Any list of great WWII films is going to include Casablanca, From Here To Eternity or The Longest Day. All great films and deserving of placement on such a list. But there's one film that sticks out in our mind today. Written by Graham Greene and directed by Carol Reed, The Third Man explores the tenuous environment in post-war Vienna, which was split into zones managed by the French, Russians British and Americans. In addition to an exciting mystery and noirish love story, the film is also an exploration of the nature of morality and allegiance in a vacuum. This is best typified by Orson Welles' famous soliloquy which includes this passage:
"In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed — they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
I think you see where we're going with this.
Today's JFG nomination was the Auto Union Type C, which has roots in the regime of Adolf Hitler. A vehicle never used for violence, should we exclude it based on the nature of its birth? Beercheck felt its connection to Nazism was stronger than its connection to autodom. PatFromGundo disagreed:
As a member of the "curator" school of JFG management, I think you could make a case that Beercheck's completely understandable apprehensions about the C-Type are precisely the reason why the car should be inducted. I don't believe that acknowledging the dark roots of this superior machine is tantamount to endorsing Nazism...it's just an acknowledgement. I think it would be wrong to attempt to dissociate the car from its evil context; the C-Type is simple fact. It is a miracle of engineering, and it is a horror of twisted propaganda. Park it in the JFG based on its indisputable technical merit, and gaze upon it with a heavy heart.
Of course, if you really want to blow your mind consider this. The Swiss didn't actually invent the cuckoo clock. It was actually the invention of a German.