James Delingpole James Delingpole

Liking the cut of Rommel’s uniform doesn’t make you a Nazi

‘Oh Daddy, please can I have that Nazi eagle badge.

issue 05 March 2011

‘Oh Daddy, please can I have that Nazi eagle badge.

‘Oh Daddy, please can I have that Nazi eagle badge. Oh please, oh please.’

We’re standing in the gift shop of the Baugnez ’44 memorial museum outside Malmedy, Belgium — me, Grandpa (aka my dad) and Girl — and we’re peering longingly into the original second world war memorabilia display case like Tiny Tims at Christmas. There are so many things we’d like if only we had the money: original GI helmets (€400 for a good one, with decent leather strap), packets of vintage Camels, tins of delousing powder, camouflage sticks, Wehrmacht pay books and, yes, Nazi eagle badges of all shapes and sizes. Inevitably, it’s the German stuff we covet most.

But you’re not really supposed to admit that sort of thing in print, are you? When in 2007 Bryan Ferry confessed to a German newspaper an admiration for the aesthetics of Leni Riefenstahl’s films, Albert Speer’s buildings and the iconography of Nazi rallies he was forced by Jewish pressure groups to make a grovelling public apology.

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