Summer fun... (oh, and a Daily Mail Nazi story of the Week...)
What a day we had yesterday!
Summertime for us means "military shindigs", and things kicked off yesterday with a visit to the Lepe Country Park on the south coast and the D-Day commemorations which included a reenactment of the beach landings. Among those trying to stave off the beach assault - and dying a rather heroic death - was my friend Karl von Müller-Gebhardt, an aristocrat from somewhere near Baden-Baden who, like Hauptmann Stransky in Cross of Iron, was on a mission to win the Iron Cross as a humble SS-Schütze.
Apart from a few spots of rain, the weather was fantastic, and the reenactment took a somewhat humorous twist as the American landing craft had started to take in water and had to return to port - arriving to a mix of ironic cheers and friendly boos after the battle had ended. At least we could say they avoided another Omaha. Needless to say in fifty years time we'll see a movie about it, and how the Yanks arrived in the nick of time and saved the day...
The afternoon was spent chatting with Karl and his son Heinrich, a member of the HJ unit from West Hessen-Nassau - and after having help jump-start his car we headed off to nearby Lymington with another friend for evening dinner. Interesting conversation was had by all, with subjects ranging from French northerners (the Ch'ti) to tales of life at boarding school. My tale of the cider still blowing up and nighttime kitchen raids were but small fry in comparison to Karl's tale of how he and three colleagues managed to get a tutor's Mini up three flights of stairs and onto a theatre stage...
In a rather ironic piece of timing, the Daily Mail's Nazi Story of the Week yesterday covered another wartime commemoration weekend held in Worcestershire. In a bizarre but not wholly unexpected fit of politically correct pique, the powers that be at the Severn Valley Railway's show suddenly decided that those playing the role of the enemy were not wanted for fear of "causing offence" - of course, a case of the same old nonsense, and the creation of a scenario where the enemy is almost reduced to a fictitious bogeyman whom you can hear about but cannot see.
I wrote the following comment: I doubt whether it will see the light of day however...
Summertime for us means "military shindigs", and things kicked off yesterday with a visit to the Lepe Country Park on the south coast and the D-Day commemorations which included a reenactment of the beach landings. Among those trying to stave off the beach assault - and dying a rather heroic death - was my friend Karl von Müller-Gebhardt, an aristocrat from somewhere near Baden-Baden who, like Hauptmann Stransky in Cross of Iron, was on a mission to win the Iron Cross as a humble SS-Schütze.
Apart from a few spots of rain, the weather was fantastic, and the reenactment took a somewhat humorous twist as the American landing craft had started to take in water and had to return to port - arriving to a mix of ironic cheers and friendly boos after the battle had ended. At least we could say they avoided another Omaha. Needless to say in fifty years time we'll see a movie about it, and how the Yanks arrived in the nick of time and saved the day...
The afternoon was spent chatting with Karl and his son Heinrich, a member of the HJ unit from West Hessen-Nassau - and after having help jump-start his car we headed off to nearby Lymington with another friend for evening dinner. Interesting conversation was had by all, with subjects ranging from French northerners (the Ch'ti) to tales of life at boarding school. My tale of the cider still blowing up and nighttime kitchen raids were but small fry in comparison to Karl's tale of how he and three colleagues managed to get a tutor's Mini up three flights of stairs and onto a theatre stage...
In a rather ironic piece of timing, the Daily Mail's Nazi Story of the Week yesterday covered another wartime commemoration weekend held in Worcestershire. In a bizarre but not wholly unexpected fit of politically correct pique, the powers that be at the Severn Valley Railway's show suddenly decided that those playing the role of the enemy were not wanted for fear of "causing offence" - of course, a case of the same old nonsense, and the creation of a scenario where the enemy is almost reduced to a fictitious bogeyman whom you can hear about but cannot see.
I wrote the following comment: I doubt whether it will see the light of day however...
Again, we have this politically correct take on history. We continue to hear the rhetorical drumbeat about this mysterious evil enemy that are rendered even more mysterious by this bizarre attempt to make them invisible. It's like North Korea and its treatment of all things American - the population knows nothing about America save what it hears from official mouthpieces, and as a result they have this rather warped idea of history.Ah, the Daily Mail. They never fail to disappoint. Or amuse.
The purpose of these reenactment weekends is that the public - especially young people - can learn about history. By blanking out any mention of the enemy, that history becomes little more than meaningless propaganda.
posted by Le grand méchant loup at
11:14
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