The Absurd GOP

[Rev. Rye]

You know what this reminds me of? I’m a big fan of the cinema or Weimar Germany (IMHO, it’s where the art form really grew up). Unfortunately, if you know anything about Weimar Germany, you know what happened afterward. Some of the people involved in making those films (Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang, Conrad Veidt, Peter Lorre, Robert Siodmak, and Marlene Dietrich just to name a few) had the good sense to get the Hell out of Germany while the getting was good. Some, however, did not. Some laid low politically, some died in the camps, but some (see Emil Jannings and Leni Riefenstahl for the most galling examples) actually sucked up to Der Führer. 

But one thing I haven’t found in my studies: an actor from one of these films who pivoted from Weimar-era actor to full-blown member of the SS or the Gestapo. The closest example I can think of is Leni Riefenstahl, and even then, while it’s an incontrovertible fact that A: her films helped prop up the legitimacy of the Nazi regime, and B: contrary to her claims from 1946 on, she definitely knew about the horrific shit they were doing even early on; it seems like when it comes to hands-on participation in actual atrocities, the closest we have is an incident in September 1939 in Konskie, Poland that seems to have played out like Tuco killing No-Doze except on a larger level (to her credit, if photos are any indication, she appears to have been suitably horrified by the incident.)

Now, we have Dean Cain doing something that even the most craven opportunists of Weimar Cinema don’t seem to have done: deciding to do Hitler’s dirty work themselves.