What have you learned today?

Gordon_4

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Ever see Casablanca? I actually had not until very recently, and with it I learned something interesting about it.

There's a scene where the Nazis start singing Die Wacht am Rhine, a patriotic German song with its roots in the Franco-Prussian War, which at the time was more or less the de facto German national anthem. This leads one of the main characters to get the band to start playing La Marseillaise, which everyone else in the bar joins in, ultimately drowning out the Nazis. It's a surprisingly emotional scene, and several of the characters are seen brimming with tears. ...That wasn't entirely staged.

For those unfamiliar, Casablanca was released in 1942, and many of the actors were in fact refugees who had fled from the Nazis.

Marcel Dalio (Emil) and Madeleine Lebeau had fled Paris together shortly before the Nazis took it in 1940. Most of Dalio's family would die in concentration camps. S.Z. Sakall (Carl) fled Germany in 1939. His sisters and niece shared the same fate as Dalio's family. Peter Lorre fled to Paris and then London from Nazi Germany in 1933, before eventually making it to America. Paul Henreid (Lazlo) was an Austrian-English actor who had been so vocally anti-Nazi as to be declared an "official enemy of the Third Reich" and had relocated to the States in 1941. Curt Bois (pickpocket)? Jewish-German refugee. Leonard Kinskey (Sascha)? Helmut Dantine? Imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp in 1938, but ultimately released and sent by his family to California. Louis V. Arco, Trude Berliner, Ilka Grünig, Ludwig Stössel, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, and Wolfgang Zilzer? The film is chock full of people who had fled Nazi oppression. Even actors cast as the Nazis in the film (such as Conrad Veidt, who played antagonist Major Strasser).

Granted, I am very late to the party in this (though again, I only just got around to seeing Casablanca, so that is perhaps to be expected). Aljean Harmetz wrote about this some time ago in the Making of Casablanca, and she sums it up pretty well.


Another weird place this sort of thing showed up was in Hogan’s Heroes. Robert Clary, who played Frenchman Labeau, was the sole survivor of his family from Burchanwald - it’s why he was never seen in short sleeves - and in an episode where he’s recovering French owned art stolen by the Nazis he didn’t need to act to weep at the cultural vandalism: he’d lived through it, after all.

Leon Askin, who played Col. Burkhalter - Klink’s commanding officer who’s either trying to to marry him off to his sister or have him sent to the Russian front - has a prominent scar on his face that he got while having the shit kicked out of him by some Nazis in Germany.

Obviously not the same as refugees at in Casablanca in ‘42 but an interesting bit of trivia.
 

The Rogue Wolf

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Another weird place this sort of thing showed up was in Hogan’s Heroes. Robert Clary, who played Frenchman Labeau, was the sole survivor of his family from Burchanwald - it’s why he was never seen in short sleeves - and in an episode where he’s recovering French owned art stolen by the Nazis he didn’t need to act to weep at the cultural vandalism: he’d lived through it, after all.

Leon Askin, who played Col. Burkhalter - Klink’s commanding officer who’s either trying to to marry him off to his sister or have him sent to the Russian front - has a prominent scar on his face that he got while having the shit kicked out of him by some Nazis in Germany.
Werner Klemperer (Col. Klink) and John Banner (Sgt. Schultz) were both Jews who fled the Nazis in the '30s (Klemperer was born in Germany; Banner, Austria). Clary stated that Banner "lost a lot of his family" in the Holocaust. Also, Klemperer reportedly demanded that he would only play Klink if the Nazis were portrayed in the show as bumbling and ineffectual.
 

Gordon_4

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Werner Klemperer (Col. Klink) and John Banner (Sgt. Schultz) were both Jews who fled the Nazis in the '30s (Klemperer was born in Germany; Banner, Austria). Clary stated that Banner "lost a lot of his family" in the Holocaust. Also, Klemperer reportedly demanded that he would only play Klink if the Nazis were portrayed in the show as bumbling and ineffectual.
Which indeed they were, though ironically Klink and Schultz themselves were beloved characters even though they were ostensibly the villains, their actors were so endearing audiences loved them - Schultz especially was a villain only by virtue of circumstances. Of course it probably helped that they were Luftwaffe officers rather than Gestapo or SS. Then again, Hochstetter is a fan favourite because he’s so over the top

“WHO IS THIS MAN?!”
 

Chimpzy

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Today I learned "Hitler woman" is an anagram of "mother in law"

Coincidentally, first met my girlfriend's parents this past weekend. The mom's fine tho.
 
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Chimpzy

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That piece of trivia is never, ever going to leave my brain now. Thanks for that >.>
Am I to take it that yours is of the more cantankerous kind? Either way, my condolences.
 

SupahEwok

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The biggest technical conference for my field in the world is happening right now virtually due to 'rona. There's over 150 hours of recorded workshops and demos. Needless to say I am learning a metric shit ton right now, but probably the most important one: after 20 years in school, I've finally conceded on the need to take notes, and am struggling to learn that habit.
 

SckizoBoy

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Just read this... and learned that in the professional setting, the vast majority of people are still pretty ignorant of psychological disorders even when discussing them.

To explain, I'm a do-everything, do-correctly sort of employee and I've been burned out more often than I care to admit, but I'm not a perfectionist (even if I've been accused/called one plenty of times). My wife's the perfectionist. I, however, have obsessive compulsive personality disorder, and the compulsive need for perfect work overrides the conscious need to expend minimal energy. I'm a lazy bastard, so this screws me over big time. Perfectionism comes over via pride in work well done. OCPD enforces efficiencies, or resignation to burning out even more. Some with OCPD are smart/foolish enough to become perfectionists so that they don't need to deal with the implications of consciously overriding ingrained behaviours.
 

Trunkage

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Just read this... and learned that in the professional setting, the vast majority of people are still pretty ignorant of psychological disorders even when discussing them.

To explain, I'm a do-everything, do-correctly sort of employee and I've been burned out more often than I care to admit, but I'm not a perfectionist (even if I've been accused/called one plenty of times). My wife's the perfectionist. I, however, have obsessive compulsive personality disorder, and the compulsive need for perfect work overrides the conscious need to expend minimal energy. I'm a lazy bastard, so this screws me over big time. Perfectionism comes over via pride in work well done. OCPD enforces efficiencies, or resignation to burning out even more. Some with OCPD are smart/foolish enough to become perfectionists so that they don't need to deal with the implications of consciously overriding ingrained behaviours.
My last assistant was a perfectionist. She was a hard worker but the smallest things could ruin a day. She just couldn’t handle everything going her way. And my work is not the right environment for wanting things to go your way
 

SupahEwok

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Sometimes huge slabs of demi-god manmeat like Henry Cavill do really mundane and geeky things like building a gaming PC.

My favorite part is when he's looking through the installation instructions like any of the rest of us mortal peons would.
 

Gordon_4

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Sometimes huge slabs of demi-god manmeat like Henry Cavill do really mundane and geeky things like building a gaming PC.

That man is a fucking champion. Also that's the second build I've seen - the other was on Linus Tech Tips - where that cooler has been installed in what seems to be the most logical way and its display is upside down. Corsair, put a fucking arrow on that thing or have it hook into the software and be allowed to change it.
 

Chimpzy

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In Spain there's something called the Spanish Legion, a military unit that's roughly their equivalent to the French Foreign Legion and once personally led by fascist dictator Francisco Franco. Their regular uniforms and fatigues are pretty run of the mill.

But their dress uniforms? Let's just say that since early to mid 20th century fascism and homoerotiscism oddly and ironically mixed very well, they ended up amazing ...
Tight shirts. Deep V necklines. Leather suspenders. Pants seemingly cut to accentuate the bulge. Insignia/medals located on the breast pocket at around nipple height.
 

Kwak

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That I finally have a somewhat legitimate reason to use this clip...

Because...
 

Trunkage

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Sometimes huge slabs of demi-god manmeat like Henry Cavill do really mundane and geeky things like building a gaming PC.

As a person who built a new PC a few months ago, seeing that CPU that intense. I could have been one of the most expensive mistakes in my life
 

Houseman

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I learned about an endemic of transgenderism among teenage girls.

Where are all the women in their 40s and 60s coming out as trans? They should be coming out, now is their time, now is their moment. We should see tons of women in their 40s and 60s coming out as transgender and we’re not seeing that. We’re seeing the same population that gets involved in cutting, demonic possession, witchcraft, anorexia, bulimia, and convinces themselves that there’s a problem. Anyway, there’s one last reason: Is that suicide rates are going up.
I don't usually watch JRE. I think this is like the second one I've watched.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
I learned about an endemic of transgenderism among teenage girls.



I don't usually watch JRE. I think this is like the second one I've watched.
Ugh, ok dude, from that quote you posted, after the very first sentence you should have thrown the rest away and identified the speaker of it as a crack pot for the very simple reason that once you get to that age, you tend to have more of a handle on yourself and who you are and what you are into. So anyone asking that is going to be coming at you with some very loaded questions and answers.
 

Houseman

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reason that once you get to that age, you tend to have more of a handle on yourself and who you are and what you are into.
That's... exactly the point that the author was making. You and her are in complete agreement. I don't see the issue here.