The Postmodern Anti-War Hero: "The Red Baron"

The hypocrisy of the postmodern let's-pretend-there's-no-reality brigade reaches Jagdgeschwader height in the latest anti-war product, "The Red Baron"! Instead of breaching the taboo against German war heroism, another one is erected by means of political correctness, against the reality of war and its place in human existence. One barely dares mention its name for all the tut-tuts and feigned indignation towards the facts of history.

To the postmodern cohort in Hollywood modern Western history serves but one purpose only: a showcase for the embarrassing caricature that it is collection of 'continual conflict, wars of almost unimaginable destruction, colonialism and despair and religious persecution', 'wave after wave of ethnic cleansing', culminating in the conclusion that 'war and genocide are not part of the history of Europe, but constitute the whole of its history'.

This rhetorical parlour trick aims to deflect attention away from the 110 million or so victims that were butchered on the altars of the postmodern forebears, to wit the essentially anti-modern, anti-liberal and anti-human ideologies of nationalism, communism and National Socialism.

The rape of reality is well illustrated by the German World War I hero portrayed as the typical post counter-culture anti-war dialectician àvant la lettre: "He says he's not going to be the immortal god that Berlin wants him to be; he knew millions were lured into the trenches with such propaganda," he said.

Postmodernists are also blissfully unaware that sentimentality has nothing to do with empathy or sensitivity towards others, but according to the grandfather of psychology C.G. Jung, is a superstructure overlaying brutality. But of this deontological feature (the ethics of good-intention-bad-result-never-mind), of the aim justifying the means, we were already aware ...
BBC: "German war film challenges taboo", by Tristana Moore

He is a handsome, blond, young pilot - and he's not your typical baddie. In the new film The Red Baron, which had its premiere in Berlin on Monday night, Germany's legendary flying ace, Manfred von Richthofen, is portrayed as an emotional, sensitive man. (...)

Manfred von Richthofen, who shot down 80 British, Canadian and Australian pilots during World War I, is played by the dashing German actor, Matthias Schweighoefer. The film shows how 24-year-old Von Richthofen and his fellow airmen treat the war like a sport, hunting down the enemy in lively air-battle scenes. (...)

The film, with its sentimental touch, makes you aware of Von Richthofen's humanity. The young officer falls to pieces when his friends die, he buys a harmonica for a friend, and he feels embarrassed because he cannot dance well. (...) >>>


- Caption: Von Richthofen Squadron - Hat tip "The House of Gutenberg" -

Related:
- IMb slideshow of the movie
- "The Death of von Richthofen"
- "The Red Baron: Rittmeister Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen"