This is generally introduced as a song about a door-to-door salesman selling fear, which may be a sly comment on politicians or media.
It's one of several TTH lyrics dealing with Nazism (others are Fire in the Hole and Springtime in Vienna), and it's the one that deals with it most explicitly. Which of the three tales scares us?
First, we have the war, in which Russians hide art from Nazi invaders and the invaders think God has abandoned them. What's frightening about this? The Nazi's faith in God?
Then we're told that some group of people need not be killed (or at least, need not die prematurely). They can keep on living and feeling grandiose. Who are they?
Then the shark limps in, without its fangs, and kids play with it.
I think all these are the same: Nazis fight a war in God's name ("Gott mit uns" on their belt buckles); Nazi war criminals survive the war and are kept in prison; Nazi ideals, apparently defanged, live on and attract children. The last is certainly the most frightening.
But is the fear based on reality, or on some tale concocted out of the cold calculation of a salesman pitching fear?
This is generally introduced as a song about a door-to-door salesman selling fear, which may be a sly comment on politicians or media.
It's one of several TTH lyrics dealing with Nazism (others are Fire in the Hole and Springtime in Vienna), and it's the one that deals with it most explicitly. Which of the three tales scares us?
First, we have the war, in which Russians hide art from Nazi invaders and the invaders think God has abandoned them. What's frightening about this? The Nazi's faith in God?
Then we're told that some group of people need not be killed (or at least, need not die prematurely). They can keep on living and feeling grandiose. Who are they?
Then the shark limps in, without its fangs, and kids play with it.
I think all these are the same: Nazis fight a war in God's name ("Gott mit uns" on their belt buckles); Nazi war criminals survive the war and are kept in prison; Nazi ideals, apparently defanged, live on and attract children. The last is certainly the most frightening.
But is the fear based on reality, or on some tale concocted out of the cold calculation of a salesman pitching fear?