James W. King
Cryofax (jack_shappa@hotmail.com): "Here I go again, with another 'Geez

is the deal with the JWK bashing?' post. I'm sorry but his reply just

be in the vein of the whole discussion. It was a well thought reply to a

made by another during a debate. That makes him an asshole?"

Wes Hutchings (<A

"His single-minded ability to see Nazis in EVERYTHING is the problem."

James King: "Liar! I have qualified every use of the term 'Nazi' in

post of mine which ever mentioned the word. It's not my fault that you

find a single credible argument to rebut the merits of my points,

since George Lucas has now more than validated my concerns. And I defy you

prove otherwise in credible and lucid terms. *I absolutely defy you to do

C'Pi
Wes Hutchings: "We have, on numerous occassions. The one which I did so

James W. King
succinctly was when you described the Nazi breeding program as synonomous

that of the Jedi, forgetting that the Jedi don't have a breeding

C'Pi
James King: "Liar! I alluded to how the Jedi's taking of

James W. King
Force-capable-qualifying babies and toddlers away from their families was

grimly evocative of that division of the Nazi Liebensborn program which

*already-born children* with 'good Aryan German features' (blond hair,

eyes, 'Aryan' facial shape) away from their non-'Aryan'-German parents in

countries occupied by the Third Reich."

Wes Hutchings: "Show where I lied."

James King: "I just did above. (Duhhhhh!)"

__________________________________________

Wes Hutchings: "Since the children the Jedi have 'taken' to date have

be given voluntarily and have not been placed in a breeding program and in

only number to 10k in a entire galaxy, your point is again shit."

James King: "Bogus issue and false parallel. I have never compared the

appropriation of young children from their parents to the other 'baby

breeding programs of the Leibensborn program anyway. And I defy you to go

www.google.com/groups and find statements to that effect supposedly

myself. *I absolutely defy you to do so.* "As to the number 10,000 for the number of Jedi in Faraway Galaxy at

time of the Prequels, I do not include Padewans in that number because

not full-fledged Jedi. We could also suppose that some elderly Jedi

too, and wouldn't be counted in that number because they're no longer

For if the Jedi are to be anything remotely like a thin blue line of

a galaxy teaming with trillions of inhabitants, the number 10,000 ought to apply only to those full-fledged, still-active Jedi and not include

and retired (no-longer-active) Jedi. "But your argument of numbers (that there are only some 10,000 Jedi in

galaxy in the Prequel-Trilogy period) is beside the point. Thus far, the

children taken away from their families haven't yet been portrayed as

any regular or sporadic contact with their birth parents or families --

*that's* yet another compelling factor that puts me off altogether,

that similarity makes its comparison to the occupied-territory-child-appropriation division of the Leibensborn program

the more striking, since those children taken by the Nazis from their

were never meant to see their birth families again, either. So, it matters

how many children the Jedi took away from their families, for even if they

away only one child under such birth-family-disassociative conditions,

already one child too many."

C'Pi (<A HREF="mailto:jas221@yahoo.com">jas221@yahoo.com</A>): "False

It has yet to be shown that even one child has been taken away and disassociated from its family."

Bogus! I note that you've not cited one fact to the contrary from any

Wars book. We already know that parents are at least morally, if not also legally, obligated to surrender their Force-capacity-qualifying children

Jedi Temple --

if parents indeed have any say in the matter.

But none of those children in any of the books that I've read thus far has had any sort of homecoming with their birth families much less a holo-letter from home.

C'Pi: "In fact you have yet to show any evidence that Jedi training is at

reminiscent of the Nazi Leibensborn program, other than that both groups

children out."

The issue does not concern "Jedi training" per se. The issue is its recruitment policy, namely the obligatory conscription of Force-capacity-qualifying children into the Jedi Temple.

C'Pi: "It has not been shown that children have ever been taken from and disassociated from their family."

On the contrary, it's been prior established that such is the case.

Notably, you didn't cite any episodes from any Star Wars book or comic

a Jedi Padewan received a holo-letter from home much less got to go home

visit his birth parents.

On the whole, though, if Lucas is going to defend this Jedi practice

creative terms, I believe it would be immensely helpful to venture to

it in compelling detail and indeed, *if* the practice is not coercive,

some book in the future should include such an establishing scene as the parents of a young Force-capacity-qualifying child surrender their child

Jedi Temple. Such a scene would provide a touchstone from which to better relate to the young Jedi Padewan character as he/she matures and

his/her Jedi training.

C'Pi: "It is interesting, and an insight into you, that you continue to

link this movie plot with Nazism when other and better parallels exist.

have to look no further than children being placed in Tibetan or Thai

monasteries or the Shaolin monastery in China to receive training and conditioning to be monks. Something they will then be for the rest of

life. This is a much more analogous to the Jedi, than a group of people

had a forced adoption program."

On the contrary, I have seen such a news program about that child who

to become the new Dalia Llama under the express permission of China which

dominates Tibet. (The real Dalai Llama is in exile.) However, even that

was not prevented from contacting and receiving visits from his birth

(Because of his exalted status as the new Dalai Llama, his freedom was

though, especially since his becoming Dalai Llama was under the aegis of

which hopes to make him their puppet of sorts.)

What's more, the Buddhist angle would not be a satisfying comparison either, since Nazi occult beliefs state that their ancient "Aryan"

were the surviving overlords of Atlantis who fled and migrated to high

in the Himalayas where *they* founded Buddhism. During the 1930s, Heinrich Himmler's own Occult Bureau sent several anthrolopological expeditions to

to investigate and substantiate the supposed origins of the "Aryan" German race. They went there looking to study an obscure tribe of native Tibetans still living there who didn't look all that Asian in appearance.

the Nazis felt that those particular native Tibetans were themselves the descendants of their own ancestors, the alleged "first Aryans."

I found a example of this Nazi occult belief about the origins of

in a 1940s autobiography of a Dutch reporter who tells about some of the

he'd met during his career, including the unusual expatriate Brit

he'd met in the heyday of both Wiemar and Nazi Germany who mysteriously

up now and them to relate his adventures about circulating among the seats

power in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

C'Pi
Excerpt from pages 122-124 from the non-fiction book entitled "Days of

James W. King
Years: 1903-1938" by Dutch reporter Pierre van Paassen (1939, Garden City Publishing Company, New York), an autobiography of his years as a student

newspaper reporter in Europe and the Middle East:

One of the strangest figures to come to The World newspaper's office

Paris in the late '20s through the mid' 30s, where there was a daily flow

visitors, was Ignace Trebitsch-Lincoln. Said to be a son of Jewish

Trebitsch, when I knew him, had been a Catholic priest in Vienna, an

clergyman in London, a Member of the Parliament in Westminister [in

and was said to have been a secret agent for Germany in the USA and Canada during World War I. He had been secretary to the USSR's Leon Trotsky,

adviser to one of the Chinese governments and had some title at the court

Afghanistan. He always knew --- sometimes months in advance -- what was

to happen, but he never revealed his sources. This gave him an air of

although there was nothing fundementally mysterious about him.

He was a restless soul, the Wandering Jew par excellence, who vainly

for peace of mind in all the highways and byways of life. Personal success

the least of his concerns. He could have carved a brilliant career in half

dozen professions, and had more than once started out, only to break off suddenly, cut all his attachments and connections, and turn up on another

altogether. He was a marvelous writer, but he seldom had the patience to

down long enough to compose an article. He blew in, made some startling announcement that left everybody flabbergasted, and went out again. Once (coming from Italy, I think) he brought the news that the French

decided to occupy the Ruhr Valley. The Ruhr was occupied four months

In 1929, he predicted Hitler's advent to power in the spring of

four years before it actually happened. Everybody had just smiled in

at that prophecy when he first made it back in 1929.

He disappeared for long periods, but whenever he came back, the story

experiences sounded more incredible.

Once he dropped in from India and began sending frantic telegrams to

George in London, asking the former British Premier to intercede with authorities there for a landing permit to enable him [Trebitsch] to fly to England. His only son, found guilty of murder, had been sentenced to die

gallows [by hanging]. Trebitsch had rushed all the way from Indo-China to

a last word with his boy. Britain had deprived Trebitsch of his

his pro-German activities during World War I. When Lloyd George did not

Trebitsch tried every one of his former parliamentary colleagues, all to

avail.

I sat with him there in Paris, waiting for the dawn, early on the

when his son would be hanged. When the first streaks of light appeared in

east, the tension became unbearable. He rushed outside and clenched his

at the rising sun. The blood streamed from his mouth and nostrils

caused by his rising blood pressure]. Then he sat slumped over on the curb

the street, moaning like a wounded animal. When he had recovered his

the boy over in England was dead.

Thereafter, it was in 1930, Trebitsch disappeared. In the summer of

he was back, but this time he was waring the yellow robe of a Buddhist

noticed him at the wicket in the Gare du Nord buying a ticket for Berlin.

"I see," I said to him, "that you have gone back to the yarmakle,"

to his tight-fitting skullcap of a type that his Jewish ancestors must

worn in Hungary.

"I announce to you," replied Trebitsch gravely, "the doctrine that is glorious in the beginning, glorious in the middle, and glorious in the

the Gospel of Our Lord Buddha."

Trebitsch said he was on his way to see the Fuhrer [Adolf Hitler] and

leaders of the neo-pagan movement in the Third Reich [Nazi Germany]. "Buddhism," he explained, "is purely Aryan religion, and if the German

want to have done with that Jewish cult known as 'Christianity,' ...."

I wished him the best of luck in his meeting with Hitler but never

how he fared. Before boarding the train, he gave me his new Chinese name

the address of the monastery in Ceylon of which he was the abbot. "If you

want to say goodbye to all this," Trebitsch said with a broad sweep of his yellow sleeve,"come and see me and I'll make a monk out of you."

________________________________________

C'Pi: "Since these parallels are so obvious and a much better fit to the movie, then I am left with little choice but to think that your

interest and nostalgia for WW II and Nazi Germany have clouded your

perceive things clearly."

Since you've failed to offer one iota of rebuttal of those points as

token attempt to undermine their merits, I am not edified by your

conclusions. For only if you can credibly discredit in specific terms the merits of the exact arguments I offered, you're only whining disbelief.

Moreover, major aspects of Lucas' Star Wars trilogy have *already*

cited in no uncertain terms as having been influenced by Nazi Germany. And those particular citations were approved for publication by none other

Lucas himself.

C'Pi
Excerpt from Chapter Two, "The Makings of Modern Myth: Cultural &

James W. King
Influences" from "Star Wars: The Magic of Myth," the companion volume to

Star Wars exhibition at the National Air & Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, by Mary Henderson (1997, Bantam-Spectra Books):

World War II

The trilogy's Galactic Empire was also influenced by real-life

concerns, capturing a cross section of images and attitudes from the

surrounding its creation. Lucas was born at the end of World War II and

in its aftermath. The Nazi concentration camps revealed all too clearly

humans could inflict the worst possible horror upon other humans, and the

of the atom bomb demonstrated that we could wipe ourselves out without any

from space invaders.

In Star Wars, the Death Star can be viewed as the ultimate nuclear

and the look of the Imperial Army is clearly influenced by the Nazis.

There are other references to Germany and World War II in Star Wars

beyond the costuming. Lucas called one group of Imperial soldiers the "stormtroopers" -- this was also the name given Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguards. Out of this group, Hitler created the elite black-coated Schutzstaffel (protection squad), or SS. The SS became "a state within a state," taking the police function and military and civilian intelligence

forming such feared groups as the Gestapo -- the "Death's Head Battalion"

charge of the concentration camps -- as well as a number of military

They were all loyal to Hitler himself rather than to the party or

and they struck terror throughout occupied Europe.

There is something of the SS in Vader, with his all-black robes and

and his obsessive obedience to the Emperor. As for the Emperor himself,

prologue to the novelization of the first film, "Star Wars: From the

of Luke Skywalker," tells us that Senator Palpatine was elected president

the Republic and then declared himself emperor, exterminating his

This brief summary matches Hitler's story; from the leadership of the

Nazi Party, he got himself elected chancellor of Germany, then vaulted

presidency, which he turned into a dictatorship, declaring himself the "F?hrer," or supreme leader. Hitler then shut himself away from any real contact with the people; he was surrounded instead by his personal

who were pledged to defend him to the death. The Emperor, too, has

himself, giving audience only to a few of the select, always protected by

Red Guards.

Hitler officially ended the German Republic by passing an act that

absolute rule. Early on in Star Wars, Grand Moff Tarkin informs the other officers that the Emperor has permanently dissolved the Imperial Senate

that the last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away. . . .

Even more important than the political structure, however, is the atmosphere of rigid control and dehumanization that characterizes Star

Empire. This ambiance seems chillingly reminiscent of the fascism of

Nazi Germany.

__________________________________________

What's more, George Lucas conceived the basic storylines for the

Jones movies, two of which are filled with Nazis and demonstrate his familiarity with Nazi occult ideology.

The Nazis and Nazi-occult themes are also major elements in most of the other Indiana Jones-related games,

comics, too -- all also approved by Lucas himself.

-- James King