from Hitler’s speech, inaugurating the “Great Exhibition of German Art 1937,” Munich
http://www.tesc.edu/~rprice/hitlerart.htm
In this passage, he refers to artwork shown in the “Degenerate Art” exhibition :
I have observed among the pictures submitted here, quite a few paintings which make one actually come to the conclusion that the eye shows things differently to certain human beings than the way they really are, that is, that there really are men who see the present population of our nation only as rotten cretins; who, on principle, see meadows blue, skies green, clouds sulfur yellow, and so on, or, as they say, experience them as such.  I do not want to enter into an argument here about the question of whether the persons concerned really do or do not see or feel in such a way; but, in the name of the German people, I want to forbid these pitiful misfortunates who quite obviously suffer from an eye disease, to try vehemently to foist these products of their misinterpretation upon the age we live in, or even to wish to present them as “Art.”
    No, here there are only two possibilities:  Either these so-called “artists” really see things this way and therefore believe in what they depict; then we would have to examine their eyesight-deformation to see if it is the product of a mechanical failure or of inheritance.  In the first case, these unfortunates can only be pitied; in the second case, they would be the object of great interest to the Ministry of the Interior of the Reich which would then have to take up the question of whether further inheritance of such gruesome malfunctioning of the eyes cannot at least be checked.  If, on the other hand, they themselves do not believe in the reality of such impressions but try to harass the nation with this humbug for other reasons, then such an attempt falls within the jurisdiction of the penal law.
    This House, in any case, has neither been planned, nor was it built for the works of this kind of incompetent art criminal….
    But far more important is the fact that the labor performed here on this spot for four and a half years, the maximum achievements demanded here of thousands of workers, were not intended to serve the purpose of exhibiting the production of men who, to top it off, were lazy enough to dirt a canvas with color droppings in the firm hope that, through the daring advertisement of their products as the lightening birth of genius, they could not fail to produce the needed impression and qualifications for their acceptance.  No, I say.  The diligence of the builder of this House and the diligence of his collaborators must be equaled by the diligence of those who want to be represented in this House.  Beyond this, I am not the least bit interested in whether or not these “also-rans” of the art world will cackle among themselves about the eggs they have laid, thereby giving to each other their expert opinion.
    For the artist does not create for the artist, but just like everyone else he creates for the people.
    And we will see to it that from now on the people will once again be called upon to be the judges of their own art….
    I do not want anybody to have false illusions: National-Socialism has made it its primary task to rid the German Reich, and thus, the German People and its life of all those influences which are fatal and ruinous to its existence.  And although this purge cannot be accomplished in one day, I do not want to leave the shadow of a doubt as to the fact that sooner or later the hour of liquidation will strike for those phenomena which have participated in this corruption.
    But with the opening of this exhibition the end of German art foolishness and the end of the destruction of its culture will have begun.
    From now on we will wage an unrelenting war of purification against the last elements of petrification in our culture.

Posted by: bz | Jun 18 2005 20:02 utc | 3

As a native German speaker I have to tell you that “Der Schnapps Bar” is not German at all. It’s “Die Schnapsbar”.
/ol (writing from Vienna/Austria)

Posted by: otmar | Jun 18 2005 20:18 utc | 5

Addendum: the “der” in “von der Schnappsbar” as in Bernhard’s text is correct btw. (in dativ, “die” becomes “der”).

Posted by: otmar | Jun 18 2005 20:38 utc | 7

You don’t even have to defer over to art on this matter. The Nazis made a big deal out of fonts, but they probably called it typesetting or printing. They forced publishers to use the god-aweful ‘fraktur’ script, what most people call gothic, which is damn-near impossible to read.
(Full-disclosure: for my dissertation some of my sources are in the damn script–many headaches at this end.)

Posted by: Sloo | Jun 18 2005 22:24 utc | 9

What on earth is the matter with these people?
Like the Nazis, they would be funny if they weren’t so dangerous.

Posted by: hopping madbunny | Jun 19 2005 1:19 utc | 11

it’s bothered me since I posted that portion of Hitler’s speech (above) – I’ve read better translations, but I found that one quickly, and it sufficed
I think the word “putrefaction” is what was intended in the last sentence
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=putrefaction
as opposed to “petrification”
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=petrification
as in:
“From now on we will wage an unrelenting war of purification against the last elements of putrefaction in our culture.”
—
also, niggling anal type that I am (so to speak), the German show “Entarte Kunst” is most often translated not as “Decadent Art” but as “Degenerate Art”
and despite Hitler’s intentions, it became the most popularly attended art show in German history
http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~laylaa/newfile_12.html
“Over three million visitors attended the Entarte Kunst, breaking all attendance records for any form of art exhibit in Germany.  About two million of these viewers saw the exhibition in Munich. The Great German Art Exhibition had only just over four hundred thousand visitors in its four month run.”
—
The theory of degeneracy was conceived by the critic and author Max Nordau in his 1892 book, Degeneration, (German title: Entartung). According to Nordau, artists were victims of modern life and suffered from decayed brain centers. Nordau’s inspiration was the criminologist Cesare Lombroso, author of The Criminal Man published in 1876. Lombroso attempted to prove that there were born criminals, which could be detected by scientific methods to determine atavistic personality traits by measuring abnormal physical characteristics. Nordau then used this as a pseudoscientific rationale and a critique of modern art. Based upon Lombroso’s theory, Nordau asserted that modern artists also suffered from an atavistic degeneracy as Lombroso’s born criminals. For Nordau, all forms of modern art, whether music, poetry, or visual contained symptoms of mental disorder and corruption. Modern artists suffered from both fatigue and nervous excitement. Therefore, all modern arts lacked discipline, and failed to make coherent connections. Nordau particularly focused his attacks on the Symbolist movement in French literature, Aestheticism in English literature, and Impressionism in painting, claiming that the mysticism of the Symbolists was a product of mental pathology, and that Impressionist painterliness was the sign of a diseased visual cortex.
Nordau’s pseudoscientific theory of degeneration was seized upon by German National Socialists during the Weimar Republic as a rallying point for racial purity in art. Racially “pure” artists produced racially “pure” art, and modern artists of an “inferior racial strain” produced works which were contorted. Nordau’s theory, then, was used to defend the National Socialist doctrine of the decline of culture due to the decadent influence of modernity. Romantic realism was an accurate representation of racially pure art, while modern art was a deviant from socially accepted norms of classical beauty.
Alfred Rosenberg was the first to use Nordau’s theory in Myth of the Twentieth Century published in the 1920s, which became a best-seller in Germany. Another influential art critic, Paul Schulze-Naumberg wrote three books: Art and Race, The Fate of the German House, and The German Art. Schulze-Naumberg argued that modern artists unwittingly produced their own racial stereotypes in their artwork. To prove this, he utilized both Nordau’s and Lombroso’s methodology by comparing examples of distortions of the human figure in modern art next to photographs with people with deformities and diseases. Schultze-Naumberg then compared healthy people with examples of the new,Heroic Art to prove that modern art was an indication of racial impurity.
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Degenerate-art

Posted by: bz | Jun 19 2005 2:19 utc | 13

Has anyone seen my DaDa?

Posted by: anna missed | Jun 19 2005 5:17 utc | 15

@Sloo – Fraktura
It is a myth that the Nazis pressed for the use of Fraktura. Fraktura was widly used before the Nazis and Martin Bormann, Hitlers deputy, ordered Fraktura NOT to be used in official documents and schoolbooks in 1941 as it was the font a “Schwabacher Judenletter”.
More here”

Posted by: b | Jun 19 2005 9:02 utc | 17

Palatino definitely does act a little light in the loafers at times, if you know what I mean. And that Helvetica? Swiss my ass. Just look at the nose on that capital “R”.
I use Palatino in all my business correspondence and I even use Helvetica for the headlines of all my business reports. But I do use Arial in my Excel program. Guess that explains why I’m a pansy-ass liberal. And I guess it means I go “both ways.”
This will sure be a shock to my wife, though. Married to a latent homosexual for all these years.
Thanks, Billmon. If we ever needed further proof that the wingnuts were certifiable, this is it.

Posted by: Phil from New York | Jun 19 2005 15:13 utc | 19

Okay, b., you said you’ve seen this done in the past for specific individuals. I stand corrected.
Do you have a guess as to what data the ISPs are being asked for now …
1. all data from the subscriber’s computer to the internet
(possible, would include web page requests i.e. browsing history, names of downloaded files such as PDFs) — this is not too much data. How would they identify which person it was — with dynamically assigned IP addresses, they would have to capture and store the MAC address of the modem, again possible but a little tricky I think.
2. all data FROM the internet to the person’s computer
this would be kinda pointless for web pages, I assume the US Gov probably caches the most interesting ones, just as the Wayback Machine does. And it would be a huge amount of data.
3. specific non-web communications
this would be the holy grail, including email and instant messaging. I would strongly object to anyone capturing and reading my email, although I’m certain that the Carnivore system used by I think US, Britain and Canada already targets this. Or perhaps they simply try to capture all data for a specific indentified user.
The Carnivore system has been replaced with something newer I think …

Posted by: jonku | Jun 19 2005 19:16 utc | 21

wow, how uptight do you have to be to be offended by “undisciplined” typeface?
Well, hello maybe this could answer your Q…lol
2nd circuit: Territorial/Emotional
This corresponds to the ‘anal’ stage, and the first imprints are taken during toilet training- this develops greatly when the kid starts playing with other kids and finding out where they stand- big kids are always telling little kids what to do.
Since a great deal of primate behavior was considered just
awful, most of the domesticated primates spent most of their
time trying to conceal what they were doing.
Some of the primates got caught by other primates. All of
the primates lived in dread of getting caught.
Those who got caught were called no-good shits.
The term no-good shit was a deep expression of primate
psychology. For or instance, one wild primate (a chimpanzee)
taught sign language by two domesticated primates (scientists)
spontaneously put together the signs for “shit” and “scientist”
to describe a scientist she didn’t like. She was calling him shitscientist.
She also put together the signs for “shit” and
“chimpanzee” for another chimpanzee she didn’t like. She was
calling him shit-chimpanzee.
“You no-good shit,” domesticate primates often said to
each other.
This metaphor was deep in primate psychology because
primates mark their territories with excretions, and sometimes
they threw excretions at each other when disputing over territories.
One primate wrote a long book describing in vivid detail
how his political enemies should be punished. From Robert Anton Wilson’s “Prometheus Rising”

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 20 2005 20:53 utc | 23