The Daily Life of Ancient Greeks

The daily life in ancient Hellas as it was written directly in the sources. 

Quotes taken from: 

 Souda Lexicon, Xenophon, Plato, Homer, Pindar, Thucidides, Menander, Sappho, Euripides, Kallinos etc

The Last Will of Plato

 

These are the bequests and instructions of Plato:

The estate at Iphistiades, whose northern boundary is the road to the sanctuary of Kifisia, southern boundary the sanctuary of Heracles at Iphistiades, eastern boundary the estate of Archestratus of Phrearrhioi, and western boundary the estate of Philip of Cholidae, may not be sold or exchanged, but shall belong to the child Adeimantus.

The estate at Eiresidai, which I bought from Callimachus and borders on the north and east with the estate of Eurymedon of Myrrhinous, south with that of Demostratus of Xypete, and west with the river Kifisos.

Three silver minae. A silver vessel weighing one hundred sixty-five drachmas. A cup weighing forty-five drachmas. A gold ring and a gold earring weighing together four drachmas and three obols. The stonecutter Eucleides owes me three minae.

I release Artemis (a slave). I also leave the slaves Tychon, Bicta, Apolloniades, and Dionysios.

Household items as listed in the inventory. A copy is kept by Demetrios.

I owe nothing to anyone.

Executors: Leosthenes, Speusippus, Demetrios, Hegias, Eurymedon, Callimachus, Thrasippus.

That was his will.

THE FOLLOWING EPIGRAMS WERE INSCRIBED ON HIS TOMB:

1. Here lies the divine Aristocles (Plato), who surpassed mortals in wisdom and righteous character. He was more praised than all others praised for wisdom, and envy is excluded.

2. The earth here embraces the body of Plato, but the soul of the son of Ariston dwells immortal among the blessed. Good men, no matter how far they live, honor him, for he discerned the divine life.

3. Eagle, why do you fly over the grave? Tell us whose divine, starry house you gaze upon?

—I am the image of Plato's soul rising to Olympus. His body, born of earth, remains in the Attic land.

4. If Plato had not been born in Greece thanks to Phoebus (Apollo), how could he have healed human souls with letters? His son Asclepius heals the body, Plato heals the immortal soul.

5. Phoebus (Apollo) gave mortals Asclepius and Plato—one as savior of the soul, the other of the body. After a wedding feast, he passed through this city he had built for himself and settled in the house of Zeus.

Source: DIOGENES LAERTIUS Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

Photos: Taken by me. Plato's Academy as it is today , July 2025. 

The Last Prince of Art of Munich

 

"Born in lower Bavaria, Franz Stuck came from a peasant stock, and his talent as an artist was evident from an early age. He received his artistic training at the Academy of Applied Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. While still a student he began supporting himself with work as an illustrator, producing drawings and caricatures for the picture magazine Fliegende Blätter, as well as designs for bookplates, menus, and so forth. Active as a painter, sculptor, printmaker and architect, Stuck was one of the founders of the Munich Secession in 1892, and soon became among the most successful and renowned artists in the city. His large and boldly coloured mythological paintings, characterized by Symbolist overtones, won medals and prizes at exhibitions in Germany, Europe and America over the next three decades, and he was also much in demand as a portrait painter. 

In 1895 Stuck was appointed a Professor at the Akademie in Munich, where his pupils were to include Paul Klee, Josef Albers, and Wassily Kandinsky. In 1897 he began work on the construction and elaborate decoration of a new home and studio in Munich, known as the Villa Stuck, for which he also designed the furniture. The house was completed in 1898, and is today a museum devoted to the artist’s life and work. In 1905 he was awarded a Knight’s Cross of the Order of the Bavarian Throne, which raised him to the nobility, and from this point onwards he signed his works as ‘Franz von Stuck’. At the International Exhibition in Venice in 1909 Stuck was given a room to himself, and in the later years of his career began to focus on sculpture over paintings. By this time, however, his work was beginning to fall out of favour with art critics outside Munich. Although his reputation in Munich itself remained undimmed throughout most of his career, his work and his reputation had fallen into a gradual neglect elsewhere in Germany and the rest of Europe by the second decade of the 20th century."

The Aryan Ideal

 

By 

Chad Crowley

Reinhard Heydrich was widely regarded, even by his adversaries, as one of the most intelligent and capable figures within the Third Reich. Hitler himself referred to him as “the man with the iron heart.” He mastered several languages, including French and English, and had begun studying Czech before his death. He possessed a genius-level IQ, reflected in his extraordinary ability to absorb, organize, and command vast systems of information with methodical precision and unwavering clarity.

Although the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) had already been established in name, it was Heydrich who built it into a modern instrument of statecraft. He did not merely oversee an office of internal surveillance; he redefined the practice of political intelligence in the twentieth century. He transformed the SD into a centralized and methodologically advanced apparatus of internal control, establishing a framework that prefigured the major intelligence services of the postwar world. Through coordinated surveillance, ideological supervision, psychological analysis, and systemic integration, he developed operational principles that would later be reflected in the structures of both Eastern and Western intelligence agencies. In many respects, the foundational logic of institutions such as the CIA and Mossad still echoes the architecture first constructed under his direction.

His upbringing reflected both discipline and refinement. Raised in a musical household, with a father who was a composer and opera singer, Heydrich became a classically trained violinist of near-professional caliber. Music was not a casual pastime but a serious and cultivated pursuit; for a time, he even considered a career in it before choosing the military path. Alongside this, he developed into a master fencer of Olympic-level skill, known for his speed, precision, and aggression. He was widely regarded as one of the finest swordsmen in the SS and was later appointed president of the National Socialist Reich Fencing Association.

This combination of intellectual brilliance, cultural cultivation, and martial discipline defined his early military career. He joined the German Navy at eighteen and rose rapidly through the ranks. His dismissal, the result of a personal scandal involving a noblewoman, left a lasting mark on his sense of honor and personal conduct, yet it also propelled him toward the SS, where he would ascend even further.

Such was the threat he posed that the British government, in coordination with anti-National Socialist Czechoslovak operatives, undertook a covert mission known as Operation Anthropoid, conceived for the express purpose of eliminating him. It was among the very few Allied operations directed not at an army, installation, or infrastructure, but at a single man. His death was not the outcome of battlefield engagement, but the result of a calculated act of removal, carried out in recognition of the magnitude of his strategic influence.

He was not a clown, nor a brute, nor a sociopath, and certainly not a goofball. He was a brilliant, disciplined, and formidable man whose influence reshaped the machinery of modern power. That is what made him so respected, and to his enemies, so feared.

SEE ALSO:

Knight of The Black Teutonic Order

The Arch of Titus

 

The Arch rises with its only fornix (archway) at the point where the visitors from the Roman Forum go up to the Palatine Hill. It was erected in honor of Titus Vespasian Augustus (79-81 AD), second emperor of the Flavian dynasty, as a spectacular gateway to the Imperial Palaces.

It is identified with certainty by the legible inscription on the attic, on the side facing the Colosseum, which preserves the original dedication (CIL VI, 945): “Senatus / Populusque Romanus / divo Tito divi Vespasiani f(ilio) / Vespasian Augustus” (The Senate and People of Rome in honor of the divine Titus, son of the divine Vespasian, Vespasian Augustus).

The attribute “divus” referring to Titus, suggests that he was already deified, and therefore deceased, when the text was engraved. The construction of the arch, therefore, is thought to be after 81 AD, probably to be placed in the early years of the reign of Domitian (81-96 AD), who did so much to ensure that his brother was deified. The reliefs carved on marble show off the success of the Jewish War, concluded by Titus, together with his father Vespasian, in 71 AD: in the small frieze under the attic, which was originally intended to go all the way around, the triumphal procession is depicted; the panel affixed on the South pylon shows the procession’s passage through the Triumphal Gate of the Forum Boarium, where the ceremony began, with the exhibition of the rich spoils brought to Rome, including the seven-branched candelabra (the menorah); the imperial quadriga with Titus crowned by Victory is depicted on the opposite North pylon.

Despite the references to historical facts, the monument never had a triumphal function; another arch, dedicated to the emperor but erected in the curved side of the Circus Maximus, performed this function. Rather, the subject of debate among scholars is whether, provided at the top with a spacious hollow room, it could have housed the temporary burial of Titus, whose apotheosis is carved in the center of the vault below as a flight over the back of an eagle towards the sky.

In the Middle Ages, the Arch was incorporated into the fortress of the powerful Frangipane family and later annexed to the Olivetan monastery complex. Thus, we often see it depicted in the drawings and paintings of artists and travellers of all times.

The first demolitions of the post-ancient additions that began in the 15th century were followed in the 1820s by a radical restoration by architect Giuseppe Valadier (1762-1839), when the structure, disassembled piece by piece and totally freed, was reassembled and integrated with travertine in the missing parts, taking on its current appearance. The inscription visible on the attic, in bronze letters, on the side facing the Roman Forum, dates back to this period and, in particular, to the pontificate of Pius VII (1800-1823), who wanted to commemorate this important restoration work, marking a milestone for the conservation practices of ancient monuments.

SOURCE: Parco Archeologico Del Colosseo

Axis of Resistance

 

"We must give a strong response to the terrorist Zionist regime. We will show the Zionists no mercy."

21 Years of Silence....

 

29th of May 1453 - The Fall of Constantinople

 

By Jonathan North

Early in the morning of Tuesday, May 29, 1453, they came swarming like hungry wolves over the plain between the Turkish palisades and the battered walls of Byzantium. Thousands upon thousands of wild and ferocious men rushed through the darkness upon the exhausted defenders. Scimitars glistened in the flickering light of torches. Monotonous drums, blaring trumpets, and clashing cymbals urged them on with a frenzied beat. Across the besieged city, bells tolled dolefully as exhausted defenders prepared to make another supreme effort, while women and children sought sanctuary in churches and behind bolted doors. But on came the Turks, their shouts audible, their approach like the rushing of a wave. The spectacle was magnificent and terrifying. The Sultan’s army was storming Constantinople.

The first wave of the ferocious assault was soon crashing into the city’s defenses. Bashi-Bazouks, drawn from all over the Ottoman Empire, were desperate for plunder and frustrated by weeks of fruitless siege. They showed astounding energy and valor as they surged beneath the walls, raising ladders, cheering, cursing, baying for blood. The chain-mail-clad Greek and Italian defenders, fighting for their lives, sent stones hurtling down into the warriors below or picked off Turks with crossbow bolts. For “an hour the savagery continued. Ladders were raised only to be sent crashing down into the jostling throng. Turks turned to run, only to find a cordon of Imperial officers cutting down those who attempted to flee. Most fought with a frenzy the defenders were astonished to behold until, finally, the Sultan relented and the first wild wave turned away from the walls and ran back to the Ottoman camp.

You can read the full article HERE

Bridge To The Gods

" If he's going to become the man he was born to be, Richard Wodenson is going to need some help from the gods."

Protest Against Decadence

 

On this day, May 21, 2013, Dominique Venner chose to end his life by committing suicide in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, that his final act too might contribute to awakening the European peoples. In a letter sent to his colleagues at Radio Courtoisie, he characterizes his suicide as a rebellion “against pervasive individual desires that destroy the anchors of our identity, particularly the family, the intimate base of our multi-millennial society.”

Dominique Venner (16/4/1935 – 21/5/2013) French historian, journalist and essayist, member of the Organisation armée secrète and later founder of Europe-Action.

His principal historical works were: Baltikum (1974), Le Blanc Soleil des vaincus (The White Sun of the Vanquished) (1975), Le Cœur rebelle (The Rebel Heart) (1994), Gettysburg (1995), Les Blancs et les Rouges (The Whites and the Reds) (1997), Histoire de la Collaboration (History of the Collaboration) (2000) and Histoire du terrorisme (History of Terrorism) (2002). His Histoire de l’Armée rouge (History of the Red Army) won the Prix Broquette-Gonin of history awarded by the Académie française in 1981.

In 1995, and with the advice of his friend François de Grossouvre, Venner published Histoire critique de la Résistance (Critical History of the Resistance).

In 2002, Venner wrote Histoire et tradition des Européens (History and Tradition of the Europeans), in which he set out what he believed to be the common cultural bases of European civilisation, and outlined his theory of “traditionalism” (a concept that, inter alia, assesses the specificities of each society and civilisation).

Venner served as editor in chief of the revue Enquête sur l’histoire (Study of History, or Historical Inquest) until its dissolution in the late 1990s. In 2002, he created La Nouvelle Revue d’Histoire (The New Historical Revue, temporarily renamed the NRH in 2006), a bimonthly magazine devoted to historical topics.

Shortly after his death was reported, a number of  personalities paid tribute to Venner and commended his public suicide. Marine Le Pen issued a tweet: "All our respect to Dominique Venner, whose final gesture, eminently political, was to try to awaken the people of France." Bruno Gollnisch described him as an "extremely brilliant intellectual" whose death was "a protest against the decadence of our society."

© 2022 P-S Lindblom

9th of May 1945 - The Last Report of Free Europe

 

FROM THE GRAND ADMIRAL'S HEADQUARTERS, May 9-The High Command of the Armed Forces announces:

In East Prussia - German divisions even yesterday gallantly defended to the very last the Vistula mouth and the western part of the Frisches Nehrung. The Seventh Division distinguished itself particularly in this fighting. To their Commander in Chief, General of Tank Troops von Saucken, were awarded diamonds to the Oak Leaves with swords to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross in recognition of the exemplary gallantry of his soldiers.

As an advanced bulwark, our armies in Courland [Latvia], under the well-proved command of Colonel General Guenther, tied down superior Soviet rifle and armored formations through many months and acquired eternal glory in six great battles. They refused any premature surrender. Only the wounded, and later numerous children, were transported in full order by aircraft that still left for the west. Staffs and officers remained with their troops.

At midnight all fighting and all movements were suspended on the German side, under the conditions that had been signed.

The defenders of Breslau, who resisted Soviet attacks for more than two months, succumbed to enemy superiority in the last hour after a heroic struggle.

On the Southeast and East Fronts, from Fiume to Brno [Bruenn] to the Elbe near Dresden, all the higher military authorities have received the order to cease fire.

A Czech rising is taking place in the whole of Bohemia and Moravia and may threaten the execution of the capitulation conditions as well as communications in that area.

The High Command of the Armed-Forces so far has not received any reports regarding the situation of the army groups Loehr, Rendulic and Schoerner.

Far from home, the defenders of the Atlantic bases, our forces in Norway and garrisons of the Aegean Islands have maintained the military honor of the German soldier in obedience and discipline.

Since midnight all weapons have been silent on all fronts on orders of the Grand Admiral, and the armed forces have ceased the fighting, which has now become hopeless, thus ending a heroic struggle that lasted almost six years. This struggle brought us great victories. But also heavy defeats. In the end the German Wehrmacht succumbed with honor to enormous superiority.

Loyal to his oath, the German soldier's performance in a supreme effort for his people can never be forgotten. Up to the last moment the homeland had supported him with all its strength in an effort entailing the heaviest sacrifices. The unique performance of the front and homeland will find a final appraisal in the later, just judgment of history.

The enemy, too, will not deny his tribute of respect to the performance and sacrifices of German soldiers on land, at sea and in the air. Every soldier, therefore, may lay aside his weapon proud and erect and set to work in these gravest hours of our history with courage and confidence to safeguard the undying life of our people.

In this grave hour the Wehrmacht remembers its comrades who have died in battle. The dead impose upon us an obligation of unconditional loyalty, obedience and discipline toward the Fatherland, which is bleeding from countless wounds.

The Eternal War

 

 

The eternal war is between this and greatness, between the matriarchy of Çatalhöyük and the conquest of Perseus

The West began when the seated woman was slain, when the heirs of Perseus built the great city-states of Greece and, eventually, Rome

Now we're reverting back to the hell of Çatalhöyük, and the oppressive matriarchy it represents

Will Tanner - The American Tribune

The Fall of The Last Tribune - 80th Anniversary

“They dare not—they dare not,” said the brave Colonna, “touch a hair of that sacred head!—if Rienzi fall, the liberties of Rome fall for ever! As those towers that surmount the flames, the pride and monument of Rome, he shall rise above the dangers of the hour. Behold, still unscathed amidst the raging element, the Capitol itself is his emblem!”

Scarce had he spoken, when a vast volume of smoke obscured the fires afar off, a dull crash (deadened by the distance) travelled to his ear, and the next moment, the towers on which he gazed had vanished from the scene, and one intense and sullen glare seemed to settle over the atmosphere,—making all Rome itself the funeral pyre of THE LAST OF THE ROMAN TRIBUNES!

The End

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON - RIENZI The Last of the Roman Tribunes

THE ANOUNCEMENT FROM THE FÜHRER's HEADQUARTERS:

https://www.abruckner.com/down/editorsnote/features/bruckner_third_reich/the_radio_announce/Hitlers_Death_Announcement_RRG.mp3

SEE ALSO:

The 30th April of 1945

The Revolutionaries of EOKA as Bearers of Nation's Justice

 

CYPRUS 1956

Two British agents executed by members of EOKA after coming in Cyprus.

A mixed couple. A Turk executed by EOKA. In the photo his Greek fiance cries over his dead body.

 

A video of how the British occupation forces cover the incidents. 

Regular citizens and even school children openly defied their regulations.

 More about EOKA's works and actions HERE

Evening Songs & National Romanticism

 

Kveldssanger ("Evening Songs") is a musical project primarily based on the dark sides of the Norwegian folklore. However, this is not a traditional folk music release but rather a neofolk adaptation of the feelings we carry about the magical and mythical elements of older cultural stages. Here we attempt to paint nature-mystical and sorcerous [trollish?] moods through purely acoustic instruments. What you hear here is the result of late evenings where we have been immersed in a creative longing for Norway’s grand history, its adventurous nature, and the bewitching moods it conveys.

The Romantic movement, which arose in the Germanic lands towards the end of the eighteenth century — with its emphasis on free imagination and the ability to illustrate and bind the emotional and the medieval worldview, and popular cultural life — has exerted a great influence on this album.

Although melancholy and mysticism manifest themselves strongly throughout Kveldssanger, one will also find among them distinct pieces that differ from the aforementioned with fresh, ecstatic elements, and epic harmonies. These are presented to engage varying visual impulses in the listener’s mind — and to spare them from being left with an empty impression without having felt the richness of what we are trying to express.

While we have largely adhered to Norwegian feelings and moods, this issue is not tied to any specific location. The music presented here is essentially a means to give the listeners’ imaginations wings to the old fairyland in their minds.

Beware of the light of the day…

The Evening Songs are entirely dedicated to the Dark Powers

Taken from:

SEE ALSO:

To Ride With The Wolves & Trolls

Tania Stene - An Artist That Works from The Shadows

The 53rd Year

 

PART I 

(From 00:00 to 06:21)

 - NSDAP celebration at the Berlin Philharmonic on the eve of Hitler's birthday, April 19, 1942.

Celebration of the Hitler's birthday organized by the Radio of the great Germany. Wilhelm Furtwängler conducts the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra with the final chorus of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Among the audience: Goebbels, Dr. Ley and Japanese Ambassador Hiroshi Ōshima. 

PART II

 (From 06:22to 08:27) - 

Hitler's 53rd birthday at the Führer's Headquarters, East Prussia, April 20, 1942.

Hitler celebrates his 53rd birthday at the Wolf's Lair, and recives congratulations from Keitel, Göring, Himmler, Ley, von Ribbentrop, and Raeder. A delegation of the "Hitler youth" sing a serenade and present a bouquet of flowers to Fuhrer. 

Artist, Architect and Designer

 

Ernst Zündel uses his experience as a fine artist to analyze the many works of Adolf Hitler through his career as a struggling artist to the leader responsible for building a new Germany.

Ernst Zündel's 1982 documentary has been re-edited with quality upgraded pictures, photos and films.

See the full documentary HERE

The Sea Wolf

 

Jack London's The Sea-Wolf (1904) is a gripping, psychologically intense novel that blends high-seas adventure with profound philosophical debate. The story begins when Humphrey van Weyden, a refined but sheltered literary critic, is rescued from a San Francisco ferry accident—only to be shanghaied into servitude aboard the Ghost, a sealing schooner helmed by the terrifying and enigmatic Captain Wolf Larsen.

What follows is one of literature's most compelling clashes of ideologies. Larsen is a self-made brute, a man of immense physical and intellectual power who scorns morality as a weak man's invention. A Nietzschean antihero before Nietzsche was widely known in America, he rules his ship with ruthless efficiency, dispensing violence and wisdom in equal measure. To him, life is a merciless struggle where only the strong survive, and he delights in breaking van Weyden's genteel illusions.

Yet The Sea-Wolf is more than a survival story—it's a novel of transformation. Forced into hard labor, van Weyden must shed his passive intellectualism and discover his own latent strength. The dynamic between the two men evolves into a battle of wills, with Larsen serving as both tormentor and dark mentor. Their philosophical debates—on free will, the nature of good and evil, and the meaning of existence—elevate the novel beyond a simple adventure tale into a meditation on what it means to be human.

London, drawing from his own experiences at sea, fills the book with visceral detail: the grueling work of sealing, the terror of storms, and the ever-present threat of mutiny. The maritime setting becomes a microcosm of the world, a lawless space where civilization's rules no longer apply.

The novel takes another dramatic turn with the introduction of Maud Brewster, a poet and castaway whose presence disrupts the volatile balance between Larsen and van Weyden. Her intelligence and resilience add new dimensions to the story, challenging both men's worldviews and setting the stage for a desperate struggle for survival when Larsen's body begins to betray his formidable mind.

The Sea-Wolf endures because it refuses easy answers. Wolf Larsen is one of fiction's greatest villains—charismatic, cruel, and eerily compelling. Is he a monster, or is he simply the most honest man aboard? Is van Weyden's moral growth a triumph, or has he merely learned to wield violence when necessary? London leaves these questions unresolved, forcing the reader to grapple with them long after the final page.

Source: Bookworm Classic

Excelsa Divina

 

With Excelsa Divina, Arditi conjures a towering vision  of Martial strength, Neoclassical grandeur and Dark Ambient Solemnity.

This track heralds a refined evolution in their sound - disciplined, evocative, and uncomromising.

https://www.youtube.com/@arditichannel

Robert E Howard - The Warrior Poet

By 

Renzo Parodi

Robert E. Howard wrote. A lot. And not only prose but also a lot of introspective and dark poetry. Many probably have heard of him because of his most well known characters. But that was not all. He wrote about historical fantasy, science fiction inspired by Edgar Burroughs and his Martian series, Boxing Stories as he was an amateur boxing fanatic himself, Weird Fiction focused upon the so called “Yellow Peril” so present at that time. And not to forget his “Racial Memory” stories, influenced by the late writer Jack London and his novel “Star Rover”. Also, as he belonged to H.P Lovecraft’s inner circle of writers, he wrote a lot of Horror Stories influenced by the Lovecraftian Mythos.

His writings have been very hard to find in proper volumes as they used to appear scattered around in small books and even smaller magazines. However, The Robert E. Howard Foundation has taken enormous work in classifying, collecting and releasing in proper volumes all those works almost forgotten by the major public. Anyone interested not only in Weird Fantasy, Pulp literature but also epic and obscure poetry should visit Howard’s Foundation webstore and choose your path.

https://rehpress.com

Sounds of Asa-Thor

 ...the destroyer of the destroyers!

Available from:

https://black-metal-vendor.com/en/

The Holy Mountain

 

A dancer, Diotima (Leni Riefenstahl), meets an engineer and skier, Karl (Luis Trenker), at his cottage in the mountains. This dancer that loves the sea, and this skier loves the rock fall in love, and have an affair.

One of Karl's young friends, Vigo (Ernst Petersen), meets the dancer after a presentation and she gives her scarf with a smile to him, the infatuated friend mistakenly believes that she is in love with him.

Karl sees Diotima innocently caressing Vigo, and the engineer mistakenly believes that she is betraying him with his friend.

Karl decides to commit suicide and invites Vigo to climb the dreadful Santo Mountain North face during the winter thaw with him. His best friend joins Karl on the tragic journey up the nearest Alp.

Half way up a daring mountain climb, Karl and Vigo stop for a rest on a narrow ledge when a chance remark by Vigo, makes Karl realize that it was Vigo who was groping his fiancée. He is so furious that he makes a threatening gesture in close proximity towards Vigo, who instinctively steps back, over a precipice. But, Karl and Vigo are roped together! In order to save himself, Karl must rescue the dangling Vigo ... and in the process he makes a few self-discoveries.

At the end a caption reads that loyalty was the highest virtue of a person. The motto of the German SS was, "meine ehre heist treue" or My Honor is Loyalty. A virtue taken to an extreme degree.

A 1926 German melodramatic mountain film (German: Der heilige Berg) directed by Arnold Fanck, produced by Harry R. Sokal, written by Arnold Fanck and Hans Schneeberger, cinematography by Arnold Fanck, Hans Schneeberger, Sepp Allgeier and Helmar Lerski, starring Leni Riefenstahl, Luis Trenker, Frida Richard, Ernst Petersen, Friedrich Schneider, and Hannes Schneider. Screen debut appearances of Leontine Sagan, and future filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.

German filmmaker Arnold Fanck single-handedly invented the Mountain Film movie genre.

Leni Riefenstahl  became a director in her own right. Evidently Hitler was impressed by her work and asked her to make Nazi propaganda films for him and she did, later made famous or infamous as the documenter of Nazi Germany in 'Triumph of the Will' (the 1934 Nuremburg rally) and 'Olympiad' (the 1936 Olympics).

Leni Riefenstahl directed the flower-filled springtime scenes in Interlaken as well as the scenes of the nighttime rescue party searching with their flares, when director Fanck was unavailable for both.

The name of Riefenstahl's dancer character, Diotima, had an association with classical Greek philosophy.She was a priestess who was supposed to have taught Socrates, and Plato makes her a character in his dialogue The Symposium in which she expounds on the nature of true love.

Shot at the Atelier Staaken studio in Berlin, Germany, and on locations in the mountains of the Alps in Switzerland over the course of one and half years. Filming was done in Upper Engadin, in Sils-Maria, a small Swiss village about 6 miles west of St. Moritz. Clearly recognizable are Mount Margna, and the village of Sils-Maria is visible with the Hotel Alpenrose and the Chesa Zuan, and there is also a beautiful view of the Silsersee with Maloja visible in the distance.

The film began production in January 1925, but then was delayed due to weather and hospitalization of three actors.

The shooting of the film itself was plagued by weather problems, ice kept melting, snow turned to slush and the whole project was nearly thrown out by UFA. 

The Ice Palace was 16 meters high and it took 4 weeks to build. Because the shootings were delayed and the temperature increased, it started melting and it had to be rebuilt again when the weather was cold enough to maintain it.

Popular in Berlin, where sold-out performances extended its premiere run for five weeks, it was also screened in Britain, France and US: the first international success of its director.

Some critics were not impressed with the film, one of the most expensive efforts released by the German studio Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA) in a year which was otherwise marked by a policy of retrenchment and the departure of respected studio head Erich Pommer. The film was compared unfavourably with the much less costly "Madame Wants No Children" (1926) directed by Alexander Korda.

The excellent cinematography and the camera work are stunning considering the size, weight and technical resources of the equipment in this period. There is no trick photography in use here: that man really is peering over the edge of a sheer cliff with the front of his skis in mid-air, and the cameraman really is hurtling down the ski-slopes with his subjects as he captures how it feels to take part in a rugged ski race. The plot is naive for today's audience, but society in the silent days of 1926 German cinema had other moral concepts. The exciting photography and action sequences make this unique melodrama worth a view, and fascinating from a historical perspective.

Donald P. Borchers

The Eternal Fighting Spirit of 1821

 The Army Camp of Karaiskakis

by

 Theodoros Vryzakis 

This painting depicts the army camp of General Karaiskakis at Phaliron during Greek preparations to capture the Acropolis, besieged by the Turks, in April 1827. 

Greeks and philhellenes are arranged along a section in the foreground, while in the mid-ground on the right, the eye is guided towards the hill from which the leading officers of the army survey the battle field. In the background on the left can be seen the Acropolis. 

Almost in the centre, a Greek is leaning against an ancient marble in an allusion to the heritage of classical Greece. On the right, a priest is blessing the fighters. 

The officer in the blue uniform on the left is Bavarian philhellene Krazeisen, to whom the Greeks are grateful. He captured for posterity the figures of the 1821 freedom fighters as we know them today. It is from these drawings that Vryzakis sourced the portraits of the fighters on the hill: Karaiskakis, Makrygiannis, Tzavelas, Notaras, the Scot named Gordon, Englishman Hastings and Karl von Heideck, looking towards the Acropolis through a telescope. 

Heideck, who had first-hand experience of these events, painted the same subject, and Vryzakis quoted his painting much later, in 1855.

Source: National Gallery of Athens 

The Basic Needs of a Revolutionary

 

Or what you need to start a revolution:

1. A Regular wooden office 

2. A revolver & grenades

3. An Arditi Flag

THE PIC:

The office of Benito Mussolini in San Sepolcro, Milan in the early fascist period.

Forgotten Remains of True Europe

"Praise What Makes One Tough"

Taken from:

Forgotten Barracks of WW2

The God of Sleep

 

According to Hesiods Theogony, which was written in about 700 BC, Hypnos is the god of sleep, the son of Nyx (Night) and brother of Thanatos (Death). Like the latter, he lives where Night and Day meet and where Atlas is holding up the heavens. But while the merciless Thanatos has a heart of iron, Hypnos sweeps across land and sea, bringing peaceful and friendly sleep to men.

Hypnos, who according to Ovid (Metamorphoses 11.623) is the “gentlest” of the gods, is depicted as a naked youth, hurrying as though in flight, his torso bent forward and his right foot touching the ground only with its toes. In his outstretched right hand he is holding a horn from which a sleep-inducing liquid flows; his lowered left hand holds poppy capsules. Large wings, like those of the messenger of the gods, Hermes, are growing out of his full head of hair, which is held together by a band across his forehead and tied together in a knot at his neck. The sweeping gesture of his outstretched right arm corresponds to his right leg, which stretches backwards, while his left forearm points in the same direction as the left leg, on which his weight is resting.

The statuette is a smaller copy of a Greek original. The best-known copies are those in Madrid (marble) and London (bronze head), but unfortunately the original is not mentioned in the Classical literary sources. It is usually linked to artists of the 4th century BC (Praxiteles, Scopas, Leochares), but given the complexity of the motion depicted, it could also have been created in the later Hellenistic period.

The statuette comes from the collection of Joseph Angelo de France, who under Empress Maria Theresa was “director-general of the imperial and royal treasury, galleries and other precious collections”. He died in 1761, and his extensive collection of Classical bronzes was acquired from his heiress in 1808 for the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

SOURCE:

A Brief Guide to the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Edited by Wilfried Seipel. Vol. 4. Masterpieces in the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Fiume o Morte!

 

Black is The Night

 BLACK IS THE NIGHT 

Black is the night on the mountains 

Snow fall on the rocks. 

In the dark, in the wild nature, on the rough stones, the narrows, the klepht hits his sword.

In his right hand holds a thunderbolt.

The mountain is his palace, the sky his covering and the gun his hope.

The tyrants flee scared by his black knife.

With sweat rains his bread, he knows how to live with honor, and how to die.The wiliness runs the world and the unjust fate.

The bad owns the wealth and here on the rocks resides, the hidden virtue.

---

Origin: March of the Hellenic Army

Poetry by: Alexandros Rizos Ragavis

Theme: Based on the life of Hellenic fighters (Klephtes) of the revolution of 1821.

Photo: The creator of the poetry

The Soul of Chivalry

 

IN THE MIDDLE AGES OF EUROPE, numerous knightly orders emerged, their esoteric secrets kept only for the initiates. Their adepts were steeped in the prowess of warriors, but had a strict code of honour and piety that governed their conduct. The practice of these virtues was the aim of chivalry, and the goal was nothing less than the transformation of the knight into a type of fighting ascetic seeking the Holy Grail.

World of Tradition Films and PhilosophiCat Present a Cat Weiss feature-length documentary on knighthood in the Middle Ages of Europe.

The German Advance in Greece

Continuing from the previous post. From the official German propaganda newsreels, broadcasted in April 30 1941. The German advance in Greece. From the northern borders down to Athens.

Again, for decades the propaganda - lies from the so-called allies was that "the enemy is entering into empty towns with the population closed behind their locked houses". 

As you'll see, it happened exactly the oppposite!

 

Hellas in WW2 - Backstabbed and Sacrificed for the British Intrests

 

Few days ago an intresting article appered in one of the major news sites of Hellas. Its things that we,  National Socialists says for decades now, secrets well-kept by the history as it was written by the victors of 1945. Instead they kept repeating lies such as "we will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks" and crap like that. The truth is that back then, Hellas was backstabbed and sacrificed by its so called "allies" which at the same time they were negotiating with her enemy countries (like Turkey etc).

Here is the full article in english:

https://en.protothema.gr/2025/02/07/how-churchill-provoked-the-german-invasion-of-greece/

Some intresting parts of it:

"Mussolini decided to ask for a ceasefire with the help of the Germans but was blocked by the Foreign Minister and his son-in-law, Ciano. Meanwhile, the Germans, who probably disagreed with the Italian attack on Greece, seeing the tragic position of their allies, attempted to mediate to end the Greco-Italian War, “offering” Greece the territories of Northern Epirus that our Army had occupied."

"The Germans only requested the complete removal of all British forces from Greece. Despite the fact that the German proposal seriously occupied the Greek side, it was not implemented, mainly because the British exerted unbearable pressure on Metaxas to reject it. The death of Metaxas on January 29, 1941, is at least suspicious. In fact, some serious historians and researchers believe that Metaxas was murdered"

"Churchill to Mussolini: “If Italy deemed it appropriate to carry out an operation in Greece, Great Britain would not oppose it”!

"How Churchill hindered the arming of Greece by sending weapons to “neutral” Turkey!"

Youcan read far more details and background of war in the article

The Music of Romanticism

 

Last autumn and up untill January 5 of 2025, the Swedish Nationalmuseum held a very intresting exhibition titled "The Romantic Eye"

See more info here: 

https://www.nationalmuseum.se/en/the-romantic-eye

For this reason the museum also published online some playlist with music of Romanticism. Which you can see and listen here:

https://www.nationalmuseum.se/en/exhibitions/the-romantic-eye/the-music-of-romanticism

    If you ignore some conteporary trash (both in music and art) in general their collections were really good and accurate!