"I come from a long line of Nazis"
Apparently.
George Nazi assumes Alcatel 'senior execution role'
Our piece last week on the strange case of the Finnish mutt and his piss-taking Nazi salute contained the following Bootnote - a desperate attempt to justify a piece of Friday frivolity: Those seeking some IT angle on this story may care to note that Alcatel-Lucent has just hired a "quality assurance and customer care" …
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Monday 10th January 2011 13:12 GMT Cameron Colley
I particularly like the find+replace in the second link.
Reading an article where a lot of the sentences start with the word "Nazi" is a little distracting, to say the least.
Far be it from me to ask, but does anyone know why his family didn't change its name? Whatever good the Nazi family may have done in history* surely the slight unpleasantness towards the middle of last century overshadows it a teensy bit?
*I have no idea whether they did, or did not, do anything worthy of note -- but if they didn't I'm even more surprised they kept the name.
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Monday 10th January 2011 14:02 GMT Lee Dowling
Fear of a name
Fear of a name? Associating everyone who has that name, subconsciously, with a particular example from history (not matter how bad)? Sounds more like prejudice than anything else.
I can also never understand the "ban the swastika" rubbish. Promoting fear and "badness" for a symbol with six strokes in it seems incredibly stupid, especially if other people want to gather under its banner in the future and that it's been used perfectly peacefully in the past. More sensible would be to, well, just ignore it and carry on doing what everyone does (incidentally: best way to deal with terrorists, from the point of view of the general populace: "Al Qaeda made my bus late again" is infinitely preferable to "Oh no! Al Qaeda! We're all going to die!"). No fear of the word "Nazi", no fear of a logo, but still promoting disincentive for a repeat of history. It's like not referring to yourself as British (or using it as a surname) because someone from a former British colony might be offended.
Fear of the name, and the logo, is ridiculous scaremongering. Nobody wants another WW2 and the atrocities that occurred during and before, but equally no-one *really* wants to be living in a world where six strokes of a brush, or mentioning a four-letter word, could lead to universal hatred and condemnation. Similarly, there are thousands of Hitler families in the world, and thousands of Adolf's.
Don't be scared of the name. Be scared of the thing that's actually scary - killing people. Best thing we could (and should) have done? Nick-name all the toilets "Nazis" and mark them using a swastika symbol as the universal symbol for toilet. Would have done *infinitely* more for disregard of the whole Nazi regime than going "ARGH! AN ASSOCIATION WITH NAZIS! OH MY GOD! REMOVE IT NOW! PEOPLE WILL THINK WE'RE COLD-BLOODED KILLERS!". Would extremist groups be using the swastika or calling themselves Nazi's if we'd all done that?
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Monday 10th January 2011 14:48 GMT Cameron Colley
@Lee Dowling
I never said they should change it because it inspires fear, or anything of the sort. If you read the first part of my comment you would notice that I found it distracting, and I'm sure a good many other people do.
There's nothing wrong with the name, but I would have thought it more convenient not to use it because what it conjures up in people's minds may distract form the situation. I think the very fact the article we are commenting on is present is a good indication I'm not the only one who finds the name distracting. If this guy does anything of note, like invent a protocol, do you really think that in a few years you'll be able to find "Nazi Protocol" easily, for example?
Take my point as a generic one of you wish -- why do people keep distracting and/or embarrassing names, unless there's a proud family history? Perhaps I'm not proud enough but I know my name doesn't mean all that much to me.
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Monday 10th January 2011 15:31 GMT Ian 14
Not many Adolfs or Hitlers now
In 1890, a year after Hitler's birth, Adolf was the 13th most popular boy's name for births in that year. It then declines gradually in popularity until 1932 when it comes in at 70th, and then it suddenly climbs to around 35-40th and stays that way until 1940 where there is a peak at 30th. Its popularity then plummets in 1940 hitting 100th in 1942 and 150th by 1949 from which it has not recovered since.
I've met a couple of people who have either changed their family name from "Hitler" or whose forebears changed it post WWII. Hitler was, and is, an uncommon name in Germany but was common in the part of Austria that Adolf Hitler came from.
I have quite a lot of respect for people who have awkward surnames and stick to them. I met a Fred Death once, and it was definitely and defiantly pronounced, with a Yorkshire accent, as Death; NOT De'Arth or any of the common variations. I also have a friend who cheerfully goes by the surname Corpse - it suits her actually, she's got a nice body.
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Monday 10th January 2011 15:50 GMT Anonymous Coward
That name....
"Hitler was, and is, an uncommon name in Germany but was common in the part of Austria that Adolf Hitler came from"
The family name was apparently derived from the Moravian / Bohemian name "Hidlar" or "Hidlarcek", which was a bit more common. However, the spelling was very inconsistent, with variants like "Hiedler" and "Heuttler". The infamous spelling was adopted by Adolf's father Alois, apparently due to the somewhat strange genealogy of the family (an inheritance was at issue).
There was a Hitler family from somewhere in the Mosel region that was completely unrelated to the late unlamented dictator - they emigrated to the US in the 1800s, and became farmers in rural Ohio. There is indeed a road called "Hitler Road" in that town which presumably was an access road to the family spread and which is still listed under that name to this day drawing an occasional note in the news or on the 'net.
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Tuesday 11th January 2011 00:56 GMT Barry Rueger
Swastika? Berlin?
Interesting to note that during WW1 (aka The War to End All Wars) Berlin, Ontario elected to change their name to Kitchener.
Unlike the town of Swastika which during WW2 (aka, the war that the Americans won :)) said "to hell with that!" and remains thus named to this day.
"During World War II the provincial government sought to change the town's name to Winston in honour of Winston Churchill, but the town refused, insisting that the town had held the name long before the Nazis co-opted the swastika symbol (卐). Residents of Swastika used to tell the story of how the Ontario Department of Highways would erect new signs on the roads at the edge of the town. At night the residents would tear these signs down and put up their own signs proclaiming the town to be "Swastika""
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
