> > On Sep 6, 2006, at 4:57 PM, Marc James Small wrote: > >> At 10:21 AM 9/6/2006, Allen Zak wrote: >> >>> On Sep 6, 2006, at 12:26 AM, Marc James Small wrote: >>> >>>> B&H, and all of the other German optical firms, were under severe >>>> strictures after 1933 as to what they were permitted to print. I >>>> have a LOT of Prewar Zeiss and F&H and Leitz literatrure minus any >>>> national flags and the like, but these are the English-language >>>> editions. The German-language editions are a bit different by more >>>> then ein bischen. >>> >>> The books and brochures to which I referred were all English language >>> versions. >>> >>>> >>>> Go figuree: businessmen attempt to survive in a hostile environment >>>> and you immediately damn them as fellow-travellers. You really >>>> ought to re-read your copy of Lenin: he spoke at length on this >>>> point. >>> >>> Which writings by Lenin do you have in mind? >>> >>> Allen Zak >> >> A;;em >> >> You are REALLY starting to annoy me. ALL Franke & Heidecke >> publications were subject to censorship. Publications put out by >> their US agency were subject to censorship. Why do you not LEARN how >> dictatorships work before tossing out futile comments about >> culpabilities? The company had NO CHOICE. They published these >> pictures or they were out of business and the families were in >> concentration camps. What more do you want? You and I have never >> experienced this but I have interviewed hundreds of folks who were >> there, and the answer is that you did what was necessary to survive. > > As clearly stated, all the publications I examined were published > around the same time. Surely, all would have been subject to the same > laws and strictures, yet only the F & H book contained positive or any > at all references to the Nazi regime. I did not present this > observation as definitive, but simply as reinforcing my impression that > the company was in cahoots. > > Although my investigations were not comprehensive, I have interviewed > scores of people who were there, possibly over 100, in many walks of > life from middle class housewives to professional military. My > impression was that the extent of repression had much to do with class > and status. The more privileged each, the fewer strictures they > suffered. But on the whole, except for Jews and politicals, life went > on for most people in Germany, at least for those not drafted to fight > on the Eastern front Most hardships related were from consequences > of the war rather than a fascist civil order. > > Although having not experienced a fascistic dictatorship, I did spend > some time in mid-1960s Alabama, where, in addition to the never absent > threat of white terrorist violence, racial segregation was maintained > by civil authority up to the state level. The population was expected > to conform, and deviations were severely punished. For simply > attempting to vote, African Americans could expect to lose their jobs, > homes, and sometimes their lives. Police were charged with enforcing > the system by means including deadly force. > > During a 1965 voter registration campaign, an Alabama trooper shot to > death voting rights worker Jimmy Lee Jackson, no legal action taken. > In Selma. several white businessmen beat to death civil rights activist > James Reeb and were later acquitted of the freely admitted act. Viola > Liuzzo, another civil rights volunteer, was ambushed and gunned down by > Klansmen and it took federal intervention to convict them. When > Jonathon Daniels, my Selma roommate, was murdered in Loundes County > before several witnesses, his killer was turned loose by the jury. All > this for nothing more than the right to vote. > > While far short of life in Nazi Germany, my experiences in the > pre-civil rights South at least gave me an appreciation for what it is > like to live with repression, the fear it generates and the attitudes > it fosters among all parties. Or, at least I think enough so that I am > moved to express an opinion. > . >> >> As to Lenin, read his writings: he wrote repetitively about his >> perception that the Middle Class was the true enemy of the Proletariat >> and that the factory owner was the worst of that lot. And he warned, >> in many points, that factory owners and managers would do their best >> to seem to adapt themselves to the New Regime, once the Revolution had >> come (In the end, most Russian Imperial factory managers kept their >> jobs under the Soviets, proving yet again the dishonesty in Lenin's >> rants.) >> >> Marc > > Although it has been decades since my last reading of Lenin, I was not > sure what applies here. Communist and Nazi agendas were entirely > different. While both used repression, the Soviets were bent on > eventually eliminating its capitalist class while the Nazis wanted > theirs harnessed to the state. This made a significant difference in > the way these populations were treated. In the USSR, suppression was > wholesale, brutal, often lethal, while in Nazi Germany, where > industrialists were both menaced and coddled, the latter was applied > far more often than the former. Fritz Thyssen and (very) few others > did prison time , but were relatively well treated and survived the > war. OTOH, owners and stockholders in general were not much molested > and dividends were delivered more or less on time, tending to undercut > any uneasiness with less agreeable Nazi policies. > > Apart from those enabling the rise of fascism (Fritz Thyssen again; Oh > the irony!), I don't hold mainstream German businessmen of that time > as criminal for not confronting the regime. But when it came to the > more odious directives, such as those violating human rights, more > should have resisted. What they faced was possibly prison, loss of > property, but very unlikely their lives, a small price to pay for one's > soul. > > Businessmen like Oskar Schindler and John Rabe are rare in any society, > but represent a higher standard than those who accommodate. In that > context, Francke and Heidecke were not criminals and they made a great > product. It could have been worse. That it wasn't better; oh, well. > > Allen Zak > > --- > Rollei List > > - Post to rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > > - Subscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe' > in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org > > - Unsubscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with > 'unsubscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org > > - Online, searchable archives are available at > //www.freelists.org/archives/rollei_list > Why don't you take your personal controversy somewhere else. None of this has anything to do with photography. It is just cluttering up the website. Daniel Muchinsky --- Rollei List - Post to rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx - Subscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org - Unsubscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org - Online, searchable archives are available at //www.freelists.org/archives/rollei_list