August 16, 2023

ALTERED STATE FASH ACTORS (Pt. IV): The German Varieties of Hypno-Fascism, Babylon Berlin, Mad Doktors Schmidt, Black Reichswehr, & National Social Darwinists—TASTER

25 minutes

Welcome back to PPM. We're finally touching down in the Babylon Berlin, beginning our incisive cross-section of the hypnotic influence on the rise of Nazism in the Weimar Republic.

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Anyways, we hop on the Hindenburg & pop over to Babylon Berlin, where we use BB character Dr. Anno Schmidt as a prism thru which we can examine a handful of historical hypno valences...

Necessary Babylon Berlin exposition; protagonists - Vice & later Homicide Detective Gereon Rath (which I accidentally keep mispronouncing in this EP) & the assistant gumshoe Charlotte; we break down Dr. Schmidt's inhumane experiments w/ the methamphetamine Pervitin on weasels, wolves, & even humans; foreshadows of the Nazi weaponization of psychoactive drugs to program their shock troops into fearless Übermensch-berserkers; Dr. Schmidt's Institute for Suggestive Therapy (hypno-suggestive title there), where he uses hypnosis to treat WWI vets, morphine addicts, & the homeless; points of reference for Dr. Schmidt's character: Erik Jan Hanussen, Dr. Max Nonne, & Dr. Mabuse from Fritz Lang films; some antecedents of the rise of Nazism—economic imperialism, residual wartime mass trauma, cultural hegemony, mass manipulation; night club Moka Efti, which actually existed; themes of automatism, transhumanism, & Social Darwinism; Gereon's fraught relationship w/ his brother Dr. Schmidt; wartime service together; S1 & S2 bookended w/ scenes of Gereon being hypnotized by Schmidt; Dr. Schmidt's name = real life Dr. Heinrich Schmidt, a wretched SS member & "First Camp Physician" at Buchenwald, Dachau, etc.; the real life Schmidt's prosecution post-WWII; accusations against him, including that he murdered 8 ppl by withholding care & the selection of gas chambers; the fact that real Dr. Schmidt may have been acquitted, in part, because of his repeated collaboration w/ the Allies immediately following the war—including acting as a witness in the Bergen-Belsen Trials & the fact that he worked as "Senior Doctor" at the Allied-run Bergen-Belsen Displaced Persons Camp immediately following Nazi surrender

Alt., we consider Dr. Schmidt as allusion to Ernst Schmidt, a fellow messenger that was present on a dangerous courier mission when a Brit grenade exploded & shot shrapnel into Lance Corporal Hitler's leg; we compare this incident to the crucial moment of Gereon's abandonment of his brother Dr. Schmidt in no man's land; Schmidt brings us to Hitler's near-death in the Maximillian II barracks after the war, when he Freikorps executed 1 out of 10 soldiers stationed there for suspicions of being Red Army; Hitler spying; a Palm Sunday Putsch reference; further similarities between Dr. Anno Schmidt & Hitler, including their respective gas attacks & interest in the occult; speaking of which, Dr. Schmidt is a member of the Fraternitas Saturni; the nightmarish mustard gas lung "sloughing" effect; we explore the Black Reichswehr; we juxtapose the Black Reichswehr & Freikorps w/ the American Legion; we compare the dinner that Gereon attends at his fascist Polizei partner Bruno's house & the "stab-in-the-back" myths promulgated during it to W.D. Pelley's antisemitism; direct connections b/w Black Reichswehr & Nazis; the Küstrin Putsch & attempt to overthrow Gustav Stresemann's administration; Gereon's partner Bruno's name probably being a reference to Black Reichswehr commando Bruno Buchrucker; a possible connection b/w paramilitaries & hypnotherapy in the show... via the Black Reichswehr's primary funder, the German industrialist fail-son Alfred Nyssen (who is definitely a composite of Thyssen & Krupp); Nyssen is a manic depressive & his doktor is, you guessed it, Anno Schmidt,

Songs & Clips:

| Johnny Klimek & Tom Tykwer - "Babylon Berlin" (OST) |

| Meret Becker & Meute - "Ein Tag wie Gold" (Babylon Berlin OST) |

"Military Reunion & Gereon's Flashbacks" - Scene from S1, EP 7

Clip from YouTube doc "Birth of a Führer: The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler"

...more

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By Klonny Gosch

4.9

6161 ratings