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I think I've done this before but I missed sharing my remembrance day tradition: I post a excerpt from the war diaries of my Grandfather's battalion in WW2. February 9th 1944: they're at Anzio at the base of the Carroceto salient and they're right in the path of the last heave of the German main effort to collapse the beachhead. Over the course of about 9 hours they are completely overrun and and are reduced to a scratch force of a couple of overstrength platoons, accomplished by grabbing the typists and porters and shoving rifles into their hands.   Three weeks later they've been slightly reinforced to a strength of 2 companies. There's a strong german raid that results in hours of night time hand to hand fighting that kills all the officers and reduces them back down to 60, they end up with a Royal Artillery captain taking charge because he's the only person around to do that.  Two days later they're withdrawn and evacuated. The Battalion is broken up and the survivors dispersed to reinforce other units. At some point in this time period, not sure exactly when, my Grandad gets a shrapnel wound in his arse and is evacuated to a Maltese hospital. He spends another 2 years in the army performing admin/logistics duties but is never asked to fight again.
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Nov 20, 2025 12:53
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DarklyDreaming posted:I get the feeling if you still had your warcrime medals somewhere people could see in 1957 you were more likely to receive some form or other of street justice Nope. That's a VERY optimistic view of de-Nazification that I wish was true, but no. No, you wouldn't want to wear your "Party" awards like a "Blood Banner" (which showed you were at the Beer Hall Putsch with Hitler), and no, there weren't proud veteran parades on national holidays, and yes, wearing swastikas in public was and is illegal. But wearing an award from 1939-1945 in uniform? Happened every day. Tomn posted:Actually, that's a point of curiosity - what was medal culture like in the post-war decades in Germany? As in, how often did people wear them in public or at public occasions and what was the general view of people wearing them? I assume that the warcrime medals probably didn't get dusted off much, and things like the Iron Cross probably at best marked you out as someone with particularly strong and unpopular opinions, This is one of those "it depends" questions. There are others in this thread far more familiar with the post-WWII Bundeswehr than I am. But in brief terms, when Germany rebuilt its military post 1955 there was a commission to decide what to do about the fact that pretty much everyone in a senior position had a drawer full of medals with swastikas on them. The solution, as I said above, was to reissue the medals without swastikas and call it good. Wearing an Iron Cross was NOT indicative of pro- Nazi politics in itself. It was an award for bravery, sort of like a Bronze or Silver Star in the US military. The same applies to things like campaign awards - yes, this guy was with Rommel in the desert. But there WERE such awards, medals that were given out by the Nazi Party. One other example is the "NSDAP Long Service" award that was given for party membership. These were banned post-war. Tomn posted:but what about the German equivalent of the Purple Heart or more general and low-level distinguished service awards? Was it a matter of "OK, it was a Nazi war service medal but they were still bleeding for their country and that's worth honoring"? "Wound Badge." The Germans issued this award in war-specific versions; there's a 1914 "Wound Badge" for WWI. These came in black, silver, or gold depending on the severity of the wound or multiple awards. The post-1957 Wound Badge was the "1939" Wound Badge, without a swastika:  Tomn posted:Or was wearing any WW2 German service medal at all in public a sign that you were an unrepentant Nazi and to be shunned as far as possible? Or was it more just generally frowned upon in a "Don't talk about the war" sort of way? It's situation-dependent. You wouldn't wear your Iron Cross with a civilian suit, but there are endless photos of post-war/Cold War era German officers wearing Iron Crosses, to the point that it's pretty clear that it was accepted:  A quick look at those awards tells me that guy wasn't sitting at home from 1939-1945. One thing worth considering is that a lot of these awards had histories that pre-dated the Nazis for over a century. The Iron Cross, for example, dates back to the Napoleonic Wars, specifically 1813. Same principle with the Wound Badge, as I mentioned above. So when the German Army came back in 1955 as the Bundeswehr there was a sort of "reclaiming" of some of the traditions from prior eras. That is, the Nazis were a grotesque aberration - they don't get to own all of our traditions, we're taking them back from them and remembering that there were times when these things weren't tainted with Nazi bullshit. East Germany did very similar things but in different ways. A lot of their uniform items looked very much like a continuation of the WWII uniforms; the political message being "the German army continues but rejects the way the Nazis perverted it." Things like collar "litzen," cuff titles, and the like were carried over.  (There's a good but too brief book on the East German uniform politics called Threads of Utopia by Marc Voss.)
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Nov 20, 2025 16:17
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Cessna posted:Nope. That's a VERY optimistic view of de-Nazification that I wish was true, but no. I kind of wonder if some of this appears unusually lenient because of how more recent the interwar revanchist stuff was for the folks of that era and people were just like "fine, whatever, you got shot at honorably okay, now, no more goddamn putsches out of the lot of you or else we bring out the tribunals again" and kind of had to live with the compromise that some folks' only punishment was having to trade in their medals and be super quiet about that time of their life for the remainder of it.
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Nov 20, 2025 17:05
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FAUXTON posted:I kind of wonder if some of this appears unusually lenient because of how more recent the interwar revanchist stuff was for the folks of that era and people were just like "fine, whatever, you got shot at honorably okay, now, no more goddamn putsches out of the lot of you or else we bring out the tribunals again" and kind of had to live with the compromise that some folks' only punishment was having to trade in their medals and be super quiet about that time of their life for the remainder of it. I think the big motivation was the Cold War. "The real enemy is Communism. The Germans fought the Russkies and they're on our side now, so, sure, they can wear their stuff."
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Nov 20, 2025 17:46
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Iron Cross also wasn’t very political in how it was awarded. It was directly for some sort of bravery in combat which is a pretty fundamental soldier aspiration so it’s a pretty desireable and appreciated award. Fun fact Finnish jewish soldiers received it but declined it.
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Nov 20, 2025 18:27
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The ordinary Iron Cross wasn't especially political but once you climbed up to the higher versions of the award like the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross Supreme with Dancing Girls, Oak Leaves, Sauerkraut and Extra Pepperoni it probably got very political. Of course, I say this with no evidence except that other nations' awards were heavily political (witness the fifty year screwjob that the Black Medal of Honor winners went through before they were finally awarded their medals, for instance). The anecdote I remember involves, I think, the Soviet cameraman who took the photo of the Soviet flag being raised over the Reichstag. He wasn't supposed to follow the assault team into the building or to the roof or something, and ended up having a conversation with Stalin where the Vozhd told him something like "Your bravery deserves the Something-Or-Other Medal 1st Class, but you disobeyed orders so I can only award you it in the 2nd Class." Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Nov 20, 2025 |
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Nov 20, 2025 18:36
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7LHiHTqpZI
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Nov 20, 2025 19:31
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:The ordinary Iron Cross wasn't especially political but once you climbed up to the higher versions of the award like the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross Supreme with Dancing Girls, Oak Leaves, Sauerkraut and Extra Pepperoni it probably got very political. No, you are correct. ALL awards of the Knight's Cross and up were personally approved by Hitler.* And, yes, he was political. * Minor exception - after Hitler shot himself Dönitz made a blanket approval for all of the Knight's Crosses that were awaiting Hitler's signature. Because when the T-34s are revving their engines a few yards away, sure, everybody gets medals, YOLO.
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Nov 20, 2025 20:26
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross Supreme with Dancing Girls, Oak Leaves, Sauerkraut and Extra Pepperoni > Göring has entered the chat
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Nov 20, 2025 22:44
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:The ordinary Iron Cross wasn't especially political but once you climbed up to the higher versions of the award like the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross Supreme with Dancing Girls, Oak Leaves, Sauerkraut and Extra Pepperoni it probably got very political. That sounds apocryphal, isn't the Reichstag photo about as staged as the Iwo Jima one?
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Nov 21, 2025 19:53
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sullat posted:That sounds apocryphal, isn't the Reichstag photo about as staged as the Iwo Jima one? It couldn't have been that staged, could it, or there wouldn't have been the controversy of the photo subject wearing too many wristwatches at the time. Though as far as war booty goes, an armful of wristwatches is probably one of the more innocuous things to bring home. Edit: never mind, it was very staged, but the guy still couldn't help himself to wearing all those watches. lightrook fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Nov 21, 2025 |
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Nov 21, 2025 20:38
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lightrook posted:It couldn't have been that staged, could it, or there wouldn't have been the controversy of the photo subject wearing too many wristwatches at the time. This is the funnier explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrianov_compass
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Nov 21, 2025 20:40
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lightrook posted:It couldn't have been that staged, could it, or there wouldn't have been the controversy of the photo subject wearing too many wristwatches at the time. That's a tricky question, because all of the photos were staged. To say otherwise would imply that the troops were spontaneously raising a flag, and the photographer just happened to be there. The first Iwo Jima flag raising photo was taken right after the capture of the summit. Then another, better choreographed one was taken, but the battle was still going on. Both were staged but I would call the first one the more authentic one. I recall reading that the photographer had to devise a Soviet flag from whatever appropriate shade canvas he could find because it's hard to find a good looking Soviet flag in Berlin during a massive battle. So the flag that was raised was not really red and yellow, but in a black and white photo it didn't matter.
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Nov 21, 2025 20:53
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I remember reading somewhere, I think in Ivan's War, that the original event the photo was based on did actually happen, but since there wasn't any photographer coincidentally nearby, the event was staged for the photo.
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Nov 22, 2025 20:14
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Nenonen posted:That's a tricky question, because all of the photos were staged. To say otherwise would imply that the troops were spontaneously raising a flag, and the photographer just happened to be there. The second flag-raising photo was absolutely not staged, at least not in the sense of "Joe Rosenthal told everyone where to stand and pose." Like, there's video of the flag raising and they just put the flag right up, Rosenthal just happened to get his iconic picture at the best possible moment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS1Y7hcP0Gs
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Nov 23, 2025 00:54
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One thing I've noticed and am very happy about is that there's far more women military historians today than twenty years ago when I was a grad student. I mean the primary reason I'm happy about it is that conferences are no longer tweed and dandruff festivals but anyone who approaches the subject with a different frame of mind than the average middle-aged white guy can only help the profession.
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Nov 27, 2025 02:27
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:One thing I've noticed and am very happy about is that there's far more women military historians today than twenty years ago when I was a grad student. I mean the primary reason I'm happy about it is that conferences are no longer tweed and dandruff festivals but anyone who approaches the subject with a different frame of mind than the average middle-aged white guy can only help the profession. one of the podcasts I listen to has a young woman - I think her name is Dr. Rachael Blackman Rogers? - as their regular scholarly subject matter expert on Napoleonic naval affairs. It's especially delightful because with her voice and accent she sounds like she could be a cast member of a 1990s BBC adaptation of a Narnia novel, but she's going on about e.g. the differences between French and British gunnery drill and what not. She also has nerded out about war gaming more than a couple of times.
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Nov 27, 2025 03:54
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:One thing I've noticed and am very happy about is that there's far more women military historians today than twenty years ago when I was a grad student. I mean the primary reason I'm happy about it is that conferences are no longer tweed and dandruff festivals but anyone who approaches the subject with a different frame of mind than the average middle-aged white guy can only help the profession. how much of this is like tech, where its the same people just now with a new gender. it would make sense given that tech is where history majors go to make money
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Nov 27, 2025 15:09
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CommonShore posted:one of the podcasts I listen to has a young woman - I think her name is Dr. Rachael Blackman Rogers? - as their regular scholarly subject matter expert on Napoleonic naval affairs. It's especially delightful because with her voice and accent she sounds like she could be a cast member of a 1990s BBC adaptation of a Narnia novel, but she's going on about e.g. the differences between French and British gunnery drill and what not. She also has nerded out about war gaming more than a couple of times. Which podcast is this?
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Nov 27, 2025 20:10
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Article is silent on whether or not he is gay. https://www.euronews.com/2025/11/27/adolf-hitlers-namesake-triumphs-in-namibia-local-elections-fifth-time-in-a-row
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Nov 27, 2025 21:41
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Cessna posted:Which podcast is this? I think the current name is The Napoleonic Wars Pod, formerly The Napoleonicist. It's a low-organization show with lots of actual academic folks.
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Nov 27, 2025 21:50
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Have any big weapons tests destroyed something important? Other than like all those nuclear weapons spreading radiation.
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Nov 28, 2025 22:01
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SlothfulCobra posted:Have any big weapons tests destroyed something important? Other than like all those nuclear weapons spreading radiation. Define "important". I'm sure the people who used to live at Bikini Atoll would have a few words to say. For that matter, I'm sure some weapons tests destroyed the weapon, which the people developing it would consider important. 
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Nov 28, 2025 22:27
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Not everyone was properly evacuated from the area before the Maralinga nuclear tests.
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Nov 28, 2025 22:30
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The Lone Badger posted:Not everyone was properly evacuated from the area before the Maralinga nuclear tests. Hm, I wonder how many of those were white people...
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Nov 28, 2025 22:33
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Yeah, is the question about whether there were weapon tests which damaged something that the weapon testers were specifically trying to avoid damaging? Or is it just about cases of collateral damage more generally?
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Nov 28, 2025 22:44
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Telstar 1
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Nov 28, 2025 22:49
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A couple of tests took down UAPs which they recovered and attempted to reverse engineer.
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Nov 28, 2025 23:19
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And what's the criteria for "destroyed? USS El Paso's Phalanx gun managed to hit the USS Iwo Jima while engaging a target drone and killed a sailor. And does a training exercise count? A number of those, while not weapons tests as such, have destroyed important things. A Danish frigate accidentally fired a Harpoon and wrecked a bunch of unoccupied summer homes. Famously, the USS Saratoga was running a missile drill but the crew didn't understand it was a drill and fired live Sea Sparrows that blew the poo poo out of a Turkish destroyer.
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Nov 29, 2025 02:30
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Elissimpark posted:Hm, I wonder how many of those were white people... Lots of white people have been involuntarily irradiated by nuclear testing.
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Nov 29, 2025 02:43
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SlothfulCobra posted:Have any big weapons tests destroyed something important? Other than like all those nuclear weapons spreading radiation. Does the Secretary of the Navy count as important?
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Nov 29, 2025 04:35
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SlothfulCobra posted:Have any big weapons tests destroyed something important? Other than like all those nuclear weapons spreading radiation. Castle Bravo destroyed most of its instrumentation and much of the permanent test infrastructure at the site; the main thing the US learned from the test was "Lithium-7 can do what?" Aside from that, the examples I can think of are more weapons tests blowing up important people than important places. Only the last one was really a weapons test; the others were demonstrations. A demonstration of an experimental cannon on board USS Princeton in 1844 killed the Secretary of State and Secretary of the Navy, and might have killed President Tyler if he wasn't elsewhere on the ship when it exploded. A fatal crash at the beginning of the 1911 Paris to Madrid air race killed the French Minister of War, Henri Berteaux, who had been trying to modernize the French Army. His death led to the failure of the modernization program, and as a result thousands of French soldiers marched off to their deaths 3 years later in their brightly colored blue and red uniforms. The Nedelin catastrophe was a launch pad explosion of an prototype ICBM that was being prepared for a test launch. At least 54 people died, including the head of the development program. TasogareNoKagi fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Nov 29, 2025 |
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Nov 29, 2025 04:57
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Another example off the top of my head: during World War II, the US tested a "bat bomb," which would have released a swarm of bats loaded with tiny canisters of napalm over Japanese cities. Rather infamously, it only succeeded in burning down a section of an Army Air Corps base in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Also, an honorable mention: In a demonstration of the incredible properties of Pykrete (ice reinforced by sawdust that is much tougher and melts much more slowly), someone shot a block of it with a pistol - which led to the bullet ricocheting and into Admiral Ernest King's trouser leg.
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Nov 29, 2025 05:46
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Also, an honorable mention: In a demonstration of the incredible properties of Pykrete (ice reinforced by sawdust that is much tougher and melts much more slowly), someone shot a block of it with a pistol - which led to the bullet ricocheting and into Admiral Ernest King's trouser leg. A member of the royal family, but I'll be damned if I can remember which one. Probably Mountbatten. I've had a tech demo go embarrassingly wrong, but I've never almost killed someone.
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Nov 29, 2025 06:05
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TasogareNoKagi posted:The Nedelin catastrophe was a launch pad explosion of an prototype ICBM that was being prepared for a test launch. At least 54 people died, including the head of the development program. Early missiles had a lot of test failures, and sometimes they blew up their launch pads. The US programs didn’t have the same level of human tragedy, but Thor was not kind to Cape Canaveral. A selection of test launches from the Wikipedia article posted:Missile 101 […] lost thrust almost immediately after liftoff, and the Thor fell onto the launch pad and exploded
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Nov 29, 2025 06:20
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Space Gopher posted:1963 mystery cloud cool cool cool....  
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Nov 29, 2025 06:28
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during a fleet exercise in the late 80s the uss iowa had a lethal turret flash most notable because the navy tried to pin it on a sailor in the turret being a jilted homosexual who intentionally blew up the turret with a really vile smear campaign through the press. a reminder that high command will throw you under the bus at the drop of a hat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Iowa_turret_explosion
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Nov 29, 2025 08:10
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:Lots of white people have been involuntarily irradiated by nuclear testing. No doubt, but I was specifically talking about the Maralinga tests and Australian attitudes towards our Indigenous people.
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Nov 29, 2025 08:42
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The real fun there is the theories that Japanese doomsday cult tested a nuke in the outback and no one officially noticed.
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Nov 29, 2025 09:29
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Ghost Leviathan posted:The real fun there is the theories that Japanese doomsday cult tested a nuke in the outback and no one officially noticed.
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Nov 30, 2025 01:06
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