As You Should Surely Know By Now -
Conrad is currently reading Longenrich's biography of Heinrich Himmler and is about 1/3 of the way through it. Go me. In the past 50 pages or so I've seen the expansion of the SS (Ol' Heinie being the Reichsfuhrer SS, doncha know) to tens of thousands of members, with HH all the while trying to arm them. What he wanted was a military organisation, not a paramilitary organisation, which meant trying to keep the verrrry suspicious Reichswehr (the Teuton army) off his back and out of the picture. This enormous expansion of the SS meant all sorts of concomitant re-organisation and administration, with titles being created and responsibility being assigned. Ol' Heinie, like the consummate pen-pusher he was, excelled at this kind of work. Art!
I think it's an hideous daub, but the Nazis banned it, so it's here.
The above will give you an idea of the amount of activity HH carried out to keep his turf free from competitors and expand it where possible.
HH also had some very odd personal beliefs and biases. He used to be an ardent Catholic in his youth, but had replaced that religion with the pseudo-religion of Nazism. Thus, he came to detest Christianity and churches, so he came up with the special project of -
HEXENSONDERAUFTRAG!
Which translates as - er - "Special Witch Project". The idea was to find out exactly how many witches had been burned in the past, not because Ol' Heinie cared about people dying horribly - this was the man running the concentration camps, after all - but because it was a propaganda club to beat the Teuton churches with. Art!
Heinie's first love?
This fervent pursuit of mass atrocity as committed by the eeeevil Christians led to equally fervid hyperbole on the part of Ol' Heinie and his carpet-chewing chums like Walter Darré, who paraded the prospect of millions who had been " - murdered, tortured to death and burnt" in possibly the most hideous foreshadowing ever. HH himself settled for merely tens of thousands, which is actually more realistic. Art!
The academic consensus is that 60,000 people, mostly female, were given the small taste of Hades treatment, which is bad enough in itself. However, it was spread out over three centuries and so equals about 200 roasties per annum.
ANYWAY HH decided to set up the HSU under the auspices of the Department For Researching The Opposition. It was staffed by fourteen full-time employees, who worked away for five years, producing an end file of 33,846 pages of data. It began in 1939, when Ol' Heinie was still expanding his empire, acquiring power and fending off rivals, or, in other words, busy busy busy. Yet he took time to arrange this peculiar project.
It came to an end in 1944, after the expenditure of RM14,000,000 (I calculated on the average salary of RM100 per month), quite possibly thanks to other events in the real world interrupting HH's flagellation fantasies. Art!
Perhaps this?
It was a literal white-paper elephant, since Herr Schickelgruber had gone cold on the idea of persecuting the churches, and all excrement in Nazi Germany flowed downhill from his office. Besides which, if you're whipping up a pro-war frenzy, you can always benefit from patriotic pastors preaching Prussianism*. And what better to motivate your hapless stubble-hoppers than defending a noble Christian bulwark against the Godless Bolshevik hordes?
That's not all for Ol' Heinie and the unpleasant pong of punishment pyres. He also got an incarcerated political prisoner, one Herbert Blank, to write short historical fictions about poor persecuted pagans. Friedrich Norfolk - I'm not making these names up, honest! - one of the staff at the Department for Researching the Opposition, was given the task of writing a novel on the Burn Witchy Burn theme. Art!
Kyle's Isles
From the essence of evil, to the soothing balm of South Canadian islands. You can't say we're not eclectic here at the blog. Yes, this is Number 7 from Kyle "Geography King"'s list of Interesting Islands. Today we look at Kodiak Island. Art!
That's Kodiak Island, and it only looks small because it's next to Alaska, the largest South Canadian state. In real life Kodiak is the second-largest island in the nation, totalling 3,600 square miles. Art!
It's one of those proper islands, without any bridges to the mainland, access being by ferry or airport. It is home to the largest South Canadian Coastguard base, and the second largest bears there are: the Kodiaks, who are like grizzlies on steroids. Art!
The island's population is 13,000, the largest concentration of whom are in the capital of - Kodiak! You might have guessed that. Up until 1867 Alaska was part of the Ruffian Empire, at which point the Tsar needed more spending money and he sold it to the South Canadians, who got a bargain. This explains some of the architecture on the island. Art!
A Journey With Bernie
Bernie Wrightson, that is, master of the macabre. Conrad dug up a geek's website on teh Interwebz which was devoted to the artwork Bernie did for FPG, the collectible card people. There was a lot of stuff in their inventory. Art!
Ol' Bern did four base packs of cards for FPG between 1993 and 1996. The first set, "Master Of The Macabre", consisted of 90 cards. 45 of these were card-sized reprints of older BW work, with 45 being commissioned by FPG, and I can see in the verrrrry long list on the webpage -
About Hans Scharler – About Things | A Hans Scharler Blog (nothans.com)
- that they include 'Loggerhead', which we've already featured here. I suspect that others on the list are present on the "Print" website that I've been taking art from. Let me try a little experiment. Art!
Hmmmmm. Not what I expected. O well there's always tomorrow.
Ruffian Art Installation Triumphs Over Decadent West!
Well maybe. I'm sure you're happy to hear that the oil tanks at the Proletarsk depot are still burning, leaving a wasteland of collapsed, blackened, contorted infrastructure behind. In fact what's left is inspiring enough to be publicised as Diesel Damien Hurst, so stark and affecting is it. Art!
They can't start charging for tourist just yet, as you can see, the fires still haven't gone out, and dead tourists cannot generate repeat custom. Things flammable seem - only 'seem' - to have quietened down to the extent that you can now stand within 100 yards of a tank and not risk being blown apart or burnt down.
In case you missed it, the Ukrainians have meted out the same measure to the Atlas oil depot. Art!
"MIRATORG"
Also Going Up In Smoke
Meanwhile, in Modern-day Mordor, the economy is circling the drain. Thanks to everything being invested in the war economy, minor fripperies like schools, hospitals, roads, dams, pensions, sewers, electricity generation and eggs are in short supply. Art!
These are the intercepted drones and missiles that Charlie Chipmunk Cheeks had lofted at Ukraine on the 26th; 203 out of 236. Total cost = $1.3 billion dollars, or sufficient to pay off the Ruffian deficit for the whole of the year to date. But Bloaty Gas Tout can cheer his people on with the declaration "Your mortgage subsidies are now going to into bombing Ukrainian civilians! Be proud!"
Bumbletuck.
Finally -
I am typing this up on Wednesday, which is PAY DAY! thank the merciful lord aloft. Now all I have to do is avoid all those Dog Buns! adverts on teh Interwebz that are trying to empty my wallet.
Maghelele!
* No, it's not a proper word. Yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment