words of interest
Jan. 13th, 2013 03:31 pmA "bit of student doggerel" that caught my eye:
The old Germanic tribesmen on both banks of the
Rhine
Lay spread out bearskins, drinking their wine,
When, with German greeting, a Roman entered
their midst
"Heil Hitler, you Germans, 'tis I - Tacitus."
- from "The Hitler Salute: On the meaning of a gesture" by Tilman Allert, p. 58.
An interesting commentary on the Hitler salute and why it became so prevalent; for the most part, the book was dry and too focused on sociological themes, but a few bits of information managed to spark through. The poem above speaks to the belief that the Nazi party tried to say the salute was rooted in Germanic history, while the Italian Fascists maintained that it was copying their own salute. (Yup, I'm a history geek).
The old Germanic tribesmen on both banks of the
Rhine
Lay spread out bearskins, drinking their wine,
When, with German greeting, a Roman entered
their midst
"Heil Hitler, you Germans, 'tis I - Tacitus."
- from "The Hitler Salute: On the meaning of a gesture" by Tilman Allert, p. 58.
An interesting commentary on the Hitler salute and why it became so prevalent; for the most part, the book was dry and too focused on sociological themes, but a few bits of information managed to spark through. The poem above speaks to the belief that the Nazi party tried to say the salute was rooted in Germanic history, while the Italian Fascists maintained that it was copying their own salute. (Yup, I'm a history geek).