I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: JENDRIK-“I Don’t Feel Hate” (Germany, Eurovision Entry 2021).

I couldn’t really leave Eurovision without mention the German entry which raised lots of eyebrows with its dancing foam middle  finer.

The melody is very catchy–reminds me a lot of Wham or a George Michael song except he’s playing it on the ukulele.  After a quick clapped beat, the bass kicks in.

The song is pretty over the top in terms of everything, but his heart is so on his sleeve that I 100% support his message of tolerance.

So you can wiggle with that middle finger, it’ll never wiggle back to you

And then came the big surprise.  He sings “I don’t feel”  and the song explodes with orchestral hits.  It turns into a big dance party and then ends as quickly as it started.

There’s a middle section that begins

I really don’t mind (ah, ah-ah) to be your rival (ah-ah, ah-ah)
‘Cause for your kind it’s essential for survival (say what? He did not just say that)
Yes, I did (yes, I did), and I feel sorry (so sorry)
I don’t feel hate, that’s the whole point of this song (that’s the song)

and then segues into a twenties-era melody with muted trumpets and very fast vocals:

I guess you need patronization as some kind of validation
You won’t cope with the frustration that your random me-fixation
Is another affirmation that you’re just a hateful person
Who’s not really better than me

Then comes a muted trumpet solo which toes in perfectly to the following, yes, tap dance break.

Jandrik really couldn’t have put anything more into this song.  It is so over the top, so very much too much, and I really like it. The foam middle finger is crazy cheesy though, which fits pretty well.

The actual video though is quite well produced–his extras are really excellent.

[READ: May 21, 2021] “How I Spent the War”

Do you want to know what went through the mind of a Nazi as World War II was ending?

Well, this essay by author Günter Grass–whom I have never read although I have often intended to–tells you.

When he was fifteen, living in Danzig, he volunteered for active duty.  This was not youthful folly.  He wanted to support his country and his Führer–he offers no excuses.

He had been serving in the Luftwaffe auxiliary–a group of boys too young to be conscripted.  It was compulsory but many viewed it as a respite from school routine.

They felt like they were guarding the front line–the last line of defense before Germany was destroyed.  They were allowed to go home every two weeks but Grass’ home wasn’t great.  He hated his father–probably because his father was a peace loving man.

So he would watch the newsreels and revel in videos of Germany’s subs returning victorious.

He volunteered to serve on a submarine, was rejected–they had too many volunteers and he was too young.  He was later called up for Labor Service like everyone his age–three months active duty—giving up the chic Luftwaffe uniform for Labor Service’s shit brown.

He had a fascinating job–since he was good with watercolors, he was sent around to paint nature–his paintings would then adorn the walls of the canteen which were white and dispiriting.  But he was also given a gun and told to think of it as his wife–he was now married to the 98 carbine.

Grass’ essay is matter of fact up to this point.  But then he introduces a new character–a blond, blue eyed boy who would look perfect in propaganda picture.

This boy worked very hard–often harder than others but whenever he was handed a rifle, he was insubordinate.  He would not drill.  Indeed, he would not even hold the gun–he let it fall to the ground.  He was suitably punished.  But he took all of the punishment–endless latrine cleaning– and never wavered, he still refused to hold the gun.

Soon the superiors started punishing the rest of his squadron and they all turned on him–physically.  But he never accepted a gun, instead he repeated his catch phrase, “We don’t do that.”

Then one day he was gone.  Everyone assumed he was heading to the concentration camps.  For Günther, it was a relief he was gone because the boy’s refusal was allowing doubt to creep into Grass’ conviction.

Then British and American forces landed on the Atlantic coast.  There as an assassination attempt on the Führer and Grass’ three months were up.

He retuned home and then two months later in Sept 1944, he was inducted and sent to berlin.

Berlin had already been bombed and fires raged everywhere–but people carried on as normal.  Soldiers were running here and there, and the female arm of the Hitler Youth–the league of German Girls–was passing out hot drinks and giggling when the soldiers passed them.

Then he was sent to Dresden (before it was bombed) as part of the Waffen SS, as a panzer gunner.  He viewed the Waffen as a elite group sent in whenever a breach occurred.

But for years afterward he could not admit that he was in the Waffen SS, those letters were too painful.

What I accepted with the stupid pride of youth I wanted to conceal after the war out of a recurrent sense of shame.

While he was training on Panzer III and IV tanks, there was no talk of war crimes.  But ignorance of what was going on can’t blind him from the fact that he was part of a system that had planned organized and carried out the extermination of millions of people.

News reports said the Nazis were doing well, but that was false.

He was sent to the front, which was already is disarray.  There were dead bodies everywhere–his first exposure to such atrocity.

There things get very exciting–and dangerous for Grass.  People are killed all around him.  Twice he ended up behind Russian lines and was saved by luck.

In one instance, his whole improvised troop was told to grab bicycles from a local shop and flee.  But Grass didn’t know who to ride a bike.  So he was told to cover the rest with a sub machine gun.  But when the men on bicycles left the shop they were instantly mowed down.

Somehow he managed to make it through even more deadly scenes–eventually with shrapnel in his leg and a badly damaged arm.

He marched to his destination even after the Fürher was dead.

This lengthy passage was excerpted (and edited) from Grass’ memoir Peeling the Onion, and I have to say it was really quite engaging.  A fascinating look at a human who was a Nazi but who is not trying to humanize Nazis.