Tolkien's Letter to German Censors, Two Looks

Tolkien vs. Hitler and the Nazis
Tolkien Lore : 4.VI.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dd96FrUOTQ

I

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Don't you think he was a bit unfair to Hitler as a painter?

Wouldn't it have been better if Hitler had stayed a painter?

Tolkien Lore

The world would probably be incomprehensibly better if most politicians would be painters instead. 😂

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Oh, there are indeed other politicians who should have remained painters or cooks as well ....

Schnick

This comment made my day! lol

Cian McCabe

Hans-Georg Lundahl I have often wondered what things would have been like had he just drawn landscapes my favorite version of that alternate history is where the Nazi's are led by Walt Disney instead.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

National Socialism led by Walt Disney? Hmmmm ...

II

Hans-Georg Lundahl

4:35 Would you agree that Mozart and Wagner were actually Aryan to some extent - because there is a chord involving the Hungarian Gipsy scale?

D - F # - A b - C if you compare to Hungarian Gipsy scale? This chord was used by both.

Tolkien Lore

Not well versed enough in music to intelligently answer that question, but that is a fascinating and hilarious piece of trivia if true. 😂

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You can look it up in Hungarian Gipsy Scale and in music books on Wagner and Mozart ... it is basically a Dominant seventh chord, but with a flattened fifth.

III

Hans-Georg Lundahl

6:00 "Jews are great people" [update, I am overanalysing, he already had read the actual text and gave an offhand comment.]

I think he said something about "that gifted race". He certainly, as a Catholic, said nothing of "that true faith" ...

So, while he is taking a distance from racial antisemitism, he is still prepared to the liturgy on Good Friday which involved (up to Liturgic Reform after Vatican II) "oremus et pro perfidis Judaeis" and "Deus, qui et Judaicam perfidiam a tua misericordia non repellis" ...

Cian McCabe

Hans-Georg Lundahl I'm not familiar with that particular practice but I've always thought that being Catholic requires a certain amount of respect for the Jewish people after all if it wasn't for Abraham and Moses who ever they may have been historically we would never have been gifted God's grace and love.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

According to the Catholic faith, WE are the heirs of Abraham, we are the subjects of the King of the Jews and they are the new "Samaria" (as like Samaria was between Jeroboam and the woman at Sychar).

Tolkien Lore

Citation? I’m not aware of anything in the Catholic faith that treats the Jews as being the new Samaria.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Even from that time, when Israel was rent from the house of David, and made Jeroboam son of Nabat their king: for Jeroboam separated Israel from the Lord, and made them commit a great sin."
[4 Kings (2 Kings) 17:21]

The prequel to "we have no King but Caesar".

Also, Amos calls Samaria "cows of Bashan" and Christ by citing Psalm 21 implicitly called the Jews mocking him "bulls of Bashan".

Tolkien Lore

That’s talking about Samaria, not Judea.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Look, if I consider Judaism the new Samaria, there must be some parallel to Samaria.

BULLS of Bashan - how many Samarians classical sense surrounded Christ on Calvary?

None. So Amos speaks of COWS of Bashan when it comes to literal Samaria, what kind of Samaria is BULLS of Bashan? Can we see in clue in Samaria being too feminist under Jezebel and Judaism being too machist?

I do.

Tolkien Lore

But you were saying the Catholic view was that Jews were the new Samaritans. That’s what I asked evidence for.

I’m also not sure what the Good Friday liturgy proves. It’s a prayer FOR the Jews, so if anything they are given special place rather than the reverse.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"But you were saying the Catholic view was that Jews were the new Samaritans."

Technicality.

According to the Catholic faith, = refers specifically to what I intended to say, namely the immediately following.

WE are the heirs of Abraham, we are the subjects of the King of the Jews = Catholic faith.

and they are the new "Samaria" (as like Samaria was between Jeroboam and the woman at Sychar). = my own interpretation.

So, I was not really saying the Catholic faith officially terms Jews "the new Samaria", I was just being sloppy about what was Catholic official doctrine and what was my own thoughts on it.

"It’s a prayer FOR the Jews, so if anything they are given special place rather than the reverse."

It's a prayer for their conversion. It is in context between conversion prayers for "schismatics and heretics" and for "mohammetans and idolaters".

So, yes, it is a special place, but one very close to what Samaria was. Accepting Torah, but not Davidic kingship is a bit like accepting Old but not New Testament.

Tolkien Lore

Ok, fair enough, but I still don’t see how any of this reflects negatively on Tolkien.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I never said it reflected negatively on Tolkien.

You resumed his attitude as "Jews are great people" and I recalled his actual words as "that gifted race".

I just objected to your transition from secundum quid (great talented people would be a fair resumé of what he wrote) to simpliciter (great as in great overall, no reservations).

Tolkien Lore

Considering the context of responding to Nazis, great seems like a fair (comparative) translation lol.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Tolkien would probably have wanted to be so precise on theology, that he was not just concerned with whom he was answering.

Tolkien Lore

But by that logic no people are great people, and thus the most natural way to take my comment is that they’re just as great as any other, and certainly compared to how the Nazis viewed them. Seems to me you’re just being overly nit-picky. It’s not like my statement was intended to convey any theological message, and I read his statement verbatim so I’m obviously just glossing.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"But by that logic no people are great people"

I think Tolkien would have said Spaniards and Irish were great people, not just a gifted race.

"they’re just as great as any other, and certainly compared to how the Nazis viewed them."

Being a gifted race whom it would be an honour to be part of - note, he didn't say it would have been an honour to be part of the synagogue - is great compared to how National Socialists viewed Jews, but even so, JRRT is not content to say "they are great" or "they are great compared to how you view them", he is more specific, the race is gifted.

"I read his statement verbatim"

After this resumé?

It's three weeks since I saw the video and it is possible I commented before hearing all of the video.

Tolkien Lore

Which, again, I quoted....

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Before or after time signature 6:00 ?

I stopped video at 6:00 to comment on this.

Tolkien Lore

Did you not watch the part where I literally read his letter aloud?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It was three weeks ago, you'd know better than I if it was before or after time signature 6:00 - which was it?

Tolkien Lore

Should be before.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I'll probably have to rewatch the video, but not this session at the cyber.

You did.

I might have been overtired, or I might have been forced to pause and resume later.

At three weeks distance I don't know which.

See acknowledgement in update.

My point can be restated like this.

There is a difference between telling a fan of Varadkar or Obama "I like Trump more than I like you" and telling them "there is nothing wrong whatsoever with Trump".

Exchange Varadkar or Obama for Hitler and Trump for Jews, I took Tolkien as basically saying the former and you sounded to me as taking his words in the latter sense.

Tolkien Lore

No, not at all. I was merely pointing out that Tolkien thought it would be a source of pride rather than shame to have Jewish ancestry.

Or even if not pride, at least advantage.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I agree - as long as the ancestry came without involving him in the Jewish synagogue.

I have, in that sense, the honour of being partly of that talented or gifted people as to ancestors - and of not being part of their synagogue myself.

Obviously, I am an ardent fan of Messianic Jews, ONE FOR ISRAEL and similar, despite their being Protestant ...

Hans-Georg Lundahl

PS, about as much as people like they (or for that matter not yet converted but hope he converts Pearlman) are giving me a nicer view of Jews, well, so also Trump seems to have signed an Executive Order to stop border police from separating children from parents. One more point in Trump's favour. If he signs another one to stop CPS from doing so IN the country to his own citizens, he's up a notch and on hero levels.

IV

Hans-Georg Lundahl

10:23 If I happen to have an interest in Nordic things ... and someone puts it down to an enthusiasm for Hitler (beyond his painting talents, that is!) do you think there is some similarity to the impertinent questions of some German censors in 1937 ...?

10:41 I haven't read the poem Beowulf to the full, but there is a Spanish comic book version (aesthetics similar to Conan), and I loved the scene where the Geats sit around waiting for Beowulf to come up ...

Geats know how to wait, when hope waneth ...

I think that (and how Beowulf, like Sigfrid, was a dragon killer), which persuaded St Sigfrid to become a missionary over at Skenninge and the neighbourhood ...

Cian McCabe

Hans-Georg Lundahl I've heard the man couldn't paint the human face for shit if you want to see his paintings I would advise you to find the ones with the fewest people.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

He did a lot of paintings with architecture and landscape.

His architecture is so good, one conspiracy theory I've considered is, after the war he survived and became a Disney employee, making the backgrounds for the technicolour movies.

I'm not very serious about this being the fact, but he and Disney have gorgeous architecture.

V

Hans-Georg Lundahl

11:41 Also, hindsight is always 20:20.

Whatever number of Jews were murdered, whatever was going on in the camps, Tolkien wrote in 1941 - and in 1943 it is only that the very rightwing Arvid Fredborg writes Behind the Steelwall, in which he among other things tells the world that German officers have a feeling something foul is going on ... he is actually a correspondent in Berlin for the most conservative Swedish daily.

(Note, Arvid was himself sharing some of the evils of the Nazi régime, like endorsing Eugenics)

VI

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Now, I wonder if you are as interested as I in the fact that Tolkien didn't like Azaña better than Hitler ... the letter where he and CSL met Roy Campbell?

Tolkien Lore

Doesn’t ring a bell off the top of my head.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Roy Campbell was the South African born convert to Catholicism.

JRR wrote (to Michael, I think) that he looked like Strider. He also wrote, Jack (CSL, of course) was so taken in by the Left propaganda, he couldn't believe what Roy was saying about Spanish Republican régime in fact involving persecution of Christians (I say "in fact involving" because I can't recall the exact words of JRRT and I don't want to judge on how much Azaña was directly promoting and how much he was just passively in collusion with the guys who had persecuted Carmelites).

Can't recall offhand which letter, but I could look it up.

Tolkien Lore

That sounds familiar now, but I don’t know enough of the full historical context to intelligently answer that either.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Well, how about reading a bit on the Spanish War, then ... http://ppt.li/3z6 (short link, because Firefox on this library does not allow me to copy paste full link)

http://ppt.li/3z7

VII

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Shared a link to this post.

Full links

http://ppt.li/3z6

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