ashableski

Meeting of the Minds: Personifing Adolf Hitler

2009-05-17T17:13:00.000-07:00

In preparation for Meeting of the Minds I read portions of Alan Bullock's "Hitler: A Study in Tyranny" and several articles online to learn what his views/motives were. I then watched several of his speeches on Youtube to understand what made him as influential as he was. Through this project I learned quite a bit of interesting facts about Hitler. In most photographs, Hitler is seen wearing only a cross medal, which is the medal he earned in WWI, the only one ever given to him. After getting drunk once at fifteen, he vowed never again and by age thirty gave up alcohol all together.

Though the thing that struck me as the most interesting came from one of his speeches. He calls for all german people, rich or poor, to work for each other as comrades of state so Germany can flourish. I believe this is why he was as successful as he was. Below the best video I found.

Art of WWI

2009-04-13T16:09:00.001-07:00

The above picture is a German recruitment poster used to strike nationalism and militarism into the hearts of young men at the time. The bottom text translates "Make England Pay". This I find quite humorous because the only thing England did to Germany was have crossing treaties. This just shows how some paper, paint and fear can win or lose a war.

This poster comes from Ireland and used propaganda in a different way. Instead of striking fear into peoples minds, the Irish showed the war as no big deal. They portrayed it as the Irish are so victorious that the Kaiser is already starting to worry, so why not join the army and help a winning cause?

I chose this last drawing from Britain because it reminded me of all the nonsense propaganda still around today, like the posters that say "If you eat non-free range cows your gonna grow a third arm." Now this is not that extreme, but gives off the same tone, because it says by staying home you approve the bombing of your entire city and family. No one would approve that, but back in the day this stuff worked on people.

Thanks to the people at http://europeanhistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=europeanhistory&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldwar1.com%2Fposters.htm for all the art work.

Versailles, the rub it in your face treaty.

2009-04-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

The treaty of Versailles reminds me of a five year old. It was majorly influenced by those who had been wronged and only wanted revenge. Similar to a young child, who when they overcome someone or something they don't like, they want to make it pay. This in the end usually makes thing much worse for them.
I do not believe however it was all of the Allies fault, just one of them. Wilson wanted everyone to stand in a circle and sing songs, George wanted some reasonable things, but Clemenceau, he was the true five year old. Who cares what's gonna happen down the run, THE GERMANS MUST PAY. I believe it was because of him that Hitler rose so quickly to power and WWII was as large and soon as it was.

Fighting in Holes: Trench warfare

2009-04-01T18:29:00.000-07:00

This first half of the week we discussed combat used on the Western Front of WWI, trench warfare. Where both sides dig massive series of intertwining pits, sit in them and shoot at each other. Every time I hear it mentioned I have to think, why did this last so long? Surely one side would have designed some sort of projectile to shoot straight up and reign down on the enemy trench. Some would say that makes me a bad person, but in truth it would have saved many lives by shortening the war. Thousands would have lived instead of dying over a couple of feet.