Yesterday’s big twitter topic was about Justin Bieber and his posse visiting the Anne Frank home near Amsterdam and writing in the guest book that (a) it had been “truly inspiring to be able to come here,” (b) “Anne was a great girl” and (c) “hopefully she would have been a belieber.” Meaning that if Ms. Frank had been saved from her fate by time-travelling to 21st Century America she would have become a major fan and bought tickets to Justin’s concerts and jumped up and down and squealed.

Which other significant figures from the anti-Semitic European arena during World War II might have also been Bieber fans if he’d been a popular musical performer in early to mid ’40s Germany?

Adolf Hitler would have probably scoffed at Beiber’s music but would the impressionable Eva Braun have been a fan? Probably not as she wouldn’t have been sure if Bieber is a Jewish or a German-Jewish name and she wouldn’t want to take any chances. Would Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels have been a fan? Perhaps if he could have persuaded Bieber to promote Third Reich values during concerts, but otherwise no. Would Amon Geoth, the Nazi beast portrayed by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler’s List, have been a “belieber”? Most likely not. Would the bring young female architect whom Geoth ordered shot in the head have been a Bieber fan? Probably not as she wouldn’t have had a chance to hear his music due to being in a concentration camp. (Frank, remember, would have become a “belieber” only by listening to Bieber sing on her bedroom radio at night.) Would Helen Hirsch, the house maid to Amon Geoth whom Embeth Davidtz portrayed in the 1993 Steven Spielberg film, have been a fan? Absolutely!