Geburtstag

My follower Milky chided me last evening at the Throbbing Gristle event here in San Francisco for somehow not paying proper obeisance to the event of A.H.'s birthday last Monday, but it's actually quite important for me that this set of notes on a particular cultural preoccupation doesn't become what it purports to analyze, a fetishistic love-fest of a brutal regime, ending in a place I can only just imagine: where the cleaning lady finds me one day, swinging by the neck, raised aloft by an elaborate pulley system, cold to the touch, wearing only a pair of vinyl briefs and a gas mask, surrounded by pornographic magazines open to their most German images. We'll leave that end to those who really do enjoy such things, the likes of Motor Racing Bosses and Princes of the Realm.

But, while on the topic, we find here:

A report by Ofsted, which expressed concern that secondary pupils were repeatedly studying Hitler is part of a wider debate about the nature of Britain's enduring obsession. Those concerned at the ubiquity of the Third Reich in the history classroom and beyond to the nation's bookshops and living rooms fear it stunts understanding of other periods and leads to an unhealthy personality cult.

On the opposite side of the argument there are those who point to the monstrosity of the Nazi regime and its leader, arguing that it is difficult to run out of important issues relating to Hitler to highlight to the wider population.

And to which I can add only that it is difficult to run out of unimportant issues as well.