We're going to be runners up again. :-(

[redgunamo]

Shirley the cathartic moment of the series must be the episode on the fall of Berlin where the German woman un-emotionally tells of her and her mother being raped by Russian soldiers.

For some reason I found that more disturbing than the Holocaust episode, which at the time just seemed unfathomable.

My late grandmother-in-law was like that. Dying of cancer, she would wake from her coma from time to time to warn us "Der Ivan kommt! Der Ivan Kommt!"

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

I think the scale and severity of the war on the Eastern front is almost unfathomable. There is a scene after Stalingrad that shows hundreds of thousands of German soldiers being taken captive before quietly informing you that fewer than 3% of those pictured returned home alive...... the difficulty in feeling sympathy for German soldiers shows that war can sometimes be as dehumanising as genocide.

Not like the majority of them had a choice. Wasn't like Blighty in the 2nd war where you could be a conchie and just help out down a mine or in a hospital. Adolf didn't like being told you wouldn't fight for him.

Also, by the time of Stalingrad, the Krauts fighting would have had 9 years of Goebbel's pwoppa-ganda and the Hitler Youth. So all those 23 or under would have only known Naziism=Good since their bollox dropped.

The poppies go back to WW1 and ask us to remember those that fell on all sides in all wars for a reason.

Something the current culture warrior ****wits of both left and right would do well to remember when banging on about poppies.

But anyway, WW2's **** compared to WW1. The first war wins on the poetry alone. {And that's before we mention the Indians giving the Hun a slap on their own turf and thus saving the empire 1914-15.}

[Peter]

Not like the majority of them had a choice. Wasn't like Blighty in the 2nd war where you could be a conchie and just help out down a mine or in a hospital. Adolf didn't like being told you wouldn't fight for him.

Also, by the time of Stalingrad, the Krauts fighting would have had 9 years of Goebbel's pwoppa-ganda and the Hitler Youth. So all those 23 or under would have only known Naziism=Good since their bollox dropped.

The poppies go back to WW1 and ask us to remember those that fell on all sides in all wars for a reason.

Something the current culture warrior ****wits of both left and right would do well to remember when banging on about poppies.

But anyway, WW2's **** compared to WW1. The first war wins on the poetry alone. {And that's before we mention the Indians giving the Hun a slap on their own turf and thus saving the empire 1914-15.}

I completely agree re the German soldiers. But it stings a little at first when you are left with little choice but to sympathise.

Max Aitken, the son of Lord Beaverbrook appears in the episode about the Battle of Britain and disagrees with the other contributors about there being any sense of camaraderie between British and German pilots. He said he hated them. And in the middle of war, if that is what he needed to feel, that's fine.

With our distance and hindsight, it is difficult not to see the starvation and death of hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war as a pretty awful thing. Even if they are the dreadful Hun.

I will never agree about the relative qualities of the two wars. WW1 is a stodgy 0-0 with a late winner given by VAR. WW2 is an all time classic, a thriller. Goals galore and a real 'war of two halves'

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

I completely agree re the German soldiers. But it stings a little at first when you are left with little choice but to sympathise.

Max Aitken, the son of Lord Beaverbrook appears in the episode about the Battle of Britain and disagrees with the other contributors about there being any sense of camaraderie between British and German pilots. He said he hated them. And in the middle of war, if that is what he needed to feel, that's fine.

With our distance and hindsight, it is difficult not to see the starvation and death of hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war as a pretty awful thing. Even if they are the dreadful Hun.

I will never agree about the relative qualities of the two wars. WW1 is a stodgy 0-0 with a late winner given by VAR. WW2 is an all time classic, a thriller. Goals galore and a real 'war of two halves'

Counting up how many for and against individual primary sources we have is a mug's game. But the Hun did let us fly Baader's legs in to hi PoW camp, giving us clear passage. Also, when a visiting Luftwaffe chap at one of the camps found they were holding a couple of RAF escapees, he totally kicked off, said that all RAF are in the control of the Luftwaffe, got them scubbed down, fed and handed over to him, with him apologising profusely to our boys and telling the camp commandant that if this happens again, he'll send a couple of Stukkas to take out his family home there.

Also seen/read several sources of GB RAF Pilots in '40 saying they would never shoot down a parachuting pilot but the Poles did and they could understand that.

So perhaps it's just the Tory press baron's a bit more of a psycho than the average RAF officer. Who'd'a thunk it?

If you want to play footie analogies WW1 wasn't "a stodgy 0-0 with a late winner given by VAR." It started with the big no.6, Joffre, pulling off the greatest ever goal line tackle when the Hun forward had rounded our keeper. {Let's call him Antwerp or Mons.}

Had he mistimed that, it would have been a pen and down to ten men. Game over.

We then have a peak PV4 vs Woy Keane MF battle for the ages. The Hun then go 1-0 up late on when an injury crisis forces the Russians to bring on Oleg and Stepanovs.

The then go 2-0 up when they break the leg of our no.5, Gough, and get away with it.

We are forced to make a tactical change. Our starry French striker takes the captain's armband with the top English boy moving to no.10 to play 2nd striker to him. We bring on an Aussie on one wing and a Canadian on the other.

We then score literally the three finest goals in the whole history of football to turn it round in the last five mins and win 3-2 11 mins into injury time with the last overhead kick of the game.

But in all seriousness, it's the poetry. You watch your WW2 doc and good as it is, you're watching a telly doc.

If you read Owen, you are there, in the trenches, watching your mate drown in the poisoned gas.

Likewise Sassoon.

If the war had only ever given us McCrae's In Flanders Field it would still have won hands down.

What has WW2 got? The Naming of Parts and that's it. And that's not even about the war. It's just about how training doesn't turn him on as much as a good buggering does. NTTAWWI.

[Peter]

Counting up how many for and against individual primary sources we have is a mug's game. But the Hun did let us fly Baader's legs in to hi PoW camp, giving us clear passage. Also, when a visiting Luftwaffe chap at one of the camps found they were holding a couple of RAF escapees, he totally kicked off, said that all RAF are in the control of the Luftwaffe, got them scubbed down, fed and handed over to him, with him apologising profusely to our boys and telling the camp commandant that if this happens again, he'll send a couple of Stukkas to take out his family home there.

Also seen/read several sources of GB RAF Pilots in '40 saying they would never shoot down a parachuting pilot but the Poles did and they could understand that.

So perhaps it's just the Tory press baron's a bit more of a psycho than the average RAF officer. Who'd'a thunk it?

If you want to play footie analogies WW1 wasn't "a stodgy 0-0 with a late winner given by VAR." It started with the big no.6, Joffre, pulling off the greatest ever goal line tackle when the Hun forward had rounded our keeper. {Let's call him Antwerp or Mons.}

Had he mistimed that, it would have been a pen and down to ten men. Game over.

We then have a peak PV4 vs Woy Keane MF battle for the ages. The Hun then go 1-0 up late on when an injury crisis forces the Russians to bring on Oleg and Stepanovs.

The then go 2-0 up when they break the leg of our no.5, Gough, and get away with it.

We are forced to make a tactical change. Our starry French striker takes the captain's armband with the top English boy moving to no.10 to play 2nd striker to him. We bring on an Aussie on one wing and a Canadian on the other.

We then score literally the three finest goals in the whole history of football to turn it round in the last five mins and win 3-2 11 mins into injury time with the last overhead kick of the game.

But in all seriousness, it's the poetry. You watch your WW2 doc and good as it is, you're watching a telly doc.

If you read Owen, you are there, in the trenches, watching your mate drown in the poisoned gas.

Likewise Sassoon.

If the war had only ever given us McCrae's In Flanders Field it would still have won hands down.

What has WW2 got? The Naming of Parts and that's it. And that's not even about the war. It's just about how training doesn't turn him on as much as a good buggering does. NTTAWWI.

I wasnt suggesting old Max was right, simply noting that different people see these things differently. I'd guess if I was forced to kill someone I would probably find it easier to train myself to hate him first.

Nobody had time to write bleeding poetry during WW2. They were too busy fighting a war by air, land and sea. Dodging rockets, ducking from bombers or blowing up subs.

Of course, it was only that western front that was dull and literally stuck in the mud. There was excitement elsewhere. Dardanelles, Gallipoli, Jutland. My great grandfather got shot in the arse in Basrah.

And I don't like much of that poetry, aside from Brooke. And that isnt really war poetry as such.

[Herbert Augustus Chapman]

My late grandmother-in-law was like that. Dying of cancer, she would wake from her coma from time to time to warn us "Der Ivan kommt! Der Ivan Kommt!"

What confounds me most about 30's Germany is that the nation of Beethoven, Brecht and Einstein descended into a collective psychopathy that saw them embark on a programme of exterminating their fellow human beings, by gassing them, for simply being jewish!

[Rich]

What confounds me most about 30's Germany is that the nation of Beethoven, Brecht and Einstein descended into a collective psychopathy that saw them embark on a programme of exterminating their fellow human beings, by gassing them, for simply being jewish!

I have never really understood what the Jews have done wrong. Why are they persecuted by so many?

They seem to largely mind their own business and share strong western values.

Weird.

[Peter]

I have never really understood what the Jews have done wrong. Why are they persecuted by so many?

They seem to largely mind their own business and share strong western values.

Weird.

Would be a strange old world if somebody here could explain it.

But in 19th and 20th century Europe they came to be seen as a threat to emerging nation states and their national identities. And Germany were looking for somebody to blame for WW1.

What is harder to understand is why people who would describe themselves as staunch anti racists seem to think that anti semitism is ok. Or simply fail to recognise it when they see it.

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

I wasnt suggesting old Max was right, simply noting that different people see these things differently. I'd guess if I was forced to kill someone I would probably find it easier to train myself to hate him first.

Nobody had time to write bleeding poetry during WW2. They were too busy fighting a war by air, land and sea. Dodging rockets, ducking from bombers or blowing up subs.

Of course, it was only that western front that was dull and literally stuck in the mud. There was excitement elsewhere. Dardanelles, Gallipoli, Jutland. My great grandfather got shot in the arse in Basrah.

And I don't like much of that poetry, aside from Brooke. And that isnt really war poetry as such.

Of course people had time to write poetry. Most of the squaddies did sweet FA between Dunkirk and D-Day. And while the aircrew had the same life expectancy as a junior officer on the Western Front they also had as much down time in which they could have written poetry if they'd had the talent.

But they didn't. Probably too much radio and movies etc. Made them lose the art of writing.

And it wasn't just all mud, you know. Yes it rained for the first and final thirds of Passchendaele, but the first day of the Somme was glorious sunshine.

But why do you think that? Oh, yes, the poetry of Owen and Sassoon both written around the time of Passchendaele. {Sasoon's even got one that explicitly mentions the battle, Memorial Tablet, while Owen's Dulce Et was clearly written during that.}

And if you're great grand-father got shot in the arse at Basrah, then there's a chance that the grandfather of Raju, one of my Delhi chemist mates, patched him up cos he was an RN surgeon. Brahmin. Realised the Britishers were actually made up of loads of plebs, not just officers, and decided the empire was finished.

But I'm confused. You're into mil-hist enough to study it, but you don't like Owen and Sassoon. So what are your non-war poetic tastes?

I would say that Owen and Sassoon are the people's poet laureates - they do the Tennyson but from the PoV of those there. They also get it across as musically as Kipling. But they can craft iambic pentameters like the best of the Romantics.

I just don't think you get poetry. Or WW1. Or Both.

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

What confounds me most about 30's Germany is that the nation of Beethoven, Brecht and Einstein descended into a collective psychopathy that saw them embark on a programme of exterminating their fellow human beings, by gassing them, for simply being jewish!

But they'd only been a nation since 1871, and as the Fischer Thesis tells you, the war aims in both wars were identical, global domination.

So you could say "Not a surprise that the Hun were like that in the '30s given that all they ever did between Unification in 1871 and being chopped up again in 1945."

The good things - Guttenberg, Luther, Beethoven; Mad Jens, Per, Kai - all came before or after.