Blog Mirror: Hitler's trial for high treason and the death of German democracy

 

Hitler's trial for high treason and the death of German democracy

Sunday, February 27, 1944. The Khaibakh Massacre

Weather prevented over 700 Chechen villagers from Khaibakh from being convoyed in the Soviet mass deportation of Chechens, meaning they could not meet the absurdly short deadline set by Lavrentiy Beria so they were shot.  The order was given by Mikhail Gvishiani, an officer in the NKVD.

Beria, a loyal Stalin henchman, was a first class weirdo who was also a mass rapist, something his position allowed him to get away with.  He fell after Stalin's death, was tried, and executed for treason.

Gvishiani survived the fall of Stalin, but probably only because his son, Dzhermen Gvishiani, was married to the daughter of Communist Party Central Committee member Alexei Kosygin.

It was the start of National Negro Press Week.

The U.S. Office of Strategic Services commenced Operation Ginny I with the objective of blowing up Italian railway tunnels in Italy to cut German lines of communication.

The OSS team landed in the wrong location and had to abandon the mission.

Hitler ordered the Panzerfeldhaubitze 18M auf Geschützwagen III/IV (Sf) Hummel, Sd.Kfz. 165, "Hummel" renamed as he did not find the name Hummel, i.e. bumblebee to be an appropriate name.

You would think that Hitler would have had other things to worry about at this point.

The Grayback was sunk off of Okinawa by aircraft.

Friday, December 31, 1943. New Years Eve

 

No ball was dropped in Times Square for the second year in a row.

With a strange mixture of abandon and restraint, San Francisco accorded 1943 a reasonable facsimile of the traditional year-end sendoff last night, and then settled back for a more or less sober inspection of A. D. 1944.

San Francisco Examiner.

Friday, given the nature of the celebrations of New Years, is a particularly good day for the end of the year to fall on.

Not everyone was celebrating:

Photo of a U.S air raid on a ball bearing plant near Paris, December 31, 1943.

Today in World War II History—December 31, 1943: The US Victory Book Campaign closes due to inefficiency of the program and to the publication of the Armed Services Editions books.

A remarkable entry by Sarah Sundin.

She also notes:

The Marines secured an airfield on Cape Gloucester; and

The commissioning of the USS Cassin Young, which is a museum ship today (photo on blog included).  Ms. Sundin, it should be noted, has an article on museum destroyers.  I'd like to visit one.  I've been on battleships and submarines, but not destroyers.

Hitler delivered a New Year's message to the Germans admitting that the Third Reich had suffered heavy reverses in and that the upcoming year would require more, and in fact would approach the crisis level.  He also noted that the Allies would land on the Atlantic Coast.

It's often noted, and apparently correctly, that the German people didn't really appreciate the dire circumstances they were in until January 1945.  While that seems to be true, it's hard to understand, given that they were certainly getting lots of bad news, in this case even from the very top.

It should be noted that the concluding year, 1943, was the one in which not only did German battlefield fortunes begin to massively decline, but that an accompanying massive expansion of the Holocaust began.

In preparation for those landings, Field Marshall Rommel was inspecting fortifications on the coast of Northern France.

Douglas MacArthur visited troops under his command, including this group of Native American soldiers.

From left: Staff Sergeant Virgil Brown (Pima), First Sergeant Virgil F. Howell (Pawnee), Staff Sergeant Alvin J. Vilcan (Chitimacha), General MacArthur, Sergeant Byron L. Tsingine (Diné [Navajo]), Sergeant Larry Dekin (Diné [Navajo]).

Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee broadcast a New Years Eve message to the British people promising that the "hour of reckoning" had come for Germany, but also warning that 1944 would involve heavy sacrifice.

The Red Army captured Zhytomyr.

Argentina's President, Gen. Pedro Ramirez, dissolved political parties and restored the requirement of Roman Catholic education in all Argentine public schools.

Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (John Denver) was born in Rosewell, New Mexico.

Sub Lt. G.C. Morris flying Spitfire P8537 of 761 Squadron attempting land on HMS Ravager without a tail wheel - New Year's Eve 1943.

Tuesday, November 16, 1943. An attempt on Hitler's life.

Major Axel von dem Bussche, a confederate of Claus von Stauffenberg, planned to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a concealed landmine which he planned to detonate while embracing Hitler during a viewing of a new winter uniform the striking looking Major would be modeling. The viewing was canceled when an Allied air raid in Berlin destroyed the rail car in which the new uniforms were contained.

Von dem Bussche was of German noble lineage, as the name indicated, and had turned against the Nazis after accidentally witnessing a 1942 massacre of Jews in Ukraine.  He volunteered to attempt the assassination again in 1944 and was set to do so when he was badly wounded on the Russian Front and had to have a leg amputated.  His being in the hospital at the time of the July 20 plot saved him from being a suspect in it.

An East Westphalian by birth, much of his ancestral holdings were in East Germany after the war, which required him to pursue a civilian career, which he in turn did.  After 1990, however, he was a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking their return, which failed.  His eldest daughter, however, has since bought the larger portions back from the Federal Republic of Germany.  He died in 1993 at the age of 73.

The Battle of Leros ended with an Allied surrender.  The Germans, however, had taken tremendous casualties in the effort, and were on the verge of calling the offensive off when the surrender came.

The British village of Tyneham in Dorset was ordered evacuated by the British War Department, which needed the grounds for a training area.  It remains a British military facility today.

The U.S. Army Air Force struck heavy water facilities at Rjukan and a molybdenum refinery at Knaben, damagign the German nuclear weapons effort.

USS Corvina.

The submarine USS Corvina was sunk by the Japanese submarine I-176, becoming the only U.S. submarine to be sunk by another submarine.

The I-176.

The I-176 was in turn sunk in June 1944.

The U-280 was sunk by a British B-24.

Sunday, November 11, 1923. Armistace Day.

It was Armistice Day for 1923.  Secretary of War John Weeks, Pres. Calvin Coolidge, and Asst. Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt paid tribute at Arlington to the Unknown Solder.

German police found Adolf Hitler hiding in the attic of his friend with a country home, Ernst Hanfstaengl and arrested him.

Hanfstaengl was a member of German high society and was instrumental in polishing Hitler's early image with the elite.  He fell out of favor almost as soon as Hitler came to power, however, and worked for the Allies profiling Hitler's psychology, as an exile, during World War Two.

German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann accepted the return of Crown Prince Wilhelm.

Thursday, November 8, 1923. The Beer Hall Putsch.

By Bundesarchiv, Bild 119-1486 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5415949

The Beer Hall Putsch, a large scale Nazi Party attempt at overthrowing the Weimar government combined with far right German support, began when Adolf Hitler with 603 members of the Nazi Party surrounded ll, Der Bürgerbräukeller, where Bavaria's State Commissioner Gustav Ritter von Kahr was making a speech to 3,000 people.  Hitler declared his revolution was aimed at "the Berlin Jew government and the November criminals of 1918".  More Nazi revolutionaries waited in another beer hall, the Lowenbraukeller.

Hitler declared that General Erich Ludendorff would form a new government.  Ludendorff was descending into extreme anti Christianity, although he also held animosity towards Jews as well.

Following that, while the Nazi forces grew, they were disordered and without direction.  Some were arrested early on by German authorities, and a large Nazi force was turned back by a small Reichswehr and police detail. Both Hitler and Ludendorff would be arrested.

The revolution failed by midday the following day, but set the stage for Hitler's rise to power as an extreme right wing figure.

The Imperial Conference ended with an agreement that the British Dominions would be allowed to enter into their own treaties with foreign governments, a major concession.

When a war ends is when the defending party decides that it is over.

Yeoman's Fifth Law of History.  When a war ends is when the defending party decides that it is over.

When nations start a war, they have a "war aim."  But that aim rarely determines when a war ends.  Wars are over when the party that is attacked decides that the war is over.

The Germans, during World War Two, thought that the war in the West was over when they knocked France out of the war, but the British did not believe that, so it did not end. In the East, the Germans thought advancing to the Volga meant victory over the USSR.  The Soviets, however, had no such concept so the war went on.  Conversely, the Imperial Russians in World War One gave up long before they were really defeated.  They just gave up.  Wars end when the party that was attacked decides that they are over.

This is about to be played out in spades.

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, and followed with the invasion of France in 1940, the war was supposed to end. The British, however, didn't agree, and by 1945 Germany was finished as a fascist power.

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 Japan figured on. . .well figured on something. They didn't figure that by 1945 the Allies would end the Japanese Empire for eternity and two cities would lay in nuclear ruins.

When the South attempted to depart from the Union in 1860 and laid siege to Ft. Sumter, it didn't figure on Sherman marching across the South in 1865.

And when Hamas invaded Israel earlier this week, it didn't figure on an Israeli invasion of Gaza that would end Gaza as a Palestinian entity.

But that is likely to happen, replete with all the human tragedy that will accompany it.

Putin, Hitler, Mussolini, and the thousands resorting to invasion on the theory it achieves something are the blistering ignoramuses of history.  Later this week, the news will feature wailing Palestinian women lamenting the deaths of their loved ones, many of whom intellectually sided with the entity which committed horrors on their neighbors and who have no better solution than to follow the sword.  Many outside their support, and some who had not given it, and indeed most fit into this category, will be innocent victims of the death their political leaders invited to rain down upon them.

Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

Human beings seem incapable of learning this lesson. 

Some seem less capable of learning it than others.

Any ignoramus can start a war.  Wars end, when those who were hit first, decide to quit hitting back.  Almost as often as not, that last blow is struck by those hit first.

Friday, October 1, 1943. The Germans depart, and destroy, Naples.

The U.S. 5th Army entered Naples.  The Germans burned the University of Naples and the Teatro di San Carlo on the way out.

German wartime poster attempting to recruit Italians to an SS formation.

The German appeal to the Italians didn't seem to be well calculated.

Hitler ordered Kesselring to hold a line south of Rome.

As a total aside, it was this date in 1943 that the German police and the Waffen SS adopted the M43 field cap, the famous billed cap that was patterned on the Bergmütze that had long been worn by German alpine troops. A similar hat had long been in Finnish use, nicknamed the "blood ladle".  German and Austrian alpine troops still wear a variant of it, as do many German hunters.

A very practical cap, the design had spread from mountain troops to the regular German Heer in a variant for North Africa, early versions of which had the ear flaps fixed in place, as some variants still do (including a variant now used as the Ukrainian field cap), but which the later versions allowed for them to be folded down, as with the Bergmütze.  The Afrika Korps version had a longer bill, which was retained for the M43.  When adopted by the Heer, it replaced the flat cap (garrison cap) which had been adopted in the 1930s.  The flat cap is a fairly useless cap, and the Bergmütze was a very practical one.  

As Waffen SS mountain units had already adopted the Bergmütze, they were allowed to fix the Edelweiss cap badge to their caps on this day, that being a symbol previously used only by the Heer.

Sarah Sundin noted the liberation of Naples and another item:

Today in World War II History—October 1, 1943: In Italy, US Fifth Army and British X Corps enter Naples. US Third War Loan Drive ends, raising $19 billion (quota $15 billion).

W. Averll Harriman was named Ambassador to the USSR

Tuesday, September 14, 1943. Mussolini at the Wolf's Lair.

Mussolini was flown to the Wolf's Lair for a meeting with Hitler, who informed Il Duce that it was imperative that he form a new fascist government.  Mussolini, at this point, would likely have preferred to go into retirement in a neutral country.

Following up on a string of Luftwaffe successes in recent days, the HMS Warspite was badly damaged by another Fritz X.  It would be back in action before Operation Overlord.

Taking advantage of the Italian surrender, German collaborators Ibrahim Biçakçiu, Bedri Pejani and Xhafer Deva declared Albania independence from Italy.

The Germans began the Viannos massacres on Crete which would result in 500 civilians being murdered in two days.

Wednesday, September 8, 1943. Italy announces its surrender.

King Victor Emmanuel of Italy before the war. He was king from 1900 to 1946.

Italy officially surrendered to the Allies, although the deal had been worked out several days prior.

Prime Minister Badoglio read in a statement:

The Italian government, recognising the impossibility of continuing the unequal struggle against an overwhelming enemy force, in order to avoid further and graver disasters for the Nation, sought an armistice from general Eisenhower, commander-in-chief of the Anglo-American Allied forces. The request was granted. Consequently, all acts of hostility against the Anglo-American force by Italian forces must cease everywhere. But they may react to possible attacks from any other source.

The "other source" was, of course, Nazi Germany.  The reservation for resisting "other sources" effectively put Italy at war with Germany.

70,000 Allied POWs walked out of Italian POW camps, their guards having departed.

Adolph Hitler, down one ally, and his only really significant one in Europe, delivered a radio address to the German people attributing the Italian surrender to "failure or ill will of those elements which by systematic sabotage have caused capitulations."  The Germans, anticiapting the Italian surrender for some time, commenced Operation Achse, occupying Rome and the Italian occupied portions of France, as well as Salerno where US invasion forces were soon to land.

Corsican's rose up in rebellion against occupying Italian and German forces, taking the capital city of Ajacco.

In reality, at the point at which Italy surrendered, it was obvious that Germany's other allies in Europe would as well, when it became possible and necessary.

Franklin Roosevelt delivered a fireside chat, in which he stated:

My Fellow Americans:

Once upon a time, a few years ago, there was a city in our Middle West which was threatened by a destructive flood in the great river. The waters had risen to the top of the banks. Every man, woman and child in that city was called upon to fill sand bags in order to defend their homes against the rising waters. For many days and nights, destruction and death stared them in the face.

As a result of the grim, determined community effort, that city still stands. Those people kept the levees above the peak of the flood. All of them joined together in the desperate job that (which) had to be done -- business men, workers, farmers, and doctors, and preachers -- people of all races.

To me, that town is a living symbol of what community cooperation can accomplish.

Today, in the same kind of community effort, only very much larger, the United Nations and their peoples have kept the levees of civilization high enough to prevent the floods of aggression and barbarism and wholesale murder from engulfing us all. The flood has been raging for four years. At last we are beginning to gain on it; but the waters have not yet receded enough for us to relax our sweating work with the sand bags. In this war bond campaign we are filling bags and placing them against the flood -- bags which are essential if we are to stand off the ugly torrent which is trying to sweep us all away.

Today, it is announced that an armistice with Italy has been concluded.

This was a great victory for the United Nations -- but it was also a great victory for the Italian people. After years of war and suffering and degradation, the Italian people are at last coming to the day of liberation from their real enemies, the Nazis.

But let us not delude ourselves that this armistice means the end of the war in the Mediterranean. We still have to (must) drive the Germans out of Italy as we have driven them out of Tunisia and Sicily; we must drive them out of France and all other captive countries; and we must strike them on their own soil from all directions.

Our ultimate objectives in this war continue to be Berlin and Tokyo.

I ask you to bear these objectives constantly in mind -- and do not forget that we still have a long way to go before we attain (attaining) them.

The great news that you have heard today from General Eisenhower does not give you license to settle back in your rocking chairs and say, "Well, that does it. We've got them ('em) on the run. Now we can start the celebration."

The time for celebration is not yet. And I have a suspicion that when this war does end, we shall not be in a very celebrating mood, a very celebrating frame of mind. I think that our main emotion will be one of grim determination that this shall not happen again.

During the past weeks, Mr. Churchill and I have been in constant conference with the leaders of our combined fighting forces. We have been in constant communication with our fighting Allies, Russian and Chinese, who are prosecuting the war with relentless determination and with conspicuous success on far distant fronts. And Mr. Churchill (he) and I are here together in Washington (here) at this crucial moment.

We have seen the satisfactory fulfillment of plans that were made in Casablanca last January and here in Washington last May. And lately we have made new, well-considered (extensive) plans for the future. But throughout these conferences we have never lost sight of the fact that this war will become bigger and tougher, rather than easier, during the long months that are to come.

This war does not and must not stop for one single instant. Your (our) fighting men know that. Those of them who are moving forward through jungles against lurking Japs -- those who are (in) landing at this moment, in barges moving through the dawn up to strange enemy coasts -- those who are diving their bombers down on the targets at roof-top level at this moment -- every one of these men knows that this war is a full-time job and that it will continue to be that until total victory is won.

And, by the same token, every responsible leader in all the United Nations knows that the fighting goes on twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and that any day lost may have to be paid for in terms of months added to the duration of the war.

Every campaign, every single operation in all the campaigns that we plan and carry through must be figured in terms of staggering material costs. We cannot afford to be niggardly with any of our resources, for we shall need all of them to do the job that we have put our (undertaken) shoulder to.

Your fellow Americans have given a magnificent account of themselves -- on the battlefields and on the oceans and in the skies all over the world.

Now it is up to you to prove to them that you are contributing your share and more than your share. It is not sufficient to simply (to) put (money) into War Bonds money which we would normally save. We must put (money) into War Bonds money which we would not normally save. Only then have we done everything that good conscience demands. So it is up to you -- up to you, the Americans in the American homes -- the very homes which our sons and daughters are working and fighting and dying to preserve.

I know I speak for every man and woman throughout the Americas when I say that we Americans will not be satisfied to send our troops into the fire of the enemy with equipment inferior in any way. Nor will we be satisfied to send our troops with equipment only equal to that of the enemy. We are determined to provide our troops with overpowering superiority -- superiority of quantity (quality) and quality (quantity) in any and every category of arms and armaments that they may conceivably need.

And where does this our dominating power come from? Why, it can come only from you. The money you lend and the money you give in taxes buys that death-dealing, and at the same time life-saving power that we need for victory. This is an expensive war -- expensive in money; you can help it -- you can help to keep it at a minimum cost in lives.

The American people will never stop to reckon the cost of redeeming civilization. They know there never can be any economic justification for failing to save freedom.

And we can be sure that our enemies will watch this drive with the keenest interest. They know that success in this undertaking will shorten the war. They know that the more money the American people lend to their Government, the more powerful and relentless will be the American forces in the field. They know that only a united and determined America could possibly produce on a voluntary basis so huge (large) a sum of money as fifteen billion dollars.

The overwhelming success of the Second War Loan Drive last April showed that the people of this Democracy stood firm behind their troops.

This (The) Third War Loan, which we are starting tonight, will also succeed --because the American people will not permit it to fail.

I cannot tell you how much to invest in War Bonds during this Third War Loan Drive. No one can tell you. It is for you to decide under the guidance of your own conscience.

I will say this, however. Because the Nation's needs are greater than ever before, our sacrifices too must be greater than they have ever been before.

Nobody knows when total victory will come -- but we do know that the harder we fight now, the more might and power we direct at the enemy now, the shorter the war will be and the smaller the sum total of sacrifice.

Success of the Third War Loan will be the symbol that America does not propose to rest on its arms -- that we know the tough, bitter job ahead and will not stop until we have finished it.

Now it is your turn!

Every dollar that you invest in the Third War Loan is your personal message of defiance to our common enemies -- to the ruthless savages (militarists) of Germany and Japan -- and it is your personal message of faith and good cheer to our Allies and to all the men at the front. God bless them!

Italy has tended, in histories, to be regarded as almost a third class power during the war, but it really was not.  And the surrender of Italy was not only significant as a fact, but symbolically.  Italy had been the first fascist power in the world, and was originally the more significant of the two Axis powers. 

That Italy was drifting towards the far right and becoming aggressively expansionist was in evidence shortly after World War One, when various elements of the Italian far right viewed territorial expansion into areas with minority Italian populations as their right following the war.  Italy had been expansionist in a colonial sense before World War One.  But with the rise of the fascist, it took a new and much more aggressive turn.  Italy built a serious military machine which, ironically, would essentially peak too soon, in some ways reflecting that it arrived upon the fascist scene first.  It contributed fascist troops and equipment, including armor and aircraft, to the Spanish Civil War, where they proved effective but also where many of the most dedicated fascist combatants lost their lives.

By the Second World War, Italy had passed its peak and could no longer sustain the arms race that preceded the war.  Even during the early stages of the war, rank and file Italian troops were often ineffective in combat, although not to the degree which popular histories have tended to portray.  The war in North Africa really proved to be is last gasp, and by the time of Operation Husky it was effectively defeated on land and knew it.  Its navy, however, remained fairly effective in some ways right up until September 1943.

The country was between a rock and a hard spot in regard to its surrender, and essentially threw itself on the mercy of the Allies as it was obvious that it would be invaded by Germany.  It pledged itself, effectively, as an Allied power, but it was not going to be an effective one as its energy was spent.  The remainder of the war, and the immediate peace thereafter, was a deeply human tragedy for the Italians featuring extreme deprivation and desperation.

The Allies launched the Dodecanese Campaign in an effort to seize the Italian held Dodecanese Islands.  Conducted without air cover, the Anglo Italian campaign would ultimately fail, giving the Germans a mid war victory at a time at which those had effectively ceased.

The U.S. Army Air Force raided German headquarters at Frascati, resulting in 485 civilian deaths.

On the same day, the Red Army entered Stalino.

The Germans ordered the removal of 5,006 Jewish residents of Theresienstadt.

Today In Wyoming's History: September 8: 

1943  The first woman lookout was assigned in the Medicine Bow National Forest.  Perhaps it is coincidence, but this event occurred during World War Two when women were occupying many traditional male occupations due to labor shortages.   Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

Wednesday, August 1, 1923. Cheerful reporting for Harding.

President Harding was reported to have a slight improvement in his lung condition.

The Press took the report and ran with it.

A Ku Klux Klan rally drew 100,000 people in Lima, Ohio.

Another racist, Adolph Hitler, delivered a speech, in which he stated that the German people comprised 1/3d heroes, 1/3d cowards and 1/3 traitors, in a surprising admission that his support was thin, at that time.

Little Old New York was released.

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On G. K. Chesterton and his Anti Semitism.

The Catholic blogosphere has been having a war over G. K. Chesterton, the late English writer and polymath.  Some of it, were I not so tired and worn out, would be heartbreaking, as former fans of his, particularly converts, have discovered his anti-Semitic views and come around to condemning him. At the same time, hard right wing Catholics, whom are I supposing a separate interlocking circle that crosses over into the Trads and Rad Trads, but don't include all of those bodies by any means (I suspect most of them do not know who Chesterton is) may be over adopting him.

All this exists, moreover, in the bizarre context of our times in which the left doesn't see a biological or social construct that it doesn't want to attack, which makes in some ways Chesterton a perfect man for our times, as he warned of so much of this.  That's why, to our recent surprise, we saw, and it caused a lot of comment, Giorgia Meloni quote the English writer to the effect:

Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.

She stated that in support of her hard right conservative views.

A lot of this debate over Chesterton, both from the right and the left, really misses the point, in my view.

Whenever dealing with a great man, we have to ask ourselves a series of questions.  Ironically, in some ways, we have to ask one that has been recently examined by the Catholic Church in the United Kingdom. "Was he a saint?"  But beyond that, do we require great mean with huge thoughts to be saints?  And do we always require them to be right in order to consider these ideas?

In some ways, this is frankly why ancient philosophers get so much more of a pass than modern ones.  We don't even think much of their private lives, really.  We know that Socrates was married at least once, to Xanthippe, and might have had a second wife as well. We also know that Xanthippe might have been 40 years younger than Socrates, which would cause all sorts of Twitter twittering today, but we just don't think of it.  And he's a philosopher that we know a lot about.

Chesterton, on the other hand, we know boatloads about, as he's a relatively recent figure.  His cause for canonization, which failed, resulted in all sorts of commentary about him in various forms, including some people who claimed he couldn't be a saint as he was fat, so therefore he must be a glutton, and an "alcoholic", based on his exhibiting the typical English pub culture of the time.  Much more serious, however, are his anti-Semitic utterances.

So let's start there.

They exist.

Now, I'm not able to really go into detail on them, as unlike true Chestertonians, I've read very little of Chesterton.  Like a lot of people who fit broadly into his fan base, so to speak, I've read the various pithy quotes you are able to find, and up until a recent bizarre Twitter episode, I hadn't read any of the anti-Semitic ones.  I'd heard them referenced, and excused, but I'm not going to try to do that as they seem to go beyond what we might expect, although at the same time a person can't really deny that there is evidence that cuts the other way as well.  The year following his death, for example, you find American Jewish leader, Rabbi Stephen Wise, making this comment:

Indeed, I was a warm admirer of Gilbert Chesterton. Apart from his delightful art and his genius in many directions, he was, as you know, a great religionist . . . I deeply respected him. When Hitlerism came, he was one of the first to speak out with all the directness and frankness of a great and unabashed spirit. Blessing to his memory!

That's hard to square with the claim that Chesterton was an unabashed anti Semite.  In contrast, some point out that Chesterton said something like there was some good in Hitlerism and some of that was in Hitler himself.  He both condemned Nazism while saying that part of the reason that it came about was because of a "Jewish problem", a fairly astounding claim from an educated man who should have known better, although that was a fairly widespread belief in Europe at the time, and it surprisingly still has much more retention in Europe today, in spite of everything, than it should.  In some ways, Chesterton on this topic gives us a really odd example of a person really forcibly trying to take the middle ground by advocating both sides of it, on a topic in which there really is no middle ground.

But here's the thing.

Having bad, even horrible, views, doesn't discredit your other views which are not so tainted, and they don't define the person unless the person adopts them to the extent that they do.

Hitler was a tremendous opponent of smoking.  He hated it.  He was right to hate it, but beyond anything else, he hated cultures that he regarded as non-Germanic, with the Jews, followed by the Slavs hated to the point of murder. That's why Hitler and his followers are defined by their murderous beliefs, and not by their opposition to tobacco or their construction of the autobahn.

In contrast, I suppose, Thomas Jefferson wrote profoundly on the rights of man.  At the same time, he was shacked up with his dead wife's half sister, who was an enslaved black woman. The relationship started, following his wife's death, when the slave was quite young, probably still in her teens. That's really icky.  The children of that illicit union, we'd note, were held in bondage as well, which is exceedingly weird.

That latter example gives us an example closer to what we find with Chesterton.  Jefferson was a brilliant man, and wrote in opposition to slavery, none of which kept him from having an illicit unmarried long-lasting and deeply strange relationship to his sister-in-law.  Should we discount his writings?

Probably not.

And here I guess is the uneasy measure.  People are full of vices, some of them exceedingly serious.  Some people let their hatreds and vices define them.  That is what they come to stand for, by their own actions.  Hitler's perverted view of German superiority defined his political party and what it stood for, and came to define what Germany of the 30s and 40s stood for.  Lenin and Stalin's malevolent view of  the "class struggle", which lead to mass murder, came to define them.  

Franklin Roosevelt's long-lasting extramarital affair did not come to define him, however. And while he's not now regarded as a good President, Warren G. Harding's two affairs have not come to define him.  Actor Pat Morita's alcoholism did not define him.  Jimi Hendrix's drug consumption, which helped kill him, didn't define him.  Caravaggio's murdering a man over a tennis match has not come to define him.  Django Reinhardt's alcohol consumption diminished his abilities over his lifetime, but that has not come to define him, nor has Richard Burton's alcoholism defined him.  Churchill was known to have made utterances sympathetic to Mussolini prior to World War Two, and even after World War Two Churchill made a surprising remark about the rise of Hitler, which he warned against, having made sense in the context of desperate Germany of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

It's problematic, of course, when we are faced with a character like Chesterton, who serous failing was in print and therefore not really possible to ignore and not legitimately subject to being excused.  Nor are that a self-destructive personal vice, like alcoholism.  It's much closer to Jefferson's bedroom hypocrisy.  It's different from that, of course, in that Chesterton's views were openly stated, whereas Jefferson's actions were kept hidden.  A person could debate which was worse, I suppose, in that context, but for a brilliant writer, that's all the more problematic.

Some of it was the context of the times and culture, to be sure.  Anti-Semitism is deeply ingrained in European culture and remains pretty potent today.  But Chesterton actually stood principally against his culture, which makes this failing more difficult to accept.

So where to land?

Like Caravaggio's paintings, his works are too valuable to ignore.  The adoption of them by fringe elements of the far right today, including the far right in religious circles, does not change that, and indeed chances are high that Chesterton would levy his sharp tongue against many of them today.  It means, however, that he's a flawed hero, and in at least one serious way, which makes him a pretty typical hero at that.  There are, to my layman's eyes, reasons not to canonize him which are both theological and political, none of which is to say that he did not find salvation.  Indeed, we ought to be careful about our own souls, with many of the critics and readers of all kinds no doubt, like Jefferson, harboring secret or open vices.

So the troubling writings should not be excused or diminished.  Not everything the man said or did was right.  But by the same token, the writings of Jefferson's pen in aid of the infant United States are not rendered a nullity by his long-running bizarre home behavior.  The character of the works must be measured in the main, with those that fail being noted as failures, even evil failures, which does not mean that the rest cannot be considered.  It also does not mean that the man can be adopted in the main, safely, for those with modern radical causes.

The key may be the question whether the failings define the man, or are a horrific exception to his definition.  Hitler's failings defined him.  Jefferson's did not.  Chesterton's, serious though they were, do not seem to define him either, which is not to excuse them.

Monday, June 28, 1943. The bombing of Cologne.

Today in World War II History—June 28, 1943: Royal Air Force bombs Cologne, Germany, heavily damaging the cathedral and ending the Battle of the Ruhr—total of 872 British bombers have been lost.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.  Other sources would regard the battle as going on through July 31, which is how I would place it.

On this raid, 608 aircraft, including participated of various types, of which 50 were lost. 4,377 Germans, which of course would have been mostly civilians, were killed, about 10,000 injured.  230,000 people were made homeless. Forty-three industrial, six German Army and about 15,000 other buildings were destroyed.

The Germans, on the same day, began construction of rocket launching complexes along the English Channel.  At the Peenemünde Army Research Center, it successfully launched a V2 rocket as Adolf Hitler watched and unsuccessfully launched one which crashed nearby.

The United States Army Air Force changed its aircraft insignia.  It had been:

This insignia had been adopted on May 15, 1942, in order to omit the red ball in the center of the star, which was a feature of the insignia thath predated it. There were fears the red ball could have been mistaken for the Japanese insignia.  A special variant of this insignia had been modified for Operation Torch, which was:

By NiD.29 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19785085

Research had since shown that shapes, rather than colors, were more important for aircraft identification, so on this date, the following insignia was adopted:

In the Pacific, the red border was omitted by some units.

Monday, May 10, 1943. Not even bothering with the Reichstag.

Texaco Company advertisement; "Just eleven hours on earth...with Hitler!".  Time, May 10, 1943.

Hitler extended the Enabling Act of 1933, the organic act of his dictatorship, indefinitely, not even bothering to cal the Reichstag into session to do it.

300 large U.S. libraries flew their flags at half-mast on the same day to mark the book burnings that had occurred in Nazi Germany.

On the same day, he approved the plans for Operation Citadel, a giant planned attack on the Kursk Citadel, while, at the same time, as Sarah Sundin notes, Axis efforts were collapsing in North Africa:

Today in World War II History—May 10, 1943: 80 Years Ago—May 10, 1943: In Tunisia, British First Army takes Hammamet, cutting off Cap Bon Peninsula.

Time magazine issued one of its classic covers of World War Two, depicting a stone faced German Admiral Doenitz as a periscope, accompanied by other periscopes depicted as snake heads.

Friday, May 4, 1923. Trends of the 20s.

Canada banned Chinese from entering the country unless they were diplomats, children born in Canada, merchants, or university students.

The law was repealed in 1946. Between 1923 and 1946 only 15 Chinese immigrants were accepted into Canada. The effect of the law, which precluded familiar ties and lead to an imbalance of genders, resulted in a decrease in the Chinese population in Canada.

On the same day, this baseball game was played in Toronto's Bayside Park.

Hitler, on the rise, delivered this speech in Munich attacking war reparations, something obligated by the Versailles Treaty, and also urging rearmament.

Wednesday, April 7, 1943. An uncomfortable meeting.

Hitler and Mussolini met at Schloss Klessheim.

Mussolini was sick and Hitler babbled on.  Il Duce suggested that perhaps the pair approach Uncle Joe about a separate peace, but Hitler would have none of it.

The Japanese conducted massive air raids in the Solomons on this day, although they were not a complete surprise due to American radio intercepts.  Marine Corps pilot James E. Swett would be awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.  His citation reads:

FIRST LIEUTENANT JAMES E. SWETT

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS RESERVE for service as set forth in the following CITATION:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty, as a division leader in Marine Fighting Squadron TWO TWENTY-ONE in action against enemy Japanese aerial forces in the Solomon Islands Area, April 7, 1943. In a daring flight to intercept a wave of 150 Japanese planes, First Lieutenant Swett unhesitatingly hurled his four-plane division into action against a formation of fifteen enemy bombers and during his dive personally exploded three hostile planes in mid-air with accurate and deadly fire. Although separated from his division while clearing the heavy concentration of anti-aircraft fire, he boldly attacked six enemy bombers, engaged the first four in turn, and unaided, shot them down in flames. Exhausting his ammunition as he closed the fifth Japanese bomber, he relentlessly drove his attack against terrific opposition which partially disabled his engine, shattered the windscreen and slashed his face. In spite of this, he brought his battered plane down with skillful precision in the water off Tulagi without further injury. The superb airmanship and tenacious fighting spirit which enabled First Lieutenant Swett to destroy eight enemy bombers in a single flight were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

Swett, far right.

Born in 1920, Swett was a prewar private pilot before joining the Navy, and then transferring following flight school to the Marine Corps.  Swett remained in the Marine Corps following World War Two but left for the reserves folloiwng the Marine Corps' decision not to deploy him to Korea during the Korean War as he was a Medal of Honor recipient.  He died in California in 2009 at age 88.

The British government published a report by John Maynard Keynes about the global postwar economy, proposing an international monetary fund.

Allied forces prevailed at Wadi Akarit

Bolivia declared war against the Axis powers.

There were still a fair number of foreign language newspapers in the U.S., even in languages which had been officially unpopular during the prior World War.  This one printed in German fraktur, which interestingly was now officially prohibited in Germany itself.

Today In Wyoming's History: April 7: 1943. On this day, the sale of coffee was banned in Cheyenne and Casper due to violations of wartime rationing restrictions.

Sunday, March 21, 1943. A second assassination attempt.

Hard on the heels of a plot to kill Adolph Hitler by blowing his airplane out of the sky with explosives contained in a bottle of alcohol, Generalmajor Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff attempted to kill him by detonating a time fused bomb on his person while escorting Hitler through an exhibition of Soviet war materials as the Zeughaus in Berlin.  A detailed coup d'état was to follow the assassination.

By Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1976-130-51 / Unknown author / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5482858

It was expected that the tour would take thirty minutes, and Gersdorff set the fuse ten minutes prior to Hitler's arrival.  Hitler rushed through the exhibit in two minutes, and Gersdorff defused the bomb in a restroom.

Gersdorff was, amazingly, never mentioned by the July 20 conspirators, even though he had participated in the plot.  He therefore survived the war.  His role becoming known post-war, he was denied admission to the Bundesherr and therefore devoted the remainder of his life to charitable causes, dying in 1980 at age 74.  He was a paraplegic the last twelve years of his life due to a riding accident.

Sarah Sundin reports, in her blog:

Today in World War II History—March 21, 1943: Cornelia Fort becomes first WAFS member (precursor of the WASPs) to be killed, in a midair collision while ferrying a BT-13 in Texas.

She also notes that on this day the Rangers took Gafsa and New Zealanders bypassed the  bypass the Mareth Line 

Saturday, March 13, 1943. Freedom from Fear.

Gen. Henning von Tresckow attempted to assassinate Adolph Hitler in an aspect of "Operation Spark" in which he handed a bomb disguised as a gift of liquor to a staff officer boarding an airplane with the German dictator.  The bomb, which would have killed all on board had it exploded, failed to go off.  The fuse, a British time pencil, failed to detonate.

The plan was not a fully formed one, unlike the July 20, 1944, plot.  The thought was simply that with German losing the war, Hitler's death would spark a coup d'état.  This attempt is the only one depicted in the movie Valkyrie prior to the July 44 attempt.

The plot was one of several that this circle of German officers would attempt, but it was the first.

The Germans removed the final 10,000 Jewish residents of Kraków.

The Saturday Evening Post had the last of its four freedom illustrations appear in the magazine, the four taken from a speech by Theodore Roosevelt. This one was "freedom from fear".

The illustration featured a (middle-aged?) couple tucking their children into bed.  It's likely the least well liked of the four illustrations, but it is full of interesting details.

The two children are being tucked into the same bed, for one thing, something that the viewers would not have thought odd even in a middle class home of the era.  The young children are, moreover, a boy and a girl, which would also not have risen to odd comments at the time.  The father is still wearing a tie, even though we'd presume this is early evening.  The newspaper he's holding notes what the world had to fear, at the time.  Viewers today would probably put the male image in his 50s and the female adult in her 40s, but chances are pretty good that Rockwell was portraying a woman in her 30s and a male around 40.

The bedroom, given the angle of the background, is likely an attic bedroom.

It'd be worth asking how we've done with the four freedoms over the years.  Perhaps we can do that in another tread, but in regard to freedom from fear, fear is still with us, and indeed we live in an era of record angst.

The accompanying article was written by Stephen Vincent Benét.

The Canadian Pacific Ocean liner RMS Empress of Canada was sunk by the Italian submarine Leonardo da Vinci in the South Atlantic, 1,400 of 1,800 passengers survived, with 392 being lost, half of which, ironically, were Italian POWs.

On the same day, the Canadian corvette sank the U-163 in the Atlantic.

Finland signed a trade agreement with Nazi Germany.

Japanese troops ended their assault on Hill 700 on Bouganville.

 J. P. Morgan, Jr. died at age 75 in Boca Raton.

Wednesday, March 7, 1923. Atrocity

Local Irish Free State officials and the Irish Army executed eight inmates at Ballyseedy in County Kerry by taking them to a crossroad that had been mined and tying them together, which was obviously a reprisal, and a sick one at that.  Survivors, save for Stephen Fuller, were shot by the Irish Army.  Stephen Fuller somehow escaped when he was blown free and crawled to safety. Rescuers took him to the home of Charlie Daly the following day, where he hid in a dug out.  He was found there by Dr. Edmond Shanahan who treated him for his injuries while he remained in hiding.

The perpetrators of the atrocity immediately covered it up.  Fuller later went on to be a member of the Dáil, where he never mentioned it as he didn't want it to become an issue and inspire renewed hatred.

Hitler expressed his support for a Henry Ford Presidential run to the Chicago Tribune.  Hitler and Ford were both antiSemites and Ford's newspaper The Dearborn Independent had published Nazi antisemitic writings

Wednesday, February 17, 1943. Joe DiMaggio joins the Army.

Hitler flew to Erich Von Manstein's headquarters in Zaporizhia intending to dismiss him as Von Manstein had suggested that he be appointed overall chief of staff. While there, he became engrossed with the situation facing Army Group South and did not do so, but, after two days, agreed to allow Manstein to take troops from Army Group A for an offensive aimed at Kharkov. 

The Afrika Korps won the Tunisian battle of Sidi Bou Zid.

Joe DiMaggio enlisted in the U.S. Army.  During his wartime service, he played baseball for the Seventh Air Force.  A request for a combat assignment would be refused.