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When, if ever, is it appropriate to provide an apologetic defense of Nazi Germany?
Darryl Cooper, host of the widely acclaimed Martyr Made podcast, recently did a 2+ hour interview with Tucker Carlson. Darryl Cooper is known for two things. One: being meticulously empathetic with regards to the plight of the disaffected groups that are the subject of his 30-hour long history podcasts, bringing out the vivid details that form the background milieu for poorly-understood events like Jonestown. And two: his unhinged Twitter takes.
As one can imagine, jimmies were rustled. The most common line of attack was “Tucker Carlson platforms Nazi apologetics.” In a literal sense this is true. Cooper gives the German perspective on Winston Churchill. One might make the obvious point that Germany started the war by invading Poland, but the Soviet Union also invaded Poland. Yet the Western allies did not declare war on Stalin. This AskHistorians thread (no haven for Nazi apologetics!) is enlightening. What masqueraded as a mutual defense treaty was actually an anti-German treaty. Britain really was out to get them.
Once we dig deep enough, the real reason World War II started was to preserve Anglo hegemony over Europe, the exact same reason that Britain joined World War I. Post-hoc rationalizations are just that, post-hoc. It certainly isn’t irrelevant when studying World War II that the holocaust happened, but that isn’t part of the causal chain of events the way many seem to believe.
I want to emphasize that I personally like Anglo-American hegemony. Churchill’s aggressive stance towards Germany is good for me and for the vast majority of the people reading this, but in order to understand history (or current events for that matter) one has to understand the people who do not like Anglo-American hegemony. I do not know where on the doll Anglo imperialism touched him, but I do not believe that Darryl Cooper says the things that he does out of hate for his fellow man.
At the rate things are going, in 5 to 10 years tops.
Of course people who are interested in history have known that everyone was acting insane in WW2 for a while, but the days of the children story of uncomplicated good vs bad that is the founding myth of the boomer religion are numbered.
Turns out you can't just insist on your beliefs if you want to pass them on, you also have to make them useful to future generations.
Much as I despise Hitlerism, it was bound to be viewed as an unremarkable despotism eventually. It has no unique features except for being the central role of this particular story. Genocides and industrial kill counts are a dishearteningly common occurance.
When Life of Brian, the Monty Python comedy, was released some were offended by the last joke that has the crucified sing "always look on the bright side of life", and one journalist asked whether we'd find it all so funny if it weren't crosses but gas chambers, whether the amount of time that has passed influences us so much. I think the answer is yes. Time dulls the edges of all things. Anything that has once been a life and death matter eventually will end up in the category of that which is so inoffensive it is an acceptable topic of light comedy.
Historically, depiction of the cross is the only artistic Christian universal -- what aniconists of both the Byzantine crisis and the Protestant Reformation had in common was a belief that the cross (and the sacrament) is the only acceptable religious imagery, which is why their churches look like this.
But I've heard historians argue that in early Christian times, when crucifixion was still an active form of punishment in the Roman empire and one to which an insistent Christian might be subjected, there was extreme reluctance to depict it. They assert that this is why the earliest Christian art prefers motifs like the good shepherd, loaves and fishes, St. Mary and the Christchild, etc.
When Christianity became legally protected, and crucifixion faded into the past as a form of torture, this school of historians argues that Christians became more willing to depict the cross as an explicit image of the death of Christ.
There's also a recent Christian sect -- let's call it what it is, it's a cult -- called the Iglesia ni Cristo, which outright rejects the depiction of the cross, and makes fun of mainstream Christians for depicting it with the same sorts of dumb gotchas that edgy 14-year-old atheists use. "If Jesus died in the electric chair, would you wear necklaces with electric chairs?" To which I respond, yes.
I've heard that the LDS church is also reluctant to depict the cross, but when you ask Mormons their reasoning, it's something along the lines of "we don't depict the cross because Jesus isn't dead any more," which is just a folk theology explanation plucked from evangelical Protestantism (like a lot of things in Mormonism), as it's the same argument that lay Protestants invoke against depictions of the cross-with-corpus, i.e. the crucifix.
So, yeah, historical horrors do seem to fade with intensity over time, as living memory of the reality is lost and they become more like distant symbols.
But it's worth noting that the cross maintained significant symbolic importance for Christians (we would not remember it if it did not!), just as the holocaust maintains significant symbolic importance for Jews. The OP contains a link to a Jewish man
Singalularlysingularly distraught over any attempt to mock or trivialize the holocaust, which rather reminds me of my own youthful offense at artistic depictions that seem to mock or trivialize the cross.I'm sure Jewish people will remember the Holocaust long after everyone else has forgotten it. But remembering historical events is kind of their thing, a tendency which they imparted to Christians.
(Intriguingly, there's an overlap of concepts as "holocaust" is sacrificial terminology, and Christianity of course interprets the crucifixion of Jesus as singularly sacrificial -- and D-R literally has "holocausts" as a translation for "burnt offerings" in that passage. I was hoping to make a grand point about the significance of historical events in theological identity, but of course the preferred Hebrew term for the holocaust is "Shoah," which doesn't have anything to do with ritual sacrifice.)
There's an even newer one out of Mexico, La Luz del Mundo, with a similar policy of rejection.
I'm aware of them because of the highly visible (closed) church they built in my neighborhood.
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