That BNP Election Broadcast

European elections are essentially a wasted exercise in sham democracy, but it produces desperate attempts to jump on the gravy train. After all, five years as an MEP can make a person pretty well off for doing bugger all.

This year I was saddened that the BNP and UKIP should stoop to using images of Winston Churchill, a cheap shot in my view that smacks of desperation. But tonight's BNP election broadcast was something else.

The BNP really should get some basic history lessons. They showed war memorials in the UK claiming that the names were English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh, thus 'proving' that it was British people (not Johnny Foreigner) who saved us in the two world wars. What crap!

Yes the demography of the UK has changed and war memorials in Lancashire and elsewhere will represent the names that inhabited the UK in the first half of the last century. They do not represent the various nationalities and races that fought throughout Europe and the world from all corners of the Empire to preserve our, and their freedoms.

If anybody cares to visit war graves anywhere in Europe you will see the graves of people from Africa, the Indian Sub-continent, China and everywhere else the British flag flew at the time. Visit the Menin Gate Memorial in Ieper and see the names there that commemorate those who fell but have no known grave. The names are not only 'British', far from it.

What about the Gurkhas? Perhaps, according to BNP history books they don't count, or even exist.

I did't intend blogging tonight but their ignorance really pissed me off. Prats!

Hitler's Demise

I have been trying to put some kind of order into my collection of DVDs and videos today and thankfully managed to find Downfall. If you have any degree of interest in WWII then you really should watch this film.

It is German, with English subtitles, and tells the story of the last days of Hitler from Traudl Junge's perspective. Frau Junge was one of Hitler's personal secretaries and a fascinating character who seemed to be in denial about the true horrors of Naziism until her death in 2002. This view of her was reinforced when I saw an interview with her filmed in the year of her death, Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary, when I was doing a history course in London in about 2003.

The power of Downfall is that German actors played the parts of the Nazi hierarchy for the first time since the war. In some ways the DVD extras, which include interviews with the main characters, are just as fascinating as the film. The actors discuss their feelings as they worked on the film, and the response of the German public to them as the project developed.

The most frightening part of the film, and the whole history of that time, is the terrifying level of loyalty that Hitler commanded. Even as the Soviets were on the outskirts of Berlin Hitler was convinced that the Reich would survive and victory would still be theirs. His henchmen continued to believe him, although many army generals were less deluded.

His paranoia, and that of his followers, reached such a pitch that even to the day Hitler committed suicide, those who dared to even question eventual victory were being put before firing squads. The film frightenigly depicts the fear that pervaded Berlin as those, even at that stage, who were seen by Hitler and his henchmen as disloyal were dragged from their beds to be shot.

The fact that the film is German makes it all the more powerful and the special effects are some of the most graphic and realistic I have ever seen. I think Mrs B and I will be having a special viewing on Saturday night with a decent bottle of red. I can thoroughly recommend it.