To Homer

Homer Reciting his Poems 1790 - Sir Thomas Lawrence 1769-1830

By John Keats

Standing aloof in giant ignorance,
   Of thee I hear and of the Cyclades,
As one who sits ashore and longs perchance
   To visit dolphin-coral in deep seas.
So thou wast blind;—but then the veil was rent,
   For Jove uncurtain'd Heaven to let thee live,
And Neptune made for thee a spumy tent,
   And Pan made sing for thee his forest-hive;
Aye on the shores of darkness there is light,
   And precipices show untrodden green,
There is a budding morrow in midnight,
   There is a triple sight in blindness keen;
Such seeing hadst thou, as it once befel
To Dian, Queen of Earth, and Heaven, and Hell.

A Samurai among the Arditi: Shimoi Harukichi (1883–1954)

Son of a Samurai from an ancient and noble family, poet, translator of the first Japanese poems into Italian, great lover of Dante and the Divine Comedy, war journalist, teacher at the Royal Oriental Institute. It is the adventurous and multifaceted life of Harukichi Shimoi, born in 1883 in Fukuoka as Harukichi Inoue (he later adopted the surname of his wife when they married in 1907). He finished his studies in Japan, and had the occasion to meet Bin Ueda, by whom he was profoundly influenced. In 1915 after having founded the Japanese Dante Society, he moved to Naples, Italy to study Dante, thanks to the interest of the Italian ambassador in the land of the Rising Sun: the marquis Alessandro Guiccioli, who got him the position of teacher at the University of Naples "L'Orientale". A very prestigious assignment for the then unknown, just 28 years old, Shimoi. The young Japanese, once arrived, began to frequent the Neapolitan cultural scene and, among these, a very famous bookseller who had a well-known stall in via Toledo: Don Gaetano Pappacena . Attracted by the futurists, he met and frequented Raffaele Uccella, sculptor of Santa Maria Capua in Vetere. Over time Shimoi improved his Italian and, above all, learned the Neapolitan dialect so well that he was nicknamed, as Bruna Gaeta Catalano recalls, “The Japanese urchin”.Shimoi tried to mediate the story of Italian fascism to an audience of young Japanese in hopes of stirring them into seeking a patriotic politics of their own. An educator with a penchant for romantic literature and, later, a nationalist activist. 

Harukichi Shimoi, the Samurai of Fiume, dressed in italian Arditi uniform during WWI

Shimoi lived in Italy for almost twenty years, witnessing World War I and the rise of fascism. He found in Italian fascism a set of social and cultural tools to realign modern mass society with the nation. Shimoi conceived fascism as a pedagogical strategy to mobilize the masses—especially youth—through patriotism and devotion to the state. It also considers Shimoi's role in the so-called byakkōtai affair, which commemorated the “white tigers” (byakkō), a group of young Aizu warriors who fought on the losing side during the Bōshin War of 1868, and how it ushered in a new phase in Japan's relation with fascism. In 1917, he enlisted as a volunteer in the Italian army during World War I, and committed himself to fighting against the Central Powers. He took courage and went to General Caviglia, the commander of the troops, and asked to be sent to the front row where all the others fought, in the trenches.The soldier amazed by those words, put in his hand the uniform, which he gave him personally, and sent him where only a son of Bushido or a madman could go , in the midst of the Arditi. Harukichi became an Ardito, teaching his fellow soldiers some karate. On November 3, 1918, he is among the first to enter Trento liberated, with the tricolor cockade on his chest, and immediately goes to visit the monument of Dante: “Midnight was past, the thin rain came. In the dark sky the monument stood black and haughty. And on the polished marble of his pedestal he knelt and bowed reverently, a little young man who came from the Far East, leaving his loved ones far away, challenging the stormy sea, guided only by the divine words of the Poet ".

Harukichi Shimoi with Benito Mussolini

Using his diplomatic passport that allowed him great freedom of movement, Shimoi acted after the war as a liaison for secret mails between Gabriele D'Annunzio, then regent of Fiume, and Benito Mussolini, at the time the head of the Italian Fasci di Combattimento and editor of Il Popolo d'Italia . Shimoi was, among other things, one of the people first entering the Fiume Endeavour of the Italian poet. It was during the Rijeka enterprise that Shimoi was nicknamed by D'Annunzio "comrade Samurai" and "the Samurai of Fiume". Shimoi was enthusiastically welcomed by the legionaries and in front of them the poet gave a welcome speech in his honor, wishing a bright future for Japan: "From Fiume d'Italia, gateway to the East, we salute the light of the Far East". For D'Annunzio, Japan was the place of dreams, the unattainable destination par excellence, so much so that, to reach it, together with Shimoi, he organized the Rome-Tokyo flight performed by the aviator Arturo Ferrarin.

Returning to Naples in 1920 after the Rijeka experience, he founded the Japanese literature magazine Sakura, that would be published until March of the following year for a total of five issues. During his numerous missions to circumvent the military blockade imposed by General Caviglia in Fiume, he befriended the future founder of Fascism. Therefore he enthusiastically joined Fascism, and in 1922, he took part in the March on Rome. Mussolini, who greatly appreciated the Japanese poet, decided in 1928 to send a column taken from the Roman Forum from Pompey's house to Japan. And he wanted a commemorative epigraph dedicated to "The spirit of Bushido" to be placed at the foot of the column. In 1934 he served as an interpreter to the founder of Judo, Jigoro Kano, while he was staying in Italy. The translated interviews given by Kano were a mainspring for the development of such discipline in Italy.

Getting back to his homeland, Shimoi helped the Italian Embassy in Tokyo to stop the pro-Ethiopian activities of the Japanese rightist clubs during the war in Ethiopia. He was a tireless popularizer of Italian culture, translating numerous works from Japanese to Italian and vice versa, also promoting construction of a temple dedicated to Dante Aligheri, in Tokyo. He dedicated one of his best known poetic works to the ruins of Pompeii: "Shinto Ponpeo o tou tame ni". He was one of the best known Japanese supporters of Italian fascism, seeing some analogies between the fascist principles and the traditional values of Japanese culture, especially the Bushido. He argued that fascism was a natural ramification of the risorgimento, and that its role was to be a "spiritual movement" that would make Italians identify as being part of the new nation. He began to lecture on fascism and was one of the major supporters of the "Rome, Tokyo and Berlin" axis. 

After the second World War, Shimoi met and became friends with Indro Montanelli, who arrived in Japan to work on a series of reportages. Shimoi became his guide around the country. He died in 1954.

The Heroic Synthesis between Matter and Spirit

"Evola makes a distinction between a life-denying, moralistic asceticism, and an Aryan asceticism which is larger than life. The first is that of the slave, which has its origin in the neurotic fear of one’s ‘sinful’ body and a lack of virility, while the second is that of the hero, which has its origin in a high virility and the feeling that this body and world are not enough. An ascetic of the second type conquers Becoming by defeating every power it has over the part of him that is true Being; he realigns the original relationship between Being and Becoming, and thus returns to the divine and heroic realm which he has always felt to be his true home. From this higher point of existence, he can if he wishes return to the lower world of Becoming, and his act becomes the true manifestation of Being, the heroic synthesis between matter and spirit."

Henrik Jonasson: Futurism – Revolt Against the Past and the Nation of Tomorrow

EON: The Metaxas Youth through the German Propaganda

This Alfred Weidenmann propaganda book is entitled: Junges Griechenland ("Young Greece"). It was published in minimal copies in 1940, just a few months before the invasion of Italy and is an anthem for the "sister organization" of Hitler Youth, the E.ON. Weidenmann was a writer of youth illustrated N.S. books and today his books are very rare.

https://timelessjunk.blogspot.com/

The killing of Jochen Peiper

 

After serving 11 years in jail from 1945 to 1956, Peiper got a job with Porsche (who had built the Panther) as a sales manager,and later with Volkswagen. He had a small house (below) built in France and moved there in 1972 with his wife, living off his service pension and doing translation work for a publisher. Here he sits at the garden table with the journalist.

Photographed in 1976 aged 61 while giving interview to French journalist just weeks before his murder.. 

Joachim Peiper outside his home in the remote village of Traves in Eastern France.

After serving 11 years in jail from 1945 to 1956, Peiper got a job with Porsche (who had built the Panther) as a sales manager,and later with Volkswagen. He had a small house (below) built in France and moved there in 1972 with his wife, living off his service pension and doing translation work for a publisher. Here he sits at the garden table with the journalist.

The house was just outside the village of Traves..

And Traves was west of Vesoul..

Peiper's house was in thick woods. He was on good terms with his German neighbour..

But ominous slogans began appearing on local roads leading to Peiper's property..

Power lines leading to Peiper's house give away its secluded position in the woods in this 1982 photo.

His mailbox was on the wooden pole on the left and was sometimes ransacked..

The house was firebombed in 1976 with Peiper inside. His wife was away visiting Germany. Nobody was ever caught or admitted responsibility.His body was badly charred and an autopsy found smoke in his lungs, he'd gone down fighting, firing his .22 rifle and a pistol.

His remains were interred in the Peiper family plot in Landsberg, Bavaria.

His name was later scrubbed out, but his supporters sent mail to local dignitaries threatening reprisals, forcing them to cancel the annual village fete that year..

Peiper on the cover of a 1982 issue of the Waffen-SS old comrades magazine. I've underlined the words "Emordet am 14.7.76 in Frankreich" ("Murdered 14.7.76 in France")

Ironically, although Peipers tactical knowhow had kept him alive through 5 years of combat in France, Italy and Russia, he made one tactical error that cost him his life- he decided to settle in France..