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Ten seconds earlier Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, was all smiles to have his photograph taken. Then Goebbels was informed that the man taking his picture, Alfred Eisenstaedt, was Jewish. The Nazi’s demeanor changed to an evil scowl in an instant. Unwavering, Eisenstaedt snapped another photo. He named the resulting image “The Eyes of Hate.”
--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: December 6, 1912--
It is uncertain the exact date the photos were taken, but it was during a three-day meeting of the League of Nations in Geneva in late September/early October 1933. For this world-changing “shit went down day” I’ve selected Eisenstaedt’s 14th birthday, December 6, 1912, when he received his first camera as a gift from his uncle.
Goebbels was a murderous piece of shit known for his “homicidal antisemitism.” But he didn’t want just Jews to die. On May 1, 1945, the day after Hitler killed himself, Goebbels and his wife murdered their six children before killing themselves. Fuck that guy and fuck all Nazis. Let’s talk about the photographer.
Eisenstaedt was born in 1898 in Dirschau, West Prussia, then part of Germany. As mentioned, he received a camera for his birthday, but quickly lost interest in it. He was drafted into the German army at 18 and served on the western front of World War I as a cannoneer. In December 1917, a year before the war officially ended, it was over for Alfred when his artillery unit was hit by a British shell. The rest of his unit was killed, and Eisenstaedt nearly lost both his legs.
The post-war depression in Germany ruined the family business, and Alfred struggled to make ends meet. During the 1920s his interest in photography renewed and in 1927 he sold his first photograph, of a woman playing tennis, for $3 to a German weekly publication. His talent would win him many clients and his star as a photographer rose. Regarding taking the eyes of hate photo Alfred said of Goebbels: “He looked at me with hateful eyes and waited for me to wither. But I didn’t wither. If I have a camera in my hand, I don’t know fear.”
Alfred moved to the United States in 1935 and became well known for his celebrity photography. He photographed Marilyn Monroe, Bob Hope, Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and the Kennedy and Clinton families. Eisenstaedt’s most famous photo is one you likely have seen. It’s during the Victory over Japan celebration in Times Square taken on August 14, 1945, of a U.S. Navy sailor grabbing a dental assistant and kissing her. It was several decades before the woman in the iconic photo was (most likely) identified as Greta Friedman, who said of the assault 60 years later, “It wasn’t my choice to be kissed . . . The guy just came over and grabbed!”
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Goebbels' eyes don't look all that friendly or sane in the first photo, either.
Goebbels was not insane. He was very well aware of, and able to interact and behave in a manner that was acceptable according to the cultural standards of the time and place. In/sanity is a cultural construct used to oppress, and Goebbels was most definitely not oppressed. While I understand our cultural tendency to describe horrible people as insane, I respectfully request that we all reconsider, and refrain from doing so. Because when we do, we unintentionally perpetuate harmful cultural assumptions and biases against people whose brains don't work in a way that is considered "normal" by cultural standards. The vast majority of Mad and neurodivergent people are much more likely to be victims of hate and violence rather than perpetrators of it. Collectively, we need to disrupt the common cultural tendency of lumping "insane" people in with those who are intentionally hateful and violent. Unfortunately, I don't know if any good books on the international history of disability, but if you are interested in learning about it and are content to start with US history, this book is excellent: "A Disability History of the United States" by Kim E. Nielsen.