MovieChat Forums > The Man in the High Castle (2015) Discussion > Smith is a Nazi but I admire him.

Smith is a Nazi but I admire him.


His intelligence and ability to survive are very admirable. I really started to admire him when he was able to survive the car ambush and when he detected the traitor with the cubes of sugar.

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Hes the Nazi poster boy

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And thanks to Thomas, he will remain so for quite a while.

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A lot of evil people know how to survive.

It's not an admirable quality in and of itself.

If this is Locke, then who's in there?

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Back then a lot of people were evil, racist, exterminated other groups of people based prejudice; america wasn't exempt, neither was Russia and other countries, they just were good at directing blame onto others. Doesn't make the Nazis any better of course, but it wasn't black and white like the very entertaining but stupidly over simplistic "Inglorious Bastards" would want us to believe.

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The American exterminations before the Reich. Didn't they teach you about the Native Americans? (Thomas to Juliana) Then of course, there's the African Americans. Strange fruit.(song from the series)

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And as mentioned the Japanese concentration camps on US soil incarcerating Americans.

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Internment camps, not concentration camps. Big difference.

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I know it's more palatable to pretend that we are "good guys" who would never employ evil means such as concentration camps. Unhappily, if we are adults and face the facts, "internment camp" is simply a euphemism for concentration camp. Here's a definition:

con·cen·tra·tion camp
[ˌkänsənˈtrāSHən ˈˌkamp]
NOUN

a place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution.

Sounds exactly like where we put US citizens of Japanese extraction during the war.

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It's terrible that happened and it's definitely is a dark point in our history. However, I hardly see how one could compare what we did compared to what the Nazis did with their concentration camps. It shouldn't have happened and was an overreaction, but at the very least we did not have the intention of killing anyone and people would eventually be released.

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The Nazi camps may have been worse, but a concentration camp is a concentration camp. Insufficient housing, poor food, lousy sanitation--all resulting in disease and death.

We didn't send the Japanese to summer camp. We incarcerated them with no cause, treating them like animals. There's no sugar-coating what we did.

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No, there is no sugar-coating what we did.

There is also no comparing it to packing families into trains and transporting them to be gassed to death and thrown into crematoriums after their belonging, teeth and shoes were extracted for profit.

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Yes, Nazi death camps were worse than the usual concentration camp. Nevertheless, American Japanese were still herded into concentration camps. Trying to soften that by using the euphemism "internment camp" is merely an attempt to whitewash what we did.

In Afghanistan, we were ordered not to refer to captured Afghans as "prisoners" nor "civilian detainees." We had to call them "persons under control," or PUCS. Why? Because the Geneva convention has standards for the treatment of prisoners and civilian detainees, standards which we did not intend to meet. However, the Convention had no standards for "PUCS," so we could do things like deny them mail, in or out, and confine them outdoors in barbed wire enclosures.

Nevertheless, they were our prisoners, and calling them something different did not change that--except technically. We knowingly violated the Geneva Convention for our convenience--and we're the good guys, supposedly.

I prefer to call things as they are, rather than hide behind B.S. to assuage my conscience.

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Yes, Nazi death camps were worse than the usual concentration camp. Nevertheless, American Japanese were still herded into concentration camps. Trying to soften that by using the euphemism "internment camp" is merely an attempt to whitewash what we did.


It is morally perverse to compare American internment camps for Japanese Americans with Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka, or any other Nazi concentration camp.

Only an idiot or someone with an agenda would do so.

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I don't understand why it's "morally perverse" to compare anything. "This is infinitely worse than that" is a comparison. What's immoral about that?

At any rate, this discussion commenced with lantzn mentioning that Japanese Americans were confined in concentration camps. Dabirdman hastened to "correct" lantzn, insisting that the camps in the US were "internment camps," not "concentration camps," as if to lessen the impact of what we did here. I merely pointed out to him that the definition of "concentration camp" perfectly encompasses the prison camps into which we herded innocent Japanese Americans during the war. Thus, dabirdman's "correction" of lantzn's statement was itself incorrect, and entirely unnecessary--unless one wishes to downplay this country's crime.

All I am able to draw from your inane comment is that you are an idiot with an idiotic agenda.

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DrZaat: you're not trying to assuage your conscience? Why, is it bothering you? Maybe it's bothering you because you whitewash the horror of gassing millions of innocent people by equating it to imprisonment. Or maybe it bothering you because you argue semantics using pretentious language like "merely."

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Projection

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It's not an agenda to speak honestly about our past. We put Japanese-Americans in concentration camps, and that was horrible. Any patriotic American would feel deep shame about that point in our history and would not try and deepen that shame by covering it up.

Just because our camps were not as murderous and voilent as the Nazi camps does not mean they were not concentration camps. There are prisons that mistreat their prisoners and there are prisons that do not... but they are both prisons.

Sentries shot and killed Japanese citizens in those camps for things ranging from attempted escapes to walking too close to the barbed-wire bariers.

While far fewer lives were taken in our Japanese camps, every life is important and should be treated as important.

"Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." -- C.S.Lewis

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It is morally perverse to make up excuses for atrocities by pointing at somebody else and claiming "THEY DID IT WORSE!".

"Only an idiot or someone with an agenda would do so" — or someone in complete denial. There's a reason half the world dislikes or outright despises the United States of America (not specifically Americans, but your politics).

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Yeah, they are spelled differently. That's pretty much it though.

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He's a fictional character.

Real life Nazis, if put on screen, would not be so charming or admirable.



http://www.amazon.com/Save-Send-Delete-Danusha-Goska/dp/1846949866

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Well, he's American so he knows that culture.

Nazism is an ideology and it is unrealistic to think all Nazis were stone cold evil. It starting in Germany is almost inconsequential.

Their strength was in being persuasive to the right people and killing the inferior people. Once all that is left are people like you, it's pretty easy to be charming.

If this is Locke, then who's in there?

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it is unrealistic to think all Nazis were stone cold evil


Doing horrible things makes for horrible people.

If they did not start out evil, they certainly ended up that way.

is there a single Nazi as handsome as Rufus Sewell, as physically fit, as sane, as loving of family?

No!

Goring was a fat drug addict. Goebbels was a gimp. Hitler had Parkinsons. Heydrich looked like a human-weasel hybrid ... Himmler ran out on his beloved Gudrun and left her for whatever fate the Red Army had in store and then killed himself like the coward he was.

they drank, they took drugs, they lied, they cheated on their wives, they murdered their own children -- so much for Smith's tender concern for his son ... when Gitta Sereny confronted Franz Stangl with the truth of his crimes, he died of a heart attack within 24 hours. Evil and weak.

C'mon. Ain't no stinking charming real life Nazis.

Maybe Speer had some charm late in life, but only after acknowledging his own guilt and serving time in Spandau.

Forgive me for going on and on but I hate Nazis.

http://www.amazon.com/Save-Send-Delete-Danusha-Goska/dp/1846949866

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Real life Nazis, if put on screen, would not be so charming or admirable.


And you know this because... you saw it on a film? :)

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Other than racism Nazis were just ordinary socialists. Hate inequity and wealth gaps, they just blame Jews for that.

A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist - Sir Humphrey Appleby

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Smith is a Nazi but I admire him.

Of course you do. That's the whole point. Nazism or at least it's brother Fascism is as American as apple pie. Before WWII there were growing Nazi organizations in the US. Hitler borrowed many of our racist and genocidal policies to create his Reich. Lebanstrum = Manifest Destiny. Jim Crow, The Indian Appropriations Act, the Chinese Laws. Our treatment of Native Americans, Blacks, Mexicans, Orientals, and Filipinos (during the American-Philippine War) were blueprints for Hitlers imperialists policies. He was actually surprised that America didn't become his ally.

Of course we don't call it Nazism. We call it Law and Order, Showing America's muscle overseas, getting rid of the lazy parasitic (insert ethic group here), and good ole boy patriotism. The very idea of a powerful charismatic decisive leader (Furher) who will lead us to a golden age is front and center in the political beliefs of many Americans.

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Yes, and don't forget Henry Ford's magazine that was later compiled in a book and which took the Russian Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory book "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" ideas and Hitler read it and took this to form his own racist ideas. Nazism is therefore a development of American ideas.

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Nazism is therefore a development of American ideas.


Confirmation bias. Hitler sought out texts and opinions that reinforced his own.

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All of those are horrible stains on our history, and the recent election doesn't do anything to reassure me, God knows. But I cannot make the stretch from those to "Let's create a special poison gas and a bunch of ovens to systematically murder more than six million people and hey if things get really hairy we can just throw live children into the ovens" (and would have been MORE if they hadn't lost the war).

No, America did not invent Fascism or Nazism. There are those elements in the majority of societies and they take different forms and accumulate varying degrees of power. The Germans just happened to germinate it on steroids and mutant fertilizer during the Hitler Era.

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But I cannot make the stretch from those to "Let's create a special poison gas and a bunch of ovens to systematically murder more than six million people and hey if things get really hairy we can just throw live children into the ovens" (and would have been MORE if they hadn't lost the war).


Really? I mean, I hate to crack open this old chestnut, but you do remember smallpox blankets being delivered to Native Americans, right? Sanctioned biological warfare was used during the birth of America to indiscriminately wipe out the native men, women and children for much the same reason the Nazis had for wiping out their 'undesirables'.

I mean sure, intentionally giving blankets known to contain a highly contagious and deadly disease to an unsuspecting people in an effort to murder them all is inefficient by Nazi Germany standards, but they were working with what they had in the time period they existed.

I'll give you your final statement, though- America didn't invent Fascism. But don't kid yourself into believing that America couldn't have easily gone the route of Hitler's Germany. One wrong turn at a crucial moment. One charismatic leader, claiming to speak for the disenfranchised, angry masses, riding a wave of fear, hate and hysteria towards ethnic minorities to a crushing victory into top elected office...oh look, I see America's turn coming up now...

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smallpox blankets


this allegation has been debunked. there may have been a case of this but it was not widespread or sop

Germ warfare, some say, was begun during the Muslim Conquest. Plague victims were catapulted into besieged cities in Europe by Muslims. I may be wrong about this -- google it.

Also google smallpox blankets lest you err. You'll find articles like this: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/plag/5240451.0001.009/--did-the-us-army-distribute-smallpox-blankets-to-indians?rgn=main;view=fulltext

http://www.amazon.com/Save-Send-Delete-Danusha-Goska/dp/1846949866

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this allegation has been debunked. there may have been a case of this but it was not widespread or sop / Also google smallpox blankets lest you err. You'll find articles like this:


I googled. I found the article you linked, followed by a few blog posts by White Supremacist who have clearly read said article. Nothing particularly debunking or definitive.

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In addition to smallpox blankets, there were also poisoned, rotten rations given to early reservation residents, where "let them eat grass or their own dung" was said by a supplier. And that was just one instance.

Up until the 70's, Native women were sterilized without their consent by Indian Health Service.

I actually do not think there are winners of "oppression Olympics", the comparison of various atrocities; but I do believe that we should acknowledge what has happened.

As an Indigenous woman, a citizen of both the US and my tribe, I see these things in a certain way.

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There is straight up proof that the plan existed and was written about in the Trent Diaries and by Lord Jeffery Amherst. The only debate is to what extent the plan was executed and how effective that execution was.

Here are two links:

http://www.umass.edu/legal/derrico/amherst/lord_jeff.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13mqa.html


"Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." -- C.S.Lewis

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It wasn't a crushing victory, asshat. He lost the popular vote by almost 3 million.

You have a very dark vision of my country. I have lived here all my life. I live in a state that voted for Trump. Despite what happened in this election, I have confidence this will not come to pass here. Yes, we have problems and he will make them worse. But it will never go that far.

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It wasn't a crushing victory, asshat. He lost the popular vote by almost 3 million.


You claim to have lived in America all your life, and yet you don't seem to understand how your own electoral system works by quoting a number that has absolutely no relevance and zero bearing on the Presidential election. Sure, America's Electoral College is an incredibly stupid system if they never actually exercise the safeguard they were put into place to be, but it's the system you have. It's the only metric that matters. Console yourself with 'but he lost the popular vote!' if you must, but be aware it only sounds whiny.

I also had comments about the current situation of American politics attached to this, but I don't want to Trump this thread any further than I already have, it seems impolite. I'll leave it at this - lots of people around the world throughout history have believed it could never happen to them, not in their country, and history has proved them wrong, again and again. Right now the Western world is teetering towards the far, radical right. It's a foolish time to believe that it couldn't happen in your own backyard.

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I am familiar with the Electoral College. And I agree it's a stupid system. My point is that while a victory is a victory, it can't be called "crushing" under these circumstances. It's not a mandate. A mandate is what Reagan got in 1984. It's what Obama got in 2008 when he won with well over 300 EC votes and a 10 million popular vote margin.

I am not being whiny, I am pointing out the facts. The facts are he didn't win a crushing victory. He just won according to the rules.

Good Lord, you are condescending.

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310 electoral votes is a crushing defeat, regardless how many people live in LA or NYC...ever consider how many repubs don't bother voting in cali cuz its pointless.

I DO CROSSWORD PUZZLES IN PEN CUZ IM JUST THAT CONFIDENT

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310 votes wouldn't be a "crushing defeat" by any stretch of the imagination. Even though it's more than the 304 that Trump got, it would still be among the smallest winning percentages (57.6%) in Electoral College history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_Electoral_College_margin#Table_of_election_results

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Just as many Dems don't vote because it's pointless. Like in Texas where I live? The cities, Houston and Austin etc., always go blue. But Texas always goes red, which suppresses the blue vote even in cities.

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The New Deal was widely praised by both Hitler and Mussolini.

(\___/)This is Bunny! Put him on your
(='.'=)signature to help him gain
(")_(")world domination

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Season 2 SPOILERS marked!

I think we were supposed to like (more or less) both Smith and Inspector Kido and it was no surprise that they end up working together.

Smith is quite loyal to the motherland and der führer, but he sees the cracks in the system. Both of them see and fight against some the injustices proposed by their superiors mainly because of their loyalty forthe way of life that balance has brought about.

Regardless of the fact that they live in fascist and imperialist regimes with such horrid civil rights and human decencies that we would abhor.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

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I saw a youtube video with Inspector Kido and others having fun with fan theories about the show. The actor was so lighthearted and adorable. Helps me to deal with watching evil Inspector Kido on the show.

Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6x1o0mb0FQ




http://www.amazon.com/Save-Send-Delete-Danusha-Goska/dp/1846949866

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Boy, that was fun indeed.

But did I hear Luke say "Rupert needs a job" (@2:30)?!

IS THAT A SPOILER?!

(Shhhh, Danusha_Goska hasn't seen the end of Season 3 yet!)

Brevity is the soul of wit.

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he also says in s2e10:

"Your father's a Trader Joe."

hilarious!

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I caught that too.

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This is exactly how I feel. Oberguppenführer Smith can't fairly be written off as a fascist villian just yet. He has shown admirable qualities, even outside of his loyalty to the Reich and his cunning behavior. There's richeousness in him.

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I would love to see a flashback of how he went from being a US Army Intelligence officer to a Schutzstaffel (SS) Obergrüppenführer. That's quite a transformation and only one that a cold hearted, sociopath could do.

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THIS is the back-story I would like to see. Decorated American soldier against the Japanese (an ranking officer by the looks of his uniform in the scene where DC gets Heisenberged), turns and becomes a NAzi leader? Season 1 has mentions of the horrors he helped perpetrate against his fellow Americans as the NAZIs subjugated their part of American territory. I have no admiration for the guy...he failed to uphold his oath to protect the Constitution he swore to when he enlisted.

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I'm calling it now. I predict that in series 3 that he is going to turn out to be another Snape / Vader

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Me too. I found myself rooting for him! He and Kido are the best characters on the show imo. Rufus Sewell is also a very good actor. I loved him in Dark City!

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