Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts

Saturday, May 10, 2025

Monday, May 10, 1915. "There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right."

Resisting demands the US immediately enter the Great War, due to the sinking of the Lusitania, President Wilson stated "There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right."

Germany cabled its regret over civilian loss of life in the incident to the United States but in terms that placed the blame on the United Kingdom.

Wilson addressed naturalized citizens in a speech at Philadelphia's Convention Hall.

Mr. Mayor, Fellow-Citizens:

It warms my heart that you should give me such a reception; but it is not of myself that I wish to think to-night, but of those who have just become citizens of the United States.

This is the only country in the world which experiences this constant and repeated rebirth. Other countries depend upon the multiplication of their own native people. This country is constantly drinking strength out of new sources by the voluntary association with it of great bodies of strong men and forward-looking women out of other lands. And so by the gift of the free will of independent people it is being constantly renewed from generation to generation by the same process by which it was originally created. It is as if humanity had determined to see to it that this great Nation, founded for the benefit of humanity, should not lack for the allegiance of the people of the world.

You have just taken an oath of allegiance to the United States. Of allegiance to whom? Of allegiance to no one, unless it be God—certainly not of allegiance to those who temporarily represent this great Government. You have taken an oath of allegiance to a great ideal, to a great body of principles, to a great hope of the human race. You have said, "We are going to America not only to earn a living, not only to seek the things which it was more difficult to obtain where we were born, but to help forward the great enterprises of the human spirit—to let men know that everywhere in the world there are men who will cross strange oceans and go where a speech is spoken which is alien to them if they can but satisfy their quest for what their spirits crave; knowing that whatever the speech there is but one longing and utterance of the human heart, and that is for liberty and justice." And while you bring all countries with you, you come with a purpose of leaving all other countries behind you—bringing what is best of their spirit, but not looking over your shoulders and seeking to perpetuate what you intended to leave behind in them. I certainly would not be one even to suggest that a man cease to love the home of his birth and the nation of his origin—these things are very sacred and ought not to be put out of our hearts—but it is one thing to love the place where you were born and it is another thing to dedicate yourself to the place to which you go. You cannot dedicate yourself to America unless you become in every respect and with every purpose of your will thorough Americans. You cannot become thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups. America does not consist of groups. A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American, and the man who goes among you to trade upon your nationality is no worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes.

My urgent advice to you would be, not only always to think first of America, but always, also, to think first of humanity. You do not love humanity if you seek to divide humanity into jealous camps. Humanity can be welded together only by love, by sympathy, by justice, not by jealousy and hatred. I am sorry for the man who seeks to make personal capital out of the passions of his fellow-men. He has lost the touch and ideal of America, for America was created to unite mankind by those passions which lift and not by the passions which separate and debase. We came to America, either ourselves or in the persons of our ancestors, to better the ideals of men, to make them see finer things than they had seen before, to get rid of the things that divide and to make sure of the things that unite. It was but an historical accident no doubt that this great country was called the "United States"; yet I am very thankful that it has that word "United" in its title, and the man who seeks to divide man from man, group from group, interest from interest in this great Union is striking at its very heart.

It is a very interesting circumstance to me, in thinking of those of you who have just sworn allegiance to this great Government, that you were drawn across the ocean by some beckoning finger of hope, by some belief, by some vision of a new kind of justice, by some expectation of a better kind of life. No doubt you have been disappointed in some of us. Some of us are very disappointing. No doubt you have found that justice in the United States goes only with a pure heart and a right purpose as it does everywhere else in the world. No doubt what you found here did not seem touched for you, after all, with the complete beauty of the ideal which you had conceived beforehand. But remember this: If we had grown at all poor in the ideal, you brought some of it with you. A man does not go out to seek the thing that is not in him. A man does not hope for the thing that he does not believe in, and if some of us have forgotten what America believed in, you, at any rate, imported in your own hearts a renewal of the belief. That is the reason that I, for one, make you welcome. If I have in any degree forgotten what America was intended for, I will thank God if you will remind me. I was born in America. You dreamed dreams of what America was to be, and I hope you brought the dreams with you. No man that does not see visions will ever realize any high hope or undertake any high enterprise. Just because you brought dreams with you, America is more likely to realize dreams such as you brought. You are enriching us if you came expecting us to be better than we are.

See, my friends, what that means. It means that Americans must have a consciousness different from the consciousness of every other nation in the world. I am not saying this with even the slightest thought of criticism of other nations. You know how it is with a family. A family gets centered on itself if it is not careful and is less interested in the neighbors than it is in its own members. So a nation that is not constantly renewed out of new sources is apt to have the narrowness and prejudice of a family; whereas, America must have this consciousness, that on all sides it touches elbows and touches hearts with all the nations of mankind. The example of America must be a special example. The example of America must be the example not merely of peace because it will not fight, but of peace because peace is the healing and elevating influence of the world and strife is not. There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.

You have come into this great Nation voluntarily seeking something that we have to give, and all that we have to give is this: We cannot exempt you from work. No man is exempt from work anywhere in the world. We cannot exempt you from the strife and the heartbreaking burden of the struggle of the day—that is common to mankind everywhere; we cannot exempt you from the loads that you must carry. We can only make them light by the spirit in which they are carried. That is the spirit of hope, it is the spirit of liberty, it is the spirit of justice.

When I was asked, therefore, by the Mayor and the committee that accompanied him to come up from Washington to meet this great company of newly admitted citizens, I could not decline the invitation. I ought not to be away from Washington, and yet I feel that it has renewed my spirit as an American to be here. In Washington men tell you so many things every day that are not so, and I like to come and stand in the presence of a great body of my fellow-citizens, whether they have been fellow-citizens a long time or a short time, and drink, as it were, out of the common fountains with them and go back feeling what you have so generously given me—the sense of your support and of the living vitality in your hearts of the great ideals which have made America the hope of the world.

At Artois, the French launched a feint attack as a decoy while cavalry was moved to assist the Tenth Army.  Germany launched a counter attack and recaptured some trenches and tunnels.

May 8, 1915.

Last edition:

Sunday, May 9, 1915. Combined offensive.

Thursday, May 8, 2025

Tuesday, May 8, 1945. Victory In Europe.


A second surrender signing insisted upon by Stalin took place in Berlin with a slightly revised instrument of surrender.  The original would have sufficed, but Stalin insisted.  

This one was signed, for the Germans, by Field Marshal Keitel.


And the war in Europe came to an end.

Celebrations broke out all across Western Europe and North America, which in some instances had begun the day prior.  Winston Churchill announced new of the 11:00 p.m. singing at 3:00 p.m.  Truman at 9:00 a.m., warning that the war was only half won.   All times local.

Karl Dönitz announced the in a speech broadcast from Flensburg at 12:30 p.m., mentioning that the Nazi Party no longer had any role in government.

Hermann Göring surrendered near Radstadt, Austria. Eisenhower would be upset when he learned of the celebrity status his American captors had given him.

German submarines were ordered to surface and report to the Allies.

The Massacre in Trhová Kamenice occurred when German troops in Trhová Kamenice, Czechoslovakia shot supposed partisans.  In spite of the surrender, some German forces did not lay down their arms on the 8th.

The Sétif and Guelma massacre began when French police fired on local Algerian demonstrators at a protest in the Algerian market town of Sétif.  The beginning of decolonization had begun.

Gen. Ernst-Günther Baade, age 47, died of gangrene; Paul Giesler, age 49, German Nazi official committed suicide; Werner von Gilsa, age 56, German military officer committed suicide after being captured by the Russians; Wilhelm Rediess, age 44, German commander of SS troops in Norway  committed suicide; Bernhard Rust, age 61, German Nazi Minister of Science, Education and National Culture committed suicide; Josef Terboven, age 46, German Reichskommissar for Norway during the Nazi occupation committed suicide by detonating dynamite in a bunker.

The US 145th Infantry division took the the ridge near Guagua, southeast of Mount Pacawagan on Luzon and blocked a track along the Mariquina river. 

Last edition:

Monday, May 7, 1945. Germany unconditionally surrenders.

Saturday, May 3, 2025

2025 Elections In Other Countries.

February 24, 2025.


The Christian Democratic Union and the Bavarian Christian Social Union won the German election with about 29% of the vote.  The AfD came in second, but underperformed.   The overall breakdown of seats is as follows:

CDU/CSU 14,158,432 28.52 208
AfD                 10,327,148 20.80 152
SPD                     8,148,284 16.41 120
Greens             5,761,476 11.61 85
Die Linke     4,355,382 8.77 64
Others            2,273,817 4.58 1
BSW             2,468,670 4.97 0
FDP                     2,148,878 4.33 0

The Social Democratic Party had been in power.

The government will be a coalition government with Friedrich Merz as the Chancellor.  Like me, Merz is Catholic, a lawyer, and had served as an artilleryman.

March 10, 2025

Not really a popular election, but an internal party one in a parliamentary system, the Liberal Party of Canada has chosen Mark Carney to be head of its party and hence the new Prime Minster, replacing Justin Trudeau.

Trudeau had become deeply unpopular, but rallied the country nonetheless when Canada became the subject of economic attack due to the closeted autarkic policies of demented infant, Donny Trump.  Trump, who has the brain of a two year old, took to insulting Trudeau repeatedly and now Canadians hate the United States.  Carney is an economist who is well suited for the role of dealing with "but I learned this in the Classic Comics cartoon about William B. McKinley" approach to taxation being exhibited by Mango Mussolini.


Carney also holds British and Irish citizenship, and in 2015 was declared the most influential Catholic in Britain. Both outgoing Trudeau and incoming Carney made it once again clear that Canada will not be entering the United States.

April 29, 2025.

Canada


The Liberal Party narrowly won a fourth term.  It's unclear at the present time if they won a plurality or majority of the votes, but a plurality that's a near majority seems likely, which means they'll need the cooperation of minor parties, which they've gained in the past.

The result is a stunning reversal in fortune. The party's fortunes just several months ago made it appear that it was doomed to defeat, but Donald Trump's assisinne ramblings about annexing Canada as s state revived its fortunes as it's last premier, Justin Trudeau, resisted such calls and insults, and the current one, Mark Carney, stepped out aggressively against them and American tariffs.

May 3, 2025

Australia

Australia's center-left government dramatically increased its majority after the conservative Liberal-National coalition suffered a major defeat.

Conservatives noted that Donald Trump's spastic bizarre example of the far right in the US helped boost the fortunes of the left, making this the second election in an English speaking country where that has occurred.

Last edition:

2024 Elections In Other Countries.

Thursday, May 1, 2025

Tuesday, May 1, 1945. German radio reports Hitler dead.


General situation map, May 1, 1945.

Reichssender Hamburg's Flensburg radio station announced that Adolf Hitler had died in Berlin while "fighting for Germany". 

Hmmm. . . 
 
Dönitz gave a broadcast that night declaring that it was his task to save the German people "from destruction by Bolshevists."

New Chancellor of German Joseph Goebbels sent a letter to the Soviet commander in Berlin advising of Hitler's death and requesting a ceasefire. 

The Soviets refused.

He and his wife Magda then murdered their six children and committed suicide.  Dönitz then appointed Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk as the new de facto Chancellor of Germany, in the Flensburg Government.

Mass suicides occurred in Demmin following the Red Army taking and destroying the town. Between 700 and 2,500 people killed themselves.  As was common, the Red Army engaged in rapes and murders upon entering the town.

The Battle of Halbe ended in a Soviet victory.

The Australian Army landed on Tarakan off of Borneo.

Last edition:

Thursday, April 24, 2025

Saturday, April 24, 1915. The beginning of the Armenian Genocide.

The Armenian Genocide began with the deportation of Armenian intellectuals from Constantinople.

It's always easiest for the oppressor to remove those whom they'd like to repress. . . 

The Germans launched a gas attack on Canadian positions at St. Julien, which allowed them to take the village.

The RMS Lusitania arrived in New York City coincident with the German embassy in Washington D.C. issuing a public warning that the waters around Great Britain being a war zone and that ships flying a British flag would be considered targets.

Last edition:

Thursday, April 22, 1915. Gas!


Saturday, April 19, 2025

Tuesday, April 19, 1910. 606.

Paul Ehrlich announced his discovery of what was termed "606", the first medicine that could cure syphilis.

The Jewish German physician died in 1915 of a heart attack at age 61.

The Philadelphia General Strike of 1910 came to an end.

Last edition:

Sunday, April 13, 2025

Friday, April 13, 1945. Bitter end.


"Bitter end. Downcast German prisoners rounded up in the clean-up of bitterly-resisting Heilbronn, are marched to the rear. Key to Southern Germany, Heilbronn was stubbornly defended by these and other Nazis but finally fell before Seventh Army onslaught after nine days of severe fighting. 13 April, 1945. 100th Infantry Division, VI Corps. Photographer: T/4 Irving Leibowitz, 163rd Signal Photo Co."

The Red Army took Vienna and began the Samland Offensive.

Members of the SS and Luftwaffe German SS and Luftwaffe burned 1,016 slave laborers alive in a large barn at Gardelegen.

New Zealander troops captured Massa Lombarda, southwest of Lake Comacchio, Italy.

American forces land on Fort Drum,"the Concrete Battleship", in Manila Bay. They poured 5,000 gallons of oil fuel into the fortifications and set it on fire, whereupon it burned for five days.

Last edition:

Thursday, April 12, 1945. The death of Franklin Roosevelt

Tuesday, April 8, 2025

Britain, Germany Issue Emergency Guidance


I'm not a "prepper", and frankly I tend to find preppers a bit amusing.  But when European governments that are a lot more sane than the gerontocracy running the United States right now start issuing war warnings and commence telling their populations how to prepare for war, well, it's at least taking some noted of.


Both Germany and the UK, both of which are not afflicted by wackadoodle administrations like ours currently is, have done so:

Britain, Germany Issue Emergency Guidance




By the way, in the fever dream of Republican Washington D.C. right now, while Trump dreams of tariffs in his sleep solving all the nations ills, while the GOP also is about to pass a renewal of the Trump tax reductions, thereby guaranteeing, in the real world, a massively increased deficit, there's a plan to pass a $1Trillion defense budget.

$1Trillion.


Trump preached peace in his campaign like a flower child in 1968.

But he's proposing a defense budget like it's 1964.

What gives?

It's hard to know what Trump really things about anything.  What is clear is that we've been headed towards war with China for at least half a decade and the Trump administration is pushing us much closer.  Somebody in the Administration is preparing for that war.

20th Kansaas at Caloocan, 1899. They're carrying obsolete trapdoor Springfield rifles and wearing obsolescent blue wool shirts.

By the way, when McKinley, Trump's hero, who ended up regretting his tariff policy, was President the size of the U.S. Army was 25,000 men, many of whom were poor immigrants, and a lot of whom were poorly equipped.  In spite of McKinley being forced into the Spanish American War against his instincts and desires, the US didn't really expect to be fighting any wars in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries and so it relied upon a tiny Army, a more substantial and much more well equipped Navy, and state militias, which had not quite become the modern National Guard.  The thought was that if any big emergency came up, the states could always fill the manpower gaps, which is exactly what occurred during the Spanish American War.  It's also what occured in the Philippine Insurrection which is in part what made the effort in the Philippines extreme unpopular with the public as it drug on.  Think Vietnam. . . but if Vietnam had been fought with a lot of National Guardsmen instead of just a few.

Itt was those wars, in fact, which ended the era in which the US could get buy with a tiny budget, and one that ran a surplus.  The Spanish American War changed the US from a regional power into a global one, and there's really no going back.  We shouldn't even want to go back. When Kipling wrote his horribly racist The White Man's Burden, in a certain way, that's what he meant existentially, if you strip the racism, which is difficult.  Still, the concluding lines are worth reading:
Have done with childish days— 
The lightly proffered laurel, 
    The easy, ungrudged praise. 
Comes now, to search your manhood 
    Through all the thankless years, 
Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom, 
    The judgement of your peers. 
Trump, in real terms, seeks to take us back to the childhood of the nation, which he didn't experience, as he golfs on in his dotage.

We're all suffering as a result, and it'll get worse.  Much worse.

Last edition:

Saturday, March 29, 2025

Thursday, March 29, 1945. The first Public Passover Sedar in Germany since 1938.

Captain Robert S. Marcus leads a Passover Seder for men of the 365th Fighter Group on a fighter-bomber base in Germany on March 29, 1945.  This was the first public Passover Seder in Germany since 1938.  This base, it should be noted, was extremely far forward.  The Allies had only crossed the Rhine on March 7, with the seizure of the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen.  On the same day, 60 Jewish forces laborer's were murdered in the Deutsch Schützen massacre

 The Battle of the Heiligenbell Pocket ended in a victory for the Red Army.

The 7th Army took Mannheim and Heidelberg.

The last V1 to hit London did so.

US forces landed near Bacolod in the Philippines.

Last edition:

Wednesday, March 28, 1945. Guderian gets his release.

Friday, March 28, 2025

Wednesday, March 28, 1945. Guderian gets his release.

Hitler fired Guderian as Chief of the OKH following an argument. His replacement was Hans Krebs.

Guderian, as we've noted before, would survive the war.  He was released from being held as a POW in 1948, never prosecuted for war crimes, and died in 1954 at age 65.

Krebs killed himself on May 2, 1945.

Eisenhower telegrammed Stalin with his plans for advancing in Germany.  The British, who were not consulted, protested.

The Red Army captured Balga.

The U.S. 80th Infantry Division captured Wiesbaden.

The 3d Corps took Marburg.

The USS Trigger was sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy in the East China Sea.

The Battle of Slater's Knoll began between Australian and Japanese forces on Bougainville.

Last edition:

Tuesday, March 27, 1945. The last rockets.

Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Sunday, March 25, 1945. Crossing the Rhine.

The Battle of Remagen ended in a US victory.

The Red Army began the Bratislava–Brno Offensive.

Winston Churchill, accompanied by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, crossed the Rhine near Wesel in an Allied landing craft.

The trip was legitimately dangerous.

Allied forces began to cross or advance from the Rine nearly everywhere.

" Left to right: Pvt. Ray Pennington, Princetown, W.Va., Pfc. Emory Neill, Griffith, Ga., and Pfc. Howard J. Stringer, Columbia, Miss., set up their machine gun to watch and harass the Nazi movements on the other side of the Rhine near Oberwesel, Germany. All men are with 76th Infantry Division, 3rd U.S. Army. 25 March, 1945. 76th Infantry Division. Photographer: Tec 5 A.H. Herz, 166th Signal Photo Co."

"3rd U.S. Army infantrymen load onto tank destroyer in Konigstadien, Germany, as they drive deeper into Germany. 25 March, 1945. Company I, 3rd Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division. Photographer: T/5 Schneider, 166th Signal Photo Co."

Today in World War II History—March 25, 1940 & 1945: 80 Years Ago—Mar. 25, 1945: US Seventh Army crosses the Rhine at Worms. US Fifteenth Air Force based in Italy flies its last strategic bombing mission of WWII.

Aachen's post Nazi mayor Franz Oppenhoff, age 42, was assassinated by the SS.

Task Force 58 conducted air raids on Okinawa.

Marine Corps Maj. Gen. William H. Rupertus, age 55, died of a heart attack.  He was the author of the Rifleman's Creed;

Rifleman's Creed

This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.

Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will ...

My rifle and I know that what counts in war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit ...

My rifle is human, even as I [am human], because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will ...

Before God, I swear this creed. My rifle and I are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.

So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but peace!

Last edition: