Tag: Nazis

“Not All Nazis Were Bad”

This is for the ‘Can’t Fix Stupid’ files…..

Not my words but those of an Indiana politician……

There are multiple candidates running for seats on the Zionsville Community Schools Board of Trustees in Indiana, including Dr. Matt Keefer, an anesthesiologist who calls himself an independent option disliked by both “Republican leaders” and the “extreme left” due to his critical thinking and inability to “be controlled.” Pushback against him has reached new levels, however, after he recently defended some of the Nazis during World War II in comments under an online post, reports FOX59. The controversy started when Keefer, who runs on an anti- “wokeness” and “indoctrination” platform, was asked in a since-deleted Facebook thread if teachers asserting that the Tulsa Massacre was terrible, or that all Nazis were bad, would be considered “indoctrination,” in his eyes. Keefer’s response is what instantly raised eyebrows.

“All Nazis weren’t ‘bad,’ as you specify,” he told his questioner. “They did horrible things. They were in a group frenzy in both cases you site [sic]. Who is to say if we were both there in the same place and same time that we wouldn’t have done the same thing.” He added in a later post: “There were certainly evil Nazis. There were also good people who had to be Nazis (or they would have been killed).” Backlash against his remarks were swift. “When you hear statements like this, it diminishes the Holocaust, it diminishes the memory,” the head of the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council tells FOX59. “This hurts so much inside.” “I just couldn’t fathom” what he wrote, a parent in the district tells WTHR, which notes that despite the outcry by many in the community, Keefer still has some supporters thanking him for his candor and “listening to the community.”

At any rate, Keefer doesn’t seem fazed by the commotion. In a post he has since taken down, per FOX59, he blamed the “far left” for attacking him and wrote, “I know haters gotta hate, so please continue spewing your taunts. I’m only getting stronger in the community!” In a longer post on Facebook Thursday, which remained up as of Friday morning, Keefer tripled down, stating, “A few days ago I made the comment ‘not all Nazis were bad’ … I am correct.” He added, though, that his argument contained “nuance,” and that “to be clear: I never was, am not now, and never will be a Nazi sympathizer.” Some of the comments under that post remained supportive, though one person wrote, “Not everyone in the drug cartels or mafia are bad people either.” WTHR rounds up statements from a few of Keefer’s rivals for the board over his remarks.

This is someone who could possibly decide what your children will learn….is that what you want them to learn the ‘not all Nazis were bad’?  And from a moron that slept through history class.

This country continues to slide and we are allowing it to slide down the toilet.  WHY?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

That Wine

Weekends are time for me to relax and have a nice wine and some cheese and nuts on the patio…..something that can be done without the worry of the virus finding a home in my body.

Are you a wine drinker?

I am….I prefer French and Spanish wines…although I have found few Argentine wines lovely and even one from New Zealand….but sadly I do not appreciate German or Austrian wines….they just do not pair well for me.

Ever tried a Austrian wine called Zweigelt?

Did you like it?

Did you know that it is wine perfected by a rabid Nazi?

Yep a Nazi viticulturalist came up with this wine…..

Whether or not we want to admit it, we are consuming a lot of alcohol while in quarantine. Nielsen, the market research firm, estimated that online sales jumped 243% during the prime stock-up weeks of the pandemic, with wine sales alone increasing by 66%. After a year of declining alcohol consumption, responses to Covid-19 have effectively undone last year’s teetotalist trends and made alcohol easier to get. Wine shops and restaurants have begun liquidating their inventories, increasing the number of weird, natural, and rare options for wine drinkers to explore at home. Many of these come from unusual places like the Czech Republic, Mexico, or Croatia, containing unusual grapes like malvasia, rebula, or blaufränkisch. And if you’ve been enjoying an Austrian wine called “zweigelt,” you’ve got a lot to learn about a wine with a history you may not want to hear.

Zweigelt is a red grape used in wine that typically bears its name; it tastes like Pinot Noir, but with a bit more boldness and only a fraction of the Sideways-attributed success. The export value of Austrian wine has increased tremendously in the last few years, with a nearly 20% volume increase in the United States in 2018 alone. Accessible to every level of red wine drinker, a bottle of zweigelt typically costs between $14 and $30 and pairs well with a vast range of foods. It is Austria’s second most important wine after Grüner Veltliner. Of the 35 organic wineries officially certified by Sustainable Austria, 32 of them grow zweigelt. The sharp, blue-colored grapes grow easily and in spades, making it readily available for bottling.

https://gen.medium.com/the-nazi-origins-of-your-favorite-natural-wine-ce81828f790d

There you have FYI….. a history lesson and a food post all in one…..enjoy.

Have a Day My Friends

Learn Stuff!

Be Well….Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Could Germany Have Won World War Two–Part 1?

When I was in college I took many history courses and one of them the professor would have us students use our brains and come up with a ‘what if’…….

I recently finished that 38 part series on the history of the US….I like series where it takes a little research and hard work to make them…..I found another but this one is about World War 2 and the possibility that the Nazis could have won…if only…..

I am sure that there will be those that will take exception to this series….but remember it is not my research but that of other people…I am just the messenger……I offer it up as a source for discussion….I may or may not endorse the conclusions….

Part 1–Germany could have won WW2 without fighting the Western Allies…..

…

the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, which cost the lives of an estimated 50-60 million people and was the most terrible war in world history. We all know how the war turned out—with an overwhelming Soviet-Western Allied victory over Nazi Germany ending with the destruction and dismemberment of Germany herself and the death by starvation of millions of her citizens. Given the way the events of the war played out, there was no other foreseeable outcome other than her defeat. But as most historians are aware, German defeat in the war would have been far from inevitable had Nazi leader Adolf Hitler refrained from making certain critical mistakes.

This series of articles represents an attempt to summarize the top mistakes and omissions Germany made that cost it victory in this greatest and most terrible of all wars in human history. Of course, the best way for Germany to have won World War II was for it to have avoided fighting Britain, France, and the United States of America altogether. Germany had the military potential to defeat France and likely force Britain to make peace, but with a Navy less than one-sixth the size of Britain’s, it had no means to even attack U.S. territory, let alone defeat it. Here are some actions that Germany might have taken to achieve their territorial objectives without having to fight the Western Powers of Britain, France and the United States of America:

https://www.realclearhistory.com/articles/2019/10/13/germany_couldve_won_ww_ii_without_fighting_western_allies_453.html

As I stated before….this is offered up as a source for discussion….please let your thoughts be known….but I have written about the Nazi voter…….https://lobotero.com/2017/08/07/the-nazi-voter/

https://lobotero.com/2019/10/15/what-were-they-thinking-3/

I shall be posting each part as they are available……

Watch This Blog!

I Read. I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Random Thoughts For A Saturday

A Saturday and an egotistical douche bag has been put in his place….Tom Brady…..

Tom Brady can still be terrific. He just can’t be Terrific, the US Patent and Trademark Office has decided. The star Patriots quarterback had applied for trademark protection for the “Tom Terrific” nickname, which has long been applied to baseball Hall of Famer Tom Seaver, 74. The applications by Brady’s company involved commercial uses of the nickname on trading cards, posters and shirts, reports Boston.com. Such uses would “falsely suggest a connection” with the retired Mets pitcher, the ruling said. Because the nickname refers “uniquely and unmistakably” to Seaver, he’d have to agree to Brady’s trademarking of it.

Brady’s application outraged many fans, especially Mets fans, and he said he didn’t intend to actually cash in on the nickname. He doesn’t like it, he said, and just wanted to keep others from selling products calling him “Tom Terrific.” The quarterback said: “It wasn’t something I was trying to do out of any disrespect or ill manner or anything like that,” per ESPN, calling the episode a “good lesson learned.” The trademark applications will be dropped automatically unless Brady responds within six months to the ruling.

Weekend begins and of Nazis…..we were talking about Nazis, right?  We seem to always be talking Nazis these days.

Not a big fan of German sports cars, especially Porsches….but this one is just cool…..

In the late ’30s, Adolf Hitler commissioned a special “people’s car” to be built for a Berlin-to-Rome road rally, and what resulted was the 1939 Porsche Type 64, or what Jalopnik calls the “missing link between Porsche and Volkswagen.” Only three of these vehicles were built, and just one survives to this day, so when it was announced that RM Sotheby’s was putting it up for auction, the automotive aficionado world lit up, with predictions the car would go for as much as $20 million. But a current glimpse at the auctioneer’s website after Saturday’s much-hyped event shows a “still for sale” notice, the result of what Jalopnik calls a “weird and unsatisfying ending.” Bloomberg explains an opening bid of $30 million jump-started what appeared to be a fierce bidding war, rising all the way to $70 million—until the auctioneer suddenly corrected himself, noting the top bid was $17 million, not $70 million

A video of the auction shows the bizarre incident unfolding. Whether it had been an accident or, as Jalopnik puts it, a joke meant to hype the sale and boost bidding, potential buyers were miffed, and no one ever topped the $17 million bid. MSNBC notes that because $17 million was below the seller’s minimum price, the sale was nixed. “A massive f—up,” one observer notes, per Bloomberg. “As bidding opened … increments were mistakenly overheard and displayed on the screen, causing unfortunate confusion in the room,” RM Sotheby’s says in a statement. “This was in no way a joke or prank on behalf of anyone at RM Sotheby’s, rather an unfortunate misunderstanding amplified by excitement in the room.”

Remember back in the day when red meat and full fat dairy was going to kill you if you kept eating it?  All that tasteless cheese and watery milk……that may be changing….

Eating full-fat dairy and red meat will not increase the risk of heart disease or stroke, according to a new study.

The major review of Australian and international research found little evidence to suggest healthy people should restrict their intake.

The study has prompted the Heart Foundation to hose down concerns, going against previous recommendations for Australians to stick to reduced-fat dairy products.

(Sky News)

One of our most visited National Parks, Yellowstone, has a dark tale to tell……

Plenty of op-eds in the New York Times these days worry about a political apocalypse. A new one warns about the old-fashioned variety. More specifically, author Bryan Walsh is reminding everyone that Yellowstone National Park has a supervolcano, one that last blew 640,000 years ago. If it goes off again—there’s a 1-in-730,000 chance of that in any given year, Walsh writes—the “eruption would be like nothing humanity has ever experienced.” The park itself would be wiped out, of course, and as much as 3 feet of volcanic ash would be dumped on large parts of Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. But the effects on the rest of the nation and the world would be catastrophic as well, with reductions in sunlight and rainfall, the widespread destruction of crops, and a breakdown of the electrical grid.

This makes it an “existential risk” for the planet, a catastrophe with a capital C that could theoretically wipe out humans. Asteroid strikes and nuclear wars also qualify, and those risks get more attention and money. But the world has 20 supervolcanoes of the Yellowstone variety, and we humans at the very least should make sure that all are being monitored at the highest levels to reduce the risk of surprise. “What has happened before can and will happen again, eventually—but because we remain confined to the brief human time horizons of our own experience, we treat them as unreal,” writes Walsh. This lack of imagination leaves us vulnerable, he warns. (Read the full column.)

Plastic is the big no-no for the environment these days…..and markets are not telling the truth on their use…..

It’s next to impossible to be a plastic-free grocery shopper. Unless you live near a boutique store that offers goods naked, you likely don’t have much choice about buying food wrapped in plastic netting or transparent film. 

Walk into any of the biggest grocery chains in the United States, and you’ll see row upon row of items in containers and bags that are designed to be used once and trashed. Americans produced 14.7 million tons of such waste in 2015, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Of that, only 14.6% was recycled. 

Plastic is necessary for boosting the shelf life of perishable foods, without adding much to the sticker price. Getting rid of it entirely isn’t realistic. But there is a growing consensus that companies responsible for creating this packaging overuse plastics and could easily cut down on the amount sold to consumers. 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/grocery-stores-plastic-walmart_n_5d3f68f3e4b0d24cde046f4a

A quick run down of absolutely useless information to begin your weekend…..

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Closing Thought–13Dec18

On this day in 1945 the Hyena of Auschwitz was executed…..one Irma…….

https://www.historyandheadlines.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/December-13-1945-The-Hyena-of-Auschwitz-aka-The-Beautiful-Beast-is-Executed.jpg

On December 13, 1945, Irma Ida Ilse Grese, age 22, was executed in accordance with her sentence of death for the crime of committing War Crimes  (Crimes Against Humanity) for her service as a concentration camp guard at Ravensbruck and Auschwitz Nazi death camps during World War II.

The apparently attractive young lady thus became the youngest female executed by British authorities during the 20th Century.

Irma was born in 1923 to a dairy working family in Germany, but her mother committed suicide by drinking acid in 1936, after finding out her husband was having an affair. Irma’s father remarried and probably joined the Nazi Party. A somewhat troubled girl, Irma quit school at age 14 and was deeply involved (obsessed) with a Nazi program for girls called the League of German Girls. She attempted to become an apprentice nurse, but could only find work at an SS sanatorium. Irma also found work as a dairy helper, but took the opportunity of getting a job as a concentration camp guard at Ravensbruck in 1942. Apparently enthusiastic about her job, she quickly rose to the second highest rank a female guard could hold and transferred to Auschwitz in 1943 where she was involved in selecting which inmates would go to the gas chambers.

Camp inmates learned to hate and fear Irma, who dressed as stylishly as possible and took great pains to prepare her makeup and feminine appearance. Irma was known to deviate from picking the sickest inmates for death, and instead choosing any female that retained a semblance of her beauty. Irma was accused at trial of taking sadistic pleasure in the beatings and general savaging of prisoners, including torture and attacking prisoners with guard dogs. Witnesses testified that Irma often wore heavy boots and carried a whip and pistol, randomly shooting prisoners as she saw fit.

Irma was subjected to a 53 day trial conducted under British jurisdiction, and was one of only 3 female concentration camp guards executed, despite many others being accused of similar crimes.  At her trial Irma claimed she was sent to camp duty against her will.  Along with the 3 females sentenced to death, 8 male guards from Auschwitz were also sentenced to death and executed.  Of all these, only Irma remained defiant of her captors.  Her last word before being hanged was “schnell!” meaning “hurry up.”

Another sordid side story to Irma Grese is that she apparently was quite popular with the SS officers and guards (males), and had relations with some of them, reputedly even Dr. Josef Mengele, the notorious sadistic camp doctor.  Irma reportedly forced an inmate doctor to abort Irma’s baby by one of these Nazis, and Irma planned on a career as a movie actress after the war.  In a bizarre twist on her wish to be in movies, Irma was the inspiration for the title character Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, a 1975 Canadian film.

(Warning:  This trailer can be disturbing on many levels…..)

https://youtu.be/f1K49rYSx4k

Your history lesson is done and I am off to see the doctors…have a day and see you tomorrow……chuq

Peace Out!

1940–Was France Truly Doomed?

In 1939 the Nazis invaded Poland and thus began the last “great” war….WW2….then in 1940 Hitler decided to take over the rest of Western Europe and they began with Belgium, Holland and into France…..

Many observers say that France was doomed because it depended on the Maginot Line for its defense and the Germans basically just went around the fortifications and into the heart of France…..

So the question remains…was France doomed in 1940?

France holds a unique place in the collective military psyche. Once the military paragon of Europe, the French seem to have been doomed to an inexorable decline since Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo.[1] France’s recent expeditionary achievements in Mali are praised, but within the range of small-scale operations. When it comes to major wars, many Americans remember France’s military collapse in 1940 and assume it was inevitable, since the French were stuck in the obsolete tactics of Verdun. This is not some kind of a post-2003 French non-interventionism bashing. Rather in Europe, the most severe critics are often the French themselves.

Surprisingly, it is seldom emphasized that the French could quite possibly have imagined something close to the Blitz if they had been not just one but two wars behind in 1939. Indeed, before 1914 they were the strongest advocates of the offensive, which had been taught for years at the Ecole de Guerre by future Marshal Ferdinand Foch, and theorized by the influential Colonel Louis de Grandmaison to the point of the offensive à outrance (attack with no limit). The latter was much criticized later for having inspired the bloody and failed offensives of 1914-1916. But that does not erase the fact that, in the dialectic of the cannonball and the cuirass, the advantage goes successively from one to the other. Hence, the concept of lightning war was really nothing new in 1940, especially to the French. Today, Western armies see the blitzkrieg as the quintessence of military art because it splendidly combined technological innovation with the culture of mission command.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/04/26/were_the_french_really_doomed_to_defeat_in_1940_113374.html

Many stories have been told about the French in 1940 but the one that too many have overlooked is the heroism of the French army to hold off the Germans so that the English could be evacuated off the beach at Dunkirk.

Operation Paperclip

At the end of World War 2 the US ran all over Germany snapping up German scientists, most of whom would be tried for crimes against humanity but their expertise was needed so Operation paperclip protected these criminals and moved most of them to the US under the protection of the government.

More about Operation paperclip here…..

Operation Paperclip, named after the use of the ordinary paperclip attached to the personnel files of select German scientists, was a special operation of breathtaking scope. Instead of highly trained teams tasked for important combat missions, these teams were hunters and gatherers sifting and searching through the wreckage and ruin of a devastated Germany. Theirs was a high-stakes contest against an equally determined Russia and other less malevolent former allies. German scientists and technologies were the pawns, and the prize was nothing less than national security and preeminence as a world power. When it was concluded, hundreds of German scientists and their families, tons of documents, hardware, weapon systems, and technologies would be transferred from Germany to the United States.

Officially, Operation Paperclip concluded on Sept. 30, 1947. In a public statement, the Army announced that the operation had brought into the United States 457 scientists and 453 dependents. But a closed-door decision was made to allow Operation Paperclip to continue, this time as a top secret program. To justify the continuation, the Air Force stated that the 209 German scientists working for it had substantially advanced the development of weapons systems and the scientists were “superlative specialists … the best available in the world today.” They were saving the Air Force millions of dollars and an estimated 10 years in cost and development. The Navy added its praise, stating that German mathematicians, aerodynamicists, and experts in heat transfer had proven that “their professional education and training [were]superior to that of any U.S. personnel available.”

https://argunners.com/operation-paperclip-saving-german-scientists/

Some of the research that America used in their space program was testing done on Jewish prisoners that resulted in a horrific death and yet we decided that it was somehow okay to use this research if it put us a head of the Russians.

I personally have a problem with this type of program….a war criminal is a war criminal and should face the same judgements that others had to face.

Thoughts?

The Man Who Started World War Two

On this day in 1939 Germany attacked Poland and that lead to everyone entering the fray against Germany….everyone but the US.

But do you, my reader know why Germany attacked Poland…..what excuse they used to start a war……

On the evening of 31 August 1939, as tensions in Europe approached the breaking point, there was an unusual broadcast from a radio station in Gleiwitz, Germany. Its broadcasts were momentarily silenced, followed by a hate-filled diatribe by a Polish-speaking man. He urged all Poles to take up arms, and to strike down any Germans who resist. When Gestapo officers arrived at the transmitter to investigate, they found the bullet-riddled body one of the alleged Polish attackers. In the morning there were reports of numerous other incidents of Polish aggression along the border. In response, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler issued his “final directive” to attack Poland, compelling the United Kingdom and France to declare war on Germany. Thus began World War 2. But it turns out that this incident at Gleiwitz— blamed as the final provocation for the terrible war that followed— was not quite what it seemed.

Source: The Man Who Started the War • Damn Interesting

Many people know about WW2 but damn few know what lead the world to war……

Glad I could help…..chuq

Werewolves To The Right

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Note:  My schedule has tightened up…actually it has become a bit hectic…..between teaching and contract work I am at a loss for time…..I am having a difficult time running on 38 hour days……I regret that after today I will lighten up on the blog posts….instead of 5-6 posts a day…I will cut back to 2 or 3…..this is only temporary….I will still answer replies when I have a few minutes to myself……..please bear with me on this…..thanx for understanding……chuq

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I admit it…I watch the History Channel and its other identity, the AHC, but only when they have something historic airing….I will NOT watch the mindlessness of their reality shows about idiot stump jumpers chasing alligators or the modern day dumpster divers……and  as usual I find holes in their propaganda…they give only a very limited and nearsighted account of some of the situations.  At best it is propaganda rather than fact.

These days many people are looking for reasons why such barbaric groups as ISIS and AQ could come into being….the problem is that they are looking at simple excuses and not the root cause.

I was watching one such episode entitled, “Nazi Jihad”…..it was lame attempt to connect AQ and ISIS to a program of the Nazis late in WW2…the “werewolves”….a very simplistic attempt to tie jihadists to Nazi Germany…..

But first…the Nazi werewolves?

Werner Naumann, Goebbels’s top aide at the end of the war, sent out this interesting message by teletype to the Nazi Party’s regional propaganda offices in early April 1945. It calls on the remaining propagandists throughout Germany to devote their full efforts to building an underground resistance movement that would make Allied occupation unbearably costly. The Allies were in fact worried about the possibility of the Werewolf movement, but in the end Germans were more than ready to have the war over and not much came of this last-ditch effort.

Source: The Nazi Werewolf Movement

The history of this organization is colorful……but it is not the organization that gave rise to AQ or ISIS……some tactics may be similar but so are some of those used by the Great Khan….

The Werewolves were originally organised by the SS and the Hitler Youth as a diversionary operation on the fringes of the Third Reich, which were occupied by the Western Allies and the Soviets in the autumn of 1944. Some 5,000 — 6,000 recruits were raised by the winter of 1944-45, but numbers rose considerably in the following spring when the Nazi Party and the Propaganda Ministry launched a popular call to arms, beseeching everybody in the occupied areas — even women and children — to launch themselves upon the enemy. In typical Nazi fashion, this expansion was not co-ordinated by the relevant bodies, which were instead involved in a bureaucratic war among themselves over control of the project. The result was that the movement functioned on two largely unrelated levels: the first as a real force of specially trained SS, Hitler Youth and Nazi Party guerrillas; the second as an outlet for casual violence by fanatics

Source: Minutemen of the Third Reich (“Werewolf” guerilla movement – postwar sabotage & terror not new)

The tactics used by ISIS or AQ are just updated versions of “Art of War” and tactics used by the great Khan…..to mention only a few….

Yes a connection can be made…..like a connection can be made that the US waqs the originator of ISIS and AQ……,but that does not make it so….this was fake news and even worse…fake history.

Closing Thought–14Mar17

They Are ALL Nazis!

Before some witless dolt throws the Godwin Law at me for this post….I say read it then make your goddamn comment.

It appears that Turkey’s dictator has news for the world but especially Europe

The Turkish president lashed out at criticisms against him and his government’s actions on Wednesday, calling Europe the “real Nazis.” He warned European leaders to abandon their double standards or risk losing Turkey.

“Without any shame, ignoring their own blood-stained hands and without considering their own callous hearts, they draw comparisons between us and the Nazis,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a business conference in Istanbul. “If there are any Nazis, it is you who are the Nazis.

“The Nazi mentality emerged in the West, not the East. It was our ancestors who reached out and saved the lives of those they chased away,” he said. “It can only be a result of delirium to compare Turkey to the Nazis, when neo Nazism is at a peak in Europe.”

This douche is a piece of work……so according to him, Erdogan, this is what Europe looks like……

Like I said…what a douche!
What a closing for the day, huh?
Back in the marrow with more incredible stuff….chuq