'Rock' Book Dresses Down Fascist Fashions

Daniel Rachel’s remarkable This Ain’t Rock and Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika, and the Third Reich shows that from the brutal brilliance of Leni Reifenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will” to the ghoulish strutting of Marilyn Manson’s “The Golden Age of Grotesque,” the fashion horrors of Hitler’s Third Reich have never fully gone away. And in a time when many are drawing comparisons between mass immigration raids and the Nazis, the book seems more relevant than ever.

Rachel clarifies himself from the beginning. He separates the artists covered in this book into three groups: the Nazi true believers, the appropriators of fashion iconography, and those who actively fought against the ever-present spectre of fascism. As British singer/songwriter Billy Bragg notes in his introduction, “How could you not know?” Leni Riefenstahl’s cinematic images were laser-focused, but they were in the service of evil. Embrace the beast but understand the risks.

The Beatles cut their performance teeth in Hamburg in the late 1950s early 1960s. Many have argued it was there that they were most alive, most dangerous. Take this line: “...(John) Lennon bought a collection of Nazi memorabilia…from a street seller at the harbour and shared them among the band. Then…in blatant contravention of German law, he goose-stepped across the stage, ranting ‘Sieg Heil’...” George Harrison noted that they were of the generation that grew up near the close of WWII, and “...we didn’t want to have to keep being told about Hitler. We were more bright-eyed and hopeful for the future.”

The Rolling Stones, always the antithesis of The Beatles’ squeaky-clean image, had a deeper flirtation with Nazi iconography. Brian Jones dresses as a Nazi and poses with Nordic models. The problem with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who’s Keith Moon is that they were provocateurs who embraced the uniform without understanding its implications. In 1978, Mick Jagger displayed Nazi symbols during the Rolling Stones’ world tour. “For survivors of Nazi persecution,” Rachel writes, “the swastika is not merely a relic of history — it is a living symbol of oppression.” The argument that displaying items from the vanquished is an honored privilege given only to the victors just doesn’t play 30 years after the end of WWII or now.

While Rachel takes pains from the start to clearly separate these artists into true believers, fashion fans, and anti-fascist crusaders, some of these rock stars justifiably don’t come off that well. Take Roxy Music’s Bryan Ferry, whose Weimar cabaret Nazi fashion aesthetics are considered purely from an artistic point of view, not what they imply. Ferry notes:

“‘That was a classy look…I think people look good in uniforms.”

Things get more difficult when the reader considers David Bowie’s infatuation with Nazi imagery in the mid-1970s. He had killed his alter ego Ziggy Stardust and adapted the persona of The Thin White Duke. His performance stage set design was based on “Power, Nuremberg, and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis…” Bowie is found with Nazi ephemera while touring in West Germany during that time. Was he guilty of spontaneously giving a Nazi Salute in 1976, during his first time back in England in two years? We need only to look back to January 2025 and Elon Musk’s salute, which I took as clearly a Nazi salute, to a crowd during Trump’s inauguration to see that the quite part is always screamed out loud for those with good hearing skills.

By the time punk rock came along, in 1976, fashion and management superstars like Malcolm McClaren are obsessed with “demystifying, reclaiming, and destroying” the old images of World War II. Is that really what’s happening here? Rachel notes that the rock and roll perversions of Nazi iconography “...marked the beginning of a blasé distorted understanding of the horrors faced by those who survived Nazi concentration camps.” What was intended and how much was aware? Was the appropriation of the swastika really based on camp, or were there artists embracing the beast?

Rachel asks a question that he leaves for his readers to understand: “...where does cultural expression end, and social responsibility begin?” Fascism itself has rarely fit an absolute definition, but this one is as good as any: “...'Total power over others; sexual or otherwise, the exotic, the unknown, domination and enslavement.” Other artists considered here are Leonard Cohen and his haunting “Dance Me to the End of Love,” a paean to those who went off to the ovens to the sounds of mournful violins. Janis Ian’s “Tattoo” examined “...the dehumanising experience of a Jewish woman’s arrival at a death camp.” Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls re-wrote Woody Guthrie’s “This Train Is Bound for Glory” as “This Train Revised,” mirror reflections of how one mode of transportation can provide liberation or death.

This Ain’t Rock and Roll is not for the faint of heart. Rachel does not shy away from any of the depravity nor does he leave any stone unturned when it comes to examining those who flirted with Nazi iconography: Michael Jackson, Marilyn Manson, Ozzy Osbourne, Nicki Minaj, Roger Waters and Kanye West. The names tumble through this text and those unfamiliar might get confused. A discography could have helped but it doesn’t take away from the overall strength of this book.

This is an urgent, intense examination of how one malevolent movement in the course of world history has remained relevant and powerful. While some may wish to relegate the images and parties involved to the dustbin of history, Rachel wants to guarantee that we don’t forget:

“In 2017, fifty years after the murder of (American Nazi Party President) George Lincoln Rockwell, the world was shocked by footage of neo-Nazis and white nationalists marching through Charlottesville, Virginia chanting ‘Jews will not replace us.’”

Perhaps another way to end this is to remind ourselves that there is always a link between cultural expression and social responsibility: We need to keep records, remain vigilant, and cling tightly to any shred of visible hope.