The Nazis in 3D?

As we are about to be subjected to James Cameron's Titanic in 3D (how does that even work anyway) we are now beginning to feel that 3D filmmaking is definitely something that's here to stay and that format is now becoming quite old, but only in the past two years has it really transformed from the in-theatre gimmicks that I remember from the 1980s to a viable creative path to follow during the production process. While the medium was first popularized in the 1950s, it turns out that experimentation with 3D effects in movie making goes back much further. As with many technological advances of the mid 20th century, it seems the Nazis got there first.

Recently discovered in the Berlin Federal Archives were a pair of propaganda films from pre-war Nazi Germany, The 30-minute black and white creations were discovered by Australian filmmaker Philippe Mora, who is currently working on a documentary looking at how the Nazis used imagery to manipulate reality.
The films are shot on 35mm, apparently with a prism in front of two lenses and they were made by an independent studio for Third Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels propaganda ministry in 1936, a full 16 years before the format first became briefly popular in the US. They are referred to as 'raum film' or 'space film'  which may be why no one ever realised since that they were 3D. Mora believes the existence of the 35mm Nazi films confirms the Germans were decades ahead as the first stereoscopic movies did not reach Hollywood on a commercial scale until 1953 with the release of André de Toth's House of Wax, starring Vincent Price.

One of the films is a carnival-set musical called So Real You Can Touch It. The other, Six Girls Roll Into Weekend, features German starlets living the high life. “The quality of the films is fantastic,” Mora said. “The Nazis were obsessed with recording everything and every single image was controlled — it was all part of how they gained control of the country and its people.”
Mora plans to work some of the 3D content into his upcoming documentary, going by the working title How the Third Reich Was Recorded. Now that he’s got a tag to search for, these so-called “raum films,” Mora will continue to search for additional examples of early 3D filmmaking from the Federal Archives.
Mora, who believes there may be more Third Reich 3D footage hidden away in Germany or elsewhere, is something of an expert on the successes of Nazi film-makers. In his 1973 film Swastika, he debuted colour footage of private home movies made by Hitler and his partner, Eva Braun, at Obersalzberg in the Bavarian alps.

Trouble in Cairo: The Force of History

Today tens of thousands of Egyptians have gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square to demand an end to military rule. Activists claim it will be the biggest day of protests so far in a week that has seen at least 41 people killed. The images being streamed back for the television news and newspapers bear a striking resemblance to those taken for the same purpose over eighty years ago, demonstrations of this kind in Cairo have a long pedigree.

Tahrir Square saw much the same manner of demonstrations and violence at the hands of the British during the Egyptian Revolution of 1919. It was, indeed, after the 1919 Revolution that the square became widely known as Tahrir (Liberation) Square, but the square was not officially renamed until the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, which changed Egypt from a constitutional monarchy into a republic. The square was a focal point for the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and now, dare I say it, might be the focal point of yet another.

 

The Egyptian Revolution of 1919 was a countrywide revolution against the British occupation of Egypt and Sudan. The British occupation was intended to be temporary, but it lasted well into the 20th century. Nationalists staged large-scale demonstrations in Cairo in 1919, five years after Egypt had been declared a British protectorate. Nevertheless, while this led to Egypt's independence in 1922, British troops remained in the country until 1956.
It was carried out by Egyptians and Sudanese from different walks of life in the wake of the British-ordered exile of revolutionary leader Saad Zaghloul, and other members of the Wafd Party, the nationalist liberal political party, in 1919. The revolution led to Britain's recognition of Egyptian independence in 1922, and the implementation of a new constitution in 1923. Britain, however, refused to recognise full Egyptian sovereignty over Sudan, or to withdraw its forces from the Suez Canal Zone, factors that would continue to sour Anglo-Egyptian relations in the decades leading up to the Egyptian Revolution of 1952.

Britain originally occupied Egypt in 1882. From 1883 to 1914, though the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan remained the official ruler of the country, ultimate power was exercised by the British Consul-General. When the Caucasus Campaign of World War I broke out between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, Britain declared martial law in Egypt and announced that it would shoulder the entire burden of the war. On December 14, 1914, Egypt became a separate sultanate, and was declared a British protectorate, thus terminating definitively the legal fiction of Ottoman sovereignty over Egypt. The terms of the protectorate led Egyptian nationalists to believe that it was a temporary arrangement that would be changed after the war through bilateral agreement with Britain.
Prior to the war, nationalist agitation was limited to the educated elite. Over the course of the war however, dissatisfaction with British rule spread amongst all classes of the population. This was the result of Egypt’s increasing involvement in the war, despite Britain's promise to shoulder the entire burden of the war. During the war, the British poured masses of foreign troops into Egypt, conscripted over one and a half million Egyptians into the Labour Corps, and requisitioned buildings, crops, and animals for the use of the army. In addition, because of allied promises during the war (such as President Wilson's Fourteen Points), Egyptian political classes prepared for self government. By war’s end the Egyptian people demanded their independence.

Shortly after the First World War armistice of November 11 was concluded in Europe, a delegation of Egyptian nationalist activists led by Saad Zaghloul made a request to High Commissioner Reginald Wingate to end the British Protectorate in Egypt and Sudan, and gain Egyptian representation at the next peace conference in Paris. The delegation also included 'Ali Sha'rawi Pasha, Abd al-Aziz Fahmi Bay, Muhammad 'Ali Bay, 'Abd al-Latif al-Makabati Bay, Muhammad Mahmud Pasha, Sinut Hanna Bay, Hamd Pasha al-Basil, Gurg Khayyat Bay, Mahmud Abu al-Nasr Bay, Mustafa al-Nahhas Bay and Dr. Hafiz 'Afifi Bay. Meanwhile, a mass movement for the full independence of Egypt and Sudan was being organized at a grassroots level, using the tactics of civil disobedience. By then, Zaghloul and the Wafd Party enjoyed massive support among the Egyptian people. Wafdist emissaries went into towns and villages to collect signatures authorizing the movement's leaders to petition for the complete independence of the country.

Seeing the popular support that the Wafd leaders enjoyed, and fearing social unrest, the British in March 1919 proceeded to arrest Zaghloul and two other movement leaders and exiled them to Malta. Between March 15 to 31, at least 3,000 Egyptians were killed, numerous villages were burnt down, large landed properties plundered and railways destroyed. "The result was revolution," according to noted professor of Egyptian history James Jankowski.
For several weeks until April, demonstrations and strikes across Egypt by students, elite, civil servants, merchants, peasants, workers, and religious leaders became such a daily occurrence that normal life was brought to a halt. This mass movement was characterised by the participation of both men and women, and by spanning the religious divide between Muslim and Christian Egyptians. The uprising in the Egyptian countryside was more violent, involving attacks on British military installations, civilian facilities and personnel. By July 25, 1919, 800 Egyptians were dead, and 1,600 others were wounded.

The British Government sent a Commission of Inquiry, known as the Milner Mission, to Egypt in December 1919 to determine the causes of the disorder and to make a recommendation about the political future of the country. Lord Milner's report, published in February 1921, recommended that the protectorate status of Egypt was not satisfactory and should be abandoned. The revolts forced London to issue a unilateral declaration of Egyptian independence on February 22, 1922.
Although the British Government offered to recognize Egypt as an independent sovereign state, this was only upon certain conditions. The following matters were reserved to the discretion of the British Government. They were: The security of the communications of the British Empire in Egypt; the defence of Egypt against foreign aggression; the protection of foreign interests in Egypt; and the Sudan.

Saad Zaghloul

The Wafd Party drafted a new constitution in 1923 based on a parliamentary representative system. Egyptian independence at this stage was provisional, as British forces continued to be physically present on Egyptian soil. Moreover, Britain's recognition of Egyptian independence directly excluded Sudan, which continued to be administered as an Anglo-Egyptian condominium. Saad Zaghloul became the first popularly elected Prime Minister of Egypt in 1924, for those who have lost their lives in Mubarak’s Egypt it's a shame Zaghloul wasn't the first of many.

Book Review: Metternich and Austria: An Evaluation

By Alan Sked

In his latest book, British historian Alan Sked deals with a not entirely easy topic: Metternich’s position in both the domestic and the foreign affairs of the Habsburg Empire. Though his book appeared a year before the two anniversaries connected with Metternich were to be commemorated in 2009 – 200 years since his appointment to the Austrian foreign ministry and 150 years since his death – it clearly proves how many one-sided evaluations of the Austrian statesman still prevail and how much research must still be carried out.




Price: £18:99
Publication Date: Palgrave Macmillan (2007)
ISBN:  978-1403991157
Buy this book

The whole book has the character of a dispute in which the author tries to refute or at least modify a considerable number of views assessing Metternich’s personality and actions, which are usually presented in black-and-white shades, with Metternich repeatedly being accused of the evils burdening Europe not only during his own period in office period but also for many decades after his death. The book is structured according to this aim, and the author offers numerous insights into the complex period of the first half of the nineteenth century. Sked begins with a necessarily longer introduction, in which he attempts to explain Metternich’s political aims with reference to a more critical view of liberal and nationalist movements; these not only brought about positive effects, but were associated with the dark side of the Great Revolution in France.

The author continues with his polemics in the following five chapters, whose titles symptomatically take the form of questions. They deal with Metternich’s role in the downfall of Napoleon, the chancellor’s position in European affairs from 1815 to 1848, his views of the administration of the Habsburg Empire, and the issue as to whether the Danube Monarchy under Metternich was a police state and oppressed people, thereby forcing them into a revolution in 1848. Sked bases his answers on his long-lasting interest in Austrian and international history of the nineteenth century. Using relevant secondary studies and published documents, he comes to conclusions that are more sympathetic to Metternich and the situation within a country that was sometimes regarded as the ‘China of Europe’. As for the internal situation of the Empire, he expands on the opinion already expressed in his previous work, The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire (1989), that the purely negative image is not tenable and that the Habsburg Monarchy was not such an awkward and weak police state as often depicted by historians in the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. Sked also assesses Metternich’s steps in European affairs and the position of Austria in the Diplomatic Concert more positively than a considerable number of earlier scholars. For example, some of Sked’s judgements on Metternich and Palmerston, mostly contradictory to those of Sir Charles Webster, whose anti- Metternichian sentiment is well known, are entirely well founded. The only problem connected with Sked’s survey is an occasional shortage of sources for the indisputable refutation of myths connected with Metternich and ‘his’ Austria.

For example, Sked’s claim that the Empire was not an oppressive police state is persuasive, but it should be reinforced by the use of more evidence than the opinions of other historians or favourable verdicts from some of Metternich’s contemporaries, whose number does not actually exceed those with negative verdicts. The use of archival sources would also be useful in the case of Metternich’s diplomatic activities, either to support certain statements which are not entirely well founded like, for example, that Metternich did indeed allow the Turks to import arms secretly from Austria during the Russian-Ottoman war from 1828 to 1829, or to shed new light on Metternich’s foreign policy, particularly for the period after 1830 (generally neglected by historians). To be fair, however, this point is directed more at historians planning to undertake new research on such topics, rather than Sked, who has presented a creditable general survey of Metternich and his time.

It's clear outlook serves as an excellent starting point for Metternichian research, and offers a corrective to older views. The reader may be surprised by a considerably more positive evaluation of Metternich and Austria than s/he has probably been accustomed to, but one cannot consider the monograph a blind adoration of the conservative statesman or his country. The book also provides new stimuli for further research, as well as underlining how much work is really needed. No matter how admirable Sked’s monograph may be, it is still a long way from a definite evaluation of Metternich and Austria in the first half of the nineteenth century, even if other scholars’ publications may well concur with many of Sked’s conclusions.

Out Today: 25 Years of Cats and Maus.

Prize-Winning Holocaust Comic writer Art Spiegelman spent 13 years writing and drawing Maus, the comic book that tells (and shows) the story his father, Vladek, a Holocaust survivor, and gave comics something the mainstream could talk about. Like all Jews in the book, Vladek appears as a mouse, while the Nazis are cats. Spiegelman rejected his parents’ aspirations for him to become a dentist and studied cartooning in high school and began drawing professionally at age 16. He has spent much of the intervening 25 years since the publication of Maus further explaining, and in some cases defending, his work. Though he has also been, rightfully, celebrated; winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1992.

Now he revisits his masterpiece from 1986 in an insightful new book MetaMAUS, an account of the books creation and reception, explain himself once and for all, and to answer questions such as what led him to tell his father's story in the first place? Why did he choose to depict the Jews as mice? How could a comic book confront the terror and brutality of the worst atrocity of the twentieth century? Not forgetting, of course, why was it he drew the British as fish? (though we're sort of fine with that).

Spiegelman is well-spoken and insightful, and is one of those rare creators who can talk coherently about his own work and process. His recollections and analysis are complemented by interviews with his wife and children, as well as a transcript of some of his original interviews with his father. MetaMaus is thoroughly illustrated with excerpts from Spiegelman's sketchbook, from the original source materials he used when creating his book, and news clippings and other ephemera from the books' storied history. The book is accompanied by a DVD with about 4GB of video and audio, including the interview that makes up the book, the original interviews with Speigelman's father, and several videos and images of the source material.

 

New Online Exhibition: American Map Making 1782-1800

www.AmericanMapmaking.com.

Boston Rare Maps, one of the country’s premier specialist dealers in rare and unusual antique maps, presents AmericanMapmaking.com, a virtual online exhibition of antique American maps from the late 18th Century.  Originally hosted at the Harvard Map Collection, Toward a National Cartography: American Mapmaking, 1782-1800 traces the evolution of mapmaking during the formative years after the American Revolution, revealing the ways in which Americans sought to transform the landscape to suit their newly established economic and political goals.  Included in the exhibition are works by renowned mapmakers such as Osgood Carleton, Andrew Ellicott, John Fitch and many others. 

Highlighting this unique exhibition is a 1792 plan for “The city of Washington in the Territory of Columbia”, now Washington D.C., by surveyor Andrew Ellicott:

The plan depicts a grand capital on the European model, with broad avenues, large public squares and dramatic sightlines.  Its unstated intent was to convey the grandeur and permanence of the national government – which at the time was only three years old, boasted a bureaucracy of fewer than 200 employees and rested on a Constitution that was feared as much as it was venerated.

The exhibition also tracks urban development in the Northeast with Osgood Carleton’s “Accurate Plan of the Town of Boston”, published in May of 1797: 

Carleton’s plan of Boston was the largest and most accurate map of the town published to date.  It was based primarily on a survey he conducted “by order of the General Court,” as part of a state mapping project begun in 1794. This was one of the last significant maps of Boston before the great land-making projects of the 19th century, which created the Back Bay.  Noteworthy landmarks include the new State House on Beacon Hill (on land that once belonged to John Hancock), as well as the Charles River and West Boston Bridges.
Additional featured works include maps of New England, Massachusetts, New York, Baltimore, North Carolina and beyond by prominent mapmakers like Dennis Griffith, Jonathan Price, Phinehas Merrill, Matthew Clark, John Norman and many others.  In addition to city plans and maps, the exhibition also includes antique postal and road maps, navigational charts, and numerous additional cartographical specimens from post-Revolution America.

For additional information or to view the virtual exhibition online, simply visit: www.AmericanMapmaking.com.