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Monday, August 16, 2010

Catch-22: Nazism in the American Army?!?!

Chapter 8 featuring Lieutenant Scheisskopf in Catch-22 contained a lot of symbols pertaining to Nazism. I believe that these references, apart from taking a crack at Hitler, also highlights and parodies the similarities between the American army and the German army--such as petty bureaucracy.
  1. The name Lieutenant Scheisskopf is German, although Scheisskopf is an American soldier. Note that sometimes his name is spelled as "Scheiss-kopf." One of the lower-ranked soldiers call him Lieutenant "Shithead." "Scheisse" means "shit" in German. Could this be the possible meaning of Scheisskopf?
  2. Lieutenant Scheisskopf was obsessed with parades with a zeal almost or as tantamount to Hitler's.
  3. Scheisskopf neglects his wife in a similar manner Hitler neglected his mistress, Eva Braun.
  4. According to Scheisskopf, his wife is incapable of looking beyond her own dirty, sexual desires to the "titanic struggles for the unattainable in which noble man could become heroically engaged." - Sounds pretty much like Nazi ideology.
  5. Scheisskopf hatches a "brilliant" idea in which the soldiers at the parades march without moving their arms. The other generals that were watching look at him with shocked faces, and one general was blue in the face. Were these other generals offended at the Nazi resemblance or were they mad because they knew they'd lose to Scheisskopf's idea? That's what makes it funny.

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