70 Years - A photo for tomorrow.

[dunover]

For those on all sides who fell during the liberation of Europe 06/06/1944 R.I.P.

 

[paul7388]

Thank you for the post dunover as its always important to rememberall those who lost their lives for us70 years ago and in all the wars. As for the comments about Ukraine hopefully anyone else reading this just ignores it and maybe Bryan will do what he doesn't normally and remove the posts and not leave them there as last thing anyone wants is such a post of rememberance to turn into the normal arguments . R.I.P to all the brave soldiers who lost their lives fighting for their countries.

 

[The Dude]

Political rant moved to "Political Rants"
https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/62612?t=62612

 

[The Dude]

Interesting reading this is:

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[jetset]

Respect to one helluva generation!

 

[chuchu59]

The main difference between yesteryear's generation and the current one is the former was full of selfless people whereas now all we see are selfish nobodies.

 

[skiny]

War is a necessity that I can do without. I have to admit I'm far from an expert on the subject but our entire history as a species has been riddled with it. And I have doubts that film and television have ever adequately captured the nightmare that is being in the middle of one. To be bogged down in a foreign place trying to kill people who are trying to kill you is just not a place people should have to be.

I have national pride but I also have international respect. I'm a firm believe in diplomacy and peaceful resolution. But I also believe that there are times in our long troubled history when you just have to pick up a weapon and go make things right. The conflict that we call World War 2... A conflict that lasted 6 years and left over 70 million dead is one of those times.

Unlike many wars with far fewer participants, in this war with an alliance of almost 2 dozen countries, I believe it would have been rare to find a single allied serviceman or civilian who didn't believe what they were fighting for and what they were defending was right and just. It was a necessity. We can sit here 70 years later and debate the politics, policies and the strategies. We can have our opinions on who contributed what and when but it really doesn't matter to me because at the heart of that conflict lies one simple truth. Evil men stood up to commit evil acts and the rest of the world said no. You simply have to respect that.

And it's something we would do well not to forget.

 

[dunover]

Interesting reading this is:

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We had a minute's silence today at work at 8AM. Beautifully observed though it was annoying to hear a couple of lads in their 20's saying 'D-Day landings??' with an air of puzzlement. In fact it was more than annoying, it p*ssed me off for a few hours. Not their fault, ignorance.

As for the link, it's good as unfortunately many people (evidently especially the Germans) have the corny 'Hollywood' view of things and swallow films as factual. Getting true facts from Hollywood for an entire film without tub-thumping and being misled is like getting a cheque from Rushmore, or a decent new Netent game.

 

[gagamel]

We had a minute's silence today at work at 8AM. Beautifully observed though it was annoying to hear a couple of lads in their 20's saying 'D-Day landings??' with an air of puzzlement. In fact it was more than annoying, it p*ssed me off for a few hours. Not their fault, ignorance.

As for the link, it's good as unfortunately many people (evidently especially the Germans) have the corny 'Hollywood' view of things and swallow films as factual. Getting true facts from Hollywood for an entire film without tub-thumping and being misled is like getting a cheque from Rushmore, or a decent new Netent game.

I lost one grandfather 1941 eastern front, missing in action. My other grandfather was in war 1939 (France) to 1945. After the war he was 3 years a POW. He came back as a broken man. Sometimes my granny found him on the roof of their hous, looking for enemies.
My aunt was raped by a lot of soldiers in the last month of war. My mother was "ausgebombt". And so on and so on.
And I know a lot of germans with the same history in my age (I am german but live in Switzerland).
As I was in school I knew all the stories I stated before and the history teachers all told us that the germans are dangerous and that we are the only bastards on earth. Very cool, my family members suffered or died and you are told that they were worth nothing.

Well, some of my schoolmates became communists, some became Nazis but most of them said: Fuck you with your shitty history.
I want to live my life now without things 50 years old.

And these mates now have children with the same "Fuck you" mentality.

Sad but true. But I have seen how hard it is to talk about history, especially when it is a dark history.

My hope is, that humans learned from WWI+II and that it will never happen again.

Cheers to all

 

[skiny]

I lost one grandfather 1941 eastern front, missing in action. My other grandfather was in war 1939 (France) to 1945. After the war he was 3 years a POW. He came back as a broken man. Sometimes my granny found him on the roof of their hous, looking for enemies.
My aunt was raped by a lot of soldiers in the last month of war. My mother was "ausgebombt". And so on and so on.
And I know a lot of germans with the same history in my age (I am german but live in Switzerland).
As I was in school I knew all the stories I stated before and the history teachers all told us that the germans are dangerous and that we are the only bastards on earth. Very cool, my family members suffered or died and you are told that they were worth nothing.

Well, some of my schoolmates became communists, some became Nazis but most of them said: Fuck you with your shitty history.
I want to live my life now without things 50 years old.

And these mates now have children with the same "Fuck you" mentality.

Sad but true. But I have seen how hard it is to talk about history, especially when it is a dark history.

My hope is, that humans learned from WWI+II and that it will never happen again.

Cheers to all

Not every German was a Nazi. Germans are not evil but there was a time when there leader was.

I think it's difficult for people who live in societies where it is acceptable to disagree with your government and legal to openly express it don't quite understand what it's like to live under fascist rule. Nationalism (by force) is the priority. The government controls the media. Human rights are stripped away. Obedience is maintained through fear and punishment. You are an ally or an enemy. You accepted and agreed with your leader's ideology or you faced death.

I'm sure many German citizens had no more interest in invading Poland than I do. The difference is if I think Stephen Harper is a jackass I'm well within my rights to drive downtown and tell him. In fact I could probably rent a billboard and explain exactly why.

What we need to remember when we think about our history's wars is that we (generally) fight wars against specific leaders with specific ideologies and sometimes they have enough power behind them to give us a hard time of it. The allied armies defeated a regime lead by Hitler and people in various levels of power had a lot to answer for when it was over.

But the German civilians had no more power to stop it than the allied ones did.

 

[dunover]

In the wake of great armies lie lean years.

 

[gagamel]

In the wake of great armies lie lean years.

Can you please translate this?

I know you speak "kleine deutsch"

Thank you very much

 

[dunover]

Can you please translate this?

I know you speak "kleine deutsch"

Thank you very much

Im Zuge der großen Armeen liegen magere Jahre

Basically it means once a big army has won a conflict afterwards there is hardship/hunger etc.
In other words the statement questions what has actually been 'won'....

Actually the phrase works 'In the wake of great armies lie meagre years' in English too.

 

[SubzeroWins]

Not every German was a Nazi. Germans are not evil but there was a time when there leader was.

I think it's difficult for people who live in societies where it is acceptable to disagree with your government and legal to openly express it don't quite understand what it's like to live under fascist rule. Nationalism (by force) is the priority. The government controls the media. Human rights are stripped away. Obedience is maintained through fear and punishment. You are an ally or an enemy. You accepted and agreed with your leader's ideology or you faced death.

I'm sure many German citizens had no more interest in invading Poland than I do. The difference is if I think Stephen Harper is a jackass I'm well within my rights to drive downtown and tell him. In fact I could probably rent a billboard and explain exactly why.

What we need to remember when we think about our history's wars is that we (generally) fight wars against specific leaders with specific ideologies and sometimes they have enough power behind them to give us a hard time of it. The allied armies defeated a regime lead by Hitler and people in various levels of power had a lot to answer for when it was over.

But the German civilians had no more power to stop it than the allied ones did.

Have you seen any footage from germany before and during war? all those fanatics? IMO german people gave that lunatic the power he needed.
Sure once they got the ball rolling it was impossible to stop but not before that.

they simply chose to believe a madman because he had easy explanation for their own failures --> blame someone else

 

[skiny]

Have you seen any footage from germany before and during war? all those fanatics? IMO german people gave that lunatic the power he needed.
Sure once they got the ball rolling it was impossible to stop but not before that.

they simply chose to believe a madman because he had easy explanation for their own failures --> blame someone else

I prefer to paint with a slightly thinner brush.

There is no doubt that Hitler had far too many followers. Mad Men usually do. Especially charismatic mad men offering salvation to a people suffering a severe economic depression. He didn't start his "career" by invading foreign countries and slaughtering innocent people. He worked his way up to being an evil, insane dictator.

Some people are born leaders. I believe he was one of them. He just led people way, way down the wrong path. When he became the leader of the Nazi party the name wasn't synonymous with evil. It was the National Socialist German Worker's Party. Then he started preaching to the poor and then hungry that the blame for all their problems lay on the Jews and the Marxists (among other things.) He was a racist but this was the 30s. Who wasn't a racist?

The Nazi party started winning elections which isn't really that hard to do when the people are unhappy with the current government. Once Hitler had become chancellor the Nazi party took control of the country. It didn't take long after that for political opposition to get knocked off and a fascist regime was formed. It was far too late to protest then.

A lot of Germans believed they were on the right path. They agreed with Hitler's Ideology. I've never said otherwise.

But I'm fairly sure that a lot of other Germans agreed publicly to keep themselves off the radar too and a lot just kept their heads down and wished for a better life. These people had families. Wives, parents and children. Keeping your mouth shut to keep them alive doesn't make you a coward. I don't blame every German for Hitler's atrocities. Only the ones who participated in them.

Maybe Britain or France could have asked him why he'd been building arms for 5 years before WW2 started, when the treaty Germany signed after WW1 said they were specifically not allowed to do that. Either of these countries could have easily crippled Germany years before the second war started when he quit making reparations for WW1 and started openly re-militarizing the country.

 

[jetset]

There's a school of thought that the harsh reparations imposed on Germany after WW1 contributed to the parlous economic conditions that proved to be such a fertile ground for the Nazi rise to power, too.

I agree with Skiny's perspective on this - unhappy and economically suffering populations battling in madly inflationary situations are easier to persuade by populist leaders - even those who subsequently turn out to be monsters.

 

[dunover]

I know the war had to be fought, and we can debate why it started until the sun goes down. All I know is the huge suffering during and afterwards, and the genocide which cost many more lives than casualties both civilian and military as a result of the fighting. 6 million Jews, Gypsies, Communists and homosexuals murdered. Lest we forget, Stalin's genocide (in terms of numbers) was far worse than Hitler's, and they were supposedly his own people which makes it sound even worse.
I am moved by every death: the concentration camps, the purges in Russia afterwards, the burning of tens of thousands of German civilians in the RAF firebombing of Dresden and other cities during Harris's 'dehousing' strategy, the V2 rocket landing on a primary school in London, the slaughter of German paratroops when they took Crete, the prisoners who died in Japanese hands, those gunned down in Normandy as they invaded, the sailors that died in their hundreds on the HMS Hood and Bismarck, the merchant seamen on the Atlantic convoys - right down to the individual German who died in his Panzer and the Tommy that died in his Sherman.

Perhaps I can conclude with one event which brought a tear to my eye last week on the 06/06 which you may or not have heard about:

A war veteran who was 19 on D-Day, 89-years old Bernard Jordan went missing from his care home the day before, craftily hiding his medals under a coat. Nursing staff reported him missing as he was supposedly frail and vulnerable when he didn't return. A big search started and the dear old bugger was found in France next day, chatting to old comrades. His wife knew of his plans but didn't report them in case he wasn't allowed to travel....

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[skiny]

There's a school of thought that the harsh reparations imposed on Germany after WW1 contributed to the parlous economic conditions that proved to be such a fertile ground for the Nazi rise to power, too.

I agree with Skiny's perspective on this - unhappy and economically suffering populations battling in madly inflationary situations are easier to persuade by populist leaders - even those who subsequently turn out to be monsters.

The dollar value of the reparations was over 30 billion which doesn't seem like much to day but it's a staggering number. That's probably the equivalent of 3 or 400 billion today. But I'm not sure if that's the main reason for the failure of the German economy. I read somewhere that when the economy dropped in the 20s Germany just started printing more money.

I'm no economist but if you have one paper mark that's worth one gold mark and you print millions more of them, doesn't that just make them worth millions of times less? Or not worth the paper they're printed on?

I know the war had to be fought, and we can debate why it started until the sun goes down. All I know is the huge suffering during and afterwards, and the genocide which cost many more lives than casualties both civilian and military as a result of the fighting. 6 million Jews, Gypsies, Communists and homosexuals murdered. Lest we forget, Stalin's genocide (in terms of numbers) was far worse than Hitler's, and they were supposedly his own people which makes it sound even worse.
I am moved by every death: the concentration camps, the purges in Russia afterwards, the burning of tens of thousands of German civilians in the RAF firebombing of Dresden and other cities during Harris's 'dehousing' strategy, the V2 rocket landing on a primary school in London, the slaughter of German paratroops when they took Crete, the prisoners who died in Japanese hands, those gunned down in Normandy as they invaded, the sailors that died in their hundreds on the HMS Hood and Bismarck, the merchant seamen on the Atlantic convoys - right down to the individual German who died in his Panzer and the Tommy that died in his Sherman.

I agree, the numbers are beyond my imagination. An estimated 70 million in total dead as a result of that war. That's twice the population of Canada and today (only 70 years later) most people I talk to know almost nothing about it.

Here in Ontario, Canada we recently (about 5 years ago) had a new addition to our list of statutory holidays. A day called Family Day. February 28th is now a pointless holiday celebrated by nobody. An excuse not to go to work.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for not going to work as long as I get paid not to do it but I argued then that it was a ridiculous thought that we should be allowed to stay home for absolutely no reason in February when November 11th, a day of remembrance we stand for one ridiculous minute of silence. And to make it worse, over the years it's become not even a minute of remembrance anymore. It's a minute where one or two people who actually know why they're standing there stare angrily at everyone else who either failed to stand or failed to be silent but are obviously failing to show respect.

If our provincial government felt that our province could afford one more statutory holiday, that day should have been given whole heartedly to the veterans who sacrificed their lives to make the life we live now possible. In fact I would gladly trade Thanksgiving for Remembrance day because that is what we should be truly thankful for.

 

[dunover]

I have espoused that view hundreds of times over my adult life - why can't we have a 'veterans' or 'remembrance' public holiday instead of May Day or Good Friday.....?

 

[jetset]

I know the war had to be fought, and we can debate why it started until the sun goes down. All I know is the huge suffering during and afterwards, and the genocide which cost many more lives than casualties both civilian and military as a result of the fighting. 6 million Jews, Gypsies, Communists and homosexuals murdered. Lest we forget, Stalin's genocide (in terms of numbers) was far worse than Hitler's, and they were supposedly his own people which makes it sound even worse.
I am moved by every death: the concentration camps, the purges in Russia afterwards, the burning of tens of thousands of German civilians in the RAF firebombing of Dresden and other cities during Harris's 'dehousing' strategy, the V2 rocket landing on a primary school in London, the slaughter of German paratroops when they took Crete, the prisoners who died in Japanese hands, those gunned down in Normandy as they invaded, the sailors that died in their hundreds on the HMS Hood and Bismarck, the merchant seamen on the Atlantic convoys - right down to the individual German who died in his Panzer and the Tommy that died in his Sherman.

Perhaps I can conclude with one event which brought a tear to my eye last week on the 06/06 which you may or not have heard about:

A war veteran who was 19 on D-Day, 89-years old Bernard Jordan went missing from his care home the day before, craftily hiding his medals under a coat. Nursing staff reported him missing as he was supposedly frail and vulnerable when he didn't return. A big search started and the dear old bugger was found in France next day, chatting to old comrades. His wife knew of his plans but didn't report them in case he wasn't allowed to travel....

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It's hard to imagine the sheer scale of the carnage and inhumanity of those days when so many died all over the world every day...and in Stalin's purges too. Yet it continues - think about the Rwanda atrocities and the continuing senseless murder of innocent people that still goes on in any number of countries.

It seems to be part of humanity's DNA...but hopefully never again on the scale of WW2.

I was also moved by the tale of the absconding war veteran in the UK - good on him!