Have you seen the film Swing Kids? Not the 2018 film set in Geoje POW camp during the Korean War in 1951. I mean the 1993 film set in Hamburg, Germany in 1939. Far from a box office success, Swing Kids grossed only $5.6 million in the United States and Canada—having cost twice that much to make. The film received generally unfavorable reviews. Swing Kids made Roger Ebert’s 2005 list of his all-time lowest rated films (Ebert's Most Hated). So, you probably have not seen it. But maybe you should. Just do not expect great cinema
When Hitler and his people rose to power, they
did what authoritarian regimes always do:
they moved to control the intellectual and cultural life of the
nation. They banned books. They suppressed academic freedom. They controlled print and broadcast media. They took over museums and cultural institutions and
dictated what were and were not legitimate forms of artistic expression. They banned and purged “degenerate” art—art
considered “un-German” and detrimental to true and traditional German
sensibilities and values—including painting, sculpture, architecture, theater. And music.
Not surprisingly, the fascist regime banned music of any
genre by Jewish composers. But Hitler
and his fellow white supremacists had special animosity for “degenerate”
American jazz with its mixture of African-American and Jewish elements. By 1935, all Entartete Musik (degenerate
music) was banned from German radio.
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Swingjugend: "Swing Heil" was used by Swing Kids to mock the Nazi Party |
centered primarily in Hamburg and composed of 14- to 21-year-old Germans who admired all things American and British. They imitated American and British fashion. Swing-boys let their hair grow long like American youth of the time, wore variations of the popular American zoot suit and British tweeds, wore homburg hats, and carried umbrellas regardless of the weather. Swing-girls wore short dresses, curled their hair and left it hanging instead of applying braids or German-style rolls, wore make-up, and painted their nails. And the Swingjugend rebelled against the enforced conformity by dancing to the swing jazz of Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, and Glenn Miller.
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A Gathering of Swingjugends: Rather than overt opposition to the Nazi regime and German fascist politics, the Swing Kids engaged in an embodied resistance |
The Swingjugend rebelled against the fascist takeover of German culture with its imposed uniformity and militarism exemplified by the Hitlerjugend. They rebelled with fashion, with music, and with dancing. With jazz and swing.
They experienced a massive restriction of their personal freedom. They rebelled against all this with jazz and swing, which stood for a love of life, self-determination, non-conformism, freedom, independence, liberalism, and internationalism. ... The Gestapo, police, and other governmental organizations proceeded with special cruelty against the swing movement there. Many 'swing boys' and 'swing girls' had to endure discriminating interrogations, torture, and detention by the Gestapo. This led many a swing fan to commit suicide. [Swing Kids Behind Barbed Wire].
In a crackdowns in 1941 over 300 of Hamburg's Swingjund were arrested. The lucky ones were forced to cut their hair and live under close monitoring. Between 40 and 70 of the perceived ringleaders of Hamburg's Swingjungend were deported to Jugendschutzlager, concentration camps specifically for 16- to 22-year-olds.Resistance to authoritarianism can take many forms, but resistance always comes with a cost. Even dancing can be an act of courage.