Page 94 – LIFE

A Brutal Pageantry: The Third Reich’s Myth-Making Machinery, in Color

January 16, 2020August 5, 2014 by

A powerful insignia alone, Adolf Hitler once noted, “can spark interest in a political movement.” What Hitler did not say, but what is evident to anyone with even a tenuous grasp of 20th-century history, is that such an emblem can also provide a movement and a movement’s followers with an immediate communal identity.

The swastika, sometimes with its arms pointing to the left, sometimes to the right, has been around for thousands of years. It is one of the most ancient and prevalent of all sacred symbols, bearing vastly different meanings from culture to culture and context to context, from Hinduism to Greco-Roman architecture to Ireland’s great 8th-century illuminated Book of Kells. Today, it’s of course impossible for most people to see any swastika without associating it immediately with the Third Reich, Nazi Germany and, by extension, World War II and the Holocaust. The reason for this is disturbingly simple: Hitler and those who embraced his toxic vision as early as the 1920s were aware that a symbol with the resonance perhaps the subconscious resonance of a swastika, combined with the red, white and black of what Hitler called the “revered colors” of the old German Imperial flag, would not only be graphically striking: for countless Germans and Austrians, it would be spiritually striking.

In this gallery, LIFE.com takes a long, hard look at the aesthetics of the Reich’s propaganda machinery, from the single swastika to the epic torchlit celebrations that marked Hitler’s 50th birthday. Here are the Nuremberg rallies, where individuals are subsumed into a single worshipful organism. Here are the gargantuan Nazi banners, towering above a sea of human faces that fade into insignificance. Here are thousands of tanned, near-naked youth, re-enacting a manufactured, cobbled-together and thoroughly mythical past when “Aryans” gamboled beneath a Teutonic sun.

But perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the Third Reich’s deeply manipulative and seductive propaganda and especially the sense of invincibility and inevitable triumph that it sparked in the hearts of true believers is how ludicrous and, in the end, how perfectly mistaken it all was. Yes, Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, Goering and the other genocidal gangsters did unleash a murderous nightmare in Europe, and for a few years a very few years it might have seemed as if the Nazi drive for domination was, in fact, unstoppable.

But then something happened that the Reich did not intend. Free people stood up. Britain resisted, mightily. America (finally) entered the war in December 1941 and along with the Soviet Union, the British, the Free French and so many other Allies, set about systematically demolishing the “invincible” German forces. Whatever the power of its symbols, Hitler’s Thousand-Year Reich lasted a little more than a decade, and when it was destroyed, its architect killed himself in a squalid underground bunker.

Adolf Hitler saluted troops of the Condor Legion who fought alongside Spanish Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, during a rally upon their return to Germany, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Nazi rally, 1937.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Nazi and Italian flags draped from balconies welcomed Adolf Hitler during his state visit to Italy, 1938.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Volkswagen Works cornerstone ceremony, near Wolfsburg, 1938.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Nuremberg, Germany, 1938.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Crowds cheered Adolf Hitler’s campaign to unite Austria and Germany, 1938.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The scene along the roadway to the Fallersleben Volkswagen Works cornerstone ceremony, Germany, 1938.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Nazi officials on their way to Fallersleben Volkswagen Works cornerstone ceremony, 1938.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Adolf Hitler at the swearing-in of SS standard bearers at the Reich Party Congress, Nuremberg.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Reich Party Congress, Nuremburg, Germany, 1938.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

1937 Reich Party Congress, Nuremberg, Germany.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The League of German Girls danced during the 1938 Reich Party Congress, Nuremberg, Germany.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Reich Veterans Day, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Berlin was illuminated at midnight in honor of Hitler’s 50th birthday, April 1939.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels (in box) at the Charlottenburg Theatre, Berlin, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The annual midnight swearing-in of SS troops at Feldherrnhalle, Munich, 1938.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Adolf Hitler made the keynote address at Reichstag session, Kroll Opera House, Berlin, 1939.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels spoke at the Lustgarten in Berlin, 1938.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Volkswagen Works cornerstone ceremony, near Wolfsburg, 1938.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Adolf Hitler spoke at the Lustgarten, Berlin, 1938.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Reich Party Congress, Nuremberg, Germany, 1938.

Hugo Jaeger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A Boy and His Dog

December 9, 2019August 4, 2014 by

In the late summer of 1945, as the Second World War was finally coming to a close, LIFE magazine published a series of pictures by photographer Myron Davis including the first one in this gallery, which has since become a classic chronicling the fast friendship between a 12-year-old Iowan named Larry and his 18-month-old dog, Dunk.

Summer is the time [wrote LIFE] when Larry Jim Holm and Dunk can be together all day long. Larry is 12 years old and lives on a farm near Oskaloosa, Iowa. Dunk is 18 months old and is part spaniel, part collie. Sometimes there are chores to do but most of their time is for fun. Larry and Dunk know every foot of the 16-acre farm. They keep close tabs on the ripening blackberries, although Dunk really prefers field. mice. Sometimes they hunt gophers or dam the brook in the back lot. Sometimes they catch a turtle so Larry can carve his initials on it.

The best fun is fishing, when Dunk helps dig fat angleworms and goes off with Larry through the meadow, across the pasture (keeping away from the bull) and over the hill to the creek. They always jump into the creek for a swim. Then they go home for a quiet evening, most of it spent on the living room floor. “A guy’s almost an orphan without a dog,” says Larry.

We get the feeling there are plenty of boys and girls everywhere who have a hard time imagining life without a furry friend close at hand and know what Larry means.

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

Tired and dirty from a hard day’s play, Dunk padded along the roadbed while Larry practiced the art of walking on rails.

Myron Davis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dunk learned how to open door with his nose.

Myron Davis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Holding on to Dunk, Larry waved at a train engineer.

Myron Davis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mowing the lawn, with Dunk alongside.

Myron Davis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

It doesn’t look it, but Dunk enjoyed the water.

Myron Davis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dunk waited while Larry fed the calves.

Myron Davis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Turtles can be wonderful discoveries.

Myron Davis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

They went to Oskaloosa to see the circus come in.

Myron Davis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Larry waited while Dunk ate supper.

Myron Davis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

All tired out, they rested against an oat shock.

Myron Davis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fishing was a favorite summer pastime. They rarely caught much and the fish were usually pretty small, but Dunk always showed an interest in a wet, wiggly catch.

Myron Davis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Off for home, Larry and Dunk trudged down the country road with their fish. ‘Jeepers,’ Larry said, ‘I wouldn’t take a hundred dollars for Dunk.'”

Myron Davis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

At the end of the day Larry sprawled out with the funnies and Dunk collapsed on the floor, heaved a sigh and wiggled up close to Larry.

Myron Davis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Larry and Dunk, Iowa, 1945.

Myron Davis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Walking Your Chicken in Paris With Style: A Pictorial Guide

January 16, 2020July 29, 2014 by

Ah, Paris. The City of Light. The home of Montmartre, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Seine, the Marais and countless other celebrated neighborhoods and attractions. Thousands of years old, and yet perfectly modern; a world capital of fashion, cuisine and intellectual pursuits; a city rich in character and in history; the perfect place to walk your pet chicken like a dog.

Wait. What?

Here, apropos of nothing, LIFE.com presents a series of photographs by the incomparable Nina Leen, chronicling the Parisian peregrinations of a woman named Marguerite. We know virtually nothing else about her. Her last name is lost to time. The reasons for her fowl habit are shrouded in mystery. But perhaps her anonymity, and the riddle of her daily, poultry-centric rounds, help explain the appeal of these pictures.

Marguerite and her chicken, Paris, 1956.

Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marguerite’s chicken, Paris, 1956.

Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marguerite and her chicken, Paris, 1956.

Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marguerite (left) and her chicken shared a park bench with a woman who appeared to be rather tense, Paris, 1956.

Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marguerite and her chicken, Paris, 1956.

Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Science Teacher You Wish You Had

August 26, 2021July 24, 2014 by

A jarring but necessary revelation that comes to all scientists, eventually, is that the daily practice and pursuit of knowledge isn’t the endless series of thrilling discoveries that they once envisioned. The “scientific method,” after all, is a fancy way of characterizing the slow, measured grind the theorizing and experimenting that defines so much scientific labor. Occasionally, though, teachers emerge with such engaging, energized ways of making science new again that, through their eyes (and occasionally through their antics) the universe regains its power to enthrall.

Hubert Alyea, a Princeton University professor famous for lively, colorful chemistry classes and public talks that were as much performance as professorship was such a teacher. Alyea, who died in 1996 at the age of 93, lectured with an animated, dynamic style that drew enthusiastic audiences of all ages. In the photographs in this gallery, some of which were first published in LIFE in August 1953, his excitement is almost palpable.

“Grimacing with fiendish delight,” LIFE wrote of Alyea’s pyrotechnic teaching, “he sets off explosions, shoots water pistols and sprays his audience with carbon dioxide in the course of 32 harrowing experiments dramatizing complicated theory.” Alyea delivered his talk on the chemistry behind the atomic bomb and atomic energy about 2,800 times all over the world burning several suits of clothing in the process.

Despite his own success, Alyea was well aware of the challenges that got in the way of similar science demonstrations in communities the world over. He developed an inexpensive “armchair chemistry” kit to be used in conjunction with an overhead projection system. This technique allowed for science demonstrations not only throughout the United States but in countries like Thailand, India and Mexico. His fame was noted as far away as Hollywood; the popular 1961 Disney film, The Absent-Minded Professor, starred Fred MacMurray as professor Ned Brainard, whose manic mannerisms in the title role were reportedly modeled largely on Alyea’s.

Alyea’s affiliation with Princeton, meanwhile, was a long one. After earning an undergraduate degree there, he returned for a Ph.D. in 1928. He continued to deliver his hugely popular, poetry-and-ad-lib-filled lectures at Princeton reunions for years after his retirement. (He was on the faculty for 42 years.) He earned honorary degrees and teaching awards from colleges and teachers’ associations around the country.

With photographs by Yale Joel, LIFE.com honors Hubert Alyea: an educator who made learning part magic and part mayhem for laymen and scientists alike, with a delivery that was nearly as explosive as the science itself.

Tara Thean is a freelance writer and graduate student in biological sciences at Cambridge University.

Hubert Alyea, 1953

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

LIFE Goes to a County Fair, 1938

August 2, 2022July 17, 2014 by

There’s a certain vibe to a state or county fair that simply doesn’t exist anywhere else. The sights, sounds and of course the smells (grass crushed by thousands of footsteps; fried dough; the indeterminate, unmistakable mingled aroma of cattle, horses, poultry and people) call to mind the slowly shortening days and cooler, thrilling nights of late summer as surely as back-to-school sales and brawls at NFL training camps.

In 1938, LIFE magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt went to Greenbrier Valley Fair in West Virginia (which three years later, in 1941, would become West Virginia’s official state fair) , and, true to form, “Eisie” came back with marvelous portraits of the fairgoers as well as wonderfully atmospheric shots of the displays, attractions and the fairgrounds themselves. But, above and beyond Eisenstaedt’s photographs, LIFE took pains to point out that in the late 1930s, even in the country’s rural bastions, “city slickers” were finding ways to entertain themselves. In fact, in the magazine’s description of the fair and its visitors, one can hear faint echoes of contemporary conversations about “authentic” versus “ironic” Americana.

As LIFE put it in an article in the September 26, 1938, issue of the magazine:

The first Greenbrier Valley Fair was held just 80 years ago. The few hundred farmers who attended gaped at the wonderful Howe sewing machine and admired a stalwart yearling who grew up to become Traveller, the big gray horse who carried General Lee through the Civil War. Today, the Greenbrier Valley Fair is one of the best-known in the South. This year . . . 100,000 paid admission to the fairgrounds near Lewisburg, W. Va. They watched the trotters race and went around looking at entries in contests for the best buckwheat, the best bread, the best begonias, the best “article made of sealing wax.”

But their major preoccupation was bodies human bodies, animal bodies, bodies that looked half-human, half-animal. The “girlie” shows, which were hot and smutty, drew smaller audiences than the freaks from crowds made up of farmers, breeders and hillbillies. Only a few city people were present, although some urban sophisticates have discovered the county fair and are beginning to make America’s great harvest-time diversion a city-folk fad.

Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

West Virginia County Fair 1938

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

West Virginia County Fair 1938

Alfred Eisenstaedt/ Life Pictures/Shutterstock

West Virginia County Fair 1938

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Kennedy-Nixon Debates: When TV Changed the Game

August 11, 2021July 17, 2014 by

America’s first televised presidential debates—four TV showdowns between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy in the fall of 1960—immediately showed how they could change the course of politics.

The details of the debates have been recounted innumerable times in the subsequent decades. The stories, meanwhile, of how Nixon showed up to the very first debate looking pale and glistening with sweat beneath the glare of the studio lights, while JFK looked (literally) tanned and rested, haven’t lost any of their power simply because they’re true.

The photos here back up those stories: Nixon did look like death warmed over; Kennedy did look like a movie star. And while pundits and armchair historians like to assert that Kennedy’s media savvy won him the election while Nixon won the debates, no data exists anywhere that positively proves either point.

The fact is, both men were formidable candidates. Each had a strong grasp of the major issues facing the country—the Space Race with the Soviets; America’s role in an increasingly complex global economy; the Civil Right Movement—and each man had very little trouble articulating his and his party’s position on them. But it’s remarkable now, however, to recall that Nixon was just four years older than Kennedy. By the look of the two men in these photographs by Paul Schutzer, they might as well have been from different generations.

Presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon (right) spoke during a televised debate while opponent John F. Kennedy watches, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Kennedy-Nixon debates, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The candidates chatted prior to the first of their four televised debates, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Richard Nixon, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John Kennedy and Richard Nixon stood at lecterns as moderator Howard K. Smith presided at their first debate, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Richard Nixon during the Kennedy-Nixon debates, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Kennedy-Nixon debates, 1960.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John F. Kennedy during the Kennedy-Nixon debates, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jackie Kennedy watched from the wings as her husband debated Richard Nixon, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Richard Nixon during the Kennedy-Nixon debates, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John F. Kennedy gripped his lectern during the debate, 1960.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John F. Kennedy gestured during the Kennedy-Nixon debates, 1960.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Richard Nixon’s hands during the Kennedy-Nixon debates, 1960.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Kennedy-Nixon debates, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Two images made during the Kennedy-Nixon debates, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The candidates here are seen as they appeared on television, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John F. Kennedy during the Kennedy-Nixon debates, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Richard Nixon during the Kennedy-Nixon debates, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Kennedy-Nixon debates, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John F. Kennedy during the Kennedy-Nixon debates, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Richard Nixon during the Kennedy-Nixon debates, 1960.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

John Kennedy and Richard Nixon after the second Kennedy-Nixon debate, 1960.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Richard Nixon at the time of the Kennedy-Nixon debates, 1960.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Richard Nixon during one of the Kennedy-Nixon debates, 1960.

Paul Schutzer The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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