Quotulatiousness

September 9, 2020

Tanks of the Red Army in 1941: Armoured Cars and Light Tanks, by the Chieftain – WW2 Special

Filed under: History, Military, Russia, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

World War Two
Published 8 Sep 2020

Chieftain is back on the World War Two channel with a deep-dive into the Soviet armour in the first months of war on the Eastern Front. Remember that this is only Part 1 and covers armoured cars and light tanks. Part 2 comes out next week and focuses on medium and heavy tanks.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Written and Hosted by: The Chieftain https://www.youtube.com/user/TheChief…
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: The Chieftain
Edited by: Miki Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)

Sources:
Bundesarchiv
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
waralbum.ru
From the Noun Project: Shield by Nikita Kozin, Game by Ecem Afacan, Weight by Vadim Solomakhin, oil barrel by BomSymbols, Radio by Pravin Unagar

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Hakan Eriksson – “Epic Adventure Theme 3”
Reynard Seidel – “Deflection”
Johannes Bornlof – “Deviation In Time”
Johannes Bornlof – “The Inspector 4”
Max Anson – “Ancient Saga”
Bonnie Grace – “Imperious”
Rannar Sillard – “March Of The Brave 4”
Phoenix Tail – “At the Front”

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

September 8, 2020

British Cabin Pressure Flare Pistols (Quite Unusual)

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 8 Oct 2018

https://www.forgottenweapons.com/brit…

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…

Signal flares were an important communications tool for aircraft during World War Two, and a multitude of flare pistol types exist with mounting brackets for aerial use. The introduction of pressurized fuselages made this a much more difficult proposition, however. These two flare pistols were designed by the British to maintain the pressurized seal of an aircraft body while still allowing firing and reloading through a pivoting mount and system of seals. I bet you haven’t seen something quite like these before!

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow

QotD: Creative hand-work

Filed under: Britain, History, Quotations, Woodworking — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

We have often discussed here that aspect of modern industrial life which has tended to divorce the work of many men from anything that is intelligently creative, because so much is done by machinery. Compensation comes in the increase of leisure which this allows, a leisure that does at least give a man an opportunity of finding his own interests or hobbies. But at the same time have come the counter-attractions of cinema and radio, offering an easy way of entertainment without effort to a man who is tired after his day’s work. So that, in spite of the increase of opportunity, he has every inducement to allow himself to drift. The older man usually knows how to strike the balance. Things were not so easy when he was a boy, he had to learn to amuse himself, and he grew up with all sorts of hobbies and enthusiasms, and learned to be a handy sort of fellow. If he is, say, a keen woodworker, or a keen gardener, there are times when nothing will tempt him away from the job in hand.

But for the younger generation it is different. They were born into the state of affairs where entertainment, like everything else, was made easy. And some of our Youth Leaders are now finding it difficult to get boys really doing things — boys in their teens with no particular hobbies, no particular interests, who simply want to be enter­tained, and that at a time when a boy should be so full of interests that no day is long enough to cram them all in. “I do not complain of growing old,” says John Buchan, “but I like to keep my faith that at one stage in our mortal existence nothing is impossible.” We feel that that should be so in youth, and yet here is the problem in our midst. “It gives you absolutely nothing to work on,” said one of their Leaders to me recently, a man who numbers photography, book-binding, carpentry and music among his own hobbies, and does them all extremely well. “They’ve no conception of taking the initiative themselves or doing a spot of work for the pleasure of it.”

What are we going to do about it? The gospel of “work for the pleasure of it” isn’t an easy gospel to preach to the young. You have got somehow to kindle the spark of enthusiasm in their minds first, that enthusiasm which can make everything seem well worth doing, even the hard bits, for the sake of the end in view. And it is the enthusiasm of the Youth Leaders from which the boys have got to catch their own tiny spark which, once alight, may well kindle into a flame. And it will be worth it. For they can learn more from intelligently working at a hobby than from almost anything else. It develops patience, ingenuity, alertness, self-mastery, helps them to discover their own hidden powers, teaches them the satisfaction of a good job done, widens their knowledge in a thoroughly practical way.

But we have no business to leave it all to the Youth Leaders. There is no easy time ahead for the boys of this generation and it is every man’s job to lend a hand where he can. The best place is in the home. If you are a keen woodworker, then try to interest your boy as well. Don’t just hustle him out of the way because you are in the middle of a job and don’t want to be interrupted, or are afraid he will meddle with your tools. Teach him how to use them; help him with some little constructive job of his own, if it is only to make a “safe” — as a small boy of my acquain­tance did recently — to keep his secrets in! Small boys are usually keen enough. It is the older ones who grow apathetic. And who knows if the blame can be put entirely on the pictures? Mayn’t it be that we have hustled them out of our way rather too often? Dared them to touch our tools when they were simply longing to try them? The impulse to do and to make things is there right enough. But these are days when it needs to be fostered.

Charles H. Hayward, “Work and Pleasure”, The Woodworker, 1942.

September 7, 2020

Who Was Leif Erikson?

Filed under: Americas, Cancon, History, Humour, Religion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Atun-Shei Films
Published 9 Oct 2019

Happy Leif Erikson Day! Allow me to regale you with the saga of the daring Viking who sailed to North America five hundred years before Columbus (that hack) and called it Vinland. We all know his name and his famous deeds – but what sort of man was Leif Erikson?

Support Atun-Shei Films on Patreon ► https://www.patreon.com/atunsheifilms

#LeifErikson #Viking #History

Watch our film ALIEN, BABY! free with Prime ► http://a.co/d/3QjqOWv
Reddit ► https://www.reddit.com/r/atunsheifilms
Twitter ► https://twitter.com/alienbabymovie
Instagram ► https://www.instagram.com/atunsheifilms
Merch ► https://atun-sheifilms.bandcamp.com

QotD: H.L. Mencken on progress

Filed under: Education, History, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Progress, then, as I see it, is to be measured by the accuracy of man’s knowledge of nature’s forces. If you examine this sentence carefully you will observe that I conceive progress as a sort of process of disillusion. Man gets ahead, in other words, by discarding the theory of to-day for the fact of to-morrow. Moses believed that the earth was flat, Caesar believed that his family doctor could cure pneumonia, and Columbus believed that devils entered into harmless old women and turned them into witches … You and I, knowing that all three of these distinguished men were wrong in their beliefs, are their superiors to that extent.

H.L. Mencken, Men versus the Man: A Correspondence between Robert Rives La Monte, Socialist, and H.L. Mencken, Individualist, 1910.

September 6, 2020

The war is two years old – WW2 – 106 – September 5, 1941

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Russia, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 5 Sep 2020

It is two years this week since Germany invaded Poland. That European conflict soon became a global one. Japan’s invasion of China began two years before that, but with Japan allied to the Axis Powers, they are now the same conflict. Those Axis are all fighting together now to try and defeat the Soviet Union, but the war has grown not just in the scale of the armies fighting, but also in the scale of man’s inhumanity to man. We see that this week in German occupied territory.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)

Colorizations by:
– Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/
– Julius Jääskeläinen – https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/
– Carlos Ortega Pereira – BlauColorizations, https://www.instagram.com/blaucoloriz…

Sources:
– Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
– Yad Vashem: 2725_22A, 1044-148
– SA-Kuva
– Bundesarchiv, CC-BY-SA 3.0: N_1603_Bild-030
– FORTEPAN – Csorba Dániel
– Marit Larsen on Wikimedia Commons

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

Tank Chats #78 Cruiser Mark I A9 | The Tank Museum

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The Tank Museum
Published 21 Jun 2019

The Tank Cruiser Mark I A9 is an interwar British tank. Tank Historian David Fletcher talks through the very first cruiser tank to go into service.

Support the work of The Tank Museum on Patreon: ► https://www.patreon.com/tankmuseum

Visit The Tank Museum SHOP: ► https://tankmuseumshop.org/

Twitter: ► https://twitter.com/TankMuseum
Instagram: ► https://www.instagram.com/tankmuseum/
Tiger Tank Blog: ► http://blog.tiger-tank.com/
Tank 100 First World War Centenary Blog: ► http://tank100.com/ #tankmuseum #tanks #tankchats

September 5, 2020

History Summarized: The Viking Age

Filed under: Britain, Europe, France, History, Humour, Religion, Russia — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 4 Sep 2020

The Vikings are enjoying a new wave of enthusiasm in popular culture, but these seafaring Norsemen are still quite clearly a misunderstood force in medieval European history. So let’s take a wide look at the European world during The Viking Age!

Check out Yellow’s livestreams over at https://Twitch.tv/LudoHistory

SOURCES & Further Reading: The Vikings by Walaker Nordeide and Edwards, Vikings: A Very Short Introduction by Richards, Age of the Vikings and The Conversion of Scandinavia by Winroth, The Vikings By Harl via The Great Courses, The Viking World by Graham-Campbell, The Viking Way by Price.

This video was edited by Sophia Ricciardi AKA “Indigo”. https://www.sophiakricci.com/

Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

DISCORD: https://discord.gg/kguuvvq

PATREON: https://www.Patreon.com/OSP

MERCH LINKS: https://www.redbubble.com/people/OSPY…

OUR WEBSITE: https://www.OverlySarcasticProductions.com
Find us on Twitter https://www.Twitter.com/OSPYouTube
Find us on Reddit https://www.Reddit.com/r/OSP/

From the comments:

Ludohistory
23 hours ago (edited)
Thanks so much for having me on and letting me help out! It was a lot of fun (even if I talked a little too fast sometimes)! To clarify a piece that I know I did cover too briefly — missionary trips to Scandinavia occurred in Denmark around 823, on the orders of Louis the Pious, and in Sweden in 829, when Ansgar, a Frankish monk, traveled to the town of Birka, where he found a very small Christian community, probably mostly enslaved or formerly enslaved people, and converted a couple of Norse people, including the town prefect. (The graveyard for that town, incidentally, is where the 10th century “female warrior” that made waves a few years ago was buried).

There’s a lot we didn’t get a chance to talk about about the diaspora and its ending, so if there’s anything you all are curious on or find unclear, let me know here or on twitter 🙂

Finally, if you liked this, all the VODs for my personal streams (where I try to ramble about history in games) can be found by clicking on my name, and tomorrow I’ll be streaming CKIII on twitch (link in the description)!

Beginning the transition from personal rule to the modern bureaucratic state

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Economics, Europe, Government, History — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Anton Howes discusses some of the issues late Medieval rulers had which in some ways began the ascendency of our modern nation state with omnipresent bureaucratic oversight of everyone and everything:

… the bureaucratic state of today, with its officials involving themselves with every aspect of modern life, is a relatively recent invention. In a world without bureaucracy, when state capacity was relatively lacking, it’s difficult to see what other options monarchs would have had. Suppose yourself transported to the throne of England in 1500, and crowned monarch. Once you bored of the novelty and luxuries of being head of state, you might become concerned about the lot of the common man and woman. Yet even if you wanted to create a healthcare system, or make education free and universal to all children, or even create a police force (London didn’t get one until 1829, and the rest of the country not til much later), there is absolutely no way you could succeed.

King James I (of England) and VI (of Scotland)
Portrait by Daniel Myrtens, 1621 from the National Portrait Gallery via Wikimedia Commons.

For a start, you would struggle to maintain your hold on power. Fund schools you say? Somebody will have to pay. The nobles? Well, try to tax them — in many European states they were exempt from taxation — and you might quickly lose both your throne and your head. And supposing you do manage to tax them, after miraculously stamping out an insurrection without their support, how would you even begin to go about collecting it? There was simply no central government agency capable of raising it. Working out how much people should pay, chasing up non-payers, and even the physical act of collection, not to mention protecting that treasure once collected, all takes substantial manpower. Not to mention the fact that the collecting agents will likely siphon most of it off to line their own pockets.

[…]

It was not until 1689, when there was a coup, that an incoming ruler allowed the English parliament to sit whenever it pleased. Before that, it was convened only at the whim of the ruler, and dispersed even at the slightest provocation. In 1621, for example, when James I was planning to marry his heir to a Spanish princess, Parliament sent him a petition asserting their right to debate the matter. Upon hearing of it, he called for the official record of parliamentary proceedings, personally ripped out the page with the offending vote, and promptly dissolved the Parliament. The downside, of course, was that James could not then acquire any parliamentary subsidies.

Ruling was thus an intensely personal affair, of making deals and finding ways to circumvent deals you had inherited. Increasing your capabilities as a ruler – state capacity – was thus no easy task, as the typical ruler was stuck in an essentially medieval equilibrium. Imposing a policy costs money, but raising money involves imposing policy. Breaking out of this chicken-and-egg problem took centuries of canny leadership. The rulers who achieved it most would today seem hopelessly corrupt.

To gain extra cash without interference from Parliament, successive monarchs first asserted and then abused their ancient prerogative rights to grant monopolies over trades and industries. They eventually granted them to whomever was willing to pay, establishing monopolies over industries like gambling cards or alehouses under the guise of regulating unsavoury activities. They also sold off knighthoods and titles, and in 1670 Charles II even made a secret deal with the French that he would convert to Catholicism and attack the Protestant Dutch, all in exchange for cash. Anything to not have to call a potentially pesky Parliament. At times, the most effective rulers even resembled mob bosses. Take Elizabeth I’s anger when a cloth-laden merchant fleet bound for an Antwerp fair in 1559 was allowed to depart. Her order to stop them had not arrived in time, thus preventing her from extracting “loans” from the merchants while she still had their goods within her power.

Chinese 7.62mm Sten Gun

Filed under: Cancon, China, History, Military, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 13 May 2020

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

https://www.floatplane.com/channel/Fo…

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…

During World War Two, Canada supplied some 73,000 Sten guns (made by the Long Branch arsenal) to Chinese Nationalist forces in an effort to help them fight the Japanese. These Stens were standard MkII pattern guns, chambered for the 9x19mm Parabellum cartridge. However, many of these were eventually converted to 7.62mm Tokarev ammunition, especially after the victory of the Communist forces over the Nationalists. The conversion involved a new barrel and new magazine and magazine well. The 7.62mm barrels were typically longer than the original ones, and the magazine of choice was that of the PPS-43. Some were done by installed a magazine adapter into the original magazine well, and some (like this one) were done by cutting off the original magazine well and replacing it with a new one. In addition, some Sten guns were made domestically in China, both in 9mm and 7.62mm. The 7.62mm Tokarev cartridge was popular both from Russian pistols and submachine guns and also from China’s long military use of the dimensionally-identical 7.63mm Mauser cartridge in C96 pistols.

Many thanks to the Royal Armouries for allowing me to film and disassemble this interesting submachine gun! The NFC collection there — perhaps the best military small arms collection in Western Europe — is available by appointment to researchers:

https://royalarmouries.org/research/n…

You can browse the various Armouries collections online here:

https://royalarmouries.org/collection/

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740

September 4, 2020

The ϟϟ and Wehrmacht Murder Inc. – War Against Humanity 017 – August 1941, Part 2

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Military, Russia, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

World War Two
Published 3 Sep 2020

Fegelein’s and Himmler’s actions to ‘comb’ the Pripet Marshes for Jews continues. The largest mass-murder yet is committed in Kamianets-Podilskyi, while new methods to commit genocide on an industrial scale are being devised.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Hosted by: Spartacus Olsson
Written by: Spartacus Olsson and Joram Appel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Joram Appel
Edited by: Miki Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)

Colorizations by:
Carlos Ortega Pereira, BlauColorizations – https://www.instagram.com/blaucoloriz…
Jaris Almazani (Artistic Man) – https://instagram.com/artistic.man?ig…
Julius Jääskeläinen – https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/
Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/
Spartacus Olsson
Mikolaj Uchman
Klimbim – https://www.flickr.com/photos/2215569…

Sources:
Bundesarchiv
Yad Vashem 4220/2, 9292/17, 1570, 4248/20, 953, 4788/72, 75EO4, 3150/122, 48AO4, 4220/3, 10470/23, 4572/3, 4613/1055, 7283/146, 5705/48, 4216/18, 94DO1, 90FO3, 4613/625
National Parliament Library of Georgia
Bildersammlung des Bistumsarchivs Münster, des Erbnehmers der Urheberrechte
USHMM
Corpses of Auschwitz prisoners in block 11 (Auschwitz I) February 1945, USHMM, courtesy of Instytut Pamięci Narodowej
Lithuanian militia force Jewish women to undress before execution in the Pajuoste Forest 1941-1942, USHMM, courtesy of Saulius Berzinis
www.auschwitz.org
Bletchley Park Trust
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
From the Noun Project: Skull by Muhamad Ulum from the Noun Project

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Johan Hynynen – “Dark Beginning”
Andreas Jamsheree – “Guilty Shadows 4”
Farell Wooten – “Blunt Object”
Fabien Tell – “Last Point of Safe Return”
Skrya – “First Responders”
Wendel Scherer – “Growing Doubt”
Jon Bjork – “For the Many”
Gunnar Johnsen – “Not Safe Yet”
Cobby Costa – “Flight Path”

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

Shinzō Abe

Filed under: Government, History, Japan, Politics — Tags: — Nicholas @ 05:00

Kapil Komireddi on the achievements of Shinzō Abe, “the man who saved Japan”, who served four non-consecutive terms as Prime Minister between 2006 and 2020:

Shinzō Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, 2006-7 and 2012-20.
Official portrait from the Government of Japan under Government of Japan Standard Terms of Use (Ver. 2.0)

To appreciate the achievement of Shinzo Abe, who on Friday announced his decision to resign as Japan’s prime minister because of faltering health, consider the state of the country he inherited. Between 2007, the year Abe vacated the prime minister’s office after serving exactly for a year, and 2012 — when Abe staged a spectacular comeback — Japan had seen off five prime ministers in rapid succession. In fact, with the exception of Junichiro Koizumi, no Japanese prime minister had completed the full four-year term since 1987. A debilitating fatalism had seized Japan: a nation that had risen from the ashes of World War II to become the richest economy on earth after the United States was becoming reconciled to the prospect of irretrievable decline.

Such a posture may have struck some as virtuous. To Abe, it was sacrilegious. The scion of a storied political dynasty, he wanted Japan to become a “nation which can withstand the raging waves for the next 50 to 100 years to come”. Abe nursed a lifelong grievance against what he described as the “terrible” Constitution drafted by the Allied forces after Japan’s decimation in 1945. His greatest political aspiration was to revoke the clause that shackled Tokyo to pacifism as a form of punishment for the sins of imperial Japan. In a land where singing the national anthem with enthusiasm can be seen as a symptom of hawkishness, Abe approached voters with a pledge to “take back Japan”. As a campaigner, he was a populist before the word entered common usage. Once in office, however, he evolved into something altogether different.

The ideological passions that animated his politics were almost instantly subordinated to the higher cause of dispassionate service to Japan. As democracy after democracy fell to populists, Abe, the original populist, travelled in the opposite direction: a rare leader in the democratic world who did not allow partisanship to consume him. Abe did not disavow his conservatism: he aligned it to the challenges before him. The upshot? In the eight years since his return to power in 2012, he presided over the longest period of economic expansion in Japan’s post-war history and the lowest unemployment rate in at least a quarter century. He introduced free preschool and day care for children between the ages of 3 and 5 and created the conditions for the entry of a record number of women into the workforce.

Imparting stability to Japan was the preliminary act. As Tobias Harris reminds us in his important and outstanding new biography of Japan’s outgoing prime minister, The Iconoclast, Abe did not hesitate to dispute and dismantle the dogmas of his own side to pursue policies — such as the guest worker programme — he believed were imperative to securing Japan’s future. He deployed, Harris writes, “his power to defy his conservative allies and open Japan to the world”. At the same time, he strove to be conciliatory with all those who did not vote for him, regarded him with implacable suspicion, and marched against his “militarism” on the streets. This perhaps explains why, despite protests, criticism and scandal, he was able to lead his conservative Liberal Democratic Party to a series of comfortable victories at the ballot box and cement its position effectively as the default party of government in Japan.

“The Final Solution” – The Holocaust – Sabaton History 083 [Official]

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Media, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Sabaton History
Published 3 Sep 2020

Since Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, the Jews of Germany had suffered years of harsh anti-Jewish policies, harassment and public humiliation. The Nazis wanted the Jews to never feel safe or welcome again. With the Third Reich’s expansion and the start of the Second World War, more and more European Jews fell victim to persecution, ghettoisation and violence. It was hard to imagine that the crimes against them could get any worse. But by December 1941, the Nazis began preparing for a “Final Solution of the Jewish question”.

It aimed at nothing less than the extermination of all Jewish life in Europe.

Support Sabaton History on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sabatonhistory

Listen to “The Final Solution” on the album Coat Of Arms:
https://music.sabaton.net/CoatOfArms

Listen to Sabaton on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/SabatonSpotify
Official Sabaton Merchandise Shop: http://bit.ly/SabatonOfficialShop

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Brodén, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Community Manager: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Editor: Iryna Dulka
Sound Editor: Marek Kaminski
Maps by: Eastory – https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory
Archive: Reuters/Screenocean – https://www.screenocean.com

Sources:
– Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
– Bundesarchiv, CC-BY-SA 3.0: Bild_183-B04489, Bild_183-B04491, Bild_152-23-07A, Bild_101I-134-0782-24, Bild_183-E13871, Bild_101I-134-0769-33
– Yad Vashem: 139BO1, 1554_1, 1427_85, 1605_1722, 12CO9, 1552/34
– Imperial War Museum: HU 51692, HU 51689

All music by: Sabaton

An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.

© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.

How England used to vote

Filed under: Britain, History, Humour — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Learnhistory3
Published 1 May 2011

Rowan Atkinson as Edmund BlackAdder in a sketch on the voting situation before 1832. Rotten boroughs and pocket boroughs etc

Script excerpt from BlackAdder Scripts:

At Mrs. Miggins’ home

E: Well, Mrs. Miggins, at last we can return to sanity. The hustings are
over, the bunting is down, the mad hysteria is at an end. After the
chaos of a general election, we can return to normal.

M: Oh, has there been a general election, then, Mr. BlackAdder?

E: Indeed there has, Mrs. Miggins.

M: Oh, well, I never heard about it.

E: Well of course you didn’t; you’re not eligible to vote.

M: Well, why not?

E: Because virtually no-one is: women, peasants, (looks at Baldrick)
chimpanzees (Baldrick looks behind himself, trying to see the animal),
lunatics, Lords…

B: That’s not true — Lord Nelson’s got a vote!

E: He’s got a boat, Baldrick. Marvelous thing, democracy. Look at
Manchester: population, 60,000; electoral roll, 3.

M: Well, I may have the brain the size of a sultana…

E: Correct…

M: …but it hardly seems fair to me.

E: Of course it’s not fair — and a damn good thing too. Give the like of
Baldrick the vote and we’ll be back to cavorting druids, death by
stoning, and dung for dinner.

B: Oh, I’m having dung for dinner tonight.

M: So, who are they electing when they have these elections?

E: Ah, the same old shower: fat tory landowners who get made MPs when
they reach a certain weight; raving revolutionaries who think that just
because they do a day’s work that somehow gives them the right to get
paid… Basically, it’s a right old mess. Toffs at the top, plebs at the
bottom, and me in the middle making a fat pile of cash out of both of them.

M: Oh, you’d better watch out, Mr. BlackAdder; things are bound to change.

E: Not while Pitt the Elder’s Prime Minister they aren’t. He’s about as
effective as a catflap in an elephant house. As long as his feet are warm
and he gets a nice cup of milky tea in the sun before his morning nap,
he doesn’t bother anyone until his potty needs emptying.

QotD: Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Filed under: History, India, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Born into a Shia mercantile family, Jinnah left for England after high school, where he studied law and acquired a love for parliamentary procedure. Thoroughly and poshly anglicized (200 Savile Row suits were found in his closet after his death), he returned to India before the First World War, armed with a fearsome reputation as a barrister so brilliant judges tried to avoid him, and committed to Hindu-Muslim unity. His English was exquisite, but he spoke no Urdu. Completely secular, Jinnah was so indifferent to his religion — he drank and ate pork — that he planned Pakistan’s inauguration-day banquet as a luncheon, unaware it was Ramadan (they changed it to dinner).

Jinnah’s political intentions are hotly contested. According to New York Times Pakistan expert, Jane Perlez, many Pakistan researchers contend Jinnah had no interest in an Islam-dominated state, but “used the idea of Pakistan as a mere bargaining chip for Muslim majority rights within a loosely united post-colonial India.” With no autobiography or recollections from close friendships for our guidance, Jinnah remains a shadowy historical player, a political loner with an indeterminate goal beside Nehru, Gandhi and Viceroy Lord Mountbatten.

It is quite possible, for example, that Jinnah created the Muslim League and employed the rhetoric of Islam (slogan: “Islam in Danger”) and started wearing native clothes to harness religious fervour to political ambitions never fully articulated. But we can’t ever know, as a lifetime of chain smoking caught up with Jinnah, and he died before the first (bloody) year of Pakistan’s existence was out.

In Jinnah’s first speech to his newly minted country, though, we have this strong intentional clue: “You are free. You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the state.”

Barbara Kay, “A celebrated figure today could well be the condemned sinner of tomorrow”, National Post, 2018-06-05.

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress