Tom Stoppard Is A Nazi

If you are a regular reader, you know we love mashups. But these days, who doesn’t. It seems that our cultural heritage has become last month’s magazine, with everyone cutting and pasting their own collages.

And we have Tom Stoppard to thank for all of it.

The author of classic mashups such as Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead and Being John Malkovich, Tomáš Straussler escaped Nazi Germany after the allies invaded and sentenced all the Nazis to death. To escape detection, he changed his name to Tom Stoppard and became a playwright, thinking (correctly by the way) that no one would ever expect a Nazi to become an English playwright.

Since Stoppard had no literary background, and did not speak or read English, his only resource was to take old plays, splice them together, and pass them off as his own.

Thus the mashup was born.

In his honor, the month of May will be mashup month at The Chaos Factory. Stay tuned for more details.

Please note, this blog post is of Christian persuasion, and does not judge people, Nazis or otherwise.

Check out Decater's novel, available now at Amazon. Plus, don't forget his other books: They Both Love Vonnegut, Ahab's Adventures in Wonderland, and Picasso Painted Dinosaurs.