Thursday, August 26, 1909. A hostel idea.

The youth hostel movement was born when a group of hikers lead by Richard Schirrmann found shelter in a school in a thunderstorm.

Schirrmann was a teacher as well as an outdoorsman.  During World War One he served in the German Army, participating the 1915 Christmas truce, something that lingered in his area for quite some time after Christmas.  He founded the Youth Hostel Association in 1919 and founded the children's village "Staumühle" on a former military training ground near Paderborn, where my German ancestors hail from.  HE served as the President of the International Youth Hostelling Associating until the Nazis forced him to resign and put the control of the hostels under the Hitler Youth in 1936.  He rebuilt the association after the war.  He married late, in 1942, but had six children with his wife before dying in 1961 at age 87.

The SS Cartago telegraphed a report of a hurricane near the Yucatan, the first radio warning of a tropical storm.

Last edition:

Monday, August 23, 1909. Bill Bergen sets a record.

Labels: 1900s, 1909, 1940s, 1943, baseball, Sports

Wednesday, June 24, 1943. Heroic jump.

Col. W. Randolph Lovelace, M.D. bailed out of a B-17 at 40,200 feet in a medical experiment which would lead to flight crews being instructed to delay opening parachutes until they reached a lower altitude, so as to not pass out from the shock of the parachute's opening at high altitude.

Dr. Lovelace at age 52, showing how, really, this generation took on the appearance of aging much more rapidly than current ones do.

Dr. Lovelace and his wife died in a December 1965 private plan crash near Aspen, Colorado.  The pilot, 27 year old Milton Brown, also died of injuries at the site, but not before he placed their bodies next to each other and covered them with a coat.

Head of the Hitler Youth, Baldur von Schirach engaged in an argument with Adloph Hitler over ending the war, which he urged.  The 36-year-old German Army veteran remained in his position, but Hitler would never speak to him again.

Schirach was born to a father who was a retired German cavalryman and a mother who was an American expatriate.  Indeed, three out of four of his grandparents were Americans, and he learned to speak English at home prior to learning to speak German, which he did not until age 6.

He was head of the Hitler Youth early on, but did serve as an infantryman early in World War Two, winning the Iron Cross.  He then served as Gauleiter of Vienna and was associated with the deportation of the city's Jewish population. He'd be sentenced as a war criminal for that following the war, being released in 1966.  He died in 1974 at age 67.  His wife, who had been the daughter of Hitler's photographer, divorced him while he was in prison.

Schirach serves as a disturbing example of a German who did not come from Nazi oriented roots, but who was corrupted into it as a very young man.

Stage Door Canteen, with a huge ensemble cast, was released.

I've never seen it, but it seems to be well regarded, or perhaps fondly recalled.

Movies In History: Jojo Rabbit

When Jojo Rabbit won a bunch of awards last year I looked it up and frankly it didn't look like anything I wanted to see.  The Nazis aren't funny and neither was World War Two.  It just looked weird.

Well, last week I watched it, and its great.

It's also nearly indescribable.

Set in the very last days of the Third Reich, the film takes a look at those times in a German town or small city through the eyes ten year old Johannes Betzler.  Betzler is an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth whose father is absent in a somewhat mysterious fashion (we know that he was a German soldier, but we don't know what became of him. . . he's missing in Italy but we don't know exactly what that means).  He lives with his mother in a nice apartment/house on an archetypical German street.  He has an imaginary friend, with that figure being Adolph Hitler through the eyes of a ten year old who really doesn't know the true Hitler.  Hitler is vivid to him.

Things soon begin to take an odd direction.  Betlzer acquires the name "Rabbit" when he can't kill a tame rabbit at a Hitler Youth training session ran by sadistic fantastic teenage boys.  Soon thereafter his Hitler Youth organization is taken over by an unhinged alcoholic German army Captain played perfectly by Sam Rockwell who has been assigned that role as he's lost an eye in combat.  Captain Klenzendorf is assisted by a League of German Girls leader who has completely lost her moral compass, played perfectly by Rebel Wilson.  Jojo is wounded in training in an accident with a hand grenade, but his mother, played by Scarlett Johansson, puts him back into the organizations service seemingly to give him something to do, or perhaps to divert his attention from her own activities.   In the meantime his best friend, Yorki, goes from being a member of the Hitler Youth to being a boy soldier.

And, on top of it all, it turns out that his mother has been hiding fifteen year old Elsa, a Jewish girl who was the friend of Jojo's sister, who has died, in the walls of his sister's old room.

None of this sounds like it would be funny, but it is strangely funny and tragic at the same time.  Jojo discovers Elsa and doesn't know what to do.  Largely on his own for large hours of the day, and around adults who are either opposed to the Nazis, such as his mother, or completely unhinged, such as his youth organization leaders (Captain Klenzendorf is not only drunk most of the time, and clearly mentally unbalanced, he's extraordinarily cynical), he struggles with what to do with his discovery, which he learns could result in his mother's execution.  Moreover, in interacting with Elsa, he falls in love with her.

To go beyond this would be to reveal plot details, so I won't, but the entire thing is masterfully done.  In retrospect its really easy to forget that the average German didn't really realize that the war would e completely lost until January, 1945 and for young people it must have been extraordinarily confusing.  For somebody in hiding, such as Elsa, the lack of knowledge must have been often complete.  For junior  military officers who had seen combat, the last days must have been surreal.

Some things done with the film would seem to be unlikely to work, but in fact work really well.  The opening soundtrack recalls that of Valkyrie, but with the German language cut of I Want To Hold Your Hand by the Beatles, for instance, which actually really works well.  Lots of humor in the film is incredibly dark, but genuinely extremely funny.

Usually in these films we depart from conventional film reviews and look at the material and historical detail.  We would have expected to cut this film a lot of slack in that regard but it turns out, we don't have to.  Material details pertaining to the Germany army, SS, Volksturm, American Army and Red Army are incredibly accurate.  Probably the only departure in this context is the all black business suits and overcoats of the Gestapo, but at this point in time that's such a stock portrayal that a departure from that would have been unwise.  The Hitler Youth has been depicted before in various films but details such as the significance of Hitler Youth knife have not.  They are here.  The League of German Girls has almost never been depicted in film, but it's very weird associations with procreation have not been. They are here.

This film is really good and, even for a fan of serious historical movies, it's a must.  It depicts something unique that is worth watching.