I know a little German....he's sitting over there.
Posted on 06/25/2012 2:55:04 PM PDT by Olog-hai
The planned unveiling in London of a memorial to the 55,573 Royal Air Force Bomber Command airmen killed in World War II has sparked muted criticism in Germany, where many regard the Allied air raids that destroyed entire cities and killed over 500,000 civilians as unjustified and criminal.
Helma Orosz, the mayor of Dresden, which was devastated in an Allied attack in February 1945, criticized the plans for the monument when they first became public in 2010, and spoke to London Mayor Boris Johnson about it.
"The planned memorial triggered astonishment in Dresden and was judged critically by us in diplomatic terms," she told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "I am pleased that this exchange of views led to the monument now featuring an inscription commemorating the victims of the bombing war. The objections many people in Germany had to such a memorial have been taken seriously and I welcome this very much. It's a further gesture of reconciliation between Britain and Germany." …
The bombing raids were a response to German attacks on British cities and were stepped up massively in the summer of 1944 after the D-Day landings. Their aim was to destroy Germany's military machinery and to crush public morale.
Many Germans believe that Dresden, where up to 25,000 people were killed in the Feb. 13 raid that caused a firestorm, symbolizes the ruthlessness and pointlessness of a bombing campaign that failed to break their spirit or bring their industry to its knees. …
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
Very appropriate:
The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one’s gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206.
Speedbird 206: ” Frankfurt , Speedbird 206 clear of active runway.”
Ground: “Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven.”
The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.
Ground: “Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?”
Speedbird 206: “Stand by, Ground, I’m looking up our gate location now.”
Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): “Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?”
Speedbird 206 (coolly): “Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, — and I didn’t land.
Und another:
To Kenneth Clarke, who said, “Isn’t it terrible about losing to the Germans at our national sport?” when England lost to Germany in the 1990 World Cup Semifinal:
“I shouldn’t worry too much; we’ve beaten them twice this century at theirs.” —Margaret Thatcher
As an immigrant from Germany, with US and German parents, I am embarassed that Dresden and its leaders are acting this way
Remember that this is the former East Germany, and, even w re-unification, the Allies were not as respected as much as in the West. First it was Nazis, then Commies, for the Ostis
Still no excuse to whine about this British Memorial...esp since there are memorials all over Europe commenmorating Allied victories over Germany
“How do you say “Shut your knackwurst hole” in German?”
Schliessen Sie Ihr Knackwurst-Loch!
“The appalling thing about fascism is that you’ve got to use fascist methods to get rid of it.” - It Happened Here (excellent movie about a fictional Nazi occupation of England)
RAF Bomber crews were some of the bravest of the brave and their contribution was totally overlooked (at least in the UK). They lost over 50,000 men (over 40% of their crews were KIA).
The Germans could have stopped the bombings at any time by surrendering.
I know a little German....he's sitting over there.
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE-DOWN.
It sounds like the Germans need a refresher course in history. They started the war, they lost the war, they should live with it.
HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!! I would have paid big money to see that ground controllers face!
The krauts started WW2.
They initiated indiscriminate bombing of civilians.
They lost the war.
End of story.
Maybe these crybabies can erect a monument in the center of Berlin commemorating what they were really successful at: Killing 6 million helpless civilians in their German death camps.And YOU still lost the war.
Deal with it.
What a whining wuss! Helma needs to revisit the feelings of Jews, the civilians in bombed English cities, the Poles, the Roma, the Russians, the Belgians and the thousands of American families who lost young men fighting Helma’s grandpa in the war Helma’s people started and pressed without mercy!
What a whining wuss! Helma needs to revisit the feelings of Jews, the civilians in bombed English cities, the Poles, the Roma, the Russians, the Belgians and the thousands of American families who lost young men fighting Helma’s grandpa in the war Helma’s people started and pressed without mercy!
Through my father, I knew men who once flew missions over Germany. It was a solemn and rare occasion when they spoke of their experiences and then, I recall not boastful pride but instead halting whispers, and human eyes fixed distantly upon circumstances they clearly wished no one else to ever again endure.
“I had a grandfather (unfortunately no longer with us) who flew the Dresden bombing mission...he refused to talk about it afterward, even many years after the fact.”
I worked for a WW2 bomber pilot who talked about his missions plenty and had personal pictures to go with it. He once bragged to me, “I bombed the hell out Vienna!” As his pictures showed, the ack-ack was thick enough to walk on. One day a shell passed through the plane, straight up through the floor and through the roof, right between his legs!
HAHA, thank you for posting that. Fantastic!
Wasn’t “Speedbird” reserved for Concordes - I know BA flew them too.
I have a distant cousin in England whose father was killed in a German bombing raid on London in 1940 ...
Their house had been hit and as they fled the building and crouched in the garden they were bombed again...
This time the Dad was killed as he protected his wife and his 3 week old son with all he had left...his own body...
I do hope his name is commemorated on a monument somewhere in Germany...
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