Tea at Trianon: Women of the Third Reich

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, August 20, 2020

Women of the Third Reich

From Medium:

The women in Hitler’s closest circle came from different backgrounds, held different positions, and played different roles in his life and that of the Reich. Generally married to prominent figures of the Third Reich, they were ardent admirers of it and shared the days of glory or trial with him.

This image could be presented as a kind of chivalrous epic regarding Carin, Goering’s first wife. The two represented the classic couple in love from the Nazi period, as opposed to the “ideal family”, represented by the couple Magda and Joseph Goebbels. The love story between the Nordic goddess and the hero of German aviation was idealized and especially much publicized, even after the premature death of Carin, in 1931, she is the heroine of the beginnings of National Socialism. Carin’s devotion to Hitler had been almost fanatical. She considered Hitler a kind of Messiah, who would lead Germany to a bright future. (Read more.)