Two New Books with Unusual Angles

Every once in a while, someone writes a book or article deconstructing the use of humor in bleak times. A perfect example is Stalin’s USSR, where jokes were told, quietly, all over the country.

But I don’t think I’ve heard anyone talking about humor in Nazi Germany before, and I think that’s because of two reasons.

One: People (Americans, at least) feel more outraged and upset about Nazis than about Stalin, because Stalin mainly didn’t go for genocide. Murder is one thing, but people really get pissed off about genocide, and for good reason. Also, Stalin’s crimes weren’t discovered in such a rapid and overwhelming way. They leaked out.

Two: People think of Germans as fully on-board with the Nazi machine. The idea is that the German people weren’t making subversive jokes because they weren’t subversive.

A new book coming out in Germany challenges statement number two.  There were subversive jokes, and people died for them.

 Spiegel reviews “Heil Hitler, das Schwein ist Tot.” (link) The review gives a few examples of the jokes, and plenty of discussion about how this kind of book represents the new Germany, which allows itself to look on its past in taboo-breaking ways.

The jokes don’t always translate very well, but the main point is the bite. The very fact that people were telling them is a new idea for those of us raised on brain-washed Germans.

Unusual Angle: Southern Whites in the Civil Rights Era

“There Goes My Everything,” [reviewed by the Washington Post (link)] is about the changing and adjusting mindset of Southern whites from 1945 to 1975. In short, it seems to explore the many different ways that whites handled their changing world. Whites didn’t think as one monolithic entity, but were as varied in their responses as any group of people whose lifestyle is changing could be. Some hated integration and hate it still. Some came to embrace it. And others took every other view point across the board.

Of course, I’m only getting all this from what I’ve read about the book. It’s on my wish list, but I haven’t picked it up yet. Stay tuned!