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Blitz Strasse?
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Message 1.
Posted by Locusta (U14468320) on Friday, 14th May 2010
The recent series on Channel 4 "blitz Street" was interesting, but being half German, (my mother lived through the fall of Berlin ) I would be interested to see more on the experinece of German civilians in the war.She is 86 now,and has a tale to tell, that is reamrkable and at times harrowing.I am proud of my dual heritage and feel that now, nearly 70 years on it is time to acknoledge that the ordinary people on both sides suffered and anyone who lived through that time has a tale to tell.Lets face it, the people of that time wont be around for much longer....
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Message 2
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Friday, 14th May 2010
Locusta,
welcome to the boards and welcome to such a thought-provoking message.
Last week I was nearly a whole week looking to TV while my computer was in reparation because of a "worm" in the programmes.
Saw coincidentally on the same evening on ZDF the first part of: Eine frau in Berlin (a woman in Berlin) I translate from a website that I read on ZDF: Verbrechen des Roten Armee nach Kriegsende: (Atrocities from the Red Army after the end of the war). If you understand German (we aren't allowed to give URL's in a foreign language overhere) you find a lot in Google or on the ZDF site.
At the same evening I saw on the French language Belgian TV: a film about the deportation and the annihilation of the Belgian Jews during WWII: "Modis operandi" Had already done a lot of research about it for a French history messageboard and it was within the confines of my research. And the next day it was repeated on the Dutch language Belgian TV. And in that film it was among others highlighted that Belgians and Belgian authorities (especially Flemish (I am from the North of Belgium)) helped in the razzias to collect them to send them in 25 transpports of nearly each time 1000 people to Auswitzsch.
Just to say that on both sides there were perpetrators and victims. But that don't releave the historians of the task to do research of what happened to give "exact" data to the readers (and that is not history writing in my opinion) to make up their "moral" judgement.
The difficulty is in my opinion that some historians pick up from the mass of "documents" only those which serve in their "agenda" of the "history" of an "event". What I mean for instance nowadays if you look to the different honest TV channels about the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII that the historical programmes in for instance a ZDF and other former "allied" countries are different about the victims...
And I don't even speak about the German "Historikerstreit" (the history controversy) or the "Daniel Goldhagen" debate...
Locusta, that are my first thoughts, and don't think that I am biased (Thomas, a German contributor to these boards is my witness in this) against the victimising of one side or another, but it is only that in my opinion the perpetrators weren't equal in their atrocities and there we are back at the debate that I mentioned in the former paragraph.
PS: As victims I, one year old in 1944, and my family were nearly killed in the collateral damage of a bombardement by an allied aeroplane (American or English...)...but we were the victims for the "good" sake and there is the moral judgement again...
BTW: I did research for the "Blitz street" on Channel four but we seem not to be allowed to see the films because of the country from where we contact. If you have some further information that we can "sse" in Belgium too?
Half past midnight here, nearly the end of the 鶹Լ message board time on the European peninsula...so further comments will be for tomorrow.
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 3
Posted by MB (U177470) on Saturday, 15th May 2010
I must admit that with the series being produced by Channel 4, I expected it to get diverted into criticising the British and American bombing of Germany but they kept to the subject very well with just a more general summary right at the end of the last programme.
I was surprised they did not mention the Butterfly Bomb which was dropped by the Germans and, though small, was one of the nastier weapons used during the war. -
Message 4
Posted by RedGuzzi750 (U7604797) on Saturday, 15th May 2010
I saw the series and watched 2 of the shows with my mother in law, who was 8 in 1941. She lived in London and her recollections of it matched well with the programme. Especially the despair that the V1s and V2s engendered in people.
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Message 5
Posted by AlexanderLiberty (U14397753) on Monday, 17th May 2010
I'm agree with PaulRyckier and It's post is the best answer.
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Message 6
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Monday, 17th May 2010
Hi Locusta and welcome to these boards. I think the sad truth is that the programme had a populist edge and wouldn't have found it's target audience if it strayed into the "Germans were victims too" controversy. Not least because the argument about the morality v necessity of bombing Germany is one which deserves more coverage that the remit of the series would have allowed.
Much as we like to sneer at Americans making history for Americans, this is a fine example of Britain having the same market. -
Message 7
Posted by LairigGhru (U14051689) on Monday, 17th May 2010
A chronological approach was taken by the programme, so at one point it broke off from describing the effects of the V-2 bombardment and spent a few seconds describing the bombing of Dresden. It was stated that the city had significant military significance, and moreover it lay across the Red Army's path of advance. Then the account returned to the situation we were in regarding the V-2 bombardment so a connection between the two assaults was naturally made in the viewer's mind (tit for tat).
In a previous documentary some years ago I recall it being stated that another reason for subjecting Dresden to that treatment was because morale and support for the Nazis was high in that city - a fact that needed to change if the Allied advance into Germany was to meet with success. -
Message 8
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Tuesday, 18th May 2010
Locusta.
Paul R mentioned a relevant source:
It is an excellent book written by a woman of your mother's generation, who survived the Allied bombing and the Russian occupation (including rape and other humiliations).
The author decided to remain anonymous but she is believed to have become a highly-regarded German journalist.
She describes the horrors of cellar existence during the heavy air-raids, the worries about food and water, the awfulness of sharing shelter with neighbours she dislikes.
What comes through from her ordeal is an indomitable spirit and courage and a wonderfully dark humour, eg
".. Be practical this Christmas, give a coffin..."
and (with reference to the bombing)
"...better a Ruskie on top than a Yank above.."
For me, one of the nastiest aspects of the Allied bombing was the decision, at the very end of the war, to raze whole towns which had absolutely no military significance. These were, in effect, 'punishment raids' and were, for the most part, unopposed. They were on a vastly greater scale than anything the Germans dropped on the UK.
But we should not forget that for several years aerial bombardment was the Allies' only way of taking the war to the enemy.
As for 'Blitz Street', I thought it a rather shoddy and obsessive little programme, hugely wasteful of resources (building a street to blow it up; how infantile!) which taught us nothing that we have not heard 'down the pub' for years. -
Message 9
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Tuesday, 18th May 2010
As for 'Blitz Street', I thought it a rather shoddy and obsessive little programme, hugely wasteful of resources (building a street to blow it up; how infantile!) which taught us nothing that we have not heard 'down the pub' for years.
Au contraire, it gave ballistic scientists with modern equipment the opportunity to study first hand the effects of WWII bombs on a street of the period. THe programme was made with the cooperation of the MoD (in fact could not have been done without them) and the MoD scientists would have got a wealth of information from the exercise.
Hardly infantile, illustrating what many our ancestors had to experience on a day-to-day basis, and scientists increasing the level of knowledge in the subject.
As for what can be learnt down the pub, that's usually ill-informed alcohol-fuelled male bravado that has nothing to do with rigorous testing of a subject. -
Message 10
Posted by Thomas_B (U1667093) on Tuesday, 18th May 2010
So at least, Stoggler, the "Blitz Street" had it´s scientific part.
I don´t know what to think about the "Britain at War experience (see link above). I came across that website some time ago and they advertise on their pages to get the "experience" on how it felt in that time in a air raid shelter.
Every time when I visited England, I was most astonished how the people there maintane historical events, so far I came across such occasions. I can remember from my childhood in Oldhams Alexandra Park they have played a battle from the 18th Century there. But I can´t remember which battle it was. I was very impressed by this for such things didn´t taken place in my country in that time. -
Message 11
Posted by LairigGhru (U14051689) on Tuesday, 18th May 2010
I found it very useful and informative. My parents hid in the cubby hole under the stairs and survived, and now I understand better why this was. It was interesting being taken methodically through the succession of bomb grades that the Germans used on us and seeing how well or poorly the Anderson shelters coped with the shock waves. An excellent series, I would say.
For years as I have watched Tony Robinson's documentaries I have marvelled on the fact that we are being so well educated by Baldrick. Who would ever have thought it! -
Message 12
Posted by Thomas_B (U1667093) on Tuesday, 18th May 2010
Hi Paul,
Locusta, that are my first thoughts, and don't think that I am biased (Thomas, a German contributor to these boards is my witness in this) against the victimising of one side or another, but it is only that in my opinion the perpetrators weren't equal in their atrocities and there we are back at the debate that I mentioned in the former paragraph.
I absolutely can confirm what you´ve said.
By the way, I once have set up a link to the ARTE TV homepage when debating the Belgian King Leopold III, with your countryman on these boards (I just can´t recall his nick name). You´ve sent in some posts on this thread a long time before I engaged in the debate. So far as I know, my post with that link hasn´t been removed, maybe because I´ve used it for proof what I´ve said there by the link as evidence. I left him these links to choose the language that fits to him.
I hope you´re well.
Kind Regards,
Thomas -
Message 13
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Tuesday, 18th May 2010
My sister (Born in 1939) was being pushed through Bootle in her pram after one of the May Blitz nights when she started waving. It took a few minutes for my mother to realise she was waving back to a child that had been blown high up in to the ruins of a house. The child was dead of course but was being blown by the wind and as she turned she gave the impression of waving to my sister.
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Message 14
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Tuesday, 18th May 2010
Stoggler and Thomas.
We seem to disagree about the "scientific" insights provided by 'Blitz Street'.
I would argue that there is no novel information provided by the programme, which was not available to the scientists who wrote the 'US Strategic Bombing Survey' after WW2.
see:.
This publication deals fully with all aspects of Allied air bombardment in WW2.
The only thing I could see, which hitherto had been known about, but not fully captured on camera, was the effect of a shock wave expanding from a large detonation.
All else was old hat. The programme was very poor science indeed.
1) The houses were not built with standard materials. Look at the roofing trusses and tile/slate battens shown in the TV series.
2) The programme makers admitted that they could not simulate anything approximating the kinetic energy of a real V1, much less a V2 supersonic impact.
3) Bombs create shock waves from both their physical impact AND the consequent explosive force. There was no attempt to simulate the former. Setting off big fireworks near a building is not quite the same thing.
4) The programme's 'insights' about the different nature of blast damage from HE and Ammonium nitrate charges would have been known at a very early stage in the war (probably much earlier).
Thus I conclude that there were no 'scientific insights' gained, as a consequence of this Boys' Own' enterprise, that were not known, to real scientists, at the latest, by 1950.
The programme was a fifth-form stunt, confirming for me, that inside the actor who plays Baldrick, lurks a real Baldrick with his name on it. -
Message 15
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Wednesday, 19th May 2010
nearly 70 years on it is time to acknoledge that the ordinary people on both sides suffered and anyone who lived through that time has a tale to tell.
Ordinary people made up the ranks of nazi party officials and the SS, lets not kid ourselves that civilians were in any way innocent victims during WW2.
It was a conflict between industrial powers and can only be described as total war. Certainly talking to my grandparents and parents who lived through the war in London they never considered themselves as innocent or that the Germans should concentrate on killing British soldiers and leave the poor civilians alone.
The attitude was very much that everybody was in it together and willing to suffer. Working class families in London tended to have a strong matriarch at the head of what was normally a large family, my grandmother was a strong personality and would like many have been willing to suffer pain if it lessened the suffering of the troops.
No doubt many Germans felt the same, it is apparent that German civilian moral did not weaken during the war even under massive allied bombing.
But the Germans were not innocent civilians, they were not “just the same as us” and they suffered purely due to their own actions.
These ordinary Germans were participating in a disgusting regime and contributing to mass murder on an unimaginable scale.
The innocent civilians of Germany were still willingly supporting the Nazi cause and their hard work ensured the gas chambers were kept full right until the last possible moments. -
Message 16
Posted by cricket-Angel Tucker (U3382697) on Wednesday, 19th May 2010
Locusta,
I'd like to see a programme on the "German Blitz" too. -
Message 17
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Wednesday, 19th May 2010
Re M15
But the Germans were not innocent civilians, they were not “just the same as us” and they suffered purely due to their own actions.
These ordinary Germans were participating in a disgusting regime and contributing to mass murder on an unimaginable scale.
The innocent civilians of Germany were still willingly supporting the Nazi cause and their hard work ensured the gas chambers were kept full right until the last possible moments.
Something tells me that you didn't vote for Nick Clegg this time?
To characterise all Germans as depraved gas-chamber fillers is as rude as it is absurd.
Germany is more than a shallow stereotype of Xyclon B, Lederhosen and authoritarian government.
Germany is also the culture that gave us Beethoven, Schiller, Goethe and several protestant pastors who were either executed or sent to concentration camps for NOT obeying Nazi dictats.
Don't forget that in the UK in the mid 1930's our own proto-fascist, Oswald Mosley was enjoying great support both in the right-wing press and in the street.
The gross injustices of the Treaty of Versailles gave ordinary Germans a very sound reason for wanting to get 'even'. Hitler gave voice to this bitterness. -
Message 18
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Wednesday, 19th May 2010
Re: Message 17.
"The gross injustices of the Treaty of Versailles gave ordinary Germans a very sound reason for wanting to get 'even'. Hitler gave voice to this bitterness."
I don't say that the rancour about Versailles didn't exist, but it seems to be more the 1929 Black Monday crisis, which had a great impact on Germany, while Germany was so vulnerable as it was so linked with American capital. Hence the rise of Hitler and after a decline at the vote for the Nazis he was saved by the "old" right and they thought to be able to "curtail" Hitler. In fact it is that what I read in recent history works. It is the same what Allan said on these boards, if I remember it well.
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 19
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Wednesday, 19th May 2010
Paul (18)
Greetings.
You are right to point out that Hitler's rise to power was not crudely monocausal. Economic distress, esp. the 1929 crash, played a most significant part, as you say.
I don't normally spring to the defence of Germans and Germany on these boards but I just thought that Englishvote's diatribe was a little 'over the top'.
I'm sure that we both believe in the Socratic process as a route to truth.
Best regards. -
Message 20
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Thursday, 20th May 2010
U3280211
Something tells me that you didn't vote for Nick Clegg this time?
I fail to see what possible relevance he has to this discussion? Besides I don’t live anywhere near Sheffield.
To characterise all Germans as depraved gas-chamber fillers is as rude as it is absurd.
Diatribe and 'over the top' springs to mind !
Maybe by exaggerating and distorting my comments you can turn a blind eye to the fact that the German nation embarked on mass murder on an industrial scale. The holocaust could not have been conducted simply by the Nazi party without the willing support of the average German.
Rounding up the victims, transportation and logistical support came via the eager support of the civilian population, indeed it is apparent that the victimisation of Jews and other racial groups was a very popular policy with the voters and not confined to just the Nazi party.
Maybe the majority of the German population was not aware of the scale of the genocide but they were certainly aware of the persecution and deportations, the fact is the population did not care what happened to the victims.
Germany is also the culture that gave us Beethoven, Schiller, Goethe and several protestant pastors who were either executed or sent to concentration camps for NOT obeying Nazi dictats.
Oh that’s all right then is it ? All is forgive because some, a very small minority, chose to protest. The fact that hardly any of the dissenting voicing survived the war means the post war German population cannot claim this as an alibi.
Don't forget that in the UK in the mid 1930's our own proto-fascist, Oswald Mosley was enjoying great support both in the right-wing press and in the street.
Great support? You’re joking surely or just rewriting history to justify your position?
Mosley failed in Britain as a politician and as a popular leader of the right wing.
The gross injustices of the Treaty of Versailles gave ordinary Germans a very sound reason for wanting to get 'even'. Hitler gave voice to this bitterness.
Utter nonsense and a popular excuse used to defend the indefensible.
Their was a bitterness within Germany about the defeat in 1918 and many felt that the score should be put right regarding France and Britain. The military especially felt let down by the politicians over the conduct of the Great War and another conflict between the adversaries was inevitable.
But none of this explains the Holocaust or the guilt of the German people in its co-operation in the mass murder of millions purely down to their race or politics.
Pick a fight with Britain or France, fair enough. The history of Europe is full of conflict between competing powers, we all share the blame there.
But why the Holocaust? Where is the excuse for that?
WW2 was a war against evil, it was not a conflict between equals, one side was totally wrong and can have no justification for claiming “we are all the same and suffered the same”. -
Message 21
Posted by Thomas_B (U1667093) on Thursday, 20th May 2010
U3280211,
englishvote is right in his opinion. Although he didn´t mentioned the part of the German population which was in resistance towards the Nazis, he said the right in his last post to you.
As a German myself, I think that I might know very well my countrymen, especially those of that generation which comitted those things during WWII. The thinking have changed by the younger generations, but englishvote said the truth about those people concerned for that time.
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englishvote,
Thanks for your post, for you´ve done me undeliberatly a favour while I was considering to respond U3280211 posts.
The military especially felt let down by the politicians over the conduct of the Great War and another conflict between the adversaries was inevitable.
It was more on the contrary, because Hindenburg and Ludendorff abused the politicians for signing the surrender and make them the scapegoats for the lost war. You may know well about the "Dolchstoßlegende" (the stab-in-the-back legend).
WW2 was a war against evil, it was not a conflict between equals, one side was totally wrong and can have no justification for claiming “we are all the same and suffered the same”.
I agree with you in your first part of that sentence, but concering the suffering by air raids, I think according to the effects, there would be (if at all), just a slight difference.
Aside from my particular comments, I am with your opinion.
Regards,
Thomas
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Paul,
... but it seems to be more the 1929 Black Monday crisis, which had a great impact on Germany, ...
That event is called by us as the "Black Friday" of 1929, not Monday.
Regards,
Thomas -
Message 22
Posted by LairigGhru (U14051689) on Thursday, 20th May 2010
Anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of the feelings and attitudes of Beethoven, Schiller and Goethe would know only too well how horrified and aghast they would have been regarding the activities of the Third Reich. Such figures would most certainly have been publicly stressing "Not in my name!"
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Message 23
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Thursday, 20th May 2010
Locusta
I agree we need to remember the suffering caused by the war. But I would disagree that the German experience is neglected in this country - most historical TV series about the war are careful to cover Hamburg and Dresden as well as the Blitz, and have been from the classic "World At War" onward.
Indeed, I would suggest that the average British schoolchild today is much more likely to know of the bombing of Dresden than the bombing of Coventry, Hull and Liverpool. They also are mainly unaware that the V1 and V2 campaigns were indiscrimatory.
And as we teach the "WWII experience" at KS1 and KS2, the physical horror of what British civilians went through is not taught (it doesn't matter whether you are a Berliner, Dresdener or East Ender - if you're at the point of impact, it is equally terrible.)
What concerns me is that a generation of Germans is growing up believing that the Germans were the only ones who suffered heavy bombing. A couple of years back, in Berlin, I was disconcerted (and my German contemporaries horrified) when a younger German colleague (late-20s) announced that "We only bombed industrial targets".
As to "Blitz Street" itself, the sneering from a poster here misses the point. The purpose of the programme was to show a modern lay audience what the broad effect of these weapons was. It does not matter if "scientists" have known some of this data since 1950 if it is not accessible to the general public. While the effects could not be exactly duplicated, this was a creditable presentation and none of it was grossly misleading. As others have posted, it was informative and veterans of the period recognised it as accurate.(The MOD did get useful data from the tests, as has been pointed out).
Unlike, incidentally, the US Strategic Bombing Survey. That survey collected a huge amount of data, but that data was mercilessly manipulated to demonstrate that that the USAAF had only conducted precision bombing and that its campaign had been more successful than the RAF's. This manipulation went as far as to amend the bomb tonnage figuresto show that the USAAf had dropped a higher tonnage than the RAF, something the USAAF had never claimed. It was not until the '70s (in military circles) and the 90s (in wider academic ones) that this manipulation was challenged. In fact, 8th AF bombing was less accurate overall than Bomber Command in the period from Sep 44 to Mar 45.
Sneering at Tony Robinson is also uncalled for. I don't share the man's politics or outlook, but he is a committed historian. He may have abandoned formal schooling for acting (the little lovie) but he has picked up two honorary doctorates and two honorary MAs for his contribution to bringing history to a popular audience. He has also been elected to Labour's National Exectutive (2000-2004), which is not an academic qualification but indicates certain qualities of organisation and determination (and he got another doctorate for that).
I also thought the wider scene setting in "Blitz Street" was well balanced - they even used the casualty figure endorsed by the Dresden authorities, not the grossly inflated David Irving/CND/DDR version.
I have one minor correction to their V2 episode. It was stated that Churchill approved the plan to send doctored reports from double agents back to Germany, to cause the V2s to be retargetted so they would fall on less populated areas to the south and east, not Central London (the generic aiming point, incidentally, was Charing Cross).
In fact, Churchill refused to take this decision which he, like Herbert Morrison who as 鶹Լ Secretary had first been approached, saw as too politically dangerous if it leaked. It was left to Clement Attlee, acting PM when Churchill went abroad, to authorise the deception.
LW -
Message 24
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Thursday, 20th May 2010
Re: Message 21.
Thomas,
of course you are right. But to my forgiviness (ter mijner vergiffenis) zur meiner Vergebung)): there are that many "Black" days in monetary history that one would mix them up
.
In fact the start was Black Thursday 24 October 1929. And by the time difference Black Friday in Europe. You had also the first called Black Monday on 28 October 1929. Another called Black Monday was 19 October 1987.
Cheers from your friend Paul and with esteem. -
Message 25
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Thursday, 20th May 2010
englishvote (20)
Well did you vote for UKIP or the BNP?
There are no other UK parties as remotely as anti-German as your sentiments seem to suggest.
The holocaust could not have been conducted simply by the Nazi party without the willing support of the average German.
So are you saying that Thomas B, a German, who posts here, is a typical Holocaust-loving German?
Or
In your view, is Thomas B, a German who posts here, a special sort of non-Nazi German. A sort of exception to your rule?
Is Thomas B merely pretending to be anti-Nazi, in your view?
Or are you saying that all Germans, Thomas B excepted, are willing to push Jews into gas chambers?
the guilt of the German people in its co-operation in the mass murder
In your warped psychology are 'whole peoples' (whatever they may be?) responsible for the sins of their politicians? What bravura twaddle. Shall I blame you for the Suez crisis, the creation of Pakistan or the awful logo for 2012 Olympics? Get a grip, 'guilt' cannot be collective in the way you imagine, can it. Would you try all Germans (Thomas B included) for war crimes??
Locusta started this thread to remind us that Germans also suffered from aerial bombing in WW2. (Just for the record, on a far greater scale than our British relatives did).
I responded and gave a link to a publication which confirms that non-fascist Germans existed in the second world war and suffered too , as our parents suffered, only her parent(she mentions her mother) was on the 'losing' side.
Mosley failed in Britain as a politician and as a popular leader of the right wing.
Not so. His broadly pro-Hitler role was assumed by Halifax who was quite happy to 'do a deal' with the Nazis, right up to 1940, go check... -
Message 26
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Thursday, 20th May 2010
LW (23)
It does not matter if "scientists" have known some of this data since 1950 if it is not accessible to the general public. While the effects could not be exactly duplicated
It does if a poster claims that the programme provided "scientific insights" when it merely re-cycled 65 year old data.
If our discussions here are to be limited by the earth-hugging 'horizon' of the 'general public' then we would all be discussing football, Lord Triesman's gaff and Beyonce's latest offering on youtube.
Science is an experimental method which uses reliable, reproducible evidence to advance knowledge. Blitz Street did none of those things.
It built a silly little cluster of houses and blew them up, bit by bit, as a six year old builds a 'castle' for the sea to wash away.
What novel 'science' did you learn from the programme, LW? -
Message 27
Posted by Thomas_B (U1667093) on Friday, 21st May 2010
U3280211,
I know englishvote for a relatively long time on these boards, so that we´ve exchanged several posts on various threads, I know how to take his posts and his meaning. Althoug, I am not intended to answer the questions you asked him.
Get a grip, 'guilt' cannot be collective in the way you imagine, can it.
Well, that is right, but what we have learned through the last decades is to take and bear in mind the responsebility for what Germany did in WWII. I personally regard this as important and at least also a duty on the German collective mind for preventing any re-writing of history by far-right people. It is the least what we can do towards the descendants of the Holocaust victims.
To me it is no question that sufferings on both sides for the civilian population was in some ways equal, but I always bear in mind that it was the German Luftwaffe who started the bombing terror upon Britain and it is questionable for if they didn´t, whether the British and the Americans had bombed Germany at all.
Thanks for pointing to the German resistance, which came always short in historical debates, but the point there is as well, that they were a minority and if the majority of the German population then hadn´t followed the Nazis, these things that happened, couldn´t had happened at all. That is the way I see englishvote´s arguments, and in this, he is right, because he is referring to historically proved facts.
I would like to ask you please, when you noticed the first time anything about Graf Stauffenberg?
Some people, familiar with the history of WWII on these boards, knew about him when I´ve joined these MBs six years ago. To the wider international audiency it had to be made that film "Valkyrie", starring Tom Cruise playing Graf Stauffenberg before even the Americans got notice of thim on a wider scale. This although there were films made about him and the plot of the 20th July 1944 already some ten years after WWII, but as you may guess, these films were German productions and therefore not available for non-German speaking people.
Regards,
Thomas -
Message 28
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Friday, 21st May 2010
U3280211
Well did you vote for UKIP or the BNP?
There are no other UK parties as remotely as anti-German as your sentiments seem to suggest.
This is a history board and as such my comments refer to Nazi German of the 1930’s and 40’s, you seem to be mixing up the present day with the past and also confusing Germany with German.
But I must point out that the BNP would appear to be very fond of German society of the 1930’s and a long way from having the same ideas of the situation as I have suggested.
So are you saying that Thomas B, a German, who posts here, is a typical Holocaust-loving German?
Or
In your view, is Thomas B, a German who posts here, a special sort of non-Nazi German. A sort of exception to your rule?
Is Thomas B merely pretending to be anti-Nazi, in your view?
Or are you saying that all Germans, Thomas B excepted, are willing to push Jews into gas chambers?
I can’t say that I have had a great deal of discussion with Thomas and I would not presume to know his feelings on these issues. But again you are confusing the past with the present, obviously post war generations in Germany bear no guilt what so ever. Any more than I can be blamed for the slave trade.
In your warped psychology are 'whole peoples' (whatever they may be?) responsible for the sins of their politicians? What bravura twaddle. Shall I blame you for the Suez crisis, the creation of Pakistan or the awful logo for 2012 Olympics? Get a grip, 'guilt' cannot be collective in the way you imagine, can it. Would you try all Germans (Thomas B included) for war crimes??
The facts is as I have already said is that the German people helped and collaborated in the persecution and deportation of the victims of the holocaust, they did this willingly and not under threat. The nazi’s were elected to power and it is apparent from film evidence that they were extremely popular.
Are the people responsible for their actions?
Are we all responsible for our decisions?
We need to separate individual choice and the actions of individuals from the actions of society.
The people of Germany must share the guilt for the actions of the nation because the people are the nation.
Locusta started this thread to remind us that Germans also suffered from aerial bombing in WW2. (Just for the record, on a far greater scale than our British relatives did).
I commented on the idea that ordinary people suffered on both sides, but of course the ordinary German was willingly supporting a vile regime and participating in mass murder.
To me this separates them from “ordinary” and turns them into legitimate targets.
But I have never claimed that London or other British cities were not legitimate targets either. Britain was at war with Germany, it was not a war between the ruling British elite and its military and the ruling elite of Germany and its military. -
Message 29
Posted by LairigGhru (U14051689) on Friday, 21st May 2010
Wasn't it after the Coventry bombing that Churchill made his famous speech in which he threatened that the enemy would be paid back in measure "... and MORE than the measure..." for what they had done?
It was thus a "You started it - we'll finish it" situation, and they had been fairly warned. -
Message 30
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Friday, 21st May 2010
U3280211
You made your first dismissive remark unprompted. Stoggler's response pointed out there was scientific value, he wasn't claiming it as the sole justification for the programme. The MOD participants indicated they did get benefit from the exercise, although I would suspect it was of a generic kind.
If we are discussing the merits of the programme, then that has to be done against what it was trying to achieve. The intention was to demonstrate weapons effects to an audience who had not seen them before. It may not have been new science but it was a revelation to most of the audience - and in this visual age that is an impoirtant contribution to understanding what people who went through the Blitz experienced.
The science was not misleading. The use of modern building materiels here is not vital, and in any case, the standard and age of housing varied tremendously in the target areas (indeed the collapse of an entire row of houses as a result of the V2 that landed outside the Kommer works in Luton revealed how scandalously cheaply they had been built).
Your point about physical impact has a degree of validity, but the effect of physical impact can have an ambivalent effect on the subsequent blast. Because the physical impact will cause the weapon to penetrate the ground, the blast is then contained in a way that reduces its reach. V1 bombs that glided down rather than dived (as designed) often had a wider radius of damage as a result.
A criticism of the "V2" demonstration that can be made is that the crater was too wide and too shallow, for just this reason. But as it was, even within this inaccuracy (identified in the programme) the demonstration still showed something I have tried to explain to people for years, that much of the V2's explosive power was contained in a relatively limited area. Mr Robinson's rather confused response to the aftermath of the test shows a layman's response to this counter-intuitive result and thus the value of the demonstration. The programme justified its budget (and the MOD involvement)just for that one test.
As someone with an academic (and once upon a time professional) interest in this subject, there was no "new" science for me. The only revelation was the blast-resistant properties of milk bottles. But I'm not the target audience. The value of this programme was showing the general audience something of the effects of a bomb.
And as you seem to know much about this subject yourself I am not sure why you object so much? Do you really take the elitist line that the general public should not be given this sort of demonstration simply because the exact effects cannot be recreated, and the scientific results already moulder away on file in the Ministry of Bumpf? Surely the British experience has as much right to be broadcast as that of Hamburg and Dresden? I hope (but doubt) that this will get a showing in Germany.
LW -
Message 31
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Saturday, 22nd May 2010
Thomas.
we have learned through the last decades is to take and bear in mind the responsibility for what Germany did in WWII. I personally regard this as important and at least also a duty on the German collective mind for preventing any re-writing of history by far-right people
Of course it is. I fully agree. I don't live in Germany and visit it only about once every two years, so I'm in no position to judge whether the 'far right' remains a threat to Mrs Merkel's robust democracy.
On Von Stauffenberg you say:
I would like to ask you please, when you noticed the first time anything about Graf Stauffenberg?
When I was 14. I went to school with a relative of Von S. and our headmaster was keen that we should know of his family's sacrifice. Many decades have passed since then.
I was also the first on these boards to start a thread exploring the huge gap between the Tom Cruise role in 'Valkyrie' and the actual Claus Von Stauffenberg.
Von Stauffenberg was, in my view, a most complex character and acted for many motives, some of them rather elitist right-wing notions about the upper class, preservation of Knightly virtue and the aristocracy.
Yes he resisted Hitler (by trying to kill him) but was he fighting for a liberal democracy? I think not.
The evidence from his letters home as the invading German army poured east in 1941/2 portray a man who had nothing but contempt for the Slavic races and other 'untermenschen' he encountered. (For details see the Wiki article on CVS).
CVS fought to preserve a notion of honour which is now vestigial in Europe. I doubt that he was a 'democrat' in any modern sense.
For me, the bravest of the German resistance were the Pastors, and a very few Priests who spoke-out against Hitler, from their pulpits, on a weekly basis. People with this degree of courage, who resist from the best human motives, knowing the lethal force opposed to them, are thin on the ground in all nations, imho.
Your interaction with 'Englishvote' is entirely your affair but I think that it is a shame that there are probably more people in the UK who know of the courage in battle of Luftwaffe aces such as Erich Hartmann and the Stuka pilot, Hans Ulrich Rudel, than there are in Germany.
I fear that the modern German school syllabus (I have a cousin who is a teacher in Freiburg) has thrown out the Nazi bathwater together with the 'baby' of German courage and achievement in the conflict. Without the endless reminiscence of that era we British seem unable to function.
As for the Holocaust, that will remain a hideous episode in German history but I would make a couple of points:
1) Germany was not especially anti-semitic before Hitler. Many German Jews fought with courage in WW1 and received military medals.
2) Austria (Hitler's real 'home' culture) was far more systematically anti-semitic, as were Russia, Poland, and Latvia.
3) Antisemitism was strong in England, France and Holland in the 1930's too. The Dutch Nazi party was very popular and we should not forget that Ann Frank was arrested by Dutch police, not Germans.
4) Some German civilians did co-operate with the Nazi machine of death but I doubt that, as a proportion of the populace, this was much greater than the equivalent number of French collaborators and civil servants who knew all about deportations.
5) Had Hitler triumphed and invaded the UK, I would guess that a substantial number of closet fascists would have soon emerged from England's creaky woodwork to help round-up 'undesirables'.
In fact, we know that in the occupied Channel Islands, this actually happened. -
Message 32
Posted by Locusta (U14468320) on Tuesday, 25th May 2010
Well, believe me, many Germans did oppose Hitler-some in big ways, some in small.I recall hearing about the U-boats of berlin, jews hidden by ordinary Berliners in their homes.There were those too who were not afraid to express their opinions, such as a cousain of mine ,14 years old and waiting for Georing to visit her school.Cold, fed up and as brutally honest as only a teenager can be, she grumbled "so when is the fat pig going to show up then?".My mothers English teacher too, after saying "three cheers for Hitler" was heard to mutter "rot in Hell".Alas a pupil in the front row heard her.
No, I feel sad for all those who suffred.I have heard my mothers stories,I have met elderly Russians through my church , who had horrible experiences of which they never spoke,I lost a maternal grandfather and a baby half sister to the war (she was my father's first child) so I feel it is time to remember our common humanity.We should not forget the lessons of history and I think the terrible crimes committed at this time remind us of just what happens when we allow prejudice to blind us.God forgive us all, we have all our faults, so I hope and pray we can try to reach out to each other and at least try to forgive. -
Message 33
Posted by MB (U177470) on Tuesday, 25th May 2010
"Well, believe me, many Germans did oppose Hitler-some in big ways,"
But you read many claiming to know nothing about concentrations camps (often near their town) but sure there were no military related sites or soldiers in the town so any bombing was not justified. -
Message 34
Posted by Thomas_B (U1667093) on Tuesday, 25th May 2010
U3280211,
Thanks for your post.
I don't live in Germany and visit it only about once every two years, so I'm in no position to judge whether the 'far right' remains a threat to Mrs Merkel's robust democracy.
By all means, there is no threat from the "far right" on "her" government, but the democracy is not her´s, it is us.
I´ve read your comments on Claus von Stauffenberg with interest and I admit, that there are some points you´ve taken up which are true. For you said to know about his biography and his role within the German military resistance, you might also know that this circle in which he acted, wasn´t just a close military conspiracy circle. There were as well civil people from different political convictions taking part in that circle and the plot against Hitler. Their first aim was to kill Hitler, negotiate an armistice and replace the Nazis government by an interim military led and civil administrated government. As different the people within that circle, as different their ideas, suggestions and purposes for creating a new German state after WWII.
No one said that Claus von Stauffenberg was a democrat in the modern sense. This isn´t the point in his concerns at all. The point is, that he took the courage and the consequences for sacrificing his life in the attempt to free Germany from the Nazis and, at least, to show the world that there existed a German resistance. We know how and why the plot went down to fail, so we can spare us to discuss it in this thread here. The admiration he receives by the German people is for his deed, not for the question about democracy or not. I regard him as one of the true heroes my country had in that time.
I wouldn´t say the same, nor would I agree with your opinion concerning the few German Priests who spoke up against the Nazis as them being the bravest of the German resistance. On the other side there were too many of them who collaborated with the Nazis and even after the war helped some Nazi criminals to escape via Italy / the Vatican to South American countries. This would be an matter for its own to discuss.
The history of the German resistance against the Nazis has been researched for decades and still in the present times, there are not yet all of them discovered who resisted that regime. Concerning the German resistance, I wouldn´t take any attempt to divide them into "brave" and "bravest". They all did what they could and what they got the courage for doing it. I personally pay all of them my respect and I am not going to make any rankings among them.
Not much to comment on interactions with englishvote from my side. As he said in his previous post, we both didn´t had a great deal of debate on the subject concerning the German resistance during WWII. I was more referring to other threads on these MBs in the past time. So that´s it.
... but I think that it is a shame that there are probably more people in the UK who know of the courage in battle of Luftwaffe aces such as Erich Hartmann and the Stuka pilot, Hans Ulrich Rudel, than there are in Germany.
I fear that the modern German school syllabus (I have a cousin who is a teacher in Freiburg) has thrown out the Nazi bathwater together with the 'baby' of German courage and achievement in the conflict. Without the endless reminiscence of that era we British seem unable to function.
No wonder to me why this is like you said about Hartman and Rudel, because - for the latter - they were still are, abused for propaganda by Neo-Nazis. I find your comment on that somewhat peculiar, to say the least. -
Message 35
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Friday, 28th May 2010
LongWeekend:
A couple of years back, in Berlin, I was disconcerted ... when a younger German colleague (late-20s) announced that "We only bombed industrial targets".
That's a bit like what we used to think the RAF had done over Germany. Factories, railway marshalling yards, docks and U-boat pens were constantly mentioned as having been bombed in the wartime news broadcasts.
When I was posted to Hamburg in 1953 we saw bomb-ruined buildings near the docks, but the city centre, around the Alster, seemed to be more-or-less intact. A short trip on a tramcar soon gave me a surprise. A short distance east of the centre there was a vast area which had been houses, but where there remained nothing but the paving of streets between large mounds of bricks, with some chimneys rising above the cellars where people were still living. I was surprised by this because I'd been given the impression that the RAF's "pinpoint accuracy" had been concentrated on industrial targets.
It's a pity the young German you mention, was - so many years later - still in a similar state of patriotic green innocence. I hope you enlightened him.
About German pilots: a very popular book among us blokes in the RAF in 1953/4 was by Heinz Knoke: "I flew for the Fuehrer". Probably it was the most-read book (apart from the works of Hank Jansen) among my colleagues, and I'm sure I read it myself. But I can't remember much about it; probably I read it furtively on night-watch, and what you read around 3am doesn't seem to stick in the memory. I can only recall the cover: a Stuka (or some such plane) diving in for the kill. -
Message 36
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Friday, 28th May 2010
Jak, old bloke,
I have no time and have still to reply to my "chimney" thread. But that took not that much time:
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 37
Posted by Colquhoun (U3935535) on Monday, 31st May 2010
English vote is correct in his assertion that it was not just the Nazi's or members of the SS who carried out the Holocaust.
Numerous ordinary Germans were directly involved in the killing they were not just in supporting roles either.
For example over a hundred thousand were directly killed by ordinary German policemen. These were family men, often in their thirties. They were not Nazi fanatics or youngsters easily led. Yet they were proud to murder Jewish women and young children.
-
Message 38
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Monday, 31st May 2010
Re: Message 37.
Colquhoun,
"numerous ordinary Germans were directly involved..."
As ordinary people in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia..as the Croats via the Ustashi...to call but some...there were even reports from Nazis that some were more fanatical than the Nazis themselves...
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 39
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Tuesday, 1st June 2010
Paul -
Many thanks for the refs to Heinz Knoke. I am so very glad that I'm not such an "old bloke" and that my time in the Airforce was quite mundane, and certainly not to be compared with his experiences and those of his contemporaries.
But I was interested to see that he later managed the Jever Pils brewery, so we have a much happier connection: over the bar in the Naafi.
Cheers!
Jak.
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