[Buddha-l] Re:American Mahayana/British Theravada?

[Steven Rhodes]

Dear Joy,

What was "fatal" about May's lecture in Vienna in 1912?

Steven Rhodes

Joy Vriens wrote:

> Robert Morrison wrote:
>
>> For what its worth, German interest in cowboy and Indian novels was 
>> started
>> by a 19th cent. German writer called Karl May.  He wrote tons of them 
>> and
>> was extremely popular. Hitler is said to have devoured his books 
>> (perhaps he
>> picked up some ideas from them!).
>
>
> Karl May seems indeed to have been inspired by Fennimore Cooper and 
> the man's life story appears to be a novel too. 
> http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/karlmay.htm
>
> I never thought I would share things with Hitler, but I devoured his 
> books too in my early youth.
>
> "In his diary, Spandau: The Secret Diaries (1976) Albert Speer 
> mentions, that Hitler would lean on Karl May as proof that 'it was not 
> necessary to know the desert in order to direct troops in the African 
> theater of war... it wasn't necessary to travel in order to know the 
> world.' According to Speer, 'Hitler was wont to say that he had always 
> been deeply impressed by the tactical finesse and circumspection that 
> Karl May conferred upon his character Winnetou.' Such man was the very 
> model of a company commander. Hitler added that during his reading 
> hours at night, May's stories gave him courage like works of 
> philosophy or the Bible for others. He had attended May's fatal 
> lecture in Vienna in 1912. In the middle of World War II May's 
> Winnetou was printed in 300,000 copies to be delivered for German 
> soldiers. For Martin Bormann Hitler told: "I used to read him by 
> candle-light, or by moonlight with the help if a huge magnifying 
> glass." (from Hitler's Table Talks, 1953). This admiration condemned 
> May for some time to the fate of Richard Wagner, whose music wasn't 
> publicly performed in Israel for years because Hitler had praised it."
>
> Joy
>
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