Update on a Blacklisted Book

After some further investigation, this is what seems to have happened.  The Chinese publisher of my book Bending Spines sent out some copies to a major Chinese mail order company.  After those had been shipped, they got a call from a government official instructing them not to ship any more.  Apparently, they were not ordered to recall the copies already released.  Perhaps as many as a thousand copies are thus “in the wild” in China.  It is anyone’s guess if and when the government may change its mind and allow further distribution.

Bytwerk Book Banned in China

My book Bending Spines: The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic has been translated into French and Chinese.  The Chinese edition appeared in July, and Chinese contacts tell me that was banned shortly afterward by the Chinese government.

I’m trying to get more details, which I will post here as I learn them.  Apparently the book’s discussion of totalitarianism and propaganda did not meet the approval of the Chinese authorities.

UPDATE:  The book remains available in Hong Kong.

Two Advertising Flyers for “Der Stürmer”

A friend of the site provided these two promotional flyers for Julius Streicher’s Der Stürmer a while back, which it took me a while to get around to adding.

They look to be from the mid-1930’s, and I am sure were part of a larger set.  If you happen to have others in the series, I’d appreciate images.

Nazi Press Directives on the Invasion of the Soviet Union

For another purpose I’ve been looking through the Zeitschriften-Dienst again.  It was a weekly newsletter for magazine editors with instructions on how to cover the news.  I thought it would be interesting to trace instructions on the Soviet Union, beginning at the high point of Nazi optimism, October 1941, and ending in mid-January 1942.  It's interesting to see how the system responded when victory did not occur as rapidly as expected.

Two Nazi Anti-Semitic Posters from the East

A visitor to the site provided me with two vivid Nazi anti-Semitic posters I’d not seen before.  The first is, I think, in Ukrainian:

Google’s translation site suggests a meaning of “Satan has taken off his mask.”

The second I find particularly interesting:

I think it is in Ukrainian, which Google translates as “He poisons our lives.”  I had not realized that there was a Ukrainian translation of the book.

Kristallnacht Poster (1938)

A friend of the site provided me with this remarkable poster:

It announces a rash of meetings throughout Munich on 10 November 1938 to bring out the public to protest “World Jewry,” which is made to blame for the anti-Semitic violence throughout Germany the previous night.  As best I can tell, Gauleiter Adolf Wagner (head of the party in Munich) addressed the biggest rally, with 20 party orators speaking at meetings in other parts of the city.  The text is translated on the poster page.

Superman and the Nazis

I get requests from authors who want to use material from the GPA, often for interesting and surprising projects.  A recent one came from Larry Tye, whose new book Superman: The High-Fying History of America’s Most Enduring Hero cites an article in the SS’s weekly paper Das Schwarze Korps that complained about a 1940 comic strip in Look magazine that had Superman hauling Hitler and Stalin before the League of Nations.

Tye’s book reviews the history of Superman, beginning with two Jewish kids from Cleveland and moving to radio, cartoons, television shows, and films.  It’s a good read. If you have any interest at all in Superman, this well-researched book will tell you things you did not know.