I hadn't diaried on this latest gobstopping moment in time by a Republican candidate because I figured the pics of a pol dressed up in a Nazi SS uniform with Totemkopf bling was enough to have most reasonable people shake their heads and run away from this guy.
But this was a bridge too far for me:
(complete interview with Anderson Cooper here - it is a must see for anyone who cares about this history and the dangers of white washing it: http://cnn.com/... )
In the above exchange, Cooper asked Iott if he was aware that the Wiking division he was re-enacting was comprised of Nazi collaborators - folks from other German-occupied countries who joined the Nazis because they were true believers in the cause. Iott demurred and said he wouldn't want to call them "collaborators". Talking Points Memo gives some of the ensuing back and forth:
"I don't know that I would put that label on them. They were doing what they thought was right for their country. And they were going out and fighting what they thought was a bigger, you know, a bigger evil."
Iott also contended that "this particular unit was one that was never charged with war crimes," though Cooper pointed out that one member was recently charged with the murder of 58 Jews. Iott replied: "The war on the eastern front was extremely brutal on both sides. Nobody was lily-white, that's for sure. Horrible things that happened on both sides."
Cooper also asked about the reenators' website, which he said describes members of the Wiking unit as "valiant men." He asked Iott if he believed these were "valiant men."
"I think that they thought they were fighting for their homeland," Iott said. When pressed further, he replied: "I don't think we can sit here and judge that today. We weren't there the time they made those decisions."
link: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
Wow.
Words fail.
Among some of these SS "volunteers" who were "fighting for their homeland" were men like Joseph Mengele:
Although documentation is scant and often contradictory regarding Mengele's activities between this time and early 1943, it is clear that he first functioned as a medical expert for the Race and Settlement Main Office [Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt, or RuSHA] in summer 1940 at the Central Immigration Office [Einwandererstelle] North-East in Posen (today Poznan) and thereafter served as a medical officer with the SS Division "Wiking" (SS Pioneer Battalion V), with which he saw action on the Eastern Front.
link: http://www.ushmm.org/...
Yad Vashem, holocaust museum, documents the war crimes committed by this division:
This evacuation column had been heavily decimated even before departing on March 28, 1945, since eighty Jews, even though fit for the journey, had been shot by three members of the Waffen-SS "Wiking" division and five military policemen. On orders from their unit commander Alfred Weber, the boys from the Hitler Youth who had been assigned to guard the Jews after the SA men previously guarding them had fled, brought the victims from the camp and handed them over to their murderers. Together with men from the Waffen-SS, members of the Hitler Youth were also assigned to escort the column. During the march they murdered more exhausted prisoners. On the first day, the evacuation column traveled over minor roads through St. Kathrein, Kohfidisch, Kirchfidisch, and Mischendorf to Jabing From there it continued on the following day to Rotenturm a. d. Pinka, Oberdorf, Litzelsdorf, Wolfau, and Hartberg. In Sebersdorf, the Hitler Youth handed over the column to members of the Volkssturm, who then took it on to Gleisdorf, presumably via Ilz and Gnies.89 The men from the "Wiking" division most probably accompanied the evacuation transport to Graz.90
link: http://www1.yadvashem.org/...
So let's be clear about something here. Putting on an SS uniform makes you no more of an expert on the history of Nazi Germany than donning a powdered wig and a pair of gaiters makes you an expert on the American Revolution. Understanding history requires more than playing dress up.
Do I think Iott is a Nazi? No. I believe he's merely a simple minded man who would rather run around in the woods with a gun full of blanks than open up a history book or walk around in a museum and ask someone a poignant question or two. Does that lack of intellectual diligence make him an evil person? Again, the answer is no.
However, when a simple minded man goes on national television trying to defend what is literally indefensible - good people need to call that one out. As unpopular as it may be on a Democratic blog, I'm putting Eric Cantor (and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz) in the good people club for repudiating this guy:
Whitewashing the history of the attrocities committed by the Nazis is a sin. It is a sin against the victims of those attrocities, it is a sin against the families of those victims and it is a sin against the truth...even if it's a sin of ignorance.
It's time for good people to speak out.