Looking at the Patriots 2023

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Roberto71 said:
They have changed to be frank with you. I work with a German company, am in Hamburg once a month, and travel to Frankfurt often. I also work with Dutch, Belgian, Italian, Luxembourg etc etc companies, and any dislike of Germans just is not there anymore. The Dutch still have a jokey saying, "Waar is mijn rada?", which means where is my bike. When the Germans were in full retreat in WWII, the fleeing soldiers basically robbed any bike they could find to get the hell out of Patton's way. The Dutch sing that at the German fans when they play soccer.

But there is no dislike anymore. Germany is unrecognisable from the country it was up to the 1940s. The vast majority of the people changed completely, and nothing could ever force them back to the dark years IMHO.

The British and Germans have a good-natured rivalry as well; it mostly comes up, again, when they're playing big soccer games at world cups or European championships.
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Early in WWI, before the US was involved I believe, there was a no-fire armistice on Christmas day, One of the sides (British or Germans) got out of the trenches and started playing soccer in no man's land. The other side came out and they soon began playing each other. Infantry foot soldiers are almost all kids around 18 years old and within a couple hours they were laughing, celebrating goals and hooting at the other side's misses. Upper brass put a stop to it and got everybody back behind the barbed wire becasue they were afraid the soldiers would be loathe to kill each other on Dec 26.

Once you stop demonizing the other side and see them as being not so different, it's hard to maintain hate. Not impossible. I would love to get back to Vietnam, to Cu Chi or Tay Ninh and meet a former Viet Cong or NVA regular at a table, but some of my friends say they would never do it. Probably remember buddies that were killed. Maybe it takes a generation. It's been what two generations? since WWII.

Thanks Roberto!
 
spacecrime said:
Early in WWI, before the US was involved I believe, there was a no-fire armistice on Christmas day, One of the sides (British or Germans) got out of the trenches and started playing soccer in no man's land. The other side came out and they soon began playing each other. Infantry foot soldiers are almost all kids around 18 years old and within a couple hours they were laughing, celebrating goals and hooting at the other side's misses. Upper brass put a stop to it and got everybody back behind the barbed wire becasue they were afraid the soldiers would be loathe to kill each other on Dec 26.

Once you stop demonizing the other side and see them as being not so different, it's hard to maintain hate. Not impossible. I would love to get back to Vietnam, to Cu Chi or Tay Ninh and meet a former Viet Cong or NVA regular at a table, but some of my friends say they would never do it. Probably remember buddies that were killed. Maybe it takes a generation. It's been what two generations? since WWII.

Thanks Roberto!
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That was a tragic event. The British soldiers heard the German soldiers singing 'Silent Night" and the British lads joined in. They all tentatively came out of the trenches where they were living in rat-infested filth, while the officers were of course 20 miles in the rear living in Chateauxs......The soldiers swapped tobacco, and chocolate, showing each other pictures of their sweethearts and as you say, they played soccer! Just ordinary, young lads. And then the brass ordered the presumption of artillery strikes and that ended that....

Paul McCartney's song "Pipes of Peace" showed this in the music video.


View: https://youtu.be/B3q4Up5ugTc
 
Roberto71 said:
That was a tragic event. The British soldiers heard the German soldiers singing 'Silent Night" and the British lads joined in. They all tentatively came out of the trenches where they were living in rat-infested filth, while the officers were of course 20 miles in the rear living in Chateauxs......The soldiers swapped tobacco, and chocolate, showing each other pictures of their sweethearts and as you say, they played soccer! Just ordinary, young lads. And then the brass ordered the presumption of artillery strikes and that ended that....

Paul McCartney's song "Pipes of Peace" showed this in the music video.


View: https://youtu.be/B3q4Up5ugTc
Click to expand...

THANK YOU, Roberto!

I had never heard of this song. The two soldiers showing each other their photos had tears running down my face, that two soldiers ended up with the photos of the other was heart-wrenching. I can't believe I never heard of this or saw this video.

And fuck the officer who ordered the artillery fire. I'm sure each side told the soldiers that it was the other side that started firing. Bastards.
 
I’ve studied WW1 extensively and unfortunately while there may have been some line crossing that very first Christmas in quiet sectors, it was largely exaggerated by historians.
By 1916 there was absolutely no such thing. By 1916 most of those troops were dead.

That said, my grandfather fought on a half track through France and into southern Germany in WW2. He never had a problem with the Germans as a people. He said their women were much better than French ones. After the war there was no bad will towards them.
He was one of the first to come up onto Dachau. He said they’d been given no warning what to expect and you could smell the place from miles away. Said one of the worst things was holding a machine gun on German prisoners while they dug up bodies and loaded them into coffins to put on the halftrack and drive away.
They were training him with a flame thrower afterwards to invade Japan. He hated Roosevelt but he said he’d have kissed Truman’s feet for nuking Japan and ending the war. He expected to die.

My grandpa never mentioned even considering Russians, but if you read accounts of generals, and higher up officials many Germans, English, and Americans expected to be fighting together against Russians by 1950.
 
rivshark86 said:
I’ve studied WW1 extensively and unfortunately while there may have been some line crossing that very first Christmas in quiet sectors, it was largely exaggerated by historians.
By 1916 there was absolutely no such thing. By 1916 most of those troops were dead.

That said, my grandfather fought on a half track through France and into southern Germany in WW2. He never had a problem with the Germans as a people. He said their women were much better than French ones. After the war there was no bad will towards them.
He was one of the first to come up onto Dachau. He said they’d been given no warning what to expect and you could smell the place from miles away. Said one of the worst things was holding a machine gun on German prisoners while they dug up bodies and loaded them into coffins to put on the halftrack and drive away.
They were training him with a flame thrower afterwards to invade Japan. He hated Roosevelt but he said he’d have kissed Truman’s feet for nuking Japan and ending the war. He expected to die.

My grandpa never mentioned even considering Russians, but if you read accounts of generals, and higher up officials many Germans, English, and Americans expected to be fighting together against Russians by 1950.
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I watched a newsreel collection concerning the concentration camps on Prime and without getting graphic, one part that I found interesting was that the Soldiers were so traumatized by what they found there that they went to the Commanders and requested/insisted that the local townspeople, almost all of whom claimed ignorance (impossible), be forced to go there to bear witness. The look on the soldier's faces told a story that I won't soon forget. Seething, barely-contained rage and they weren't planning on letting anybody gloss over any of it.

From the grunts to the commanders everybody agreed and that is what happened. There was some Nazi official there that objected to being forced to see the truth and tried to leave in a huff, They stuck a rifle in his face and said get your ass back in there and look. I have no doubt they would have shot him on the spot if he didn't shut up and do what he was told whether the cameras were rolling or not.

I had a chance to visit Dachau when on a High School trip and it hit me hard. The main thing I can recall from that day is not the buildings but how I felt the weight of it all coming down on me. I had to go outside and wait for the tour to be over. Some of my classmates didn't really seem to get it, but I don't know how you could stand in that place and not feel totally haunted. Easily the worst feeling place I have ever been.
 
Hawg73 said:
I watched a newsreel collection concerning the concentration camps on Prime and without getting graphic, one part that I found interesting was that the Soldiers were so traumatized by what they found there that they went to the Commanders and requested/insisted that the local townspeople, almost all of whom claimed ignorance (impossible), be forced to go there to bear witness. The look on the soldier's faces told a story that I won't soon forget. Seething, barely-contained rage and they weren't planning on letting anybody gloss over any of it.

From the grunts to the commanders everybody agreed and that is what happened. There was some Nazi official there that objected to being forced to see the truth and tried to leave in a huff, They stuck a rifle in his face and said get your ass back in there and look. I have no doubt they would have shot him on the spot if he didn't shut up and do what he was told whether the cameras were rolling or not.

I had a chance to visit Dachau when on a High School trip and it hit me hard. The main thing I can recall from that day is not the buildings but how I felt the weight of it all coming down on me. I had to go outside and wait for the tour to be over. Some of my classmates didn't really seem to get it, but I don't know how you could stand in that place and not feel totally haunted. Easily the worst feeling place I have ever been.
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It is one of the places I want to visit. However, mentally, I feel I would cry non stop and it would mentally break a piece of me if I did. But I feel people need to visit those that are there to learn.
 
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Muse said:
It is one of the places I want to visit. However, mentally, I feel I would cry non stop and would mentally break a piece of me if I did. But I feel people need to visit those that are there to learn.
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Agreed. Me too.
 
rivshark86 said:
I’ve studied WW1 extensively and unfortunately while there may have been some line crossing that very first Christmas in quiet sectors, it was largely exaggerated by historians.
By 1916 there was absolutely no such thing. By 1916 most of those troops were dead.

That said, my grandfather fought on a half track through France and into southern Germany in WW2. He never had a problem with the Germans as a people. He said their women were much better than French ones. After the war there was no bad will towards them.
He was one of the first to come up onto Dachau. He said they’d been given no warning what to expect and you could smell the place from miles away. Said one of the worst things was holding a machine gun on German prisoners while they dug up bodies and loaded them into coffins to put on the halftrack and drive away.
They were training him with a flame thrower afterwards to invade Japan. He hated Roosevelt but he said he’d have kissed Truman’s feet for nuking Japan and ending the war. He expected to die.

My grandpa never mentioned even considering Russians, but if you read accounts of generals, and higher up officials many Germans, English, and Americans expected to be fighting together against Russians by 1950.
Click to expand...
It wasn't exaggerated that first year. It happened very frequently. It wasn't just one Christmas. Up and down the line, the soldiers met each other in quiet periods. It could have been started by the soldiers just shouting greetings at each other over the trenches. These were just young lads remember.

The truce occurred five months after hostilities had begun. Lulls occurred in the fighting as armies ran out of men and munitions and commanders reconsidered their strategies following the stalemate of the Race to the Sea and the indecisive result of the First Battle of Ypres. In the week leading up to 25 December, French, German and British soldiers crossed trenches to exchange seasonal greetings and talk. In some areas, men from both sides ventured into no man's land on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to mingle and exchange food and souvenirs. There were joint burial ceremonies and prisoner swaps, while several meetings ended in carolling. Men played games of football with one another, creating one of the most memorable images of the truce. Hostilities continued in some sectors, while in others the sides settled on little more than arrangements to recover bodies.

The following year, a few units arranged ceasefires but the truces were not nearly as widespread as in 1914; this was, in part, due to strongly worded orders from commanders, prohibiting truces. Soldiers were no longer amenable to truce by 1916; the war had become increasingly bitter after the human losses suffered during the battles of 1915.

The truces were not unique to the Christmas period and reflected a mood of "live and let live", where infantry close together would stop fighting and fraternise, engaging in conversation. In some sectors, there were occasional ceasefires to allow soldiers to go between the lines and recover wounded or dead comrades; in others, there was a tacit agreement not to shoot while men rested, exercised or worked in view of the enemy. The Christmas truces were particularly significant due to the number of men involved and the level of their participation—even in quiet sectors, dozens of men openly congregating in daylight was remarkable—and are often seen as a symbolic moment of peace and humanity amidst one of the most violent conflicts in human history.
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A sample of some of the letters written at the time by the soldiers.

Bruce Bairnsfather, who fought throughout the war, wrote:

I wouldn't have missed that unique and weird Christmas Day for anything.... I spotted a German officer, some sort of lieutenant I should think, and being a bit of a collector, I intimated to him that I had taken a fancy to some of his buttons.... I brought out my wire clippers and, with a few deft snips, removed a couple of his buttons and put them in my pocket. I then gave him two of mine in exchange.... The last I saw was one of my machine gunners, who was a bit of an amateur hairdresser in civil life, cutting the unnaturally long hair of a docile Boche, who was patiently kneeling on the ground whilst the automatic clippers crept up the back of his neck.
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Henry Williamson, a nineteen-year-old private in the London Rifle Brigade, wrote to his mother on Boxing Day:

Dear Mother, I am writing from the trenches. It is 11 o'clock in the morning. Beside me is a coke fire, opposite me a 'dug-out' (wet) with straw in it. The ground is sloppy in the actual trench, but frozen elsewhere. In my mouth is a pipe presented by the Princess Mary. In the pipe is tobacco. Of course, you say. But wait. In the pipe is German tobacco. Haha, you say, from a prisoner or found in a captured trench. Oh dear, no! From a German soldier. Yes a live German soldier from his own trench. Yesterday the British & Germans met & shook hands in the Ground between the trenches, & exchanged souvenirs, & shook hands. Yes, all day Xmas day, & as I write. Marvellous, isn't it?
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Captain Sir Edward Hulse reported how the first interpreter he met from the German lines was from Suffolk and had left his girlfriend and a 3.5 hp motorcycle. Hulse described a sing-song which "ended up with 'Auld lang syne' which we all, English, Scots, Irish, Prussians, Württenbergers, etc, joined in. It was absolutely astounding, and if I had seen it on a cinematograph film I should have sworn that it was faked!"

Captain Robert Miles, King's Shropshire Light Infantry, who was attached to the Royal Irish Rifles, recalled in an edited letter that was published in the Daily Mail and the Wellington Journal & Shrewsbury News in January 1915, following his death in action on 30 December 1914:

Friday (Christmas Day). We are having the most extraordinary Christmas Day imaginable. A sort of unarranged and quite unauthorized but perfectly understood and scrupulously observed truce exists between us and our friends in front. The funny thing is it only seems to exist in this part of the battle line – on our right and left we can all hear them firing away as cheerfully as ever. The thing started last night – a bitter cold night, with white frost – soon after dusk when the Germans started shouting 'Merry Christmas, Englishmen' to us. Of course our fellows shouted back and presently large numbers of both sides had left their trenches, unarmed, and met in the debatable, shot-riddled, no man's land between the lines. Here the agreement – all on their own – came to be made that we should not fire at each other until after midnight tonight. The men were all fraternizing in the middle (we naturally did not allow them too close to our line) and swapped cigarettes and lies in the utmost good fellowship. Not a shot was fired all night.
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I don't mind at all that the Patriots are under the radar going into the season.
But the Jets?!?


FvorcgoWcAMiSvp
 
Hawg73 said:
I watched a newsreel collection concerning the concentration camps on Prime and without getting graphic, one part that I found interesting was that the Soldiers were so traumatized by what they found there that they went to the Commanders and requested/insisted that the local townspeople, almost all of whom claimed ignorance (impossible), be forced to go there to bear witness. The look on the soldier's faces told a story that I won't soon forget. Seething, barely-contained rage and they weren't planning on letting anybody gloss over any of it.

From the grunts to the commanders everybody agreed and that is what happened. There was some Nazi official there that objected to being forced to see the truth and tried to leave in a huff, They stuck a rifle in his face and said get your ass back in there and look. I have no doubt they would have shot him on the spot if he didn't shut up and do what he was told whether the cameras were rolling or not.

I had a chance to visit Dachau when on a High School trip and it hit me hard. The main thing I can recall from that day is not the buildings but how I felt the weight of it all coming down on me. I had to go outside and wait for the tour to be over. Some of my classmates didn't really seem to get it, but I don't know how you could stand in that place and not feel totally haunted. Easily the worst feeling place I have ever been.
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I spent three weeks in Germany with my wife in 2015, but knew I couldn't handle this place and passed it by. I believe these remembrances are important but I'm also highly susceptible to feeling the overall vibe of a place. I felt I should go, but earlier in Amsterdam I skipped the Anne Frank House. On the other hand, visiting the D-Day sites was one of the highlights of that trip. Probably not consistent enough for BB :D
 
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