{"id":1234,"date":"2009-07-13T05:21:45","date_gmt":"2009-07-13T05:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.georgethomasclark.com\/?p=1234"},"modified":"2010-08-04T04:52:24","modified_gmt":"2010-08-04T04:52:24","slug":"historian-offers-to-write-screenplay-about-hitler-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/historian-offers-to-write-screenplay-about-hitler-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Historian Offers to Write Screenplay about Hitler Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

How pleased I recently was to receive an email with the subject \u201cScreenplay\u201d and addressed to \u201cIllustrious Sir\u201d.\u00a0 The correspondent introduced himself with news he\u2019d been reading my biographical novel Hitler Here <\/em>and thought it was \u201cgreat\u201d and \u201cwhat an ordeal (I) must have gone through to produce it.\u201d\u00a0 Since the book took twenty years to research and write, and I was unable to exhume any agent or publisher in this country interested in my unique presentation of numerous historical characters telling their own stories, and I had to self-publish the book here before selling it to major publishers in India and the Czech Republic, and since a number of professional reviewers as well as reader reviewers on Amazon.com essentially agree with the emailer, he delighted me by asking permission to write a screenplay \u201cusing\u2026Hitler Here<\/em> under (my) supervision and (my) complete approval\u2026And perhaps with (my) assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

This guy\u2019s probably an exotic cat, I thought, sipping wine from the balcony of his mansion overlooking Hollywood.\u00a0 If he\u2019s as shrewd as he sounds, I\u2019ll probably let him write the whole thing, then take a percentage of the movie profits, unless the studio offers me a seven-figure sum.\u00a0 Or, perhaps, he\u2019ll need my help.\u00a0 I know I could add a lot.\u00a0 In fact, I\u2019m sure I could do the whole damn thing.\u00a0 Why hadn\u2019t I?\u00a0 That didn\u2019t matter now.\u00a0 I had an ace on my team.<\/p>\n

Cagily, I replied I was \u201cwilling to discuss (his) proposition,\u201d and \u201cif we decide to proceed, then of course we would need a written agreement that protects and enhances both our interests.\u201d\u00a0 I added the next step would be to discuss this by phone and proffered my number, and doubtless impressed him with my literary firepower by forwarding a Cc of this communication to \u201cmy webmaster, editorial advisor, accountant, and attorney\u201d, three people and one phantom, who were likely less sanguine than I.<\/p>\n

By email the following morning he agreed to call at two that afternoon.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t unduly alarmed he noted he was sixty-eight years old and lived in a state in the South we needn\u2019t name here.\u00a0 I have no age or regional biases I\u2019ll admit to, and, besides, this gentleman emphasized he\u2019s a \u201cWorld War II historian.\u201d<\/p>\n

The phone rang promptly at two p.m., and I enthusiastically answered.\u00a0 We talked about my book a bit before he began giving me some biographical information.\u00a0 He\u2019d been a railroad clerk and usher for a quarter century in an esteemed Northeastern state, then retired from that job at the barely-pubescent age of fifty and moved to the South where he read books and other materials about the Nazis and World War II, and had time to hone his perceptions on the open roads as a long-distance truck driver.\u00a0 Many talents are possessed by truck drivers approaching age seventy, but writing screenplays has probably never been part of the repertoire.\u00a0 I ceased fantasizing about a burgeoning bank account.<\/p>\n

At this dreary juncture, the gentleman gave me the address of his website, which I called up and looked with displeasure at some of his home page links: \u201cDavid Duke, Jewwatch, jew high command, hispanicos los blinkos\u2026\u201d and other clever material.<\/p>\n

David Duke, for our younger readers, used to be grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan and has spent his life harrumphing that blacks and Jews are evil and fundamentally different.<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid Duke\u2019s a Holocaust denier,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo am I,\u201d said the aspiring screenwriter.<\/p>\n

We exchanged cannonades reminiscent of a frosty day on the Eastern Front, and to buttress my point the Holocaust is fact I read passages from my book with self-incriminating diatribes by Adolf Hitler, with whom you are familiar, and Rudolf Hoess, whom you should know about.\u00a0 He was Commandant of Auschwitz and the enterprising bureaucrat who followed Heinrich Himmler\u2019s orders to build gas chambers appropriate for the mass extermination of Jews and other undesirables.\u00a0 Hoess detailed this in his autobiography and at his trial, and standing on the gallows he apologized to the Polish people.\u00a0 The truck-driving screenwriter tried, feebly, to dismiss this evidence.\u00a0 I listened a little longer before stating there was no possibility of our collaborating, then, for documentation, wrote him that \u201cI am of course baffled why you believed that I, who\u2019d so strongly denounced such murderous policies in my book, would ever be a candidate to disingenuously rewrite history in a screenplay.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I review this email to him, and the passages I read over the phone, I\u2019m pleased the only other time I jousted with Holocaust deniers I quoted the same powerful material, and more, and ended with a rebuke I couldn\u2019t top now, so I hereby refer you to the rhetorical lashing – “Letter to Holocaust Deniers” – published on this website in February 2005.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How pleased I recently was to receive an email with the subject \u201cScreenplay\u201d and addressed to \u201cIllustrious Sir\u201d.\u00a0 The correspondent introduced himself with news he\u2019d been reading my biographical novel Hitler Here and thought it was \u201cgreat\u201d and \u201cwhat an ordeal (I) must have gone through to produce it.\u201d\u00a0 Since the book took twenty years…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,387,38,19,135,7,28,20],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nHistorian Offers to Write Screenplay about Hitler Here - 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