[lit-ideas] Re: Laugh Tracks


On 25-Aug-08, at 10:50 AM, cblists@xxxxxxxx wrote:


On 25-Aug-08, at 4:47 AM, Robert Paul wrote:
If Chris Bruce or Professor Henninge would like to correct my guesses about German words, that would be welcome. I'm trying to find the first reference (or some very early references) to 'Kristallnacht.'
The most complete treatment of the term 'Kristallnacht' (together with other terminology contemporary to the events) that I have come across is here: 

http://www.ashkenazhouse.org/kndefger.htm
The site does have an English version, but there, unfortunately, there the information on the term 'Kristallnacht' is not a translation of the German page and is far less complete. 

There is one interesting comment in that English version:

     The term Kristallnacht is based on conversations
     of ordinary people, especially in Berlin, and was
     coined because people  feared repression by the
     Nazi state apparatus for calling the pogrom a
     “pogrom”, when in fact it was a a state-organized
     and executed act of terror.

http://www.ashkenazhouse.org/kndefeng.htm
The thesis that the term 'Kristallnacht' came from the people, and more specifically from those opposed to the NSDAP, is explored by Harald Schmid at 

http://www.freitag.de/2002/46/02461801.php
(again, unfortunately for list members with no German, only in that language).
Ironically, considering this thread's Subject Header ('Laugh Tracks'), whatever its origins, propagandists for the NSDAP welcomed the 'euphemistic' term 'Kristallnacht' and one of the earliest documented uses of the term is in a broadcast complete with applause *and laughter* [Beifall, gelächter]: 

      ... ein NS-Funktionär am 24. Juni 1939 in einer
     Rede auf dem Gautag des Gaus Hannover-Ost
     der NSDAP in Lüneburg den verstümmelten, aber
     aussagekräftigen Satz formuliert: "Nach der
     Reichskristallnacht voriges Jahr, am 11. November
     [sic], sehen Sie, also die Sache geht als
     Reichskristallnacht in die Geschichte ein
     (Beifall, Gelächter), Sie sehn, das ist humoristisch
     erhoben, nicht wahr, schön."
When the term is now used or referred to, there is often accompanying comment on the 'Verhärmlosung' of the events of and following the night of 9-10 November, 1938 engendered by the use of the term. At the very least, the term is placed in 'scare quotes' or the modifier 'sogenannte' [so-called] precedes it. 

Chris Bruce
Kiel, Germany
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