Saturday, June 28, 2014

Goebbel's gerbils

Did you know …


That the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels invented gerbils? It’s true!


Early on in the war, Goebbels worked with German geneticists to create a rodent that he thought embodied the best qualities of the so-called Aryan race: hardiness, efficiency, xenophobia, sleek blonde hair, and (for the kids) cuteness.


Although gerbils themselves hold no strong political or moral philosophies, that didn’t stop the German people from projecting their sociopathic hangups onto the rodents, and Gerbils became wildly popular Nazi pets practically overnight.


While my understanding of irony has always been tenuous (at best!), I think it’s ironic that Goebbels was eventually murdered by his beloved gerbils. After applying lard-based lotion to his lips and anus (a favorite before-bed ritual), Goebbels went out to the gerbil barn to give the rodents their nightly meal. As he leaned over a pen full of bull gerbils, Goebbels appears to have slipped on a tiny pile of shit and tipped into the pen. The hungry gerbils smelled the lard on Goebbels, and immediately set upon him, starting, naturally, with his lips and butthole. When he was found the next morning, all that remained of him was a skeleton and a belly button, strangely untouched by the gerbils.

Gerbils’ origins probably raise some moral questions for pet owners, but if you can ride in a Mercedes or wear Hugo Boss without breaking out into a sweat, gerbils probably aren’t that big a deal. It wasn’t their fault, after all. And, if you’re really looking for some justification for your gerbil ownership, you might as well attribute to their race the murder of one of the 20th century’s biggest pieces of human garbage. So that’s something.

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