. When the United States entered the war they were just simply not prepared and had very little time to train an entire army to be battle ready. The army lacked experienced officers and had a shortage on everything from underwear to guns. In George’s case he was often sleeping on the ground while training. “I didn’t tell you that they...
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...Afro-Americans in Germany The free-of- Jim-Crow ambience in Germany had influenced Afro-American soldiers so much that their “experiences in postwar and Cold War West Germany thus proved pivotal in the struggle against racial discrimination in America” (Hön and Klimke 1). America’s contradictory attitudes of leading the free world and at the same time hosting institutionalized racism was targeted by “the Soviet and Eastern German propagandists” (Hön and Klimke 2). What worsened matters, Jim Crow segregations were carried out in German communities. “The failure of African-American units thus were attributed to the African-Americans, and in the cases where black units achieved successes, credit went to the white officers leading them” (Schroer 47). However, “in May 1946, for the first time a majority of white Americans polled agreed that “Negroes are as intelligent as white people”” (Schroer 71). 1964 showed examples of the American government’s handling of the problem of racism producing “The President’s Committee on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces, Final Report: Military Personnel Stationed Overseas” (Hön and Klimke 3). One of the most important examples of collaboration between GIs and civilians in fighting for racial equality was “the “Call for Justice” meeting...
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...Hollywood films, whose primary purpose is inarguably to entertain, are not often welcome in the realm of serious historical reconstruction. However, in his book History in Three Keys, Paul Cohen draws parallels between the process of constructing a film and the processes of constructing history. Says Cohen, the historian must choose between a “re-presentation” of historical data or a “new production, lacking some elements that existed in the past and incorporating others that did not.” (Cohen 3) So, though their goals may differ, the historian and the filmmaker must both make this important choice. This is easily observable within the mythologization of the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 and how a history colored by these interpretations reflects itself in Nicholas Ray’s 1963 film 55 Days at Peking. Though its inclusions, omissions, and areas of focus, the film contributes to history in and of itself by allowing us to analyze the viewpoint it encompasses. Because the film is presented from the perspective of the Great Powers, we first observe the point of view and portrayal of the Boxers to create a complete picture of events. Their experiences are almost completely ignored, for the only interactions the characters have with the Boxers apart from trying to repel their assault is at the beginning when a Boxer is torturing an Englishman for reasons never articulated. (Ray 2-3:00) The Boxer shamelessly attempts to extort Charlton Heston’s character and resorts to violence when this attempt...
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...All Quiet on the Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque, is a seminal book that offers a vivid depiction of the horrors and struggles from the panorama of a young German soldier throughout WWI. The novel has had a widespread effect on literature, sparking reflections and discussions about the human fee of struggle, the mental toll on soldiers, and the futility of battle. The novel was published in 1929, simply over a decade after the end of the conflict, which had left a devastating impact on Europe. The conflict claimed tens of millions of lives, inflicted untold suffering, and reshaped the world in profound ways. Remarque, himself a veteran of the struggle, drew on his very own stories to create a raw and real portrayal of the brutal realities faced by...
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...language features, language strategies and other components are put together to create a mind-boggling, attention-grabbing novel. A novel that consist of different contexts, different genres and different tone and writing styles combined, letting the reader experience exactly what the writer is trying to say. Extract 1 is an account of the first public hanging that took place in the city of Minsk, Soviet Union under the Nazi occupation. (Mullany, 2010) The men, Kiril Trus and a sixteen year old Volodia Shcerbatsevich were members of a partisan cell organizing anti-fascist resistance. The seventeen year old girl, Masha Bruskina was a nurse who had been caught aiding the partisans. She provided civilian clothes and papers for wounded Red Army soldiers under her care and smuggle them back to the resistance. It is an in depth description of the brutality of this event, with emphasis on the circumstances under which this event took place. Extract 2 is an account, sixty years after this event. A journalist Jake Denbigh is working on the experiences of war-time immigrants during the 2nd World War. (www.carlabanks.uk/forest/) Jake is visiting a museum in the city of Minsk that is devoted to the atrocities of the Nazi occupation and is experiencing some of the events through looking at photographs. Extract 1 is set in the city of Minsk in the Soviet Union, four months after Germany invaded the Soviet Union on the 22nd of June, 1941. (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masha_Bruskina) The hangings...
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...Thomas Gallagher is the author of “Assault in Norway”, a nonfiction novel of the legendary raid on Nazi nuclear program in Norway during the Second World War. In the large picture, Thomas Gallagher wrote the book to recognize the soldiers that conducted this decisive strategic mission resulted in delaying the Nazi research for a nuclear bomb. Gallagher was a prizewinning author, and in “Assault in Norway” he tells a narrative, chronological story of this difficult and challenging special operation. He collected material from first-hand sources in his search for why and how these brave men succeeded. Thomas Gallagher (1918-1992) published as an author eight books. He graduated from Columbia College in 194 and served as a civilian attached to the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. In 1959, he got the Edgar Allan Poe Award for nonfiction for his “Story of the Monro Castle”. For writing the book Gallagher interviews people with first-hand experiences, and he uses original reports from Norwegian, British, Canadian and German sources. It is possible to criticize Gallagher for not recognizing work by other authors published several years before his book. Especially one of his named sources and a participant in the operation, Knut Haukelid, who published a book about his...
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...Yingxi Chen German 380 Dec 5th, 2012 No path to the Lake An analysis of Elisabeth’s alienation in Ingeborg Bachmann’s Three Paths to the Lake Three paths to the Lake is a story by Ingeborg Bachmann published in 1973. In the story, the female protagonist Elisabeth Matreis is a world-renowned photojournalist reaching her fifties. Frustrated after attending her brother Robert's wedding in London, she took a vacation back to her hometown Klagenfurt in South Austria. Elisabeth tried to hike to the lake of her childhood memory through different trails with the help of an outdated map, and she reflected in terms of her past during the trips. In the end, she found out all paths to the lake were destroyed by Germans building Autobahn. The lake she wanted to reach also serves as a metaphor for “Heimat”(home), and salvation of her inner life. There was no path to the lake, so there is no path to Elisabeth's salvation—each of them has been destroyed in their own ways. In this paper, I attempt to analyze Elisabeth’s inner morass and alienation through her geographic and the language deterritorialization associated with Heimatlosigkeit, and substantiate them with the recollections between her and her former lover Franz Joseph Eugen Trotta. In the beginning of the story, Elisabeth was exhausted from the "bad time she'd had" in London (Bachmann 129), desperately seeking an escape back to her childhood home and 1 Yingxi Chen visiting...
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