s that the virulently anti-socialist Nazi Party was in fact named the National Socialist Workers' Party of Germany though few people, least of all the Nazis, seem to have noticed this.) Because right-wing ideologies seem to have been traditionally less hip in the rest of Europe than left-wing ones (and also perhaps because the ber-Right policies of Nazi Germany led to such horrific conclusionswhich is not to deny similarly dreadful events in Communist Russia and China, although I'd argue those states were hardly leftist any more), we've had more trouble admitting that Nazi Germany could possibly have created any great art. When we do find something worthwhile, we hum and haw over whether or not we should admit to liking it. We seem to have little trouble admiring Sergei Eisenstein's Soviet films but Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will and Olympia are somehow more problematic. "Great films, yes, but" seems to be the way of it. We feel we have to qualify our admiration for some reason. I have a set of Bruckner symphonies which were recorded in the 1930s and therefore are technically products of Nazi Germany (even if it is EMI who distributes them). Shouldn't I feel extremely wrong for harbouring these things? To come up to date, but leaving Germany (and also classical music) for a moment, let's consider the black metal music scene in Norway. Alongside the Satanic imagery metal music has often decked itself out in to equally often silly effect, quite a few black metal bands have also adopted Nazi leanings as well. Norway, of course, was a notorious Nazi puppet state, and after the war right-wing ideologies fell distinctly from grace, hence the adoption of them by many black metal bands. My favourite example is probably an album by Darkthrone with the words "Norsk Arisk Black Metal" emblazoned on the back cover where you couldn't miss them, which forced the band's distributor Peaceville Records to issue a statement distancing themselves ...
