[lbo-talk] Hitler's son was a French resistance fighter

Dennis Claxton ddclaxton at earthlink.net
Thu Feb 23 00:19:42 PST 2012


Marv sent:


>Hitler had son with French teen By Peter Allen, Paris The Telegraph
>17 Feb 2012

This story somehow reminded me of Douglas Sirk. Sirk's first wife joined the Nazi party and later denounced him. Afterward Sirk never again saw the son they had together in the flesh, but did see him in Nazi propaganda films where he appeared frequently as a child star. In a book called "Sirk on Sirk" he talks about this experience and how it taught him that no one ever knows anyone:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/aug2011/sff6-a04.shtml

[...]

While many anti-fascist filmmakers, writers and artists went into exile during this time, Sirk remained in Germany, mistakenly believing that the Nazi regime would not last. He was also attempting to win access to Claus Detlef, his son from his first marriage to Lydia Brinken. Brinken, who became a fascist, publicly denounced Sirk for marrying Hilde Jary, a Jewish actress, and then stopped him seeing Detlef, who had been enrolled in the Hitler Youth by his mother and was a popular child film star.

Intensely hostile to the regime and the escalating repression, Sirk and Jary finally left Germany in 1937 and, after making two more movies in Europe, moved to the US in 1941. He never again saw his son, who was killed during the war on the Russian front.

[...]



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