Hitler lookalike arrested in Austria
A Hitler lookalike has been arrested in Austria on charges of glorifying the Nazi era, local officials say.
The 25-year-old man reportedly calls himself Harald Hitler.
The man, sporting a side parting and a trademark moustache, had been seen having his photograph taken outside the house in Braunau am Inn in which Adolf Hitler was born.
The lookalike had recently moved to the town on the German border, police spokesman David Furtner told the BBC.
Well if ever someone’s face didn’t fit… Best not be a Charlie Chaplin tribute act in Austria then, or go to a Sparks concert, that town ain’t big enough for the both of them.
What’s next, putting down cats with unfortunate colouring?
On a more serious note, how better to discredit freedom that to carry on like this? Perhaps that’s all socialists can think to do. Mocking a fool is better that locking a fool up. Hitler is, thanks to Downfall parodies (here’s one, oddly prescient on the EU referendum, about Gordon Brown’s fading Premiership), a laughing stock, and the one thing that discredits tyrants more than anything is being laughed at. After all, mass murder has not discredited any brand of socialism.
That’s not mass murder, that’s just population control so there’s less folks that need to stress th “share” the bounty of Socialism.
Think of it as Planned Parenthood writ large!
A necessary evil when folks decide they WON’T volunteer to be cannon fodder in
wars of “attrition”, while the officers “strategize” their board game from the hill.
Why haven’t they put out arrest warrants for the cast of “Look who’s back!”, a movie based on a book in which Hitler just appears in modern-day Germany?
Vhen der Fuehrer says ve is der Master Race
Ve heil *plplplpl* heil *plplpl* right in der Fuehrer’s face
John ‘Mr Hilter’ Cleese will be arrested the moment he steps foot in Germany again.
After having had a good laugh at this, I do see where they are coming from. On the one hand, Germans and Austrians are (understandably, if not entirely rationally) hypersensitive to anything that has to do with Nazism, the Holocaust, etc; while on the other hand, this is very much in line with the famous/infamous inflexibility of the Germanic state of mind – ‘zero tolerance’ policies, and all that. FWIW, I see it as a cultural thing, for the most part.
Leave the Hitler impersonators alone. Laughter is the best response.
“On the one hand, Germans and Austrians are (understandably, if not entirely rationally) hypersensitive to anything that has to do with Nazism, the Holocaust, etc; while on the other hand, this is very much in line with the famous/infamous inflexibility of the Germanic state of mind – ‘zero tolerance’ policies, and all that.”
Very true, but the real problem is the latter, in that the former could never have occurred without the big, overarching, Germanic state (which the rest of the world has since copied).
I’ve probably mentioned this before, but Jerome K. Jerome (of all people) put it best in his sequel to Three Men on a Boat, in which the Three Men take a tour of Germany. He explains that, in Germany, the government acts as a sort of national parent; it provides kindergartens for infants, schools for children, and doctors for all. When a German has a problem, his first thought is to ask a government official for assistance. All this, of course, seemed very strange to a 19th-Century Briton. JKJ’s comment on it is eerily prescient: he says that it’s all very well as long as someone sensible is in charge, but should a madman ever come into power, Germans, and all Europe, had better look out. Which is exactly what happened, twice, over the next half-century.
(By the way, although I don’t believe Trump is Literally Hitler for a second, this is exactly what’s eating the Left right now. Over the last century or so, they’ve turned a limited constitutional republic into a powerful Bismarckian nation-state – “weaponized” it, as Glenn Reynolds puts it – and now it’s in the hands of someone they don’t trust. Well, cry me a river, you idiots. Some people tried to warn you, but you dismissed them as “fascist”. Is it any wonder they aren’t listening now?)
Nazism was the symptom, not the disease. It still lies (relatively) dormant, and as long as we focus on brown shirts, jackboots, toothbrush moustaches, and racism, we won’t see the next attack coming.
But yes, ridicule is kryptonite to political types. They yearn to be taken seriously. Laugh, and their power evaportates.
Yes, Sam, all true. And quite sad, too.
Of course socialism has not been discredited. It was just the wrong people in charge. It just needs the right people in charge. Who is the right people? The person telling you this, of course.
First they came for the Hitlers, and I did not speak out. Because I did not have a toothbrush mustache.
See Heinrich Mann’s Der Untertan. Recommended reading if you want to understand how (and why) these things happen in Germany – and Austria, for that matter.
It’s been done.
And then of course there’s this oldie but goodie from Taiwan.
I got cut off in traffic, today. My glimpse of the driver was fleeting, the vehicle only marginally less so, but I swear to God it was a (local) government vehicle being driven by some fat bastard with a toothbrush moustache.
Edited to add: We once visited Linz (on the old “Where can we fly to for 20 quid this weekend” thing). With nothing much to do, we went to look at “Das Hitler Hause”. His parents are buried in a cemetery across the street. I got the distinct impression that everybody assumed that we were there to pay our respects to “the great man’s” origins.
Not all Austrians are the same, of course, but Austrians are not like Germans.
So some think laughter will deter people you don’t like.
But if you get a punch in the face in return – what then?
The devil…the prowde spirite…cannot endure to be mocked.
Weaken, not deter.
Punch them back followed by a kick to the bollocks. And then laugh at them. Duh. Did you go to pansy arse high school or some place similar?
Not directly on point, but here’s an interesting article about rehabilitating the swastika, and ancient symbol of peace and fertility which was perverted by Hitler.
Laird,
On a similar swerve, here’s a piece about Finland’s use of the swastika, which they used on military hardware, heraldry and decorations, including one given during the period of ‘Finlandisation’ to a (figurehead) Soviet President who had led the invasion of Finland in 1939. The Finns adopted the symbol before the Germans, and as with some beers, the bigger, bad guys got the ‘marketing rights’.
Finland was, in WW2, (i) effectively alone (ii) a co-belligerent with Germany, Hungary and Romania against the USSR and (iii) Allied against Germany in the course of WW2.
And veering off-topic, Marshal Mannerheim of Finland was reportedly the only person decorated by both sides in both World Wars; having started off as a Tsarist General.
Not directly on point, but here’s an interesting article about rehabilitating the swastika, and ancient symbol of peace and fertility which was perverted by Hitler.
Didn’t Sarah Silverman already do this?