Jews From Germany

"Only in exceptional cases have the Nazis ever used German citizens or former German citizens as agents in the United States. This is only logical. A man or a woman with a German accent would have small chance indeed of convincing a gathering of even the most stupid people that, in advocating America’s isolationism or withdrawal from the war now, he is motivated solely by patriotic feelings for America."

"After the first few issues [of Nationalsozialistische Briefe] appeared most of its readers were convinced that Joseph Goebbels was a communist in disguise. In Rheydt, people had thought so for years. There was indeed very little difference between the language of Goebbels and the language of the communists. The Party ‘big shots’ became apprehensive."

"[Goebbels] specialized in articles on Bolshevism of a decidedly pro-Russian tone. He worked on a speech, ‘[[w:Vladimir Lenin |Lenin or Hitler?’ In this comparative study he came to the conclusion that Hitler’s ideas were superior. Nevertheless, the comparison was not necessarily unflattering to the Russian."

"Next to Goebbels, Himmler was the foremost connoisseur of Russian methods in the Nazi Party. But while the great propagandist was concerned mainly with the theory, Himmler studied the practice of the Bolshevists."

"Goebbels was well informed indeed on some things the Russians were doing. He knew that the Communist had been the first to co-ordinate propaganda and espionage. He knew that Lenin himself was the inventor of total propaganda, and that he had even coined the word to describe it: agitprop—an abbreviation for agitation and propaganda. Propaganda had meant to Lenin persuasion of the masses, and agitation was the aggressive form of persuasion."

"One of the principal reasons for the enmity between Himmler and Göring was Himmler’s tireless scheming to infiltrate Gestapo men into the Army Intelligence Service, and thereby to get control of it."

"At the end of August 1943 Dr. Alexander Loudon, Netherlands Ambassador to Washington, made a most interesting forecast about the outcome and aftermath of the war. He predicted that, with defeat, the German General Staff, the Nazi leaders, and in particular the Gestapo, would go underground to prepare for the next war. As for this war, he said, the Nazis knew that they had already lost it, and were willing and eager to get it over with."

"German army circles had never cherished any illusions about their Italian partner. It is said that even in the twenties the leading officers of the German General Staff—which by the Treaty of Versailles had no official existence— declared, ‘The next war will be lost by the country which takes Italy for an ally.’ A joke, of course, but it reflects the attitude of Germany’s military men. Their attitude was no different where espionage was concerned."

"Generals usually know when a war is lost. The German generals had never been absolutely convinced that they could win World War II. They had only hoped to win it mainly because Hitler had promised them that the enemy armies would suffer amoral collapse and that they themselves would not have to fight a two-front war."

"By early 1943 Hitler had become perhaps the most isolated man inside the Third Reich, Every report was rewritten before it was given to him. He no longer saw the newspapers, though, to be sure, they contained little enough genuine information. He saw only clippings. The reason for all these precautionary measures was that nobody around Hitler fancied the hysterical outbreaks to which he was so addicted, and nobody wanted him to have any more brainstorms or intuitions of the kind which had already cost the army so dearly in Russia"

"Total war necessitates total espionage. The leadership of a country must be capable of finding out about and calculating the entire force of resistance of in opponents, military and otherwise."

"The Nazis understood early that revolutionizing warfare meant revolutionizing espionage. An Intelligence Service which had been mediocre during the First World War was replaced by one which before and during the Second World War achieved enormous triumphs. The Nazis worked on the basis of total espionage."

"What does espionage cost? The question is certainly as old as espionage itself. It is one which has been discussed a great deal, but little definite information has been available. When Hitler came to power, all the sources became invisible. One of Hitler’s first governmental strokes was to abolish the fiscal report—under the Constitution the Government had to make an account to the people or their representatives of all expenditures. This eliminated all chance of checking espionage expenditures."

"It is true that in the National Socialist Letters, Goebbels put the accent on Socialism rather than on Nationalism, to such an extent that he sponsored an alliance between a Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia; he also flirted with an ideological alliance with other rebellious ‘have not’ counties such as India and China."

"In a number of contributions published in the Voelkischer Beobachter [Goebbels] celebrated Lenin as the national liberator of his country. ‘The Soviet system does not endure because it is Bolshevist or Marxist or international, but because it is national—because it is Russian,’ he wrote to a leftist friend. ‘No Czar has ever aroused the national passion of the Russian people as Lenin did.’"

"If the German Propaganda Ministry is trying to tell the world that there is even the slightest bit of liberty left to the editors in making up their newspapers, the newspapers themselves belie this completely. It is astonishing, to say the least, to what degree they resemble each other. On any one date all of them, in Germany and in the occupied countries, carry exactly the same headlines, talk about the same subjects. Of course, I am not referring to the news of the day. It is only natural that all of them should carry the news of the day or whatever is handed out as the news of the day over there. But the similarity extends even to general subjects, to subjects which are not timely, which could be published today or tomorrow or in four weeks or not at all."

"But Goebbels was not a Communist in any sense of the word. And he took pains to say so. ‘Communism is nothing but a grotesque distortion of true Socialist thought,’ he wrote to Count Reventlow, a rightist politician. ‘We and we alone could become the genuine Socialists in Germany, or, for that matter, in Europe.’"

"The thing that strikes you most: there is very little war news in German-controlled papers. There are, to be sure, all the notices of promotions: the new generals, the new commanders. There are also items listing decorations conferred for some distinguished service or other. And there are a lot of what they call in Europe feuilletons, colorful and gossipy essays or think pieces which have to do with the war. But there is precious little news. There are some very good reportages on the life at the front or in U-boats or in bombers, and some good photos. The Germans were always good at that. But when it comes down to actual information, if you really want to know something—you don’t get much."

"‘We will never get anywhere,’ Goebbels wrote, perhaps remembering his discussions with Fledges, ‘if we lean on the interests of the cultured and propertied classes. Everything will come to us if we appeal to the hunger and despair of the masses.’"

"For overnight the Russians and Germans had become comrades-in-arms. How could Goebbels explain this development to his audiences? If he had had more time, the problem would have been much simpler. But here, as many times thereafter, the real significance of the coup was its suddenness: Hitler struck without advance warning. As the Fuehrer wanted to surprise the world, Goebbels was unable to prepare the German people. Neither could he stop all anti-Russian propaganda weeks and months in advance."

"A Lie algebra is said to be algebraic if it is isomorphic with the Lie algebra of an affine algebraic group. In view of the fact that entirely unrelated affine algebraic groups (typically, vector groups and toroidal groups) may have isomorphic Lie algebras, this notion of algebraic Lie algebra calls for some clarification. The most relevant result in this direction is due to M. Goto. It says that a finite- dimensional Lie algebra L over a field of characteristic 0 is algebraic if and only if the image of L under the adjoint representation is the Lie algebra of an algebraic subgroup of the group of automorphisms of L ..."

"Let F be a field of characteristic 0, and let F be a finite dimensional vector space over F. Let E denote the algebra of all endomorphisms of V, and let L be any Lie subalgebra of E. Among the algebraic Lie algebras contained in E and containing L, there is one that is contained in all of them, and this is called the algebraic hull of L in E. Here, an algebraic Lie algebra is defined as the Lie algebra of an algebraic group. It is an easy consequence of the definitions that if A and B are algebraic groups of automorphisms of V such that A⊂B then the Lie algebra of A is contained in the Lie algebra of B. Hence the existence of the algebraic hull of L is an immediate consequence of the following basic result: let G be the intersection of all algebraic groups of automorphisms of V whose Lie algebras contain L."

"... Lie algebras have a significance reaching beyond the domain of algebra, because they play such an important role in the theory of Lie groups. Thus, classical Lie algebra theory is strongly dominated by the fact that the finite-dimensional analytic representations of a simply connected analytic group are identifiable with the finite-dimensional representations of its Lie algebra. In the theory of infinite-dimensional representations, the connection with Lie algebra representations is somewhat tenuous, but it is nevertheless at the core of the major advances made in that theory during the last 30 years."

"... the theory of valuations may be viewed as a branch of topological algebra. In fact, historically speaking, it represents the first invasion of topology, more precisely, of early metric topology, into the domains of algebra. The introduction of metric methods into algebra has been so fruitful that today many of the deeper algebraic theories carry their mark. In this regard, one should distinguish between the classical use in algebra of the natural metric of the real or complex number fields, such as in proving the "fundamental theorem of algebra," and the much more recent use of the far less evident metrics which are derived from arithmetic notions of divisibility and which constitute the principal notion of valuation theory. Such a metric occurs for the first time in Hensel's construction of the p-adic numbers ..."

"[In Siamese (Thai) music,] "the comparatively large share of drums, however, indicates the neighborhood of India""

"The oldest preserved style, the classical Sino-Japanese Bugaku dances […are…] of Indian origin, and Chinese and Japanese music on the whole were under Indian influence in the second half of the first millennium A.D. And yet the most typical trait of Indian music, its sophisticated rhythmical patterns or tālas, had no chance in the East. In 860 A.D., someone wrote a treatise on drumming in China, with over one hundred ‘symphonies’ which doubtless were Indian tālas; but nothing came of this, and not one of the Far Eastern styles has preserved the slightest trace of such patterns. The three rhythms used in Tibetan orchestras, and kept up in percussion even when the other parts are silent, are obviously not Far Eastern, but deteriorated Indian patterns. The elaborate polyrhythm of Balinese cymbal players that Mr. Colin MePhee has recently described is not Far Eastern either."

"In the retinue of Buddhism, it had a decisive part in forming the musical style of the East, of China, Korea and Japan, and with Hindu settlers it penetrated what today is called Indo-China and the Malay Archipelago. There was a westbound exportation too. The fact, of little importance in itself, that an Indian was credited with having beaten the drum in Mohammed's military expeditions might at least be taken for a symbol of Indian influence on Islamic music. Although complete ignorance of ancient Iranian music forces us into conservation we are allowed to say that the system of melodic and rhythmic patterns characteristic of the Persian, Turkish and Arabian world, had existed in India as the rāgas and tālas more than a thousand years before it appeared in the sources of the Mohammedan Orient."

"So vital in East Asiatic music is the delicate vacillation that dissolves the rigidity of pentatonic scales that all possible artifices have carefully been classified, named, and, by the syllabic symbols of their names, embodied in notation: ka (to quote the terms of Japanese koto players); that is, sharpening a note by pressing down the string beyond the bridge; niju oshi, sharpening by a whole tone; é, the subsequent sharpening of a note already plucked and heard; ké, sharpening it for just a moment and releasing the string into its initial vibration; yū, the same, but making the relapse very short before the following note is played; kaki, plucking two adjoining strings in rapid succession with the same finger; uchi, striking the strings beyond the bridges during long pauses; nagashi, a slide with the forefinger over the strings; and many others [….] Recent investigation has made clear that this tablature is a Chinese transcription of Sanskrit symbols used in India. Indeed, the graces of long zithers, unparalleled in East Asiatic music, are nothing else than the gamakas of India, imported with the sway of Buddhism during the Han Dynasty and given to the technique of Chinese zithers, which became the favorite instruments of meditative Buddhist priests and monks."

"The strange, never-ceasing drones used in the choral singing of Tibet belong in the Indian, not the Chinese sphere of Tibetan civilization."

"When we read in Bharata's classical book of the twenty-two microtones in ancient Indian octaves, of innumerable scales and modes, and of seventeen melodic patterns and their pentatonic and hexatonic alterations, we realize that music at, or even before, the beginning of the first century AD was by no means archaic. Indeed, there is no reason to believe that India's ancient music differed substantially from her modern music."

"[In Burmese music,] "These penetrant oboes, which lead the melody instead of the tinkling gongs of Java and Bali, are definitely Indian. But still more Indian is the unparalleled drum chime of, normally, twenty-four carefully tuned drums, suspended inside the walls of a circular pen, which the player, squatting in the center, strikes with his bare hands in swift, toccata like melodies with stupendous technique and delicacy""

"The first iconographic record of the hand bell or ghaṇṭā is not conclusive. As late as the seventh century it is depicted in one of the caves at Aurangabad; yet five hundred years earlier, the greco-Syrian philosopher, Bardesanes, had related that while the Hindu priest prayed, he sounded the bell. It was small and tulip-shaped, with a thick clapper. As it was exclusively used by priests in the worship of Hindu divinities, the handle was finely decorated with religious symbols, such as Siva's trident, Vishnu's eagle or Hanuman, the king of the apes."

"[In respect of the Slendro or "male" scale in Indonesian music,] "It seems that the modes or, better, the melodies ascribed to the modes, matter today only from the standpoint of choosing the adequate time for performance: pieces in nem are to be played between seven and midnight; sanga is the right mode for the early morning between midnight and three and for the afternoon between noon and seven; manjura belongs to the hours between 3:00 A.M. and noon. This time table is unmistakably Indian. The name salendro points also to India. It probably stemmed from the Sumatran Salendra Dynasty, which ruled Java almost to the end of the first thousand years A.D. and had come from the Coromandel Coast in South India. Thus it might be wiser to connect slendro with ragas like madhyamāvati, mohana, or hamsadhvanī than with the Chinese scale""

"The roots of music are more exposed in India than anywhere else. The Vedda in Ceylon possess the earliest stage of singing that we know, and the subsequent strata of primitive music are represented by the numberless tribes that in valleys and jungles took shelter from the raids of northern invaders. So far as this primitive music is concerned, the records are complete or at least could easily be completed if special attention were paid to the music of the ‘tribes’…[There are] hundreds of tribal styles…"

"[And here is what Sachs has to say about the 7-tone-22-shruti system of notes described in Bharata's text:] We know that two basic principles have shaped scales all over the world: the cyclic principle with its equal whole tones of 204 and semitones of 90 Cents, and the divisive principle with major whole tones of 204, minor whole tones of 182, and large semitones of 112 Cents. Bharata’s system derives from the divisive principle, and this, in turn, stems from stopped strings. But the earlier part of Indian antiquity had no stringed instrument except the open-stringed harp; no lute, no zither provided a fingerboard. India must have had the up-and-down principle, and it cannot but be hiding somewhere."

"China also passed on to Japan the ceremonial dances of India with their music, which were Japanized as the solemn and colorful Bugaku."

"[And here is what Sachs has to say about Bharata's ancient text the Natya-Shastra, which he agrees could be as early as the 4th century BCE and about which he tells us that it] "testifies to a well-established system of music in ancient India, with an elaborate theory of intervals, consonances, modes, melodic and rhythmic patterns". ... "Bharata's text was probably rehandled as early as antiquity, and it may confirm the idea that Bharata himself wrote his treatise much earlier" ... [He also tells us that this text establishes that it represents a stage where the] "slow transition from folk-song to art-song, from hundreds of tribal styles to one all-embracing music of India […] had long ago come to an end"."

"Our ignorance of brain function is currently so very nearly total that we could not even begin to frame appropriate research strategies. We would stand before the open brain, fancy instruments in hand, roughly as an unschooled labourer might stand before the exposed wiring of a computer: awed perhaps, but surely helpless. A microanalysis of brain functions is, moreover, no more useful for understanding anything about thinking than a corresponding analysis of the pulses flowing through a computer would be for understanding what program the computer is running. Such analyses would simply be at the wrong conceptual level. They might help to decide crucial experiments, but only after such experiments had been designed on the basis of much higher-level (for example, linguistic) theories."

"[On his anti-AI stance] “He fell out of the field ten years ago, and hasn’t done a damn thing since ELIZA,” one MIT colleague said contemptuously. An old friend of Weizenbaum’s shook his head sadly. “I have the impression that if Joe could do science, he wouldn’t be doing this. When I gave a talk about my AI work a couple of years ago at MIT, it was Joe who came up to me—and I can’t tell you the feeling he said this with— that he’d give his right arm to have done what I’d done. MIT is an incredibly competitive place, and regardless of whether you have tenure, the pressure to produce is terrific. Joe hasn’t produced science, so he’s got to do something. I wish he hadn’t chosen this.”"

"The abuses might be either ideological or technological. If human intelligence were more successfully mirrored in the machine, will that not justify treating human beings as if they were MERE machines? [Weizenbaum’s] position on this is colored by the experience of Nazi Germany; but the argument is confused. The most savage tyrannies that I can find in history, including Nazism, had no doubt about a unique élan vital..."

"Weizenbaum went on to say that the geriatric robot was not only a sign of the authors’ lack of humanity; it symbolized the utter lack of humanity in anybody associated with the field of artificial intelligence. This, of course, was his main agenda; he’d been literally rubbing his hands together (I heard from Michael Dertouzos, one of his colleagues) as he roamed the halls of MIT, where he was then on the faculty. “This’ll get them,” he said to whoever would listen."

"What is the future? We cannot produce a blueprint, the future alone can evolve that. What we must agree on, rather are the general principles of the society we want to create. The politicians tell us we live in age of technological miracles. But it is up to us to apply them to a new society, to use the new media so as to gain greater mastery over the environment. While people today simply watch televisions a surrogate for the lives they have ceased to live; in the new society they will use it as a means of widening their experience, of mastering the environment and of keeping in touch the real lives of other people. If television programmes they induce the maximum hypnosis in the greatest numbers, they would enable us to extend the real democracy to the entire population."

"On reading Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution we are struck by a fundamental contradiction: as an honest historian he shows us just how much the Party lagged behind the masses, and as a Bolshevik theorist he must reaffirm that the Party was necessary for the succession of the revolution."

"A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of student revolt. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcize this spectre : Pope and Central Committee, Kissinger and de Gaulle, French Communists and German police-spies."

"A few days later the grandfather feels a sharp pain, He leaves the house and walks toward the pharmacy. He finally reaches it, but collapses just outside. And dies. Having learnt the news, Charlotte felt such relief, as if a weight fell off her shoulders. In the back of her mind, she wanted the grandfather to leave for so many times.. .Did Charlotte precipitate this event? Later, in one of the letters, she confessed that she had poisoned her grandfather. Is it true? Or the theatre again? This is incredible and still acceptable, If you remember how much grief he [the granfather] brought to her, - constant scolding, and contempt for her work, And sexual harassment.."

"And yet, apart from a handful of depictions of the Third Reich, Salomon's work is not about the Holocaust at all but, rather, about herself, her family, love, creativity, death, Nietzsche, Goethe, Richard Tauber, Michelangelo, and Beethoven. It chronicles the genesis of an artist from a family of dark secrets - mental illness, nervous breakdowns, molestation, suicides, drug overdoses, and Freudian love triangles: a harbinger to our age of grand confessionals."

"One day her grandmother brought her to see me, and there she stood, slender, blue eyed.. .The conversation was of no interest for her. The only thing that absorbed her for the moment was the southern landscape Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. All this light and colour was new to her and struck a profound chord in her mystical, sensitive nature.. .All day long she sat in the garden, drawing and painting. Or she would lie for hours under an orange tree, looking in the blue sky.. .Wherever she happened to be, she pulled out her sketchbook. She had to unburden herself, and her language was pencil or brush.."

"[Charlotte's unremitting silence] forced me to play the clown.. ..She was extraordinarily taciturn, and unable to break through and emerge from the barrier that she had built round herself."

"We know from Marthe Pècher, the owner of a small hotel in St. Jean Cap Ferrat where Charlotte Salomon completed her work, that she always hummed while working. The music she uses to accompany her paintings is a medley of classical themes: Carmen by Bizet, Orpheus & Euridice by Gluck, melodies by Bach, but also popular tunes, folk-songs, film music. In the second series she hardly ever mentions the music - apparently she did not need it any more to create the intended effect on the reader."

"And from that came: Life or Theatre?"