1939

alfred schneider

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:42:49 -0500

alfred schneider

singing in Innsbruck

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 14:26:58 -0500

singing in Innsbruck

"Yesterday, our president mused about the inevitability of war, war’s instrumentality in the pursuit..."

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:27:00 -0500

“Yesterday, our president mused about the inevitability of war, war’s instrumentality in the pursuit of peace and just wars. It is important for us to reflect on his words, because once we believe in the inevitability of war, war becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once we are committed to war’s instrumentality in pursuit of peace, we begin the Orwellian journey to the semantic netherworld where War IS Peace, where the momentum of war overwhelms hopes for peace. And once we wrap doctrines perpetuating war in the arms of justice, we can easily legitimate the wholesale slaughter of innocents. The war against Iraq was based on lies. Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan are based on flawed doctrines of counter-insurgency. War is often not just; sometimes it is just war. And our ability to rethink the terms of our existence, to explore the possibility of peace without war, may well determine whether we end war, or war ends us.””

- Congressman Kucinich’s Response to President Obama’s “Just War” Doctrine

(via danielholter: unburyingthelead)

“We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: “Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.” As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there’s nothing weak — nothing passive — nothing naïve — in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.” - President Obama’s Nobel acceptance speech

(via kateoplis)

Some of the perpetual questions concerning WWII are raised here: how can we be completely sure that a non-violent movement would not have worked?* And where is the line drawn in defining what makes a war “just”, if war can ever be such a thing?

*The Star Trek episode “City on the Edge of Forever” deals with the potential of an American pacifist movement during WWII, and its scenario is likely one of the more plausible. (There’s also Stephen Fry’s novel Making History, but the premise of that is a bit too different for the purposes of this discussion.) Or, what about indirect conflict? Assassination, attempts at targeted bombing, et cetera. Less lives put at risk on either side. But we’re getting into subjunctive history here; there’s no way to fully determine what would have happened. Once one thing changes, everything changes.

Machine-gunner training, April 1941

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:26:00 -0500

Machine-gunner training, April 1941

Kriegsmarine soldiers on the African front listening to the...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:26:26 -0500

Kriegsmarine soldiers on the African front listening to the radio, June 1942

"The [medical Nuremberg] trial’s verdict included a statement on ethical standards for medical..."

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:29:00 -0500

“The [medical Nuremberg] trial’s verdict included a statement on ethical standards for medical research, the Nuremberg Code. As important as the Nuremberg Code later became in the United States-it lay behind the founding, in the nineteen-sixties, of the field known as bioethics-the trials were virtually ignored in the nineteen-forties. As the historian of medicine David Rothman has pointed out, the American press hardly mentioned the Nuremberg trials in 1946 and 1947, and largely ignored the execution of seven of its convicted defendants in 1948. To the extent that Americans drew a lesson from Nuremberg, Rothman argues, it was that the government should not have a hand in medicine. “And here,” Rothman writes, “the distinction between the Nazi government and all other governments was lost.””

- via

Excerpt from “The Politics of Death” by Jill Lepore for The New Yorker, Nov. 30, 2009.

(via deutschsprachig)

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:28:33 -0500

(via deutschsprachig)

Schlosser, Heinrich: Oberleutnant, Ritterkreuz (RK), Luftwaffe,...

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:26:12 -0500

Schlosser, Heinrich: Oberleutnant, Ritterkreuz (RK), Luftwaffe, Deutschland

On December 7, 1941, Heinrich Himmler, head of Nazi Germany’s...

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:47:00 -0500

On December 7, 1941, Heinrich Himmler, head of Nazi Germany’s SS, issued a decree. It said that those arrested in their own countries for resisting the Third Reich would be deported so that they would disappear, without a trace, into the “night and fog.”

via Alain Resnais: Night and Fog

Wikipedia: the Nacht und Nebel decree

hannahb: via blog.uncovering.org one of Hitler’s paintings

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:48:16 -0500

hannahb:

via blog.uncovering.org

one of Hitler’s paintings

Krüger, Rudolf: Oberfeldwebel, Ritterkreuz (RK), Heer,...

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 12:27:10 -0500

Krüger, Rudolf: Oberfeldwebel, Ritterkreuz (RK), Heer, Deutschland

Two soldiers of the Wehrmacht on guard in December 1941 to the...

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 12:25:45 -0500

Two soldiers of the Wehrmacht on guard in December 1941 to the west of Moscow

Arrival of new recruits in Berlin(?), 1936

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:43:27 -0500

Arrival of new recruits in Berlin(?), 1936

delayprocrastinate: Doobybrain: A Town Full of Twins In...

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:41:21 -0500

delayprocrastinate:

Doobybrain:

A Town Full of Twins

In Cândido Godói, Brazil, a town of about 80 households has 44 sets of twins, a rate that is nearly 1000% above the global average. Nobody can quite explain it for sure, but National Geographic is following one man’s quest for answers in what he believes is a continuation of Nazi Germany twin experiments from escaped Nazi war criminal Joseph Mengele.

Joseph Mengele was known as the Angel of Death and spent years doing experiments with twins in Germany to help build a master race for Adolf Hitler. When he escaped and disappeared to South America, twins started popping up in locations where he was spotted which has led at least one person to believe that Mengele’s experiments have actually become successful.

Wikipedia: Egmont Prinz zur Lippe-Weißenfeld (14 July 1918 – 22...

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:04:57 -0500

Wikipedia: Egmont Prinz zur Lippe-Weißenfeld (14 July 1918 – 22 March 1944) was a Luftwaffe night fighter flying ace of aristocratic descent during World War II. Oberleutnant Prinz zur Lippe-Weißenfeld was credited with 51 aerial victories, all of them claimed in nocturnal combat missions.

He and his crew, Oberfeldwebel Josef Renette and Unteroffizier Kurt Röber, were killed in a flying accident on 22 March 1944 on a routine flight from Parchim to Athies-sous-Laon. Above Belgium, they seem to have encountered a bad weather zone with low clouds and a dense snowstorm and it was assumed that the aircraft hit the high Ardennes ground after being forced to fly lower because of ice forming on the wings. The exact circumstances of this flight may never be known; the Bf 110 G-4 C9+CD (W.Nr. 720 010) crashed into the Ardennes mountains near St. Hubert where the completely burned-out wreck was found the following day.

unpalombaro: stashvault: Germany’s underground gold stash in...

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:49:44 -0500

unpalombaro:

stashvault:

Germany’s underground gold stash in WWII.

Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:56:37 -0500

Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg

(via basterds)

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:45:00 -0500

(via basterds)

(luftwaffe nurses)

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:46:00 -0500

(luftwaffe nurses)

(via basterds)

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:46:00 -0500

(via basterds)