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To: Worldtraveler once upon a time

I leave this comment with a quote from pre-WWII Germany and the humorist, Kurt Tucholsky, in “Französischer Witz,” 1932. “The war? I cannot find it to be so bad! The death of one man: this is a catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands of deaths: that is a statistic!”


see here for more accurate citations:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/

In 1925 a journalist and satirist named Kurt Tucholsky wrote a piece in a German newspaper that included a statement that was similar to the quotation. Here was the original text together with an English translation:[4]

Darauf sagt ein Diplomat vom Quai d’Orsay: „Der Krieg? Ich kann das nicht so schrecklich finden! Der Tod eines Menschen: das ist eine Katastrophe. Hunderttausend Tote: das ist eine Statistik!”

At which a diplomat from French Ministry of Foreign Affairs replies: “The war? I can’t find it too terrible! The death of one man: that is a catastrophe. One hundred thousand deaths: that is a statistic!”


18 posted on 06/21/2023 7:50:10 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: PIF
Clever boy. Alas, I cited from the original. It is the game these days to “fact check” and then point to some little thing as proof the big thing isn't what it says it is. Read the original.

And so, in aimbic pentameter---

When Speedy PIF's the call to arms this day,
He speeds to bring yet more to swell the fray;
See how the posts and comments come to play
As dying men five thousand miles away
Show what is truly real, bleeds out, away.
To L O L and sing and dance just may
Reduce the deaths to stats and dulled cliché.

19 posted on 06/21/2023 7:57:21 AM PDT by Worldtraveler once upon a time (Degrow government)
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