November 11 1918

[PanzerJaeger]

Yeah, burn a candle for the poor Germans. The wind is as cold to them.

Yes. The Germans fought just as bravely, just as honorably, and paid just as dearly as the Allies for the same reasons, yet they are all too often forgotten in these types of misty-eyed tributes. Not on my watch.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Yes. The Germans fought just as bravely, just as honorably, and paid just as dearly as the Allies for the same reasons, yet they are all too often forgotten in these types of misty-eyed tributes. Not on my watch.

See, that kid in your picture is just some poor German bloke of 20(?) years old, who got pushed a rifle in his hands and was put on a train to the Somme. I got no beef with him. I hope he returned home alive, in a sufficient mental and physical state for him to be happy he was still alive too.


I do have got issues with German nationalism and the German military of the period, which was anything but honourable before, during and after WWI. But soit. Worse is their reprisal twenty years later, which was well outside the bandwith of what is considered proper conduct for even a state engaged in agressive European war. This can not be remained unsaid when remembering German victims.

Speaking of your watch - I'm sure you saw this coming - would you be so kind as to commemorate all those Red Army soldiers who fell fighting for communism, during the invasion of Germany in 1945, and commend them for their braveness and honour?

[PanzerJaeger]

I do have got issues with German nationalism and the German military of the period, which was anything but honourable before, during and after WWI.

In contrast to... who exactly? What about the German intentions and actions set them apart from those of the Allies?

But soit. Worse is their reprisal twenty years later, which was well outside the bandwith of what is considered proper conduct for even a state engaged in agressive European war. This can not be remained unsaid when remembering German victims.

Why? This conflation of the Germans in WW1 and WW2 is all too common. How was my young man a couple of posts above, or even Erich Ludendorff himself to know of events twenty years in the future? Such logic is equivalent to saying that one cannot discuss the presidency of George H. W. Bush without discussing the mistakes of George W. Bush, or even more directly correlated, the First Gulf War to the Second.

Speaking of your watch - I'm sure you saw this coming - would you be so kind as to commemorate all those Red Army soldiers who fell fighting for communism, during the invasion of Germany in 1945, and commend them for their braveness and honour?

More jumbling of two very different conflicts. That's ok, though.

I would think it is implicit in these types of tributes that we are honoring the honorable, not the thieves, rapists, or murderers that are among every army. When I celebrated veteran's day, I wasn't celebrating Abu Ghraib or the horrible excesses of American soldiers during WW2, but the many Americans who served the country in a respectable manner. I don't have a problem accepting that there were some good, honorable Russians, even in the occupation of Germany in 1945.

[Shaka_Khan]

I remember reading that France lost a huge proportion (was it 1/3?) of young French adult men.

[Skullheadhq]

I remember reading that France lost a huge proportion (was it 1/3?) of young French adult men.

At least they got Alsace-Lorraine back.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

At least they got Alsace-Lorraine back.

Shame on the French!

[Louis VI the Fat]

In contrast to... who exactly? What about the German intentions and actions set them apart from those of the Allies?

The Hun are a militaristic race bent on global domination.


Apart from that, the second Reich also invented bootlegging music.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The demand that Germany cease selling bootleg records from master recordings it had confiscated in the war, was part of the 'eternal slavery' the allies/Jews/capitalists sought to impose on Germany with the peace settlement.

Before WWI, the British record company His Master's Voice (HMV) had a contract with a German record company to distribute the HMV records in Germany, so HMV sent their masters to Germany and collected royalties from records made and sold in Germany from these masters. Come WWI in 1914, the German company decided these masters were now spoils of war, material confiscated from an enemy state, and they kept them. They used them to make and sell records in Germany and abroad after the war. In 1921, the OPERA DISC COMPANY (ODC) label was trademarked in the U.S. and records made in Germany from these confiscated masters were sold in the U.S. with this label. The British HMV and U.S. Victor record companies filed suit against the U.S. distributer of these records and in 1923, ODC was ordered to stop producing, distributing, and selling these records made with masters that still belonged to HMV and Victor by law in this country. The court also ordered ODC to turn over all these 'bootleg' records to Victor for destruction, which was done. It was a landmark case in copyright issues of songs.

ODC didn't really sell many records during the period they were in business and with as many as could be found being scooped up and destroyed by Victor Record Co, the remaining records are now very hard to find.

So here it is, something you'll probably not see again, a real live Opera Disc Company bootleg 1906 recording of Enrico Caruso pirated in 1914. Enjoy!

P.S. - Just a note that Sony now holds the copyright to this music and they are allowing it to play on YouTube worldwide except in Germany.

Why? This conflation of the Germans in WW1 and WW2 is all too common. How was my young man a couple of posts above, or even Erich Ludendorff himself to know of events twenty years in the future? Such logic is equivalent to saying that one cannot discuss the presidency of George H. W. Bush without discussing the mistakes of George W. Bush, or even more directly correlated, the First Gulf War to the Second.

More jumbling of two very different conflicts. That's ok, though.

I would think it is implicit in these types of tributes that we are honoring the honorable, not the thieves, rapists, or murderers that are among every army. When I celebrated veteran's day, I wasn't celebrating Abu Ghraib or the horrible excesses of American soldiers during WW2, but the many Americans who served the country in a respectable manner. I don't have a problem accepting that there were some good, honorable Russians, even in the occupation of Germany in 1945.

I was just remembering those who had perished in both conflicts.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Strike:

I remember one little poignant footnote from Tuchman's "Guns of August" (A wonderful read by the way).

She noted that, prior to its destruction during the 1940 conflict, the chapel at France's military academy at St. Cyr maintained the tradition of listing on the walls of the chapel the members of its various graduating classes who died in the service of France. The classes before the war and during it contain long lists of names, except for one entry. That entry read, simply, "The Class of 1914."

A whole generation "butchered and damned" indeed.

[Shaka_Khan]

By the way, my comment was not in response to the posts before it. I didn't read those posts before I made mine.