Posts Tagged ‘germany’
Germany using signs to stop Baltic shipwreck looters (The History Blog)
An interesting history-related post from The History Blog:
The low salinity and cold temperatures of the Baltic Sea provide ideal conditions for the preservation of shipwrecks and their contents. There are an estimated 100,000 shipwrecks resting on the floor of the Baltic Sea, with perhaps 6,000 of them deemed of particular archaeological and historical significance. Although Swedish Baltic archaeological finds have made much of the news lately, there are approximately 1,500 protected marine monuments (mostly shipwrecks, but also some downed aircraft and submerged archaeological remains that were once on dry land) in German Baltic waters.
Before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, these were mainly ...
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Book Review of A Duel of Nations: Germany, France, and the Diplomacy of the War of 1870-1871 (Military History)
An interesting history-related post from Military History:
David Wetzel. A Duel of Nations: Germany, France, and the Diplomacy of the War of 1870-1871. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0-299-29134-1. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliographical Essay. Index. Pp. xvi, 310. $26.95.
The German Wars of Unification (1864-1871) have received attention by military historians in the last decade or so. Moreover, the origins of the conflicts are well served by diplomatic historians.
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Germany returns skull from genocide to Namibia (The History Blog)
An interesting history-related post from The History Blog:
In 1904, the Nama and Herero tribes of what was then the colony of German South West Africa revolted against their imperial oppressors. Herero killed between 123 and 150 German soldiers in a surprise attack in January. Governor Theodor Leutwein requested reinforcements which arrived in May under the command of Lieutenant-General Lothar von Trotha. Trotha was not interested in surrender or negotiation. His experience of slaughtering other African tribes circularly confirmed that the only way to deal with this set of African tribes was by slaughtering them too.
After General Trotha defeated 5,000 Herero soldiers at the Battle of Waterberg ...
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The Underwear of Dictators’ Lovers (Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog)
An interesting history-related post from Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog:
Beachcombing is still reeling from his recent medical misfortunes and, to make matters worse, he has to catch a bus in about twenty five minutes. So yet again today he will be brief. But he had to share this brilliant catch sent in by Invisible, an important ally in the fight for the historically bizarre.
Invisible came across (via a friend) Mantiques in Elmore, Ohio, an antique shop that claims to sell ‘almost everything a man could want’.
Beachcombing was sceptical until he saw this extraordinary picture of their prize exhibit: a silken pair of Eva Braun’s underwear (pictured ...
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The Underwear of Dictators’ Lovers (Beachcombing's Bizzare History Blog)
An interesting history-related post from Beachcombing's Bizzare History Blog:
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The Death Dealer of Kovno (Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog)
An interesting history-related post from Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog:
Call it the month of the massacres: Beachcombing in the past four weeks has gone knee deep in blood ‘that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er’. Even he gets a little queasy thinking about it. There was Queen Victoria drinking blood; then killer ice-cream; followed up by a horrific photo of a Soviet death factory; questions about prehistoric burial mounds and decapitation; Lancashire purring; the difficulty of running around without your head in medieval Germany; and, just two days ago, a massacre of Vikings in peace-loving Dorset. Today, to ...
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Headless Races (Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog)
An interesting history-related post from Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog:
After all those head lice (see previous posts) Beachcombing gets back to some decapitation stories, not least because it would be the most efficient way to solve his family’s present problems. In any case, before anyone makes contact with the social workers…
In response to an earlier beheading post RR wrote in with the following appealing story. ‘I recall reading about a man in Britain or France who was beheaded, but made a request of the executioner to pardon his half-dozen comrades if he could run past them as they stood in a row. After losing his head. I recall he ...
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Playing Solitaire in Hitler’s Bunker (Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog)
An interesting history-related post from Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog:
Crisis in the Beachcombing household tonight. Yesterday it was discovered that every member of the family save Beachcombing himself had been stricken with head lice. And so Beachcombing has spent most of the last six hours combing what look like wood ants from his darling wife’s and elder daughter’s fair locks.
By way of diversion Beachcombing decided that he would, tonight, cross time and space to visit Hitler’s bunker. It is the 1 May 1945 and Hitler and Eva killed themselves only yesterday after a rushed marriage ceremony.
Today it is the turn, instead, of the Goebbels – king and ...
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Capital Punishment and Prehistoric Burials (Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog)
An interesting history-related post from Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog:
**Beachcombing dedicates this post to JKM who brought up this fascinating subject in an email**
You are a member of the minor nobility in some part of northern Europe found guilty of murder in the fifteenth century. After the capital sentence is passed you are thrown in the back of a cart and driven out to the local place of reckoning. However, as you are also interested in history you can’t help but wonder at the spot that has been chosen: for curiously, you are pulled to the top of a local tumulus where a ...
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Transvestite Knights in the Thirteenth Century (Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog)
An interesting history-related post from Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog:
Ulrich von Liechtenstein (obit 1278) was a standard thirteenth-century knight. He had castles (three of them). He fought – above all, in Eastern Germany. And he also dressed up as a woman and rode from Maestre (Venice) up to Vienna.
Yes, yes, Beachcombing stopped too when he first read this many years ago. But now he no longer even notices. This is what comes of spending half your life in the Middle Ages…
The root of Ulrich’s unlikely transvestism was courtly love. In his poetical ‘autobiography’ – a word Beachcombing will return to – Ulrich describes how he decided to ...
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Silly sieg heils (Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog)
An interesting history-related post from Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog:
The Nazi and ‘Roman’ Salute have been traditional signs of the extra-parliamentary right since the 1920s. Claims have been made that these salutations are more hygenic, more beautiful and also of shorter duration than the handshake. Well, Beachcombing is certainly no fan of palming… However, he finds – memories of the Great Dictator? – the various straight arm salutes about as majestic as a dying birch tree.
In this spirit he thought that he would set himself the task of find the most bizarre sieg heil in history: bizarre either because of the individuals sieg heiling (perhaps someone who you ...
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The end of the werewolf faith in Strasburg (Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog)
An interesting history-related post from Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog:
Beachcombing recently examined the death of the fairy faith
in the Yorkshire town of Ilkley and sold it to his readers as a melancholy moment in that community’s history. Today he thought, instead, that he would give evidence for the beginning of the end of faith in were-wolves in the area around Strasburg (‘Germany’ or France depending on the century). In 1508 a priest, Johann Geiler von Keysersperg (obit 1510) gave a sermon there on that magical creature. His words show belief in the wooly ones was in sad retreat on the cusp of the modern age.
Johann begins with a ...
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Image: Cow sheds and massacres (Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog)
An interesting history-related post from Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog:
Beachcombing has had the novel experience, in these days of premature babies, of watching lots of history documentaries. It is one of the few things that you can do while syringe feeding a fifteen-day-old tot and hoping that she will sleep. After years of staying away from television, he’s been treated to a lot of sub-standard stuff, but one that did stick in the mind was the BBC’s Dunkirk (2004) and particularly their coverage of the Wormhoudt Massacre of 1940.
For those who don’t know on the 28 May of that year British troops – from the Royal Warwicks, the Royal Artillery and ...
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Germany donates $80 million to Auschwitz fund (The History Blog)
An interesting history-related post from The History Blog:
Almost 2 years after the International Auschwitz Council started the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation to raise the $120 million needed to fund a major renovation of the crumbling structures at Auschwitz, Germany has pledged to donate $80 million to the foundation over the next year. That’s fully half the $160 million dollar goal, an endowment that would support not only the emergency restoration work but would also generate enough yearly interest to provide steady maintenance funds.
The United States has donated $15 million, Austria $8 million, and smaller sums have been pledged from a variety of European countries. Germany’s donation puts the ...
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United States Declares War on Italy and Germany (About.com American History)
An interesting history-related post from About.com American History:
On December 11, 1941, the United States declared war on Italy and Germany to start its involvement in the European theater during World War II. It had already declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941 in response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Germany had been fighting against the Allies for a little over three years prior to US involvement. Learn more about World War II.
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Biodynamics and Nazi market gardens (Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog)
An interesting history-related post from Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog:
Biodynamics is a form of agriculture that Beachcombing can best describe as ‘organic and then some’. It demands that the farmer treat his or her farm as a single organism and that said farmer use ‘natural’ methods to raise crops and cattle. This includes supplements for fields that are, to say the least, unusual – e.g. quartz solution kept in a cow’s horn, sprayed at astrologically determined intervals. It also includes unusual pest controls: so field mice are driven away with incinerated field mice, burnt when Venus lies in Scorpio.
Much of this came from the perspiring mind of Rudolf Steiner (pictured here) who came up ...
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1941 — Declaration of War Against Germany
December 11, 1941
Declaring that a state of war exists between the Government of Germany and the government and the people of the United States and making provision to prosecute the same.
Whereas the Government of Germany has formally declared war against the government and the people of the United States of America:
Therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that the state of war between the United States and the Government of Germany which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the government to carry on war against the Government of Germany; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.
1941 — Recommendation to Declare War Against Germany by Franklin D. Roosevelt1941 — Recommendation to Declare War Against Germany by Franklin D. Roosevelt
December 11, 1941
On the morning of Dec. 11 the Government of Germany, pursuing its course of world conquest, declared war against the United States. The long-known and the long-expected has thus taken place. The forces endeavoring to enslave the entire world now are moving toward this hemisphere. Never before has there been a greater challenge to life, liberty and civilization. Delay invites great danger. Rapid and united effort by all of the peoples of the world who are determined to remain free will insure a world victory of the forces of justice and of righteousness over the forces of savagery and of barbarism. Italy also has declared war against the United States.
I therefore request the Congress to recognize a state of war between the United States and Germany, and between the United States and Italy.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
OMG WWII on FACEBOOK! (World History Blog)
An interesting history-related post from World History Blog:
Did you know that Germany and Italy were Facebook friends prior to World War Two? Very cool summary of the war at "OMG WWII on FACEBOOK!"
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THE BIGGEST FAIL IN EUROPEAN HISTORY: Dropping the Pilot (European History Fail Blog)
An interesting history-related post from European History Fail Blog:
Let's take a step back for just a second, and consider the phenomenon of nicknames. Throughout European history, we as a race have had a tendency to don monkiers of all kinds on important figures. Nearly every single one has been a slap in the face. Catherine the Great of Russia, who actually instituted some pretty sweet Enlightened reforms, received the lovely nickname "Madame Snake." Catherine de Medici, who impressively managed to have an important say in the politics of France from 1559 all the way to her death in 1589, was called "the Monstrous Regiment of Women." If you ...
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THE BIGGEST FAIL IN EUROPEAN HISTORY: Dropping the Pilot (European History Fail Blog)
An interesting history-related post from European History Fail Blog:
Let's take a step back for just a second, and consider the phenomenon of nicknames. Throughout European history, we as a race have had a tendency to don monkiers of all kinds on important figures. Nearly every single one has been a slap in the face. Catherine the Great of Russia, who actually instituted some pretty sweet Enlightened reforms, received the lovely nickname "Madame Snake." Catherine de Medici, who impressively managed to have an important say in the politics of France from 1559 all the way to her death in 1589, was called "the Monstrous Regiment of Women." If you ...
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False Sense of Security Fail: The Maginot Line (European History Fail Blog)
An interesting history-related post from European History Fail Blog:
I think this link does a fine job of prefacing this post. (see here for an explanation of that if you're curious).
The Maginot Line brings us to one of the most embarrassing events in France's history. It's quite understandable, however, why they would gear up for WWII in such a dramatically dorky fashion. The interim war period of 1919-1939 was rightfully nicknamed the Age of Anxiety, as the promises of the political leaders of the time weren't coming true. Mentally and physically scarred soldiers returned home to find that the goals they thought they were fighting for were had ...
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False Sense of Security Fail: The Maginot Line (European History Fail Blog)
An interesting history-related post from European History Fail Blog:
I think this link does a fine job of prefacing this post. (see here for an explanation of that if you're curious).
The Maginot Line brings us to one of the most embarrassing events in France's history. It's quite understandable, however, why they would gear up for WWII in such a dramatically dorky fashion. The interim war period of 1919-1939 was rightfully nicknamed the Age of Anxiety, as the promises of the political leaders of the time weren't coming true. Mentally and physically scarred soldiers returned home to find that the goals they thought they were fighting for were had ...
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Martin Luther King, Jr.