{"id":106414,"date":"2020-10-21T07:00:15","date_gmt":"2020-10-21T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=106414"},"modified":"2020-10-20T21:06:57","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T01:06:57","slug":"wwii-germany-loved-posing-for-photos-with-a-man-in-a-polar-bear-cosutme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=106414","title":{"rendered":"WWII Germany loved posing for photos with a man in a polar bear cosutme"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>WWII is one of my areas of study. The most I read on the topic though, there’s always something new to uncover. Case in point, the German fascination around posing with a polar bear during the Third Reich (and extending through the 60’s).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, Winston Churchill was referring to the Soviet Union\u2019s geopolitical strategy in 1939 when he made that declaration, but it\u2019s safe to say that same statement can also apply to the bizarre German affinity throughout the 20th century of posing with an unknown man dressed as a polar bear.<\/p>\n

Had they not heard of stranger danger?<\/p>\n

The vintage photographs, rediscovered by Jean-Marie Donat, a French art collector and publisher, often fall under the aegis of the absurd \u2014 nothing like a good family day at the beach punctuated by posing with a man sweating buckets underneath all that faux fur \u2014 to the more sinister: Two grinning Nazi soldiers can be seen standing arm-in-arm with the bear; a young, blonde haired girl happily poses, her shirt embossed with a swastika.<\/p>\n

An intrigued Donat eventually amassed hundreds of the silly \u2014 burgeoning on bizarre \u2014 images, and ultimately culled them into \u201cTeddyb\u00e4r,\u201d a 200-page \u2014 that\u2019s an inordinate amount of polar bear costume photos \u2014 compilation and overall bundle of photographic confusion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Turns out the explanation is rather pedestrian. The Berlin Zoo acquired two polar bears in the 1920s and this kicked off the craze of posing with bear stand-ins.<\/p>\n

Jeff LPH 3 gets credit for getting this story to us.<\/p>\n

Source; Military Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WWII is one of my areas of study. The most I read on the topic though, … WWII Germany loved posing for photos with a man in a polar bear cosutme<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[406,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-link","category-historical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106416,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106414\/revisions\/106416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}