"You'll never be one of them"

Our Girl is no fool.

Not as a rule.

...because he acts like an old mule.

Yes fair point. But honestly, Rolf isn't someone who would make you want to drool.

i thought maybe he's trying to look menacing.

Hunky? Hahaha go away Rolf there is no way you could ever compare to the sophisticated drop dead gorgeous Captain Georg Von Trapp.

Yes!!! That guy.  That gorgeous, charming, silver haired fox!  *sigh*

That makes sense!!

this is a pretty good thread (especially the discussion at the beginning) that we haven't visited for a while. What exactly did the captain mean when he confronted Rolf anyway?

One of my kids is reading a book for school about Nazi Germany and it got me thinking about Rolf.  In the book, a normal German girl who had a hard childhood joins the girls' version of the Hitler Youth (I forget what it was called) and is talking about how great it is. She is with people her own age, she is respected for her skills, they do volunteer work to help their country, she feels included and important.  This all sounds great! It is easy to look back on what actually happened and think, how could anyone have signed up to be a Nazi?! But in reality, when things started, these organizations weren't doing horrific things. It is easy to see how Rolf was seduced by people who offered him the feeling of importance. But then (in the book my kid is reading) things start getting crazy - you are required to report on your family and your neighbors, people start disappearing, anyone who is disabled in any way must be sterilized etc but by then it is too late for these kids to get out. Maybe that what the captain is getting at when he said "come away with us." It is kind of an understanding that Rolf is in a situation that is way over his head. He wanted to be an important messenger, not be chasing a family of kids and threatening to shoot them. Georg is offering him a way out, and it might have worked, but then he hurt Rolf's pride and Rolf couldn't handle that. 

www.onstageblog.com/editorials/2020/4/21/rolfe-was-never-a-good-guy-a-different-perspective-on-the-sound-of-music

Interesting article about Rolf - did he have any redeeming features?

Enjoy this fun thread!

That is interesting, thanks for sharing. While I don't disagree that Rolf didn't have any redeeming features, I don't fully agree with a few things the author says. 

1. "He’s all-in from the get-go, which means he’s all about what the Nazi Party believes in, which is hating Jews, homosexuals and promoting the “Aryan Race”. That was one of the founding beliefs of the part in 1919 and The Sound of Music takes place in 1938."
While all of this is true, none of it was stated outright until much later (and honestly, much was denied even into the '60s). It was all very insidious and under the radar, a gradual dehumanization of the groups Hitler and his cronies sought to eliminate. Being born in 1921/22, and not having any working memory of 'before', and likely having parents that were taken in by the promise of economic prosperity, he in reality (odd word choice for a fictional character) he would never have known anything different. So of course he would be 'all-in'. Also, the Anschluss was in March; Kristallnacht was in November and one of the first open campaigns against Jews. So even in the author's argument, Rolf as a low-level messenger would likely not know the full picture.

2. he makes a point to tell Liesl how "Austrian" her father is, despite the fact that he too, is Austrian. Rolf goes on to state how some people feel they should be German instead of Austrian, which means he's referring to himself.
This is very interesting to me, because I've been doing genealogy research and on census forms, a great-great grandmother writes at different times that she and her parents were German,  Austrian, and the language they spoke was Magyar which is Hungarian. This all goes back to the Prussian war, when Austria kept Hungary and Germany was invested in keeping Hungary out. It was all very convoluted.

3. Regarding 'you'll never be one of them'---"In fact, he becomes angry and offended at the idea that he's not a Nazi soldier. As if to say, "How dare you for not thinking that I don't support terrorizing my fellow countrymen!" I don't think he's thinking that at all. Being so young, all he hears is that the Captain thinks he's a wuss. It's a wound to his masculine ego and he sees it as a challenge to that.

Am I defending Rolf or the Nazis? Absolutely not. But we look at it all in hindsight, where everything is clear.  The author does make reference to that elsewhere, so kudos to him for that.