How Eric relly felt about Dylan's jewish background?

Judy Brown said in the basement tapes there was a fleeting moment of tension when Dylan accidently mentioned Passover. Do you think it really bothered Eric? Do you think since he admired Nazism so much that alone in this thoughts he was embarrassed that NBK being a national event he would be connected to a jewish kid? Or do you think the bond and shared hatred of the school overpowered any heritage? IMO it was the latter I think Eric may have thought that sucks and didn't like it but I don't think he would've changed his mind on going through with NBK even if Dylans grandfather was gay,black and jewish. I'd love to see that part of the BT's though to see Eric's eyes and tone when he asked "You're jewish?"

This has been discussed a lot in other threads. My general theory is there was no big reaction. Why would there be? Why would Eric really give up plans for NBK just because Dylan was partly Jewish? It just sounds so far fetched. They were both so far into the idea of shooting up the school at that time.

I think the comments from Judy and Sue just blow the whole thing out of proportion. I think Eric just genuinely asked Dylan the question. Dylan had more awkward body posture than Eric, but at times he does look awkward in some of the videos we've seen him in. I'd assume that Judy and Sue didn't know his mannerisms that well or little nuances in the way he talked. They assumed he reacted negatively. You or I might watch the video and find that Eric doesn't really react in a way that's different from how you'd expect someone to react.

Maybe it did take him by surprise that he never this about one of his closer friends. I don't think there was ever any intention of Eric unfriending Dylan over it or anything of the sort that Judy and Sue make the reaction out to be. I think it was simply a normal reaction, that's it.

hvernon wrote:

This has been discussed a lot in other threads. My general theory is there was no big reaction. Why would there be? Why would Eric really give up plans for NBK just because Dylan was partly Jewish? It just sounds so far fetched. They were both so far into the idea of shooting up the school at that time.

I think the comments from Judy and Sue just blow the whole thing out of proportion. I think Eric just genuinely asked Dylan the question. Dylan had more awkward body posture than Eric, but at times he does look awkward in some of the videos we've seen him in. I'd assume that Judy and Sue didn't know his mannerisms that well or little nuances in the way he talked. They assumed he reacted negatively. You or I might watch the video and find that Eric doesn't really react in a way that's different from how you'd expect someone to react.

Maybe it did take him by surprise that he never this about one of his closer friends. I don't think there was ever any intention of Eric unfriending Dylan over it or anything of the sort that Judy and Sue make the reaction out to be. I think it was simply a normal reaction, that's it.

I basically more or less agree. I think Eric in all reality didn't really care if Dylan was jewish despite him saying it is "unfortunate" after Dylan told him that he was 1/2 or 1/4 jewish in the basement tapes. It seems very petty to turn on your best friend/partner in crime just because of his religion plus they had reached the point of no return in terms of planning NBK by that point since they already had their firearms if I recall correctly.

hvernon wrote:

This has been discussed a lot in other threads. My general theory is there was no big reaction. Why would there be? Why would Eric really give up plans for NBK just because Dylan was partly Jewish? It just sounds so far fetched. They were both so far into the idea of shooting up the school at that time.

I think the comments from Judy and Sue just blow the whole thing out of proportion. I think Eric just genuinely asked Dylan the question. Dylan had more awkward body posture than Eric, but at times he does look awkward in some of the videos we've seen him in. I'd assume that Judy and Sue didn't know his mannerisms that well or little nuances in the way he talked. They assumed he reacted negatively. You or I might watch the video and find that Eric doesn't really react in a way that's different from how you'd expect someone to react.

Maybe it did take him by surprise that he never this about one of his closer friends. I don't think there was ever any intention of Eric unfriending Dylan over it or anything of the sort that Judy and Sue make the reaction out to be. I think it was simply a normal reaction, that's it.

The Browns constantly makes excuses for Dylan, so they will nitpick at anything that fits their agenda. Dylan is Sue's son...so..makes sense. But it's just yet another line of nonsense where they try to make it out to be as if Dylan was scared of Eric, or Dylan followed Eric to do the shooting because he was scared of him. Nonsense.

Yeah, understood. I feel the same for the most part, but was there any part of Eric that was thinking to himself....Man, this NBK partner is a fucking jew, that sucks! What if other Nat Socs. mock me for going on this mission with a jew wearing a hammer and sickle on his boot. I know nobody can truly know the answer to this question. it's just something I've wondered for awhile. I also wondered if Eric hated jews for the reasons the Nazis hated jews and wanted them out of Germany or if Eric just hated jews cause Nazis hated them therefore they must be bad.

I Don’t think that Eric actually hated Jewish people. He had no reason to. I think he was full of hate in general. I think the whole Hitler worship thing was blown out of portion.

I also think people see them through the lens of being an adult and forget how young they were.

Screamingophelia wrote:

I Don’t think that Eric actually hated Jewish people. He had no reason to. I think he was full of hate in general. I think the whole Hitler worship thing was blown out of portion.

I also think people see  them through the lens of being an adult and forget how young they were.

I agree with that. I'm a bit older than they were at the time of NBK but I also think Eric was a very intelligent kid, so I shouldn't underestimate how much he knew about Nazism. His journal though filled with a lot of amped up hate and shock is filled with some thought provoking stuff for an 18 year old. It's part of the reason I got so involved in wanting to know more about Columbine, Eric didn't seem like just a total nutcase, he seemed like someone who was relatable but idk how to say it "fell off" I guess.

dereknocturnal wrote:

I'm a bit older than they were at the time of NBK but I also think Eric was a very intelligent kid, so I shouldn't underestimate how much he knew about Nazism.

Unless I'm missing something, the only thing Eric knew more than the average person knew about Nazi Germany was Aktion T4 (which, to all that are non-history geeks or are unwilling/unable to click on a link, was the Nazi policy of killing the physically and mentally disabled). If you asked him to name the most prominent Nazis that weren't Hitler I'd be willing to bet that he'd never conjure up the names "Herman Goering, Joseph Goebbels, Reinhard Heydritch, Heinrich Himmler," etc. I don't believe for one moment that he'd know what General Plan East was, or the Night of the Long Knives, so on and so forth.

But really I wouldn't blame him if he did indeed only have a surface level of understanding. I doubt it mattered very much to him.

I think it didn't matter to him at all. Nada. He hated jocks too and his bro was one of them -- and he loved him.

Also, I always wince at people taking his journal word for word. It wasn't really a private journal. He wrote it to be read, and he meant it to be as shocking and hateful as possible. I think that not even Eric himself knew how much and what exactly he was actually serious about.

patogen wrote:

Also, I always wince at people taking his journal word for word. It wasn't really a private journal. He wrote it to be read, and he meant it to be as shocking and hateful as possible. I think that not even Eric himself knew how much and what exactly he was actually serious about.

It's funny to me that so many people say this but yet Eric himself wrote down in that very journal that he was frustrated that nobody would understand him or take him seriously.

Yeah, maybe he was writing for an "audience", but that doesn't mean I shouldn't take him at his word.

QuestionMark wrote:

patogen wrote:

Also, I always wince at people taking his journal word for word. It wasn't really a private journal. He wrote it to be read, and he meant it to be as shocking and hateful as possible. I think that not even Eric himself knew how much and what exactly he was actually serious about.

It's funny to me that so many people say this but yet Eric himself wrote down in that very journal that he was frustrated that nobody would understand him or take him seriously.

Yeah, maybe he was writing for an "audience", but that doesn't mean I shouldn't take him at his word.

Yeah on the last page and he showed his actual "Eric" side. Everything else was just "Reb" AKA Eric trying to sound like a bad ass. He wrote that "journal" for an audience. He wanted to make himself sound as bad ass as possible.

lol wrote:

QuestionMark wrote:

patogen wrote:

Also, I always wince at people taking his journal word for word. It wasn't really a private journal. He wrote it to be read, and he meant it to be as shocking and hateful as possible. I think that not even Eric himself knew how much and what exactly he was actually serious about.

It's funny to me that so many people say this but yet Eric himself wrote down in that very journal that he was frustrated that nobody would understand him or take him seriously.

Yeah, maybe he was writing for an "audience", but that doesn't mean I shouldn't take him at his word.

Yeah on the last page and he showed his actual "Eric" side. Everything else was just "Reb" AKA Eric trying to sound like a bad ass. He wrote that "journal" for an audience. He wanted to make himself sound as bad ass as possible.

That's what I think. If he can't be respected, he will be feared. And of course he was frustrated no-one would take him seriously. Because no-one did all his life. Now he was planning to murder people and himself -- to finally gain the respect and notoriety he thought he deserved, but subconsciously, he knew many people would still see through his BS and note the journal was written by a scrawny POS trying too hard to impress. So what will a self-admitted bullshitter trying to build up his post-mortem reputation do? He will whine that people still would not take him seriously. So much effort to no avail.

More frustration. And more whining.

If he was all that, he wouldn't give shit.

Since we haven’t seen the tapes with our own eyes we can only speculate, that being said, my opinion on his reaction was that maybe Eric looked “shocked” because his “best friend” never told him about that beforehand. He held Dylan as his best friend and at the last month he finds new info on him and it may have been shocking news (not necessarily that he “hated” Jews). That’s how I personally played it out in my head when Judy and Sue spoke of it.
I agree with QuestionMark in that he probably didn’t know much more than the average person in regards to nazis or hitler.

One can only imagine the exchange on the Basement Tapes, but I have to think it was just ribbing between friends.  I don't think Eric had a deep understanding of the Jewish Question, and as I recall the only time he mentions Jews other than saying his final solution was not to kill all Jews but to kill mankind was a tongue-in-cheek comment about hoping they don't find the bombs. And of course those who are deep into the Jewish Question usually don't buy that the final solution meant to kill all the Jews rather than deport them.  He seemed to just like the high school, comic book level view of Nazis as sadistic, senseless murder fiends rather than Germans in the 1930s.  As I recall, he references stories about them lining up Jews and shooting them through the head and getting say 5 at once, surely liking it as it reminds him of shooting multiple monsters at once in Doom. I imagine he liked other crazy stories like the soap and lampshades.  There's also the possible angle of resentment towards his US Air Force father, and rebelling by liking a former war-time enemy. One can imagine it as that combined with playing Wolfenstein 3D led him to take German courses and be desensitized to the hating of Nazis expected of a status-seeking high school student.

Then again, contrary to Question Mark, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he knew say who Himmler was, or what the Night of the Long Knives was. For one, he had taken four years of German, and that seems to be older than his like of e. g. KMFDM and Rammstein. I imagine it was more to know what the characters said in Wolfenstein, but could easily imagine it being used for getting a little deeper into the NSDAP. He seemed to use his report as an excuse to be researching them, and had a list of several abbreviations used by the NSDAP. Also he liked runes and the whole Nazi aesthetic (probably in part because of Quake, etc) . He uploaded a Nazi ring and an SS pennant to the school server before the massacre, and carried a knife with a swastika on it.  I think it's quite possible he knew who the head of the SS was. There's also the Charles Manson angle. A picture of him was uploaded too. Dylan wrote his report on Charles Manson and Manson had a swastika on his forehead for a reason. James Mason's book Siege for instance portrays Manson as a much maligned National Socialist not quite at Hitler's level but at something like a George Lincoln Rockwell. For all the stuff about Hitler's birthday though, I don't recall Hitler uploaded to the server.

Also, he did seem to have the prescient notion that WW2 was the last good war and after it society had gone downhill, not an uncommon view among Nazi sympathizers. I think had he lived 5 more years he could well have been a serious one, but it wasn't yet. At the time it was at least half edgy teenager and zero real understanding of Jews, but it starts that way for a lot of them. While he was interested in war, I don't think his interest in the Nazis was simply being into WW2. I doubt he found, say, the Pacific Theater as interesting as a speech from Hitler, or a Nazi poster.

It is interesting that "racism" made the "you know what I hate list" but then he said he liked the Nazis, in the paper did the standard high school required "Nazis and racism bad" and said his opinions had changed some and of course there's what he did to Isaiah in the library. Just to say, I think he was quite capable of continuing to challenge the status quo had he lived. But he'd probably still have made an exception for Dylan; who was some kind of half-Lutheran convert anyway as I understand. He was saying Passover was annoying after all. Not saying he would have become a 'self hating Jew', but it is noteworthy that the kind of Jews Nazis like, say, Bobby Fischer or Otto Weininger, were Christian converts. It's kind of like being white and a Muslim convert - which probably means you don't like being white. Would not shock me to learn Dylan "identified as" white.

Fantastic response, Cakeman. I was going to respond to OP but you said everything perfectly

dereknocturnal wrote:

Do you think it really bothered Eric?

No, I don't think so. Dr. Fuselier postulated that Eric was more surprised than angry when Dylan said that his uncle would be upset if he missed passover. Also, if I remember correctly, Sue also said that Eric looked surprised ("He hadn't known my family was Jewish") and that she couldn't tell if Dylan, who stated that Sue was half, or a quarter, Jewish, was afraid of being shot (I'm not sure why she would think this, but I haven't seen the basement tapes and she has.) So, I don't believe Eric cared about Dylan's Jewish background, even when he supposedly gave Nazi salutes in bowling class whenever he got a strike. If Dylan told him about his Jewish grandfather before the basement tapes, I don't think Eric would have given up on the idea of going NBK. Don't think it's possible.

jada887 wrote:

dereknocturnal wrote:

Do you think it really bothered Eric?

and that she couldn't tell if Dylan, who stated that Sue was half, or a quarter, Jewish, was afraid of being shot (I'm not sure why she would think this, but I haven't seen the basement tapes and she has.) So, I don't believe Eric cared about Dylan's Jewish background, even when he supposedly gave Nazi salutes in bowling class whenever he got a strike. If Dylan told him about his Jewish grandfather before the basement tapes, I don't think Eric would have given up on the idea of going NBK. Don't think it's possible.

The fact that Sue even speculates about Dylan being afraid of getting shot is more proof that shes still, all this time later, trying to rationalize what was an irrational act and downplay the role her son played it in.

Do we know where the whole Nazi salute in bowling class thing came from? Seems odd to be that he'd be so blatantly provocative and not get into any trouble.. but then again, maybe a mostly white suburb in 1990s America wouldn't have taken Nazism as seriously as its taken today.

Heinrich94 wrote:

Seems odd to be that he'd be so blatantly provocative and not get into any trouble.

No administrator at Columbine high school seemed to give two shits about the mischief their students got up to.

QuestionMark wrote:

Heinrich94 wrote:

Seems odd to be that he'd be so blatantly provocative and not get into any trouble.

No administrator at Columbine high school seemed to give two shits about the mischief their students got up to.

I also get the sense that most of the people in that bowling class acted that way. To some extent or another.

Eric's reaction made me laugh as he found out Dylan is Jewish
There was probably awkward silence between the boys
But we know that Dylan could handle Eric's madass
Example the accident in the parking lot lol

I doubt he truly cared. Any anti-Jew stuff was just his edgelord Nazi phase, which he would have grown out of after graduating.

Not sure it works that way. Seems to me he grew out of his "anti racism" phase. And it's Dylan who calls out to Isaiah and says ebonics show blacks are dumb, etc.

Also, for what it's worth, while Hitler's birthday was a big day for the NSDAP, it was probably third place on the calendar behind November 9 (date of the Beer Hall Putsch) and January 30 (date of taking power).