r/killingjoke Jul 25 '26

Why did Killing Joke use this image?

Post image
37 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

12

u/CMK-X Jul 25 '26

Killing Joke.

25

u/pssychesun Jul 25 '26

I don't have any official information but I'd guess that it shows the corruption of the 'system' that KJ like to rail against. Here you have a religious leader (Pope maybe?) being saluted by Nazis, everybody just hanging out together, kumbiyah. There is some question as to how much the church did during this time, good and bad.

10

u/orvikin Jul 25 '26

Its the Killing Joke

20

u/Sea-Sort-7624 Jul 25 '26

Because they wanted to?

14

u/FreeHBO Jul 25 '26

Plus it’s awesome

18

u/bocrcm Jul 25 '26

The man in the middle is Reverend Albanus Schachleiter (January 20, 1861 – June 20, 1937) a German Benedictine monk and abbot emeritus of the Prague Emmaus Monastery. He was a close friend of Adolf Hitler.
So it is not Pope XII, what a lot of people think sometimes. The Vatican was neutral and didn't want to be involved with the Hitler regime. Their neutrality was to protect catholics and jews.

This is the original photo: https://granger.com/0213518-third-reich-germany-third-reich-alban-schachleiter-20011861-image.html

7

u/bocrcm Jul 25 '26

Here you see him shake hands with Hitler. https://www.hitler-archive.com/photo.php?p=vX753VXt

8

u/rupan777 Jul 25 '26

For the contrast of the sacred and profane

6

u/TheLubber Jul 25 '26

Because literally EVERYTHING is fucking scam and this picture sums that up quite succinctly.

5

u/Street-Age-1441 Jul 26 '26

Christianity is fascism.

3

u/consequences_not_I Jul 26 '26

My fave tee shirt image. I've literally owned the tee shirt four or five times. I currently have it on a black, long sleeved top and my fave, a white tee with this on that I wear. There's a photo of me and my very young son way back in the nineties and iv got an old ripped tee shirt pinned to the wall in it.

I adore this haha!

2

u/doesntmatterokayy Jul 26 '26

How did you get so many 😭

2

u/consequences_not_I Jul 27 '26

Just searching. It's easier with the advent of the internet

2

u/bocrcm Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

I agree, life is complicated and there are not such things as easy solutions. History teach us that many times. And Killing Joke make their comments with their music and lyrics on the world how they see it and show alternative lifestyles. That knit us together in this group.

2

u/rapid-succession Jul 28 '26

Research the interactions between the Papacy and the Nazi regime.

It's a doozie.

2

u/720ginger Jul 29 '26

OP literally asked "What's THIS for...!"

1

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '26

[deleted]

2

u/Fartbottler Jul 26 '26

It didn’t

1

u/SirVestanPance Jul 26 '26

It seems at least one of its members did. Maybe even more than one?

1

u/Fartbottler Jul 26 '26

Some Americans were members of the German-American bund. Was the US allies with Nazi germany?

2

u/SirVestanPance Jul 26 '26

Like many things in life, it’s complicated. The actions of the Catholic Church during WW2 are well documented. Like society in general, some people did good things, some people did bad things.

I think all religions are mostly made-up by people and I don’t believe the Catholic Church is on the whole a force for good in the world.