Things you have recently learnt
Comments
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Bribery (of non-public officials) until 2016 was not only legal in Switzerland it was tax deductible.0
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Pross said:rjsterry said:Pross said:rick_chasey said:
This ^.pblakeney said:
I also find it a bit distasteful arguing over what is an acceptable amount of compensation, it suggests that the recipients are more interested in getting money than in the acknowledgement and apology for the act itself.rick_chasey said:
You’d kinda hope the lesson learned is don’t be genocidal but people seem to want to let states off the hook on that one.pblakeney said:
The lessons learned for other countries is that it is a can of worms best left unopened.rick_chasey said:
You can see the argument.Pross said:I understand admitting it and apologising. Arguing over a financial settlement years later feels wrong though.
The Germans gave reparations to Jews so why is this different?
By giving reparations to Jews but not Herero or Nama the German govt is basically saying they value Jews more than Nama or Herero.
So if you are against reparations then presumably you are also against the reparations the relations of Holocaust victims received.
If you are not then why the inconsistency?
It is only a matter of decades different.
It’s a fairly morally unambiguous issue here.
You may be interested to learn (on thread...) that the Germans learned a lot on how to do genocide from their experiences in Namibia.
In fact the entire lebensraum bit was really solidified in the public mind during their colonial experiencesseanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
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Evel Knievel got his nickname after he was in a prison cell (after crashing his motorbike in a police chase) next to someone called William Knofel, who was known as "Awful Knofel".
Probably should have heard that before now.0 -
I was thinking more of the possibility that the Americans would not do that to somebody who looked too like themrick_chasey said:
No way would the allies have let the Russians take Berlin with no fight...surrey_commuter said:On a similar tangent who thinks that if Germany had hung on for longer that we would have dropped an A-bomb on Berlin?
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I am no student of the second world war, but weren't the Russians and Germans a bit over the top to each other, and presumably they look similar.surrey_commuter said:
I was thinking more of the possibility that the Americans would not do that to somebody who looked too like themrick_chasey said:
No way would the allies have let the Russians take Berlin with no fight...surrey_commuter said:On a similar tangent who thinks that if Germany had hung on for longer that we would have dropped an A-bomb on Berlin?
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you inadvertently hit the nail on the head. The German troops were taught that the Russians (slavic people) were sub-human (untermensch) which helped remove behavioural boundaries. The Russsian treatment of Germans was pure and simple revenge.TheBigBean said:
I am no student of the second world war, but weren't the Russians and Germans a bit over the top to each other, and presumably they look similar.surrey_commuter said:
I was thinking more of the possibility that the Americans would not do that to somebody who looked too like themrick_chasey said:
No way would the allies have let the Russians take Berlin with no fight...surrey_commuter said:On a similar tangent who thinks that if Germany had hung on for longer that we would have dropped an A-bomb on Berlin?
The worse German massacre in France was when the locals shot a couple of officers from a Company resting up from a stint on the Eastern Front0 -
Blimey, just 100 years ago. I looked it up, as Biden is the first sitting US President to go to Tulsa. I knew nothing about it before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre0 -
First came to my attention in the HBO series Watchmen.briantrumpet said:Blimey, just 100 years ago. I looked it up, as Biden is the first sitting US President to go to Tulsa. I knew nothing about it before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre
Was astonished to find out the start was based on fact.The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
There was this, almost an entire village, 642 men women and children massacred after the resistance kidnapped a German soldier.surrey_commuter said:
you inadvertently hit the nail on the head. The German troops were taught that the Russians (slavic people) were sub-human (untermensch) which helped remove behavioural boundaries. The Russsian treatment of Germans was pure and simple revenge.TheBigBean said:
I am no student of the second world war, but weren't the Russians and Germans a bit over the top to each other, and presumably they look similar.surrey_commuter said:
I was thinking more of the possibility that the Americans would not do that to somebody who looked too like themrick_chasey said:
No way would the allies have let the Russians take Berlin with no fight...surrey_commuter said:On a similar tangent who thinks that if Germany had hung on for longer that we would have dropped an A-bomb on Berlin?
The worse German massacre in France was when the locals shot a couple of officers from a Company resting up from a stint on the Eastern Front
https://www.france24.com/en/20140108-german-charged-nazi-french-massacre-world-war-oradour-sur-Glane0 -
“You can’t judge the past”briantrumpet said:Blimey, just 100 years ago. I looked it up, as Biden is the first sitting US President to go to Tulsa. I knew nothing about it before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre0 -
That’s the oneelbowloh said:
There was this, almost an entire village, 642 men women and children massacred after the resistance kidnapped a German soldier.surrey_commuter said:
you inadvertently hit the nail on the head. The German troops were taught that the Russians (slavic people) were sub-human (untermensch) which helped remove behavioural boundaries. The Russsian treatment of Germans was pure and simple revenge.TheBigBean said:
I am no student of the second world war, but weren't the Russians and Germans a bit over the top to each other, and presumably they look similar.surrey_commuter said:
I was thinking more of the possibility that the Americans would not do that to somebody who looked too like themrick_chasey said:
No way would the allies have let the Russians take Berlin with no fight...surrey_commuter said:On a similar tangent who thinks that if Germany had hung on for longer that we would have dropped an A-bomb on Berlin?
The worse German massacre in France was when the locals shot a couple of officers from a Company resting up from a stint on the Eastern Front
https://www.france24.com/en/20140108-german-charged-nazi-french-massacre-world-war-oradour-sur-Glane0 -
The Germans in Greece and what was Yugoslavia in WW2.
The Belgians got it in WW10 -
The Russians lost a staggering (estimated) 27million people in WW2. It's little wonder, they had a deep mistrust for the Germans.surrey_commuter said:
you inadvertently hit the nail on the head. The German troops were taught that the Russians (slavic people) were sub-human (untermensch) which helped remove behavioural boundaries. The Russsian treatment of Germans was pure and simple revenge.TheBigBean said:
I am no student of the second world war, but weren't the Russians and Germans a bit over the top to each other, and presumably they look similar.surrey_commuter said:
I was thinking more of the possibility that the Americans would not do that to somebody who looked too like themrick_chasey said:
No way would the allies have let the Russians take Berlin with no fight...surrey_commuter said:On a similar tangent who thinks that if Germany had hung on for longer that we would have dropped an A-bomb on Berlin?
The worse German massacre in France was when the locals shot a couple of officers from a Company resting up from a stint on the Eastern Frontseanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
That's well worth a visit, truly haunting. When I went the story seemed to be that they believed it was a resistance stronghold but got the wrong village, there is another village nearby called Oradour sur Vayres that was a resistance stronghold.elbowloh said:
There was this, almost an entire village, 642 men women and children massacred after the resistance kidnapped a German soldier.surrey_commuter said:
you inadvertently hit the nail on the head. The German troops were taught that the Russians (slavic people) were sub-human (untermensch) which helped remove behavioural boundaries. The Russsian treatment of Germans was pure and simple revenge.TheBigBean said:
I am no student of the second world war, but weren't the Russians and Germans a bit over the top to each other, and presumably they look similar.surrey_commuter said:
I was thinking more of the possibility that the Americans would not do that to somebody who looked too like themrick_chasey said:
No way would the allies have let the Russians take Berlin with no fight...surrey_commuter said:On a similar tangent who thinks that if Germany had hung on for longer that we would have dropped an A-bomb on Berlin?
The worse German massacre in France was when the locals shot a couple of officers from a Company resting up from a stint on the Eastern Front
https://www.france24.com/en/20140108-german-charged-nazi-french-massacre-world-war-oradour-sur-Glane0 -
veronese68 said:
That's well worth a visit, truly haunting. When I went the story seemed to be that they believed it was a resistance stronghold but got the wrong village, there is another village nearby called Oradour sur Vayres that was a resistance stronghold.elbowloh said:
There was this, almost an entire village, 642 men women and children massacred after the resistance kidnapped a German soldier.surrey_commuter said:
you inadvertently hit the nail on the head. The German troops were taught that the Russians (slavic people) were sub-human (untermensch) which helped remove behavioural boundaries. The Russsian treatment of Germans was pure and simple revenge.TheBigBean said:
I am no student of the second world war, but weren't the Russians and Germans a bit over the top to each other, and presumably they look similar.surrey_commuter said:
I was thinking more of the possibility that the Americans would not do that to somebody who looked too like themrick_chasey said:
No way would the allies have let the Russians take Berlin with no fight...surrey_commuter said:On a similar tangent who thinks that if Germany had hung on for longer that we would have dropped an A-bomb on Berlin?
The worse German massacre in France was when the locals shot a couple of officers from a Company resting up from a stint on the Eastern Front
https://www.france24.com/en/20140108-german-charged-nazi-french-massacre-world-war-oradour-sur-Glane
It was obviously a basic Nazi/SS tactic, as they did the same in Vercors: try to terrify the entire area where the resistance had nearly 100% at least tacit support. It happened in Vercors too, even more cruelly just one month before the Nazis fled the region in August 1944. It's still very sobering looking at the graves at the Nécropole at Vassieux, where you see the graves of 90-year-olds and 18-months-olds next to each other: they were all killed and the village destroyed. The destroyed village at Valchevrières has been retained ad a memorial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsvA0UkdRuw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vercors0 -
It is something that gets forgotten too easily by people (and I include myself) that joke about the French surrendering easily.briantrumpet said:veronese68 said:
That's well worth a visit, truly haunting. When I went the story seemed to be that they believed it was a resistance stronghold but got the wrong village, there is another village nearby called Oradour sur Vayres that was a resistance stronghold.elbowloh said:
There was this, almost an entire village, 642 men women and children massacred after the resistance kidnapped a German soldier.surrey_commuter said:
you inadvertently hit the nail on the head. The German troops were taught that the Russians (slavic people) were sub-human (untermensch) which helped remove behavioural boundaries. The Russsian treatment of Germans was pure and simple revenge.TheBigBean said:
I am no student of the second world war, but weren't the Russians and Germans a bit over the top to each other, and presumably they look similar.surrey_commuter said:
I was thinking more of the possibility that the Americans would not do that to somebody who looked too like themrick_chasey said:
No way would the allies have let the Russians take Berlin with no fight...surrey_commuter said:On a similar tangent who thinks that if Germany had hung on for longer that we would have dropped an A-bomb on Berlin?
The worse German massacre in France was when the locals shot a couple of officers from a Company resting up from a stint on the Eastern Front
https://www.france24.com/en/20140108-german-charged-nazi-french-massacre-world-war-oradour-sur-Glane
It was obviously a basic Nazi/SS tactic, as they did the same in Vercors: try to terrify the entire area where the resistance had nearly 100% at least tacit support. It happened in Vercors too, even more cruelly just one month before the Nazis fled the region in August 1944. It's still very sobering looking at the graves at the Nécropole at Vassieux, where you see the graves of 90-year-olds and 18-months-olds next to each other: they were all killed and the village destroyed. The destroyed village at Valchevrières has been retained ad a memorial.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsvA0UkdRuw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vercors0 -
Pross said:
It is something that gets forgotten too easily by people (and I include myself) that joke about the French surrendering easily.briantrumpet said:veronese68 said:
That's well worth a visit, truly haunting. When I went the story seemed to be that they believed it was a resistance stronghold but got the wrong village, there is another village nearby called Oradour sur Vayres that was a resistance stronghold.elbowloh said:
There was this, almost an entire village, 642 men women and children massacred after the resistance kidnapped a German soldier.surrey_commuter said:
you inadvertently hit the nail on the head. The German troops were taught that the Russians (slavic people) were sub-human (untermensch) which helped remove behavioural boundaries. The Russsian treatment of Germans was pure and simple revenge.TheBigBean said:
I am no student of the second world war, but weren't the Russians and Germans a bit over the top to each other, and presumably they look similar.surrey_commuter said:
I was thinking more of the possibility that the Americans would not do that to somebody who looked too like themrick_chasey said:
No way would the allies have let the Russians take Berlin with no fight...surrey_commuter said:On a similar tangent who thinks that if Germany had hung on for longer that we would have dropped an A-bomb on Berlin?
The worse German massacre in France was when the locals shot a couple of officers from a Company resting up from a stint on the Eastern Front
https://www.france24.com/en/20140108-german-charged-nazi-french-massacre-world-war-oradour-sur-Glane
It was obviously a basic Nazi/SS tactic, as they did the same in Vercors: try to terrify the entire area where the resistance had nearly 100% at least tacit support. It happened in Vercors too, even more cruelly just one month before the Nazis fled the region in August 1944. It's still very sobering looking at the graves at the Nécropole at Vassieux, where you see the graves of 90-year-olds and 18-months-olds next to each other: they were all killed and the village destroyed. The destroyed village at Valchevrières has been retained ad a memorial.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsvA0UkdRuw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vercors
It's not without good reason that Vercors is held up as an example in France of how fiercely the Resistance pushed back in certain areas. I'm no great reader of WW2 history, but reading about how the Vercors Maquis risked everything (their families included) to fight the Nazis there still brings a lump to the throat. I think it's made even more stark by how idyllic and beautiful the place is.
The Paddy Ashdown book on it is a brilliant read. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cruel-Victory-French-Resistance-Vercors/dp/0007520816
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It was noticeable when I visited the Dordogne a few years ago that virtually every village seemed to have a memorial to people murdered for being in the resitance or as retalliation for a resistance attack.0
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How else can you scrub out the pain of both defeat and Vichy France, without over-emphasising the heroic resistance movement?Pross said:It was noticeable when I visited the Dordogne a few years ago that virtually every village seemed to have a memorial to people murdered for being in the resitance or as retalliation for a resistance attack.
It's the same in Holland. The resistance is taught at length, celebrated regularly, even made a film of the Century for Holland (soldier of orange, which later became the big Dutch stage hit), but an order of magnitude more collaborated with the Nazis than fought against them.0 -
Pross said:
It was noticeable when I visited the Dordogne a few years ago that virtually every village seemed to have a memorial to people murdered for being in the resitance or as retalliation for a resistance attack.
As we know, the French can be awkward sods when they put their minds to it.0 -
rick_chasey said:
How else can you scrub out the pain of both defeat and Vichy France, without over-emphasising the heroic resistance movement?Pross said:It was noticeable when I visited the Dordogne a few years ago that virtually every village seemed to have a memorial to people murdered for being in the resitance or as retalliation for a resistance attack.
I'm sure there is an element of that, but maybe it's also a way of tacitly admitting the failings.0 -
Sure sure. A good rule of thumb when it comes to statues and memorials is they reflect what was going on when they were built, not what they are there to commemorate.briantrumpet said:rick_chasey said:
How else can you scrub out the pain of both defeat and Vichy France, without over-emphasising the heroic resistance movement?Pross said:It was noticeable when I visited the Dordogne a few years ago that virtually every village seemed to have a memorial to people murdered for being in the resitance or as retalliation for a resistance attack.
I'm sure there is an element of that, but maybe it's also a way of tacitly admitting the failings.0 -
rick_chasey said:
Sure sure. A good rule of thumb when it comes to statues and memorials is they reflect what was going on when they were built, not what they are there to commemorate.briantrumpet said:rick_chasey said:
How else can you scrub out the pain of both defeat and Vichy France, without over-emphasising the heroic resistance movement?Pross said:It was noticeable when I visited the Dordogne a few years ago that virtually every village seemed to have a memorial to people murdered for being in the resitance or as retalliation for a resistance attack.
I'm sure there is an element of that, but maybe it's also a way of tacitly admitting the failings.
I'd need to read/see the comments about the Vercors Memorial Museum made by Mitterrand when he opened it to work out which angles he was coming from by that stage. This might be an interesting read. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1213&context=honorstheses0 -
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From the above-linked thesis:. This thesis posits a connection between the development of the French World War II museum and the evolution of French collective memory. It will analyze the early memorials and “first generation” museums of the immediate postwar period (1945-1969) within a climate of repression and selective commemoration epitomized by the Resistance Myth, a heroic but misleading national narrative that was propagated by the French government under Charles de Gaulle. It will then trace the evolution of the “second generation” museum as both a critical
historiographical institution and later as a site of tourism and spectacle – developments that reflect the disintegration of the national narrative and the “deheroization” or demythologization of the French Resistance as well as the museological trends and spectacular cultural policies of the period (1970-1995). This study will conclude by positing the appearance of a third generation of museums dedicated to World War II within the last two decades (1995-present). These institutions, which seek to balance commemorative and pedagogical goals, present the Resistance in a restructured – though not entirely unprecedented – light.0 -
Paddy Ashdown certainly gives de Gaulle a bit of a roasting in his Vercors book.0
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Christ that reads like a French resistance version of my mate's PhD.briantrumpet said:From the above-linked thesis:
. This thesis posits a connection between the development of the French World War II museum and the evolution of French collective memory. It will analyze the early memorials and “first generation” museums of the immediate postwar period (1945-1969) within a climate of repression and selective commemoration epitomized by the Resistance Myth, a heroic but misleading national narrative that was propagated by the French government under Charles de Gaulle. It will then trace the evolution of the “second generation” museum as both a critical
historiographical institution and later as a site of tourism and spectacle – developments that reflect the disintegration of the national narrative and the “deheroization” or demythologization of the French Resistance as well as the museological trends and spectacular cultural policies of the period (1970-1995). This study will conclude by positing the appearance of a third generation of museums dedicated to World War II within the last two decades (1995-present). These institutions, which seek to balance commemorative and pedagogical goals, present the Resistance in a restructured – though not entirely unprecedented – light.
I would be tempted to write an article off the back of that examining current generational responses to the 3 different historical 'interpretations', with the theory that people respond best and cling to whatever interpretation was in fashion when they hit their early 20s.0 -
Unrelated but interesting was a conversation between two French colleagues about how their families had all of their furniture taken in the war, think middle rather than upper class. When I asked why Germans were taking furniture they looked at me as if I was mad and politely explained that it was the Americans.
Apparently they looted their way across Europe and sent it back through official channels. Many local felt they were worse than the Germans.0 -
rick_chasey said:
Christ that reads like a French resistance version of my mate's PhD.briantrumpet said:From the above-linked thesis:
. This thesis posits a connection between the development of the French World War II museum and the evolution of French collective memory. It will analyze the early memorials and “first generation” museums of the immediate postwar period (1945-1969) within a climate of repression and selective commemoration epitomized by the Resistance Myth, a heroic but misleading national narrative that was propagated by the French government under Charles de Gaulle. It will then trace the evolution of the “second generation” museum as both a critical
historiographical institution and later as a site of tourism and spectacle – developments that reflect the disintegration of the national narrative and the “deheroization” or demythologization of the French Resistance as well as the museological trends and spectacular cultural policies of the period (1970-1995). This study will conclude by positing the appearance of a third generation of museums dedicated to World War II within the last two decades (1995-present). These institutions, which seek to balance commemorative and pedagogical goals, present the Resistance in a restructured – though not entirely unprecedented – light.
I would be tempted to write an article off the back of that examining current generational responses to the 3 different historical 'interpretations', with the theory that people respond best and cling to whatever interpretation was in fashion when they hit their early 20s.
But it does seem like a vaguely passable way to investigate (and maybe refute) what you were suggesting. You've only got to watch a few WW2 films from the two or three decades after WW2 to know that the French weren't the only ones trying to write the history they wanted... though I'll admit that the French might have had more of an immediate desire to overlook a big chunk of what happened... not least the Milice, which I had no real knowledge of until I read the Ashdown book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milice0
