The danger of Nazi movie villains

Plus: What Napoleon Bonaparte and the 2023 Philadelphia Eagles have in common |

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By Made by History / Produced by Olivia B. Waxman For Made by History, Rebecca Brenner Graham wrote this week about a surprising lesson from the 1970 Christmas movie Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town . The film came out at a time when the world was reckoning with the horrific Nazi crimes during World War II, she explains, and that link can be seen in the movie’s imagery and themes: “Just as people in Nazi Germany hid Jews, to protect lives, Kringle and his allies hide toys, to protect, presumably, Christmas,” she writes. Graham uses the movie as an opportunity to talk about how American movies, books, and TV shows often turn to Nazis to create their villains but fail to engage with antisemitism. If more movies did grapple with the real history behind their plots, she argues, then perhaps more modern viewers would see how the antisemitism at the root of the Holocaust “continues to reverberate for Jewish communities around the world.” Click here to read the full essay. In addition, Made by History will occasionally use this space to feature new books by contributing authors. This week’s selections cover topics from cable television to drug policy to the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment. Kathryn Cramer Brownell detailed how cable news became a tool for politics and profits, a key aspect of the longer book, 24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News. Matthew Lassiter discussed misdirection behind the bipartisan embrace of the war on drugs, a central theme of his new book, The Suburban Crisis: White America and the War on Drugs. Elizabeth R. Varon’s new book Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South, helps to explain how the post-Civil War period emphasized accountability and repentance in the aftermath of insurrection, and she wrote about what it means for the biggest question in the news: does the 14th Amendment disqualify Donald Trump from running for office?

HISTORY ON TIME.COM The Surprising Origins of Popular Christmas Songs By Olivia B. Waxman Many of the songs played throughout December to spark holiday cheer actually have some depressing origin stories Read More » What Today's University Presidents Can Learn From the First Modern Expulsion Over Hate Speech on Campus By Matthew Guterl / Made by History A 1990 case from Brown University was the first time a modern university expelled a student for a violation of a "hate speech code." Read More » Criminalizing Pregnancy Loss Doesn't Help Anyone By Katherine Parkin / Made by History Assessing pregnancy loss used to be about improving health care. What changed? Read More » The Surprising Link Between Napoleon Bonaparte and the 2023 Philadelphia Eagles By Russ Crawford / Made by History How Napoleon Bonaparte's military strategy inspired 18th century versions of the Eagles QB sneak play. Read More » The History of Rural Black Land Loss By Ansley Quiros and Allie R. Lopez / Made by History Even as the civil rights revolution brought significant gains to Black residents of cities, the story was very different in rural places. Read More » Einstein's Complicated Relationship to Judaism By Samuel Graydon Samuel Graydon explores how Einstein became an unwavering proponent of Zionism. Read More » The Overlooked Nigerian Activist Whose Story Offers a Lesson for Today's Labor Movement By Halimat Somotan / Made by History In the 1940s, Nigerian workers and women united to show their power and forge a political future. Read More »

FROM THE TIME VAULT This week in 1962: Vince Lombardi Boris Chaliapin The Dec. 21, 1962, cover of TIME “The Green Bay Packers are the best football team in the world, and Vince Lombardi, 49, is the world's greatest football coach. Few rah-rah college towns can match the unbridled devotion of Green Bay for Lombardi and his doughty athletes. There has not been an empty seat in City Stadium (capacity: 38,663) since 1959…The pastors of some Green Bay churches end their sermons with a short, earnest prayer ‘for our Packers,’ and the police force feels the same way. ‘The only crime here,’ says Chief Elmer Madson, ‘is when the Packers lose.’” Read More » This week in 1974: Pets Eddie Adams The Dec. 23, 1974, cover of TIME magazine “The U.S. today is undergoing what can only be described as an animalthusian explosion. There are enough pet species in this country alone—some 5,000—so that just one pair from every category would require, come the deluge, a Noah's ark the size of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The some 100 million dogs and cats in the U.S. reproduce at the rate of 3,000 an hour, v. the 415 human babies born each 60 minutes. An estimated 60% of the 70 million American households own pets—including 350 million fish, 22 million birds and 8 million horses—and nearly 30% of these families have more than one.” Read More » This week in 1997: Princess Diana Mario Testino The Dec. 22, 1997, cover of TIME “Every few weeks in the past 12 months, something happened to invite an emotional public reaction of mass grief, panic or elation…We wept in vast numbers, we cheered, we gasped, and we could not take our eyes off ourselves. None of the year's mass responses could hold a candle in scope and complexity to the astonishing grief inspired by Princess Diana's car-accident death, of course. (There were even spin-off mass responses of rage toward the paparazzi, who trailed her car into the Paris tunnel, and of generosity toward the charities the princess sponsored.)” Read More »

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