With what I am about to tell you in this introduction, I will remove any specific reference to places and times.  Then again, if you already know Swing Kids (1993), then this thought experiment will offer no challenge for you.  There are a group of people that the government finds inconvenient.  They are not causing any more trouble than any other, but those elected paint a different version of the story.  Their culture is foreign, and they have a different way of speaking.  Eventually, the government decides they have had enough and begins shipping them off to camps.  They do not get a chance to prove their innocence of anything, if any, beyond not acting and looking like the rest of us.  The army and the police brutally and simply rip them from their family and friends, load them into trucks, and take them away.  Of course, the synopsis I am about to write will give away the answer, but I hope that, along with this paragraph, it will give you pause.

Then again, there is no pausing the Swing Kids as they dance to American beats and dress in British fashion as according to the opening text.  It is Hamburg, Germany, 1939, and on the eve of World War II, a small but vigorous section of the German youth defy Nazi conformity for the freedom offered by jazz culture.  In concert halls like The Bismarck, best friends Peter (Robert Sean Leonard) and Thomas (Christian Bale) sway to the latest sounds coming from the United States, while their other friend, Arvid (Frank Whaley), often plays with the band.  As they jubilantly leave after the show, you can see why Arvid is on stage rather than the floor: he has a club foot and walks with a limp.  Peter and Thomas seem to forget this fact as they race ahead, pausing on a bridge to pee on a couple of Nazi propaganda posters.  As they do so, a man pushes past them, running for his life as he is chased by the authorities.  He is soon caught between two packs of police and elects to jump into the river below.  He is fired upon, and in the morning Arvid, Peter, and Thomas are nearby to see the stranger’s dead body pulled from the water.  It is a sobering scene, but as they are later walking along, they are jolted into action by Willi (David Tom), Peter’s little brother, reporting to them that one of their own is being attacked by the Hitlerjugend (HJ, or Hitler Youth).  They come to this person’s rescue, though it turns out to be a Jew, who is thankful for their assistance.  Of the group we have thus far met, the person who is focused on the most is Peter.  As he bides his time before entering university to become an engineer, he also works delivering books for Herr Schumler (Johan Leysen).  Another characteristic to know about Peter is that six years previously, his father had been arrested by the Nazis on suspicion of being a communist.  Though he came back after a few weeks, he was never the same and died soon thereafter.  It is also from him that Peter inherited his love of music.  Because dad is gone, Peter’s mother (Barbara Hershey) comes to rely on Gestapo officer Knopp (Kenneth Branagh).  Though Peter despises Knopp’s presence, the member of Hitler’s secret police is able to get Peter out of trouble when he and Thomas steal a radio from a bakery that had been placed there by a Nazi who took it from one of their friends.  Thomas gets away on a truck, but Peter trips and falls.  In order to avoid being sent to a camp, Knopp arranges for Peter to join the HJ.  In order not to be alone amongst the hated paramilitary group, Thomas enters with him.  Doing so further strains their relationship with Arvid, who is sensitive about his condition and does not take well to Peter and Thomas’ teasing.  It also does not help that Arvid had been assaulted by a group of HJ thugs led by former Swing Kid Emil (Noah Wyle).  In Peter and Thomas’ first few days in the HJ, Thomas challenges Emil to a boxing match.  Thomas puts up a good fight, but is soundly beaten, which is surprising to him.  In the coming days, Emil takes Thomas more under his wing, enticing the new recruit with the brute force they can wield.  This is enticing to Thomas because of the bad relationship he has with his father (David Robb).  Eventually, Thomas reports his father’s un-patriotic remarks, and dad is taken away for questioning by the Gestapo.  It appears that Peter is heading down a similar path until he is asked by Knopp to spy on Herr Schumler.  In doing so, Peter discovers that the bookseller is forging birth certificates for Jews.  The discovery moves him, and he opts for keeping this a secret.  The real testing moment comes when Peter and Thomas go to hear Arvid play with his band at a café.  There are Nazis present, and one of them makes a request for a German song.  When Arvid refuses, he is ordered to leave.  Before departing, though, he lashes out at the audience for their conformity.  Sadly, he then goes home and commits suicide.  Seeing the defiance reminds Peter of the evil he had once seen in the Nazis.  With that in mind, he rebukes Thomas for spewing Nazi lies about cripples and Jews, to name a few, as well as using that same rhetoric to tell off Knopp at dinner. The next day, he is delivering packages under orders from the HJ and discovers that they contain the ashes of cremated victims of the regime.  Horrified, he speaks to Frau Linge (Julia Stemberger), a Jewish customer of Herr Schumler, who had known his father.  She reads to Peter a letter she had received from his father that underscores the courage he had in facing imprisonment for his beliefs.  With that, Peter dresses for one last swing night, certain that it was going to be raided.  When the HJ and other authorities arrive, there is a scuffle between him and Thomas.  With Thomas’ hands around Peter’s throat, the former eventually relents and advises the latter to run away.  Instead, Peter allows himself to be captured, giving the “Swing Heil” salute to Thomas and Willi as he goes.

If you are thinking that salute at the end of Swing Kids is too similar to the Nazi one, then you are missing the point.  It is meant to mock the Nazis by turning “Sieg Heil,” which means “hail victory,” into “hail swing.”  It is a non-violent form of protest that any Christian can appreciate in these troubled times.  What makes such propositions tricky is when the current regime uses Christian rhetoric to back up its authoritarian behavior.  The Nazis mostly eschewed Christianity, seeing it as too soft.  Unfortunately, Christian nationalism is something that is alive today, using faith in God as a litmus test in order to decide whether someone is a “true American.”  There are parallels with the movie.  While it relies on some basic knowledge of Nazi Germany, there is one thing that we all know about that place and time: that they hated Jews.  The reasons for this are as absurd as the logic, so I would ask that you look this up separately.  What is interesting about the film are the lies German citizens, like Peter’s mother, tell themselves about the people being rounded up by the government.  If someone is arrested, the thinking goes, then they must have done something to deserve it.  For the Swing Kids, their way of life is seen as not being German, and thus corrupting the so-called purity of the Fatherland.  The same rhetoric is being used today, and I am here to forcefully tell you that such thinking is anti-Christian.  Jesus says in Mark 2:17, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”  Our Savior appealed to sinners, not by beating them up with uniformed followers or putting them into camps, never to be heard from again.  You cannot evangelize somebody with whom you have no contact.  This should also not be read as an acceptance of illegal activity or sin.  The thing about being a Christian is that it is a choice.  Forcing someone to conform to a way of behaving will likely not lead to that person giving God what He ultimately wants: your heart.  He loves us, and He wants us to show the same sentiment to our brothers and sisters no matter who they are.  It is an ideal the Nazis did not follow, and neither is the current president of the United States.  Thus, when you see abuse happening, I encourage you to stay true to your fellow man regardless of his or her persuasion, and to do so peacefully.

I also hope what I have written persuades you to see Swing Kids if you have not already done so.  What it shows is that resistance does not have to be violent, but it is important for the right cause.  Jesus is the ultimate example of doing so meekly, not even protesting His Crucifixion.  It was an incredible act of love against an incredible act of violence.  Peter allowing himself to be arrested in the end is a reasonable facsimile thereof.  For this, and many other reasons, I recommend this film.