# P.G. Wodehouse, Nazi sympathizer/collaborationist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 8, 2005, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726 "2005-12-08T18:07:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2015, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/41 "2015-10-07T13:52:23Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > Point of order. This debate has little to do with evil. The Nazi’s were not unquestionably evil during this period(before and during Wodehouse’s broadcasts). Or they were no less evil than many others the British had faced and indeed were to ally themselves with only months later. You need to take this up with wolfpup in post #24. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2015, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/42 "2015-10-07T14:13:47Z")
I can’t believe I missed (probably) the only Wodehouse thread we’ve ever had. Getting back to the zombie portion, I have three thoughts: one, I drive a VW and own various Braun electronic and I’d happily own a Porsche, so apparently reflexive avoidance of businesses with some Nazi sympathies in their history is not one of my qualities (or failings, depending on your point of view). Similarly, I’d happily accept a Nobel if they had one for lawyering or making toasted salami sandwiches. Two, Wodehouse died before I was born, so I need not concern myself too much with who benefits from my book-buying dollars. Three, the character of Roderick Spode makes it fairly clear to me that Wodehouse was anything but a fascist sympathizer. There is a blog I won’t link to which suggests that he had anti-Jewish views based on some “potentially” Jewish characters in his early (non-Drones, non-Wooster) works, but the evidence is rather thin. ETA: _Pearls, Girls & Monty Bodkin_ is still the best thing ever printed in the English language. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2015, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/43 "2015-10-07T21:57:13Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > There is a blog I won’t link to which suggests that he had anti-Jewish views based on some “potentially” Jewish characters in his early (non-Drones, non-Wooster) works, but the evidence is rather thin. IMO it depends on how PC you want to be. Wodehouse definitely played on Jewish stereotypes (and not just in his “early (non-Drones, non-Wooster) works”). For example, the Cohen brothers, ultra-pushy salesmen and proprietors of a secondhand clothing store, make multiple appearances, or his various Hollywood/show biz magnates, mostly with Jewish names (Blumenfeld, Schnellenhammer, Levitsky). By today’s hypersensitive standards, these are pushing it. I myself think it you need to work with the standards in place at the time, and these were unoffensive by those standards (and did not indicate any antipathy to Jews). ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2015, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/44 "2015-10-07T21:59:10Z")
IIRC, all the showbiz magnate characters were portrayed in an appealing light, except for presumably-not-Jewish Ivor Lewellyn. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2015, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/45 "2015-10-07T22:01:12Z")
I disagree. They were generally tightfisted, tyrannical, took credit for accomplishments that they had no connection to, and more. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/46 "2015-10-08T09:00:16Z")
Meh. That sounds like how many _Jewish_ writers caricature _executives_ they’ve worked with in publishing and film–often based on (ethnically if not ethically) Jewish executives they’ve worked with. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/47 "2015-10-08T09:56:33Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > IMO it depends on how PC you want to be. Wodehouse definitely played on Jewish stereotypes (and not just in his “early (non-Drones, non-Wooster) works”). > > For example, the Cohen brothers, ultra-pushy salesmen and proprietors of a secondhand clothing store, make multiple appearances, or his various Hollywood/show biz magnates, mostly with Jewish names (Blumenfeld, Schnellenhammer, Levitsky). > > By today’s hypersensitive standards, these are pushing it. I myself think it you need to work with the standards in place at the time, and these were unoffensive by those standards (and did not indicate any antipathy to Jews). Well, of course – times were very, very different then, and both racism and anti-Semitism were quite prevalent in the years before WW II. Wodehouse was no more anti-Semitic than the producers of the _Jack Benny Show_ were racist when they cast the part of Rochester as Benny’s hapless black valet – and probably a good deal less so, since Wodehouse pretty much had a warm heart, a cup of tea and a crumpet or a cookie for everyone, including our four-legged friends. Wodehouse just wasn’t affected by the same cultural constraints and implications that ethnic references would have today. The Hollywood studio owners were given exotic Jewish names to reflect Wodehouse’s actual reality of the time, nothing more. So many of the studio owners of the day had names just like that, along with various pretentious grandiose studio names, and Wodehouse exploited it all to comedic effect. They appeared to be superficially dominating and terrifying, but they would melt and cower before their wives, or run and hide when a top studio actress was having a temper tantrum. It was all in fun. I can only assume that the Cohen brothers were a comedic reflection of the same common experience of the time. BTW, it wasn’t a second-hand clothing store they owned, it seemed to be an emporium selling virtually everything. In one story, recalling loosely from memory, the main character remarked in exasperation that he only came in for one item and didn’t _ **need** _ all the stuff the Cohen brothers were bringing him – “you may as well sell me a bowl of goldfish and a sewing machine”. Whereupon various brothers were immediately dispatched to fetch a goldfish bowl and a sewing machine from the inner sanctum of their emporium. The brothers had everything! 😃 There was actually lots of popular literature of the day that had really strong overtones of racism and bigotry, and it’s really to the credit of Wodehouse that his works contain little or none despite the times they were written in. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/48 "2015-10-08T14:12:32Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > BTW, it wasn’t a second-hand clothing store they owned, it seemed to be an emporium selling virtually everything. In one story, recalling loosely from memory, the main character remarked in exasperation that he only came in for one item and didn’t _ **need** _ all the stuff the Cohen brothers were bringing him – “you may as well sell me a bowl of goldfish and a sewing machine”. Whereupon various brothers were immediately dispatched to fetch a goldfish bowl and a sewing machine from the inner sanctum of their emporium. The brothers had everything! 😃 It was officially a second-hand clothing store, but also had a lot of other stuff, as in [the story you refer to](https://books.google.com/books?id=-4jKL9zk9KIC&pg=PA200&lpg=PA200&dq=secondhand-clothing+establishment+of+the+Bros.+Cohen&source=bl&ots=HPK1lNwHBM&sig=fXLFVfZQttXTOrbcOMUz7XIOCLU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIq62G44KzyAIVyqoeCh3fOQRG#v=onepage&q=secondhand-clothing%20establishment%20of%20the%20Bros.%20Cohen&f=false). The fact that it was described as a secondhand clothing store is itself a play to a [Jewish stereotype](http://onthemainline.blogspot.com/2011/01/not-fan-of-mordecai-manuel-noah.html) (see also: [here](http://www.bjpa.org/publications/downloadFile.cfm?FileID=4388)). ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/49 "2015-10-08T14:22:15Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I disagree. They were generally tightfisted, tyrannical, took credit for accomplishments that they had no connection to, and more. Are you thinking of any particular character or story here? I can’t think of anyone who was quite like that except the studio boss in the Mulliner story about the gorilla, and I don’t think he ever actually appeared in the story except in references by others. > [@foolsguinea](#): > > Meh. That sounds like how many _Jewish_ writers caricature _executives_ they’ve worked with in publishing and film–often based on (ethnically if not ethically) Jewish executives they’ve worked with. Yeah, but that’s the distinction between “in group” and “out group” stereotyping. Black people can say things about black people that white people can’t, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/50 "2015-10-08T14:26:00Z")
Quite right, thanks for the correction. I also got the example wrong – he already had the bowl of goldfish thrust upon him, the new items were a cocked hat and a sewing machine! 😃 Also surprised to see the venerable “Most of P.G. Wodehouse” is a Google Book – at least parts of it are. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/51 "2015-10-08T14:36:14Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Are you thinking of any particular character or story here? I can’t think of anyone who was quite like that except the studio boss in the Mulliner story about the gorilla, and I don’t think he ever actually appeared in the story except in references by others. That same boss appears in a bunch of other Mulliner stories, e.g. _The Castaways_, _The Rise of Minna Nordstrom_, _The Nodder_, and others. [Blumenfeld is the idiot theater producer who insists on running his plays based on the whims of his 8 year old son. Appears in a few Wooster stories.] ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/52 "2015-10-13T17:39:56Z")
Regarding Orwell, Christopher Hitchens observed that Orwell didn’t do a lot of (indeed, any) writing about how bad fascists were because, Hitchens thought, Orwell viewed fascists as pests and vermin, not worth the effort of analysis. I can this translating to not a lot of concern about hassling people like Wodehouse after the war. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/53 "2015-10-13T19:46:26Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > This has to be the most hyperbolically inane thing Orwell ever said. The only possible mitigating factor might be that in 1945, he was unaware of the complete range of “morally disgusting” things done by the regimes supported by people such as…Ezra Pound, for example. I read Orwell as meaning “in _our_ war”, i.e., done by our side. ---
**Author:** ![Octarine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/22d042/32.png) [@Octarine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octarine)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/54 "2015-10-13T20:27:51Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Regarding Orwell, Christopher Hitchens observed that Orwell didn’t do a lot of (indeed, any) writing about how bad fascists were because, Hitchens thought, Orwell viewed fascists as pests and vermin, not worth the effort of analysis. I can this translating to not a lot of concern about hassling people like Wodehouse after the war. It could also be because he though the word fascist was so overused, [it had lost almost all meaning](http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc). In any case, he wrote a great amount disparaging fascism/totalitarianism, whatever terms he used. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/55 "2015-10-14T20:15:29Z")
After having skimmed the [broadcasts](http://www.pgwodehousebooks.com/berlin.htm), then only way in which I could see them as Nazi propaganda is that he makes light of his German internment. Possibly giving the impression that the Germans treated their prisoners well, and that being captured was no big deal. The same could be said for Hogan’s heroes. Given the light hearted style of all of his writing, its hard to believe he could have written it any other way. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/56 "2015-10-14T20:25:36Z")
_Hogan’s Heroes_ first aired 20 years after the war, so it’s not really a good comparison. Plus hardly any British people would know what it was. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726/57 "2015-10-15T10:28:36Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > After having skimmed the [broadcasts](http://www.pgwodehousebooks.com/berlin.htm), then only way in which I could see them as Nazi propaganda is that he makes light of his German internment. Possibly giving the impression that the Germans treated their prisoners well, and that being captured was no big deal… > > Given the light hearted style of all of his writing, its hard to believe he could have written it any other way. Quite: of course he wasn’t in any serious sense a Nazi sympathiser or collaborator, let alone a traitor, just someone trying to get along with a difficult situation. The feeling whipped up against him probably had more to do with resentment as to his apparent sense of priority for his own interests - keeping up contact with his American publisher and readership - without thinking about how it might be seen. Much the same was whipped up against Gracie Fields in 1940: she thought she was doing her best both to support her family and do something for the war effort without returning from America (her husband had never got round to giving up his Italian nationality), but it looked like a sense of over-entitlement and “one law for the rich” (which stood in huge contrast to the public image she’d had before the war). There are German newsreels from the early days of the Norway campaign where British POWs were interviewed and said they were being well treated. I don’t know what sort of criticisms were levelled at them, either at the time or subsequently: hundreds of thousands of POWs would probably have been sending home letters saying much the same thing or at least putting on a brave face. (My own father’s first letter home was much along those lines; my mother noted that high among his concerns in the first contact after months of not knowing whether he was alive was “PS: Please send curry powder”). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/p-g-wodehouse-nazi-sympathizer-collaborationist/334726.md?page=2)