And kinda cute, in a dwarfish manner. Through her work considerable effort was made to kill not only many Allies and Allied civilians, but also my own father. Can you explain this for me?
ETA: No Freudians may apply. Dad woulda probably thought her cool, too.
She was an incredibly dedicated, talented, and courageous person.
Her flight into and out of Berlin is the stuff of piloting legend.
Sadly, she was dedicated to an evil political system. And not blindly so, but with great enthusiasm and philosophical analysis.
She exists in a odd and uncomfortable location: A person who had every quality one could admire, except that she chose adherence to something horribly evil. Further, she held that adherence to the day of her death. She made no excuses. She believed her side was right.
It seems straightforward to me: You admire her bravery and so on, but you do not (I hope) admire her political views or goals. There’s no law that says that you have to feel the same way about all aspects of a person’s character.
George: Did you see the way she was looking at me?
Jerry: She’s a Nazi, George. A NAZI!
George: I know, I know…kind of a cute Nazi, though.
In the German movie Downfall she was portrayed by an actress named Anna Thalbach.
I think Leni Riefenstahl was an incredible filmmaker and photographer. I also know that she was a Nazi (if not actually a member of the Party), without any reservations about Nazi racial ideology, a propagandist (and a very good one), and came very, very close to Holocaust denial, even in the face of convincing evidence that she was well aware of what was going on. As a propagandist, she willingly made films (brilliant films) at the direct request of Hitler and Goebbels, making her something more than just a filmmaker caught up in bad times.
There’s no contradiction there.
Well, there are many people to admire who have less then, shall we say, ethical traits?
-Charles Lindbergh was a racist and a Nazi sympathizer
-Margarer Sanger supported eugenics (although contrary to popular belief, she wasn’t a Nazi)
Or look at Roman Polanski, to mention something current. The man’s a rapist. Does that mean you can’t admire his films?
Sometimes, you can admire someone’s work, without admiring the person themself.
Does that make sense?
Sorta, but in the OP’s case, I assume she/he is admiring someone’s inate quality (bravery, piloting skills), not a standalone product, like art.
You can admire Michael jackson’s inate talent (dancing, composing) without actually liking his genre of music, or (if you believe the allegations) his pedophilia.
She really had some remarkable aviation experiences. She flew the Komet rocket fighter, a piloted version of the V-1 and demonstrated one of the first practical helicopters. She won the Iron Cross, first class and was with Hitler in the Bunker. For a woman in that era especially in the sexist Nazi regime she is to be admired, but she was a committed dedicated nazi. It pulls your emotions.
Not mine. She was a Nazi. End of story. Does anyone get their emotions pulled by dedicated, courageous al Qaeda terrorists?
I believe I have seen some of that attitude directed more towards Hamas and Hezbollah, on these boards. (Not so much al Qaeda, I will grant you.)
The actions (launching rockets into Isreal, suicide bombers) are occasionally painted as actions of “freedom fighters”.
I don’t have the search skills to call up cites, and I don’t want to derail a thread. If I have misunderstood the characterisations of these groups, please forgive.
How about Bill Maher.
“We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly.”
Good ol’ Dio. Often wrong, but never in doubt.
Eh, his point was just that you can’t call them cowardly (and I agree), it wasn’t an expression of admiration.
I hadn’t thought about comparing the 9/11 hijackers to Reitsch until Dio made his comment. There are some similarities.
That was not a statement of admiration or praise, he was just saying it was stupid to call them “cowards” or to say they weren’t capable of physical courgae. The point is that physical courage is not an indication of moral virtue. It’s possible to be a bad person and still be brave.
That was what I thought we were talking about with respect to Reitsch. Admirable courage and dedication in the service of evil Or, as succinctly phrased by E-Sabbath in the first reply:
Bravery is an admirable trait, so many people would find something admirable in Reicht, as a groundbreaking aviatrix, with the caveat that she was yoked to an evil politician, and his evil political philosophy. I don’t think anyone was commenting on her notably absent ‘moral virtue’
Your initial comment was more black and white, while your subsequent comment (quoted above) is more nuanced:
You cannot help but cover everything good she might’ve done with her 100% dedicatoin to Nazi ideology. (Kind of the opposite to Luther’s “dunghills covered in snow”)
You can, however, while examining the history of avitaion marvel at the action rather than the person doing it.
I can admire, for instance, the tactical prowess of one of Rommel’s attacks IN THE CONTEXT of studying war.
But yeah, she sucks big donkey dick.
I can’t help but reflexively feel a bit of admiration for the sharply intelligent, humorous, feisty grandma image shown in the OP’s linked video. But if the interviewer had been able to coax out her views on the Jews or Slavs, and what should have been done with them, I think watching her expound on that subject with the same twinkle in her eye would create a dissonant feeling of shock and disgust.
Lindbergh was so loved by the top Nazis that Goering personally saw to it that shortly before the war he was shown lots of impressive secret new technology that the Germans were working on. He fully briefed the US military when he returned to the US. In short, he said a lot of things friendly to Nazis and hurt his reputation by doing so. In return, he was a very effective spy.