WWII German Medals and Daggers

Paul Conrad's fallen Berlin Wall / swastika cartoon is not yet available (Feb, 2013)

As I recall, it looked something like this (will show the real thing when I find it [Found It] —Jasper)

Mark Fuhrman on swastikas, cartoons, German history and war (Murder in Brentwood, pages 124 and 125): "...I worked with Officer James² Purdy, who eventually told the defense that when he married a Jewish woman, I supposedly painted a swastika on his locker³...that incident never occurred.

"Another ridiculous allegation concerned a newspaper cartoon I had on my desk. Yes, I did have a cartoon by Paul Conrad that had a swastika in it. My friends knew that I appreciated political satire and even drew myself... I had about fifteen such cartoons in my desk. The cartoon in question is a single-frame drawing of a swastika rising out of the ashes⁴ of the newly fallen Berlin Wall. Conrad was asking whether we were making a mistake by allowing a country with the power and the history of Germany to be reunited. He was asking if we had awakened a sleeping giant, and whether we might have been better off leaving the giant alone. The fact that a single image can provoke such subtle and disturbing thought shows Conrad's great artistry, and that is the only reason I saved the cartoon.

"I was also attacked for collecting war memorabilia, some of which happened to be German. In fact, I am something of a history and military buff and collected all sorts of memorabilia. Decorations, daggers, and sabers are about the only artifacts from World Wars I and II which are neither too expensive, nor too rare for me to collect. British and German war decorations are recognized for their superb craftsmanship, many of these pieces are documented and engraved, and their makers took great pride in their work....The defense claimed that Because I had some German war memorabilia, I was therefore supposedly a Nazi..."

Then Fuhrman goes on to talk about his collection of guns...

In Confessions of a Nazi Spy, a German-American named Helldorf shows an anti-aircraft gun model to a pro-Nazi organizer named Kassel and some Nazi secret policemen.

Helldorf: You realize gentlemen, there have been so many changes in American anti-aircraft guns since last year that I was forced to work from the ground up copying them.... I had to remember each little part as the work progressed and fit them all together at home every night.

Kassel: Excellent piece of workmanship!

1) This is a memory -- my memory of the cartoon I saw over twenty years ago in the Detroit Free Press. I won't know how close it came to Conrad's until I can get a photocopy of his. Meanwhile, you need a picture of a swastika rising above a demolished wall to get Fuhrman's point about the visual impact of Conrad's message in a single frame. I saw the same things that Fuhrman said he saw. I think he said it well. [March 1, 2013: These were questions that Bill Day was asking in his cartoons before the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990. The 1992 date on the Conrad cartoon changes everything. By the last month of 1992, German reunification was no longer an issue. The issue was containment of racist neo-Nazi propaganda and violence in the new Germany.]

2) Mark Fuhrman's middle name is James. Purdy's first name, according to the court records, is Andrew.

3) In A Problem of Evidence, page 199, Joseph Bosco recounts a Deputy DA's version of the Swastika in a locker story with these words: "Purdy then told her about a swastika that had been put in his police locker."

4) The Wall was not reduced to ashes as Fuhrman's Phoenix allusion suggests. But the idea of him associating the swastika with a bird makes sense in light of the German eagle's probable representation in his collection of Nazi "memorabilia" that he was referencing. It also makes sense considering the history of the Nazi eagle's rise from the metaphorical ashes of World War I...

(February 17, 2013 note) Haven't found the cartoon in question. While I was looking for it, I found Bill Day's Phoenix. I had to wonder: Did Fuhrman insert an imaginary swastika in his description of Day's cartoon. Did I recall the wrong German flag [yes, I did]? It's too early in my search to know. And if I get to the end of 1990 without finding it, I'll have to start over in 1989 to be sure that I didn't miss it the first time.

(Note: February 17, 2013) Paul Conrad's Dec 6, 1989 "Burial at sea" was the only Conrad cartoon that I turned up within 3 months of "the newly fallen Berlin Wall." It doesn't reference Germany, much less its Nazi past and fear of a Nazi rebirth upon German reunification. A massive East Berlin demonstration on October 30, 1989 led the East German government to open six checkpoints in the Wall on November 9, 1989. Thousands of East Germans rushed through. On that day and over the next few weeks many East and West Berliners demolished large sections of the concrete wall with sledgehammers and other hand-demolition tools. However, the unification debate lasted until an all-German vote on the issue was taken on October 3, (10 03) 1990.

Given Fuhrman's denials and explanations on the subject of his association with Nazi symbolism, the only way his locker and cartoon stories fit into his "memorabilia" story is if the swastika and the bird of prey carrying it merged in his brain. But why, of all the Conrad cartoons that said so much about so many hot topics of the times, did LAPD Det. Fuhrman choose to display one with a swastika in it on his desk at work?

(Note: March 2, 2013) My memory of the cartoon was not based on the real one. It never appeared in the Free Press. Therefore, I could not have seen it when or where I thought I did. I now know that the first time I saw it was March 1, 2013 on a microfilm viewer in the Wayne State University Library. The flag and the "German Reunification?" subtitle in my memory had to came from Bill Day's conjuration of "the German flag" in my mind at the time, his swastika and Conrad's tanks (I could not draw the flag as small as I recalled it because it was too small to balance in the frame). Fuhrman did not trick me into recalling something I didn't see. His "newly fallen" line and what he said about it just made me look in the wrong time and place for something like it that I did see. I did not know who Paul Conrad was until I read his name in Fuhrman's book. Fuhrman said nothing about the dominant image in his drawing, a Nazi eagle.

The striking thing to me about the real picture was how well it tied into the Nazi medallions and daggers I guessed would be representative of Fuhrman's collection. I based that guess entirely upon the context in which Fuhrman selected Larry Bird, number 33 as his third favorite sports star. A Chris Darden session with Fuhrman was the context.

Now that I know when and where my memory of the swastika over the wall came from, I know that Fuhrman lied about why he had Conrad's swastika cartoon on his desk: He liked the picture for what it meant outside of it's editorial page context. It meant anything he wanted it to mean with "plausible deniability" of a racist memorabilia motive because of its left-wing source. Nobody was asking about the wisdom of reuniting Germany two years after it had been reunited. But it looks like Conrad had Day's Phoenix in mind when he added the swastika to his bird and gave his cartoon its title to comment on the resurrection of old Nazi ideas about race — not fear of renewed German military ambitions.

breakthrough/dates "October 30, 1989 -- At a demonstration before the Red City Hall, two hundred thousand East Berliners demand that the wall be torn down..."

http://www.johnnyg.westhost.com/index.html

Nazi Party Pin Police 8 Year Service Medal