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Old WWII joke.
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So the invading German Army can march in the shade.
Well, yeah, not much in the way of any new WWII jokes.Old WWII joke.
Why are the roads in Belgium and France lined with trees?
Going out on a limb here suggesting this is an opportune moment to turn over a new leaf and branch out into a topic rooted entirely in another area altogether, and that would be:The actual truth behind the shade lined roads is Napoleon had the trees planted so his army could march in the shade. The Germans just returned the favor and reversed the flow 3 times over the following 150 years.
Lining up at the Door, we've seen some Big Hitters:Going out on a limb here suggesting this is an opportune moment to turn over a new leaf and branch out into a topic rooted entirely in another area altogether, and that would be:
- Membership
Going out on a limb here suggesting this is an opportune moment to turn over a new leaf and branch out into a topic rooted entirely in another area altogether, and that would be:
- Membership
In the
Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, in-the-House!!Lining up at the Door, we've seen some Big Hitters:
And a few others expected to arrive, before Last Call.
That would make this the very LAST dogfight of the entire war in Europe then, wouldn't it?The Fieseler Storch was the last dogfight victim of the western front. Pilot Duanes Francies and his observer, Lieutenant William Martin, of the 5th US Army Division, spotted a Storch circling below them while looking for ground targets in their Piper Cub. Diving on the Storch, the two men opened fire with their Colt .45s and the plane spiraled to the ground. After a short gun battle, Francies and his observer took the two Germans into custody. Lt. Martin was awarded the Air Medal for his part in the fight, but Francies would have to wait until the story was reported in Cornelius Ryan's book "The Last Battle," to finally be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. The USAF was 22 years late.
It seems like, to the man , everyone in the top Nazi leadership was about a half-bubble off plumb:Yeah, I'd never realized just how...intense Goering's tendencies were until I saw color footage of him in his custom-designed sky-blue uniform. Carefully manicured nails are no surprise at all. Interestingly, he was apparently a pretty good pursuit pilot in WWI, which means he both outranked and had more practical experience than his boss in WWII.
And he managed to do all of that without television:Although I hate to say it, Hitler was probably ONE (emphasis added) of the best communicators in history. How else could someone convince a group of people to slaughter so many others.
My next statement doesn't necessarily apply to this specific topic but in our recent time, never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.
The third reich's expertise at media and image management was cutting edge. They didn't need TV, but if it had been available they would have used it mercelessly as well. They had Leni Riefenstahl making compelling propaganda movies, Hitler's amazing speechifying in front of cheering crowds on every radio in the country, and Goebbels making sure that the reich's message always had pride of place in print, film, or broadcast 'news.'And he managed to do all of that without television...
Back on topic, this 'we can do anything' mentality lead to all kinds of hardcore engineering advances. The storch was a relatively minor one, but there were also things like the Peenemunde rocket program and the jet fighters and bombers that were 5-10 years ahead of the 'natural' state of the art at the time.
It seems like, to the man , everyone in the top Nazi leadership was about a half-bubble off plumb:
- But then, in retrospect, that's not too much of a surprise, really.
Well excepting maybe Speer, but then he was an Architect and that carries its own issues.
Not to excuse the man for participating in the Crime, but I'm not so sure that Speer ever actually "drank the (Nazi) Kool-Aid"; it was something else; like steelypip says:I've read Speer's memoir, which I found fascinating. He spent a long time in Spandau thinking about why the entire civilized world had decided he needed to spend a long time in Spandau. I think he was probably the only one in the inner circle who was both smart enough and introspective enough to really question his (and their) actions after the fact.
I think there's a sort of Faustus story here, with Hitler as Mephistopheles and Speer as Dr. Faustus. Hitler offered him opportunities that few architects could resist - all he had to do was sell his soul.