German-Americans were the most visible non-Anglophone group in the US during the 18th and 19th centuries. But the hostility against these groups took place during the nineteenth century, but were largely non-systematic. The Germans' stance of anti-slavery position in the Southern United States brought about violent clashes in slave states such as Texas during the American Civil War.
The pacifist Mennonite and Amish communities attracted considerable hatred, particularly during the American Revolution and the US Civil War, when many Mennonites and possibly Amish were imprisoned or forcibly conscripted. There was a popular view that Germans did not consider themselves part of America.
Upon the outbreak of World War I, anti-German sentiment quickly reached fever pitch. Many Germans supported their (former) homeland's side in the war, in which America long remained officially neutral. The situation came to a crisis with America's entry into the war in 1917. By the time the troops returned from Europe, the German community had ceased to be a major force in American culture, or was no more perceived as German.
When in France during World War I, members of the Yale University had learned about the German song Die Wacht am Rhein and were apparently shocked to discover the fact that Yale's traditional song "Bright College Years" had been written to the "splendid tune" of Carl Wilhelm. Suddenly hating this melody, Yale Alumni sang "Bright College Years" to the tune of the Marseillaise instead, and after the war the German melody was banned for some time until it was reinstated in 1920.
In Canada, thousands of German born Canadians were interned in detention camps during World War I and World War II and subjected to forced labour. Many Ukrainians and other Eastern Europeans were also detained during the First World War as were Japanese and Italian-Canadians during the Second World War.
In Britain, Germans were demonized in the press well before the First World War, when the Kaiserliche Marine started to challenge the Royal Navy, but particularly around 1912 and during the First World War. Anti-German sentiment was so intense that the British Royal Family (which was, in fact, of German origin) was advised by the government to change its name, resulting in the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha becoming the House of Windsor. The German Shepherd dog was renamed as Alsatian. The waters that had been known as the 'German Ocean' were also renamed; the North Sea (as in German Nordsee) despite being east of the British Isles.
Showing posts with label American. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American. Show all posts
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Latin American-Germans & Their Early Migration to Brazil
Birget, a student on city planning was telling her experiences in Cuba. Her experiences in the Caribbean Island were quiet strange. While she was narrating some of her observations, my discussion with walker came to mind.
Walker had a marvelous experience in Belize and other Latin American countries with German descendant Latin Americans.
There are German descendant minorities in almost every South American and Central American countries including Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.
In the eighteenth century some isolated and small groups of German immigrants came to Latin America mainly from Germany, but also from Switzerland, Austria and Russia. Though the US was the main destination for immigration in the 19th century, the immigration to Latin America also was significant for various other political and economic reasons. Ninety percent of them came to Latin America mainly for Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile.
When the first group of Germans arrived in 1824 to Sao Leopoldo, in the State of Rio Grande do Sul in the southern Brazil, after 4 months of traveling, there were 39 people, being 33 Lutherans and 6 Catholics. They found a country with a climate, vegetation and culture very different from those of Germany. Southern Brazil was a land of gauchos, the cattle herders who used, and still live, in the Pampas region of Southern Cone.
In the next decades, however, waves of Germanic immigrants arrived to many areas of the Southern Brazil. They mostly settled in rural areas called colonies. These colonies had been created by the Brazilian government, and the lands were distributed between the immigrants. They had to construct their own houses and cultivate the land.
Germans came to Brazil to work as farmers because there were many lands and job opportunities. The Brazilian government had promised large lands to attract the immigrants, where they could settle with their families and colonize the region. In fact, these lands were in the middle of big forests and the first Germans had been abandoned by the Brazilian Government. The first years were not easy. Many Germans died of tropical diseases, others left the colony to find a better life elsewhere.
In fact, the German colony of Sao Leopoldo was a disaster. Nevertheless, in the next years another wave of 8, 000 Germans arrived to Sao Leopoldo, and then the colony started to develop, and the immigrants established the town of Novo Hamburgo (New Hamburg). From Sao Leopoldo and Novo Hamburgo the German immigrants spread into other areas of Rio Grande do Sul, mainly close to spring of rivers. All the region of Vale dos Sinos has been populated by Germans.
During the 1830's and part of 1840's German immigration was interrupted due to the "War of the Farrapos" in Brazil. The immigration restarted after 1845 with the creation of new colonies. The most important ones were Blumenau in 1850 and Joinville in 1851, both in Santa Catarina state and attracted thousands of German immigrants to the region. Some of the mass influx was due to Revolutions of 1848 in the German states.
In the last third of the nineteenth century immigration to Brazil became so difficult with the "Heydtschen Reskript" (1859) and they started to migrate towards Argentina. In the 1880's and 1890's German immigration to Latin America once again increased with the thirty percenatage of the total emigration from Germany towards Latin America.
Until the end of the 19th century 122 German colonies were created in Rio Grande do Sul, and many others in Santa Catarina, Parana, Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. Germans had established the first middle-class population of Brazil, in a country divided between slaves and their masters. Germans immigrants in Brazil were the fourth largest immigrant community to settle in the country, after Portuguese, Italians and Spaniards.
Walker had a marvelous experience in Belize and other Latin American countries with German descendant Latin Americans.
There are German descendant minorities in almost every South American and Central American countries including Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.
In the eighteenth century some isolated and small groups of German immigrants came to Latin America mainly from Germany, but also from Switzerland, Austria and Russia. Though the US was the main destination for immigration in the 19th century, the immigration to Latin America also was significant for various other political and economic reasons. Ninety percent of them came to Latin America mainly for Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile.
When the first group of Germans arrived in 1824 to Sao Leopoldo, in the State of Rio Grande do Sul in the southern Brazil, after 4 months of traveling, there were 39 people, being 33 Lutherans and 6 Catholics. They found a country with a climate, vegetation and culture very different from those of Germany. Southern Brazil was a land of gauchos, the cattle herders who used, and still live, in the Pampas region of Southern Cone.
In the next decades, however, waves of Germanic immigrants arrived to many areas of the Southern Brazil. They mostly settled in rural areas called colonies. These colonies had been created by the Brazilian government, and the lands were distributed between the immigrants. They had to construct their own houses and cultivate the land.
Germans came to Brazil to work as farmers because there were many lands and job opportunities. The Brazilian government had promised large lands to attract the immigrants, where they could settle with their families and colonize the region. In fact, these lands were in the middle of big forests and the first Germans had been abandoned by the Brazilian Government. The first years were not easy. Many Germans died of tropical diseases, others left the colony to find a better life elsewhere.
In fact, the German colony of Sao Leopoldo was a disaster. Nevertheless, in the next years another wave of 8, 000 Germans arrived to Sao Leopoldo, and then the colony started to develop, and the immigrants established the town of Novo Hamburgo (New Hamburg). From Sao Leopoldo and Novo Hamburgo the German immigrants spread into other areas of Rio Grande do Sul, mainly close to spring of rivers. All the region of Vale dos Sinos has been populated by Germans.
During the 1830's and part of 1840's German immigration was interrupted due to the "War of the Farrapos" in Brazil. The immigration restarted after 1845 with the creation of new colonies. The most important ones were Blumenau in 1850 and Joinville in 1851, both in Santa Catarina state and attracted thousands of German immigrants to the region. Some of the mass influx was due to Revolutions of 1848 in the German states.
In the last third of the nineteenth century immigration to Brazil became so difficult with the "Heydtschen Reskript" (1859) and they started to migrate towards Argentina. In the 1880's and 1890's German immigration to Latin America once again increased with the thirty percenatage of the total emigration from Germany towards Latin America.
Until the end of the 19th century 122 German colonies were created in Rio Grande do Sul, and many others in Santa Catarina, Parana, Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. Germans had established the first middle-class population of Brazil, in a country divided between slaves and their masters. Germans immigrants in Brazil were the fourth largest immigrant community to settle in the country, after Portuguese, Italians and Spaniards.
German Migration to Brazil After Major World Wars & Assimilation
Not all Germans who settled in Brazil became farmers. In the early 20th century most of the Germans immigrated to Brazil settled in big towns. Some of them settled in the old rural German colonies as well. The German immigration to Brazil had its largest numbers during the 1920s, after World War I. These Germans were mostly middle-class laborers from the urban areas of Germany.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Brazil also attracted a significant number of German Jews, who settled mostly in Sao Paulo. During the Nazi period and thereafter until the ban on emigration came into effect in 1941, some 100,000 Jews from Central Europe, the majority of them were German speaking moved to South America. Most of them nearly ninety percent moved towards Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile.
Many immigrant Germans were not counted in the early censuses. Often the spouses of immigrants were not listed as having entered into the country.
During the Second World War Brazilian ships were attacked by Germans and influenced by the US government, Brazil declared war against Germany. Brazil feared whether the German community in Brazil could rebel against the government.
President Getulio Vargas initiated a strict program of forced cultural assimilation - Nacionalismo- that worked quite efficiently. He forbade any manifestation of the German culture in Brazil. German schools were closed, houses with German architecture were destroyed and the use of the German language in Brazil was also forbidden with the publication of German newspapers (together with Italian and Japanese).
Since then, the southern Brazilian German regional language and culture was in decline. Some decried it as a tragic loss for the country while others felt that this meant national progress, saying assimilation will ultimately lead to a feeling of "getting together".
Many Germans also adopted voluntarily from German to the national languages mainly for their safety. Germans in other parts of Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe adopted this pattern of language change to avoid the anger of the Governments which were against or fought against Germany.
With this change in situation the members of the German minorities, previously communities of status and prestige, were turned into undesirable minorities though there were widespread elements of sympathy for Germans in many of the South American countries.
When Germanic immigrants first arrived in Brazil starting at the beginning of the 1800's they did not identify themselves as a unified German - Brazilian group. However, as time went on this common regional identity emerged for many different geo-socio-political reasons and was the major cause for their victimization as well.
After natural and forcible assimilation, Germans in Brazil currently speak a variety of German dialects in the south of the country. These German dialects originated from a variety of German dialects which were spoken by the German immigrants from Germany, Switzerland and Austria with the foreign borrowings from other immigrant languages especially Italian, Spanish, Japanese and the Brazil's national language, Portuguese.
The most dominant spoken Brazilian German dialect is Riograndenser Hunsruckisch, a Brazilian variation of the Hunsruckisch dialect of German. But other dialects are also spoken as well, like the Austrian dialect spoken in Dreizehnlinden, Pomeranian (Pommersch or Plautdietsch) dialect spoken by ethnic German Mennonites from the former Soviet Union and Danube Swabian (Donauschwabisch) dialect.
Although Riograndenser Hunsruckisch has long been the most widely spoken German dialect in southern Brazil, it is currently experiencing a very strong decline. A strong stigma has been forming around the public use of this language. Today it is spoken mostly in private, in family circles and by the elder members of the community and in the rural areas. It is very common for people not to admit that they know it. They speak it in their most private environs, although there are cities where you can hear German on streets or parks.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Brazil also attracted a significant number of German Jews, who settled mostly in Sao Paulo. During the Nazi period and thereafter until the ban on emigration came into effect in 1941, some 100,000 Jews from Central Europe, the majority of them were German speaking moved to South America. Most of them nearly ninety percent moved towards Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile.
Many immigrant Germans were not counted in the early censuses. Often the spouses of immigrants were not listed as having entered into the country.
During the Second World War Brazilian ships were attacked by Germans and influenced by the US government, Brazil declared war against Germany. Brazil feared whether the German community in Brazil could rebel against the government.
President Getulio Vargas initiated a strict program of forced cultural assimilation - Nacionalismo- that worked quite efficiently. He forbade any manifestation of the German culture in Brazil. German schools were closed, houses with German architecture were destroyed and the use of the German language in Brazil was also forbidden with the publication of German newspapers (together with Italian and Japanese).
Since then, the southern Brazilian German regional language and culture was in decline. Some decried it as a tragic loss for the country while others felt that this meant national progress, saying assimilation will ultimately lead to a feeling of "getting together".
Many Germans also adopted voluntarily from German to the national languages mainly for their safety. Germans in other parts of Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe adopted this pattern of language change to avoid the anger of the Governments which were against or fought against Germany.
With this change in situation the members of the German minorities, previously communities of status and prestige, were turned into undesirable minorities though there were widespread elements of sympathy for Germans in many of the South American countries.
When Germanic immigrants first arrived in Brazil starting at the beginning of the 1800's they did not identify themselves as a unified German - Brazilian group. However, as time went on this common regional identity emerged for many different geo-socio-political reasons and was the major cause for their victimization as well.
After natural and forcible assimilation, Germans in Brazil currently speak a variety of German dialects in the south of the country. These German dialects originated from a variety of German dialects which were spoken by the German immigrants from Germany, Switzerland and Austria with the foreign borrowings from other immigrant languages especially Italian, Spanish, Japanese and the Brazil's national language, Portuguese.
The most dominant spoken Brazilian German dialect is Riograndenser Hunsruckisch, a Brazilian variation of the Hunsruckisch dialect of German. But other dialects are also spoken as well, like the Austrian dialect spoken in Dreizehnlinden, Pomeranian (Pommersch or Plautdietsch) dialect spoken by ethnic German Mennonites from the former Soviet Union and Danube Swabian (Donauschwabisch) dialect.
Although Riograndenser Hunsruckisch has long been the most widely spoken German dialect in southern Brazil, it is currently experiencing a very strong decline. A strong stigma has been forming around the public use of this language. Today it is spoken mostly in private, in family circles and by the elder members of the community and in the rural areas. It is very common for people not to admit that they know it. They speak it in their most private environs, although there are cities where you can hear German on streets or parks.
German - Americans
At the student meeting, I was amazed by many of the new faces. Dietmar Doering enumerated the various activities in which students would be involved.
He turned his topic and was proudly telling about some of the German historical and notable personalities. Some of the Germans and their achievements are forgotten by the majority of German people.
Doering was continuing on Germans and German origin names around the world. Ethnic German minorities live in many countries in all six continents including the former Soviet Union, Poland, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Belgium, Italy, the United States, Latin America, Namibia, and Australia. These German minorities, through their ethno-cultural vitality, exhibit an exceptional level of variations.
Amongst them are small groups (such as those in Namibia) and many very large groups (such as the almost 1 million non-evacuated Germans in Russia and Kazakhstan or the near 500,000 Germans in Brazil), groups that have been greatly "folklorised" and almost completely linguistically assimilated (such as the Germans in the USA or Australia), and others, such as the true linguistic minorities (like the German minorities in Argentina and Brazil, in western Siberia or in Romania and Hungary); other groups, which are classified as religio-cultural groups rather than ethnic minorities, (such as the Eastern-Low German speaking Mennonites in Paraguay, Mexico, Belize or in the Altay region of Siberia) and the groups who maintain their status thanks to strong identification with their ethnicity and their religious sentiment (such as the groups in Upper Silesia, Poland or in South Jutland in Denmark).
Dietmar Doering was telling enthusiastically that Frankfurter, Hamburger and other famous fast food names were derived from German places and cities.
He was proud to speak of the well-to-do Americans of German ancestry. While he was telling, the students' faces took on a lively expression. They were talking to each other and nodding and exchanging notes silently among themselves.
Americans of German ancestry are the major European ethnic group in modern America.
As of a 2000 census, more than 45 million Americans claimed they had German ancestry but only 1.5 million of them spoke the language at that time.
German is the second most spoken language in the US states of North Dakota and South Dakota and the third in popular foreign language after Spanish and French in the US.
There are varieties of German dialects in the US. Texas German based in the Texas Hill Country in the vicinity of the town of Fredricksburg is a dying dialect. Hutterite communities speak Hutterite German, an Austro-Bavarian dialect in the US States of Washington, Montana, North and South Dakota and Minnesota and in the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
In Canada there are people of German ancestry throughout the country and especially in the west as well as in Ontario. There is a large and vibrant community in the city of Kitchener, Ontario.
The US state Kansas is having more Mennonites and Volga German communities.
There are German commnuities in Wisconsin and Indiana.
In the early twentieth century immigrants mainly settled in St. Louis, Chicago, New York, and Cincinnati.
The German immigrants after World War II came primarily to New York, Los Angeles and Chicago urban areas and to Florida.
Generally, German immigrant communities in the USA have lost their mother tongue more quickly than those who moved to South America, possibly for the German speakers the Germanic based English was easier to learn than the Latin based Portuguese or Spanish. The strong anti-German sentiment and attacks on German-speakers in the US before and after the major World Wars also contributed to change their mother tongue into English.
The teaching of the German language to latter-age students has given rise to a pidgin variant which combines the German language with the grammar and spelling rules of the English language in the US. This variant is often understandable by the English and the German speakers and is called American German and often referred to as Amerikanisch or Amerikanischdeutsch. However this is a pidgin and not a dialect.
German Americans in the Amana Colonies in the state of Iowa speak Amana German.
The Amish and other Pennsylvania Germans including Mennonites speak a dialect of German known as Pennsylvania Dutch also known Pennsylvania Deutsch (a West Central German variety). The eastern Pennsylvania is a remnant of what was once a much larger German-speaking area.
He turned his topic and was proudly telling about some of the German historical and notable personalities. Some of the Germans and their achievements are forgotten by the majority of German people.
Doering was continuing on Germans and German origin names around the world. Ethnic German minorities live in many countries in all six continents including the former Soviet Union, Poland, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Belgium, Italy, the United States, Latin America, Namibia, and Australia. These German minorities, through their ethno-cultural vitality, exhibit an exceptional level of variations.
Amongst them are small groups (such as those in Namibia) and many very large groups (such as the almost 1 million non-evacuated Germans in Russia and Kazakhstan or the near 500,000 Germans in Brazil), groups that have been greatly "folklorised" and almost completely linguistically assimilated (such as the Germans in the USA or Australia), and others, such as the true linguistic minorities (like the German minorities in Argentina and Brazil, in western Siberia or in Romania and Hungary); other groups, which are classified as religio-cultural groups rather than ethnic minorities, (such as the Eastern-Low German speaking Mennonites in Paraguay, Mexico, Belize or in the Altay region of Siberia) and the groups who maintain their status thanks to strong identification with their ethnicity and their religious sentiment (such as the groups in Upper Silesia, Poland or in South Jutland in Denmark).
Dietmar Doering was telling enthusiastically that Frankfurter, Hamburger and other famous fast food names were derived from German places and cities.
He was proud to speak of the well-to-do Americans of German ancestry. While he was telling, the students' faces took on a lively expression. They were talking to each other and nodding and exchanging notes silently among themselves.
Americans of German ancestry are the major European ethnic group in modern America.
As of a 2000 census, more than 45 million Americans claimed they had German ancestry but only 1.5 million of them spoke the language at that time.
German is the second most spoken language in the US states of North Dakota and South Dakota and the third in popular foreign language after Spanish and French in the US.
There are varieties of German dialects in the US. Texas German based in the Texas Hill Country in the vicinity of the town of Fredricksburg is a dying dialect. Hutterite communities speak Hutterite German, an Austro-Bavarian dialect in the US States of Washington, Montana, North and South Dakota and Minnesota and in the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
In Canada there are people of German ancestry throughout the country and especially in the west as well as in Ontario. There is a large and vibrant community in the city of Kitchener, Ontario.
The US state Kansas is having more Mennonites and Volga German communities.
There are German commnuities in Wisconsin and Indiana.
In the early twentieth century immigrants mainly settled in St. Louis, Chicago, New York, and Cincinnati.
The German immigrants after World War II came primarily to New York, Los Angeles and Chicago urban areas and to Florida.
Generally, German immigrant communities in the USA have lost their mother tongue more quickly than those who moved to South America, possibly for the German speakers the Germanic based English was easier to learn than the Latin based Portuguese or Spanish. The strong anti-German sentiment and attacks on German-speakers in the US before and after the major World Wars also contributed to change their mother tongue into English.
The teaching of the German language to latter-age students has given rise to a pidgin variant which combines the German language with the grammar and spelling rules of the English language in the US. This variant is often understandable by the English and the German speakers and is called American German and often referred to as Amerikanisch or Amerikanischdeutsch. However this is a pidgin and not a dialect.
German Americans in the Amana Colonies in the state of Iowa speak Amana German.
The Amish and other Pennsylvania Germans including Mennonites speak a dialect of German known as Pennsylvania Dutch also known Pennsylvania Deutsch (a West Central German variety). The eastern Pennsylvania is a remnant of what was once a much larger German-speaking area.
German Memory - US President Gen Dwight D Eisenhower in the German POW Crisis
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States (1953-1961) who was in charge of the Allied Forces during the Second World War, made the controversial decision to reclassify German prisoners of war (POWs) in U.S. custody as Disarmed Enemy Forces (DEFs). As DEFs, they could be compelled to serve as unpaid conscript labor. An unknown number may have died in custody as a consequence of malnutrition, exposure to the elements, and lack of medical care.
Canadian author James Bacque in his book "Other Losses" heavily criticized Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower for his involvement in treating the German prisoners of war. James Bacque's comments in "Other Losses" were widely discussed on American and German televisions and received a mixture of excitement and anger.
The reason for the reaction was the author's conclusion that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, as head of the American occupation in Germany in 1945, deliberately starved to death German prisoners of war in staggering numbers. Bacque holds that "the victims undoubtedly number over 800,000, almost certainly over 800,000 and quite likely over a million. Their deaths were knowingly caused by army officers who had sufficient resources to keep them alive."
Eisenhower's method, according to Bacque, was simple: he changed the designation of the prisoners from "Prisoners of War" (P.O.W.), which required by the Geneva Convention to be fed the same rations as US Army's, to "Disarmed Enemy Forces" (D.E.F.), which allowed him to cut their rations to starvation level.
Bacque says the D.E.F. were also denied medical supplies and shelter; because of that they died by hundreds of thousands. Their deaths were covered up on Army records by listing them as "other losses" on charts showing weekly totals of prisoners on hand, numbers discharged and so forth.
Bacque was quoted in a wire service interview as saying, "Americans should take down every statue of Eisenhower, and every photograph of him and annul his memory from American history as best they can, except to say, 'Here was a man who did very evil things that we're ashamed of."
But the critics exclaimed if there were a million dead, where were the bodies? Did Eisenhower have such vast power that he could order starvation on a mass scale and keep it a secret? Was the undoubted suffering in the camps, especially the transit camps along the Rhine, the result of Eisenhower's policy or the result of the chaotic conditions that prevailed in Europe in the spring and summer of 1945?
Historian Stephen Ambrose criticised James Bacque for having had no previous historical research or writing experience. James Bacque himself admitted in his introduction to the book "Other Losses": "Doubtless many scholars will find faults in this book, which are only mine. I welcome their criticism and their further research, which may help to restore to us the truth after a long night of lies."
Some time back, the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans invited some leading experts to examine the charges. The conference participants, including historian Stephen Ambrose came to the first conclusion that James Bacque had made a major historical discovery: "There was widespread mistreatment of German prisoners in the spring and summer of 1945. Men were beaten, denied water, forced to live in open camps without shelter, given inadequate food rations and inadequate medical care. Their mail was withheld. In some cases prisoners made a "soup" of water and grass in order to deal with their hunger. Men did die needlessly and inexcusably."
Their second conclusion was, "when scholars do the necessary research, they will find Bacque's work to be worse than worthless. It is seriously - nay, spectacularly - flawed in its most fundamental aspects". They accused that, "he misuses documents; he misreads documents; he ignores contrary evidence; his statistical methodology is hopelessly compromised; he makes no attempt to look at comparative contexts; he puts words into the mouth of his principal source; he ignores a readily available and absolutely critical source that decisively deals with his central accusation; and, as a consequence of these and other shortcomings, he reaches conclusions and makes charges that are demonstrably absurd."
The final conclusion of historians was that Eisenhower was an enthusiastic supporter of denazification, but not because he hated the Germans or believed in collective guilt. On the contrary, he believed that there were Germans who were committed to democracy and that the task of the occupation was to find them and bring them to the fore.
In a speech in Frankfurt in 1945, he declared, "The success or failure of this occupation will be judged by the character of the Germans 50 years from now. Proof will come when they begin to run a democracy of their own and we are going to give the Germans a chance to do that, in time."
Historians exclaimed, "This does not sound like a man who simultaneously was directing the death by starving a million of young Germans."
Canadian author James Bacque in his book "Other Losses" heavily criticized Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower for his involvement in treating the German prisoners of war. James Bacque's comments in "Other Losses" were widely discussed on American and German televisions and received a mixture of excitement and anger.
The reason for the reaction was the author's conclusion that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, as head of the American occupation in Germany in 1945, deliberately starved to death German prisoners of war in staggering numbers. Bacque holds that "the victims undoubtedly number over 800,000, almost certainly over 800,000 and quite likely over a million. Their deaths were knowingly caused by army officers who had sufficient resources to keep them alive."
Eisenhower's method, according to Bacque, was simple: he changed the designation of the prisoners from "Prisoners of War" (P.O.W.), which required by the Geneva Convention to be fed the same rations as US Army's, to "Disarmed Enemy Forces" (D.E.F.), which allowed him to cut their rations to starvation level.
Bacque says the D.E.F. were also denied medical supplies and shelter; because of that they died by hundreds of thousands. Their deaths were covered up on Army records by listing them as "other losses" on charts showing weekly totals of prisoners on hand, numbers discharged and so forth.
Bacque was quoted in a wire service interview as saying, "Americans should take down every statue of Eisenhower, and every photograph of him and annul his memory from American history as best they can, except to say, 'Here was a man who did very evil things that we're ashamed of."
But the critics exclaimed if there were a million dead, where were the bodies? Did Eisenhower have such vast power that he could order starvation on a mass scale and keep it a secret? Was the undoubted suffering in the camps, especially the transit camps along the Rhine, the result of Eisenhower's policy or the result of the chaotic conditions that prevailed in Europe in the spring and summer of 1945?
Historian Stephen Ambrose criticised James Bacque for having had no previous historical research or writing experience. James Bacque himself admitted in his introduction to the book "Other Losses": "Doubtless many scholars will find faults in this book, which are only mine. I welcome their criticism and their further research, which may help to restore to us the truth after a long night of lies."
Some time back, the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans invited some leading experts to examine the charges. The conference participants, including historian Stephen Ambrose came to the first conclusion that James Bacque had made a major historical discovery: "There was widespread mistreatment of German prisoners in the spring and summer of 1945. Men were beaten, denied water, forced to live in open camps without shelter, given inadequate food rations and inadequate medical care. Their mail was withheld. In some cases prisoners made a "soup" of water and grass in order to deal with their hunger. Men did die needlessly and inexcusably."
Their second conclusion was, "when scholars do the necessary research, they will find Bacque's work to be worse than worthless. It is seriously - nay, spectacularly - flawed in its most fundamental aspects". They accused that, "he misuses documents; he misreads documents; he ignores contrary evidence; his statistical methodology is hopelessly compromised; he makes no attempt to look at comparative contexts; he puts words into the mouth of his principal source; he ignores a readily available and absolutely critical source that decisively deals with his central accusation; and, as a consequence of these and other shortcomings, he reaches conclusions and makes charges that are demonstrably absurd."
The final conclusion of historians was that Eisenhower was an enthusiastic supporter of denazification, but not because he hated the Germans or believed in collective guilt. On the contrary, he believed that there were Germans who were committed to democracy and that the task of the occupation was to find them and bring them to the fore.
In a speech in Frankfurt in 1945, he declared, "The success or failure of this occupation will be judged by the character of the Germans 50 years from now. Proof will come when they begin to run a democracy of their own and we are going to give the Germans a chance to do that, in time."
Historians exclaimed, "This does not sound like a man who simultaneously was directing the death by starving a million of young Germans."
Saturday, December 22, 2007
German Memory - US President Gen Dwight D Eisenhower in the Crisis of Starving German POWs
Canadian author James Bacque in his book "Other Losses" heavily criticized Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower for his involvement in treating the German prisoners of war. James Bacque's comments in "Other Losses" were widely discussed on American and German televisions and received a mixture of excitement and anger.
Historians criticized Bacque, "He completely misunderstands Eisenhower's position and activity in the occupation. He puts full responsibility on Eisenhower for every policy decision, never recognizing that he had superiors from whom he took policy directives and orders - specifically, the Army Chief of Staff, the European Advisory Commission, acting in the name and with the authority of the British, Soviet and American Governments."
The report at the New Orleans conference with the diplomatic background, by Brian Villa of the University of Ottawa, noted that the policy of Eisenhower's superiors was to impress upon the Germans the fact of their defeat, the fact that they had brought it on themselves and in other ways to "treat 'em rough." Denazification was one aspect of that policy. Another was that German prisoners would not be fed at a higher level than German civilians, than the civilians of the liberated nations, or than the displaced persons (DPs).
An assertion that was central to Bacque's accusation was his contention that there was no European food shortage in 1945. He pointed to warehouses in Germany full of food. He stated that the Red Cross had enough food available. One of his pieces of evidence was that a train from Geneva loaded with food parcels sent by the Red Cross to feed German prisoners was forced to turn back.
But historians denied Bacque's accusation and came out with the revelation that the Allied Governments had decided those Red Cross food parcels were to feed displaced persons, of whom there were more than two million in Germany.
They also pointed out the fact denying Bacque's accusation of no food shortage that Eisenhower wrote to the Chief of Staff, Gen. George C. Marshall, in February 1945: "I am very much concerned about the food situation... We now have no reserves on the Continent of supplies for the civil population."
Eisenhower wrote to the Combined Chiefs of Staff on April 25, 1945: "Unless immediate steps are taken to develop to the fullest extent possible the food resources in order to provide the minimum wants of the German population, widespread starvation and disease are inevitable during the coming winter."
Historians pointed out Eisenhower had sent many messages before the surrender of Germany on the expectation of possible inadequacy of food. After the first week of May, all of Eisenhower's calculations as to how many people he would be required to feed in occupied Germany became woefully inadequate. He had badly underestimated, for two reasons. First, the number of German soldiers surrendering to the Western Allies far exceeded what was expected (more than five million, instead of the anticipated three million) because of the onrush of German soldiers across the Elbe River to escape the Russians. So too the German civilians - there were millions fleeing from east to west, about 13 million altogether, and they became Eisenhower's responsibility.
Eisenhower faced shortages even before he learned that there were 17 million more people to feed in Germany than he had expected.
The report of the Military Governor for Germany in July 1945 stated, "The food situation throughout Western Germany is perhaps the most serious problem of the occupation. The average food consumption in the Western Zones is now about one-third below the generally accepted subsistence level."
The September report declared, "Food from indigenous sources was not available to meet the present authorized ration level for the normal consumer of 1,550 calories per day."
Historians criticized Bacque's accusation that the prisoners were receiving 1,550 calories a day and his observation that such a ration meant slow starvation. They pointed out he apparently never looked at what civilians were getting in Germany or in the liberated countries. In Paris in 1945, the calorie level was 1,550 for civilians. It was only slightly higher in Britain, where rationing continued. It was much lower in Russia, where rationing also continued. As noted, the official ration for German civilians was 1,550, but often not met. In Vienna in the summer of 1945 the official ration sometimes fell to 500. Historians noted anyone who was in Europe in the summer of 1945 would be flabbergasted to hear that there was no food shortage.
Historians criticized Bacque, "He completely misunderstands Eisenhower's position and activity in the occupation. He puts full responsibility on Eisenhower for every policy decision, never recognizing that he had superiors from whom he took policy directives and orders - specifically, the Army Chief of Staff, the European Advisory Commission, acting in the name and with the authority of the British, Soviet and American Governments."
The report at the New Orleans conference with the diplomatic background, by Brian Villa of the University of Ottawa, noted that the policy of Eisenhower's superiors was to impress upon the Germans the fact of their defeat, the fact that they had brought it on themselves and in other ways to "treat 'em rough." Denazification was one aspect of that policy. Another was that German prisoners would not be fed at a higher level than German civilians, than the civilians of the liberated nations, or than the displaced persons (DPs).
An assertion that was central to Bacque's accusation was his contention that there was no European food shortage in 1945. He pointed to warehouses in Germany full of food. He stated that the Red Cross had enough food available. One of his pieces of evidence was that a train from Geneva loaded with food parcels sent by the Red Cross to feed German prisoners was forced to turn back.
But historians denied Bacque's accusation and came out with the revelation that the Allied Governments had decided those Red Cross food parcels were to feed displaced persons, of whom there were more than two million in Germany.
They also pointed out the fact denying Bacque's accusation of no food shortage that Eisenhower wrote to the Chief of Staff, Gen. George C. Marshall, in February 1945: "I am very much concerned about the food situation... We now have no reserves on the Continent of supplies for the civil population."
Eisenhower wrote to the Combined Chiefs of Staff on April 25, 1945: "Unless immediate steps are taken to develop to the fullest extent possible the food resources in order to provide the minimum wants of the German population, widespread starvation and disease are inevitable during the coming winter."
Historians pointed out Eisenhower had sent many messages before the surrender of Germany on the expectation of possible inadequacy of food. After the first week of May, all of Eisenhower's calculations as to how many people he would be required to feed in occupied Germany became woefully inadequate. He had badly underestimated, for two reasons. First, the number of German soldiers surrendering to the Western Allies far exceeded what was expected (more than five million, instead of the anticipated three million) because of the onrush of German soldiers across the Elbe River to escape the Russians. So too the German civilians - there were millions fleeing from east to west, about 13 million altogether, and they became Eisenhower's responsibility.
Eisenhower faced shortages even before he learned that there were 17 million more people to feed in Germany than he had expected.
The report of the Military Governor for Germany in July 1945 stated, "The food situation throughout Western Germany is perhaps the most serious problem of the occupation. The average food consumption in the Western Zones is now about one-third below the generally accepted subsistence level."
The September report declared, "Food from indigenous sources was not available to meet the present authorized ration level for the normal consumer of 1,550 calories per day."
Historians criticized Bacque's accusation that the prisoners were receiving 1,550 calories a day and his observation that such a ration meant slow starvation. They pointed out he apparently never looked at what civilians were getting in Germany or in the liberated countries. In Paris in 1945, the calorie level was 1,550 for civilians. It was only slightly higher in Britain, where rationing continued. It was much lower in Russia, where rationing also continued. As noted, the official ration for German civilians was 1,550, but often not met. In Vienna in the summer of 1945 the official ration sometimes fell to 500. Historians noted anyone who was in Europe in the summer of 1945 would be flabbergasted to hear that there was no food shortage.
German Memory - US President Gen Dwight D Eisenhower & The "Other Losses" of German Prisoners
According to Canadian Author James Bacque, Eisenhower personally, secretly, and with sinister intent changed the status of surrendered German soldiers from prisoners of war to Disarmed Enemy Forces.
But the historians argued that the change in designation was a policy matter. The decision was made not by Eisenhower but by his superiors, specifically by the European Advisory Commission. Nor was any attempt made to keep it secret. All those involved acted with the authority of the British, Russian and American Governments, and they were perfectly straightforward about the reason for the change in status. The Allies could not afford to feed the millions of German prisoners at the same level at which they were able to feed German civilians, the civilians of the liberated countries of Western Europe and the displaced persons. But the United States and other Allied nations had signed the Geneva Convention, which had the force of a treaty. They did not wish to violate it, so they used the new designation of "Disarmed Enemy Forces."
The greatest number of "other losses" revealed in the August 1945 Report of the Military Governor. (These monthly reports are in the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kan., in the National Archives in Washington and elsewhere; they are a basic source on every aspect of the occupation, including food shortages and prisoners). Historians accused Bacque that he did not cite them and there was no evidence that he examined them even.
The August report lists the numbers of disarmed enemy forces discharged by American forces and those transferred to the British and French for forced labor.
The report states: "An additional group of 663,576 are listed as 'other losses,' consisting largely of members of the Volksturm [Peoples' Militia], released without formal discharge."
The People's Militia consisted of older men (up to 80 years of age, mainly World War I veterans) and boys of 16 or sometimes less. American guards and camp authorities told the old men to go home and take care of their grandchildren, the boys to go home and return to school along with the transfers to other zones. Historians criticized James Bacque that he ignored all these facts for his 'missing million'.
They further criticized Bacque was wrong on every major charge and nearly all his minor ones. Eisenhower was not a Hitler, he did not run death camps, German prisoners did not die by the hundreds of thousands, there was a severe food shortage in 1945, there was nothing sinister or secret about the "disarmed enemy forces" designation.
Nevertheless, Historians agreed with Bacque on one point, that some US Army soldiers and their officers were capable of acting in almost as brutal a manner as the Nazis.
But number of historians has commented in their reviews in Britain, France, Germany and Canada, "they cannot believe what Mr. Bacque says about Eisenhower is true, but they cannot also disprove it."
Eisenhower, the German descendant American who showed his statesmanship and greater humanity by ending the Korean War and avoiding military intervention in Vietnam finally left a controversial legacy in his ancestral Germany; once said, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
But the historians argued that the change in designation was a policy matter. The decision was made not by Eisenhower but by his superiors, specifically by the European Advisory Commission. Nor was any attempt made to keep it secret. All those involved acted with the authority of the British, Russian and American Governments, and they were perfectly straightforward about the reason for the change in status. The Allies could not afford to feed the millions of German prisoners at the same level at which they were able to feed German civilians, the civilians of the liberated countries of Western Europe and the displaced persons. But the United States and other Allied nations had signed the Geneva Convention, which had the force of a treaty. They did not wish to violate it, so they used the new designation of "Disarmed Enemy Forces."
The greatest number of "other losses" revealed in the August 1945 Report of the Military Governor. (These monthly reports are in the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kan., in the National Archives in Washington and elsewhere; they are a basic source on every aspect of the occupation, including food shortages and prisoners). Historians accused Bacque that he did not cite them and there was no evidence that he examined them even.
The August report lists the numbers of disarmed enemy forces discharged by American forces and those transferred to the British and French for forced labor.
The report states: "An additional group of 663,576 are listed as 'other losses,' consisting largely of members of the Volksturm [Peoples' Militia], released without formal discharge."
The People's Militia consisted of older men (up to 80 years of age, mainly World War I veterans) and boys of 16 or sometimes less. American guards and camp authorities told the old men to go home and take care of their grandchildren, the boys to go home and return to school along with the transfers to other zones. Historians criticized James Bacque that he ignored all these facts for his 'missing million'.
They further criticized Bacque was wrong on every major charge and nearly all his minor ones. Eisenhower was not a Hitler, he did not run death camps, German prisoners did not die by the hundreds of thousands, there was a severe food shortage in 1945, there was nothing sinister or secret about the "disarmed enemy forces" designation.
Nevertheless, Historians agreed with Bacque on one point, that some US Army soldiers and their officers were capable of acting in almost as brutal a manner as the Nazis.
But number of historians has commented in their reviews in Britain, France, Germany and Canada, "they cannot believe what Mr. Bacque says about Eisenhower is true, but they cannot also disprove it."
Eisenhower, the German descendant American who showed his statesmanship and greater humanity by ending the Korean War and avoiding military intervention in Vietnam finally left a controversial legacy in his ancestral Germany; once said, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
German Memory - Dresden Bombing & the World's Reaction
Overall, Anglo-American bombing of German cities claimed between 305,000 and 600,000 civilian lives. But the devastation in Dresden made a great impact on neutral countries at that time. Howard Cowan, an Associated Press war correspondent, subsequently filed a story saying that the Allies had resorted to terror bombing.
There were follow-up newspaper editorials on the issue and a long-time opponent of strategic bombing, Richard Stokes MP, asked questions in the House of Commons. The destruction of the city provoked unease in informed circles in Britain.
The bombing of Dresden was the first time Allied populations questioned the military actions used to defeat the Nazis.
The nature of the bombing of Dresden has made it a unique point of contention and debate. Critics of the attack come from across the political spectrum, from far left to far right.
Gunter Grass, the German novelist and Nobel laureate for literature and Simon Jenkins, the former editor of "The Times" referred to the Dresden bombing as a "war crime".
Harald Jaehner, a German literary critic stated: "Look at the bombing of Dresden, which was really an assault on the civilian population."
Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, president of Genocide Watch, wrote: "The Nazi Holocaust was among the most evil genocides in history. But the Allies' firebombing of Dresden and nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also war crimes.............".
Before the bombing, Dresden was regarded as a beautiful city and a cultural centre, and was sometimes known as Elbflorenz, or Florence on the Elbe. Its notable architecture included the Zwinger Palace, the Dresden State Opera House, and the Dresden Frauenkirche, its historic cathedral.
According to Friedrich: German forces were in full retreat by February 1945, and the impact on civilians was out of all proportion to the military goal. He argued that the bombing was a war crime even under the legal standards of that time, because the Allies intended to cause as many civilian casualties as possible.
Friedrich also contends that the outcome of previous bombing attacks well demonstrated that the Allied forces were aware of the destruction caused by incendiary bombs, and that due to the collapse of German air defense and improvements in bombing accuracy, future attacks were likely to cause ever increasing numbers of civilian deaths.
But the United States military made the case that bombing of Dresden did not constitute a war crime, based on various reasons that the raids had legitimate military ends according to the military circumstances at that time.
The US also argued the military units and anti-aircraft defenses were sufficiently close to the city and it's not valid to consider the city was "undefended".
The US also pointed out the raid achieved the military objective, without "excessive" loss of civilian life.
The US legitimacy of the military ends were based on the rail-yards which were subjected to American precision bombing as they assumed the rail-yards had beyond their ordinary value as a transportation center.
An inquiry conducted at the behest of the US Secretary of War, General George C. Marshall also concluded that the raid was justified by the available intelligence. The inquiry also justified the military operation by eliminating German ability to reinforce a counter-attack against Marshall Konev's extended line and to regroup using Dresden as a base of operations. As Dresden had been largely untouched during the war, it was one of the few remaining functional rail and communications centers.
A secondary objective was to disrupt the industrial use of Dresden for munitions manufacture, which American intelligence believed to be the case. The city contained the Zeiss-Ikon optical factory and the Siemens glass factory, both of which, according to the Allies, were entirely devoted to manufacturing military gun-sights.
They believed immediate suburbs contained factories building radar and electronics components, and fuses for anti-aircraft shells and other factories produced gas masks, engines for Junkers aircraft and cockpit parts for Messerschmitt fighters.
Because of the concentration of undamaged industry, unusual in Germany at the time of the raids, the allied planners very strongly believed that Dresden had strategic importance to supply material for the defense of German military.
After the firebombing they estimated that over 25% of industrial capacity was disabled or destroyed, eliminating potential use of Dresden by the German military to launch counter-strikes against the Soviet advance.
There were follow-up newspaper editorials on the issue and a long-time opponent of strategic bombing, Richard Stokes MP, asked questions in the House of Commons. The destruction of the city provoked unease in informed circles in Britain.
The bombing of Dresden was the first time Allied populations questioned the military actions used to defeat the Nazis.
The nature of the bombing of Dresden has made it a unique point of contention and debate. Critics of the attack come from across the political spectrum, from far left to far right.
Gunter Grass, the German novelist and Nobel laureate for literature and Simon Jenkins, the former editor of "The Times" referred to the Dresden bombing as a "war crime".
Harald Jaehner, a German literary critic stated: "Look at the bombing of Dresden, which was really an assault on the civilian population."
Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, president of Genocide Watch, wrote: "The Nazi Holocaust was among the most evil genocides in history. But the Allies' firebombing of Dresden and nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also war crimes.............".
Before the bombing, Dresden was regarded as a beautiful city and a cultural centre, and was sometimes known as Elbflorenz, or Florence on the Elbe. Its notable architecture included the Zwinger Palace, the Dresden State Opera House, and the Dresden Frauenkirche, its historic cathedral.
According to Friedrich: German forces were in full retreat by February 1945, and the impact on civilians was out of all proportion to the military goal. He argued that the bombing was a war crime even under the legal standards of that time, because the Allies intended to cause as many civilian casualties as possible.
Friedrich also contends that the outcome of previous bombing attacks well demonstrated that the Allied forces were aware of the destruction caused by incendiary bombs, and that due to the collapse of German air defense and improvements in bombing accuracy, future attacks were likely to cause ever increasing numbers of civilian deaths.
But the United States military made the case that bombing of Dresden did not constitute a war crime, based on various reasons that the raids had legitimate military ends according to the military circumstances at that time.
The US also argued the military units and anti-aircraft defenses were sufficiently close to the city and it's not valid to consider the city was "undefended".
The US also pointed out the raid achieved the military objective, without "excessive" loss of civilian life.
The US legitimacy of the military ends were based on the rail-yards which were subjected to American precision bombing as they assumed the rail-yards had beyond their ordinary value as a transportation center.
An inquiry conducted at the behest of the US Secretary of War, General George C. Marshall also concluded that the raid was justified by the available intelligence. The inquiry also justified the military operation by eliminating German ability to reinforce a counter-attack against Marshall Konev's extended line and to regroup using Dresden as a base of operations. As Dresden had been largely untouched during the war, it was one of the few remaining functional rail and communications centers.
A secondary objective was to disrupt the industrial use of Dresden for munitions manufacture, which American intelligence believed to be the case. The city contained the Zeiss-Ikon optical factory and the Siemens glass factory, both of which, according to the Allies, were entirely devoted to manufacturing military gun-sights.
They believed immediate suburbs contained factories building radar and electronics components, and fuses for anti-aircraft shells and other factories produced gas masks, engines for Junkers aircraft and cockpit parts for Messerschmitt fighters.
Because of the concentration of undamaged industry, unusual in Germany at the time of the raids, the allied planners very strongly believed that Dresden had strategic importance to supply material for the defense of German military.
After the firebombing they estimated that over 25% of industrial capacity was disabled or destroyed, eliminating potential use of Dresden by the German military to launch counter-strikes against the Soviet advance.
German Memory - Firebombing on Dresden and the Devastation
The firebombing campaign was supposed to begin with an USAAF Eighth Air Force raid on Dresden on February 13 but bad weather over Europe prevented any American operations. So it fell to RAF Bomber Command to carry out the first raid.
During the evening of February 13, the RAF bombers 796 Avro Lancasters and 9 De Havilland Mosquitoes were dispatched in two separate waves and dropped 1,478 tons of high explosive and 1,182 tons of incendiary bombs in the early hours of February 14.
The second attack, 3 hours later, was an all-Lancaster attack by aircraft of 1, 3, 6 and 8 Groups, with 8 Group providing standard Pathfinder marking. The weather had by then cleared and 529 Lancasters dropped more than 1,800 tons of bombs with great accuracy.
Later on the 14th 311 American B-17s dropped 771 tons of bombs on Dresden, with the railway yards as their aiming point.
Part of the American Mustang-fighter escort was ordered to strafe traffic on the roads around Dresden to increase chaos. The civilians were fleeing the firestorm engulfing Dresden. During this raid there was a brief, but possibly intense dogfight between American and German fighters around Dresden.
The Americans continued the bombing on February 15, dropping 466 tons of bombs.
During these four raids a total of around 3,900 tons of bombs were dropped.
The firebombing consisted of dropping large amounts of high-explosives to blow off the roofs to expose the timbers within buildings, followed by incendiary devices (fire-sticks) to ignite them and then more high-explosives to hamper the efforts of the fire services. This eventually created a self-sustaining firestorm with temperatures peaking at over 1500°C. After the area caught fire, the air above the bombed area became extremely hot and rose rapidly. Cold air then rushed in at ground level from the outside and people were sucked into the fire.
After the main firebombing campaign between 13th and 15th, there were two further raids on the Dresden railway yards by the USAAF. The first was on March 2 by 406 B-17s which dropped 940 tons of high-explosive bombs and 141 tons of incendiaries. The second was on April 17 when 580 B-17s dropped 1,554 tons of high-explosive bombs and 165 tons of incendiaries.
Out of 28,410 houses in the inner city of Dresden, 24,866 were destroyed. An area of 15 square kilometres was totally destroyed, among that: 14,000 homes, 72 schools, 22 hospitals, 18 churches, 5 theatres, 50 banks and insurance companies, 31 department stores, 31 large hotels, 62 administration buildings as well as factories such as the Ihagee camera works. In total there were 222,000 apartments in the city. 75,000 of them were totally destroyed, 11,000 severely damaged, 7,000 damaged, 81,000 slightly damaged.
The city was around 300 square kilometres in area in those days. Although the main railway station was destroyed completely, the railway was working again within a few days.
The precise number of dead was a mystery by the fact that the city and surrounding suburbs was with a population of 642,000 in 1939 and was crowded at that time with up to 200,000 refugees, and some thousands of wounded soldiers. Some of them might have been killed and incinerated beyond recognition in the fire-storm. Earlier reputable estimates varied from 25,000 to more than 60,000, but historians now view around 25,000-35,000 as the likely range with the latest research by the Dresden historian Friedrich Reichert in 1994.
The ideal weather conditions at the target site, the wooden-framed buildings, "breakthroughs" linking the cellars of contiguous buildings and the lack of preparation for the effects of air-raids made the attack in Dresden a devastating. For these reasons the loss of life in Dresden was higher than many other bombing raids during World War II.
During the evening of February 13, the RAF bombers 796 Avro Lancasters and 9 De Havilland Mosquitoes were dispatched in two separate waves and dropped 1,478 tons of high explosive and 1,182 tons of incendiary bombs in the early hours of February 14.
The second attack, 3 hours later, was an all-Lancaster attack by aircraft of 1, 3, 6 and 8 Groups, with 8 Group providing standard Pathfinder marking. The weather had by then cleared and 529 Lancasters dropped more than 1,800 tons of bombs with great accuracy.
Later on the 14th 311 American B-17s dropped 771 tons of bombs on Dresden, with the railway yards as their aiming point.
Part of the American Mustang-fighter escort was ordered to strafe traffic on the roads around Dresden to increase chaos. The civilians were fleeing the firestorm engulfing Dresden. During this raid there was a brief, but possibly intense dogfight between American and German fighters around Dresden.
The Americans continued the bombing on February 15, dropping 466 tons of bombs.
During these four raids a total of around 3,900 tons of bombs were dropped.
The firebombing consisted of dropping large amounts of high-explosives to blow off the roofs to expose the timbers within buildings, followed by incendiary devices (fire-sticks) to ignite them and then more high-explosives to hamper the efforts of the fire services. This eventually created a self-sustaining firestorm with temperatures peaking at over 1500°C. After the area caught fire, the air above the bombed area became extremely hot and rose rapidly. Cold air then rushed in at ground level from the outside and people were sucked into the fire.
After the main firebombing campaign between 13th and 15th, there were two further raids on the Dresden railway yards by the USAAF. The first was on March 2 by 406 B-17s which dropped 940 tons of high-explosive bombs and 141 tons of incendiaries. The second was on April 17 when 580 B-17s dropped 1,554 tons of high-explosive bombs and 165 tons of incendiaries.
Out of 28,410 houses in the inner city of Dresden, 24,866 were destroyed. An area of 15 square kilometres was totally destroyed, among that: 14,000 homes, 72 schools, 22 hospitals, 18 churches, 5 theatres, 50 banks and insurance companies, 31 department stores, 31 large hotels, 62 administration buildings as well as factories such as the Ihagee camera works. In total there were 222,000 apartments in the city. 75,000 of them were totally destroyed, 11,000 severely damaged, 7,000 damaged, 81,000 slightly damaged.
The city was around 300 square kilometres in area in those days. Although the main railway station was destroyed completely, the railway was working again within a few days.
The precise number of dead was a mystery by the fact that the city and surrounding suburbs was with a population of 642,000 in 1939 and was crowded at that time with up to 200,000 refugees, and some thousands of wounded soldiers. Some of them might have been killed and incinerated beyond recognition in the fire-storm. Earlier reputable estimates varied from 25,000 to more than 60,000, but historians now view around 25,000-35,000 as the likely range with the latest research by the Dresden historian Friedrich Reichert in 1994.
The ideal weather conditions at the target site, the wooden-framed buildings, "breakthroughs" linking the cellars of contiguous buildings and the lack of preparation for the effects of air-raids made the attack in Dresden a devastating. For these reasons the loss of life in Dresden was higher than many other bombing raids during World War II.
Friday, December 21, 2007
German Memory in Asia - A Night in the Rebel-Held Jungle
We were moving towards the political office in Kilinochchi passing the Finance Division and stopped near the "Pandyan" restaurant for dinner.
As I had come with on our previous trip with the German Praktikum (Internship) students, when I was moving towards the restaurant front entrance, the earlier incidents came to my memory. There were sweet memories to be recalled over and over again.
When we were seated, I watched there were a few European ladies and a lady with an infant having dinner at the next table. The staff of the restaurant amused the infant with many pleasantries. Steffani was trying to smell out who these European ladies were.
She might have guessed already that they were probably from Germany or around and tried to confirm her guess by observing their lip movements to identify in which language they were speaking.
She said at one point they were speaking German and approached them and had a good chat.
When we walked into the garden after having our dinner I found a number of Europeans who were working in the various NGOs, entering the restaurant.
Once again our journey in the jungle highway started with our witnessing the nearly stone-age life-style and the strange silence everywhere. The twinkling lights from chimney lamps in the houses were a reminder of the people who were undergoing various hardships in the war-ravaged areas which could be hardly expressed in words.
It was only when we met the LTTE media coordinator and its spokesman that I realized the difficulty we were to face in undertaking such a survey in the LTTE - controlled areas. The prominent columnist and a Pro- Tamil nationalist Sivaram's murder had put everyone in a sad mood in Kilinochchi. They had forgotten to arrange accommodation for us and the alternative accommodation after many failed attempts was congested and far from comfortable.
The rooms had been by occupied by many foreigners, leaving us only one room with a broken bed. We were truly in a mess and as it was late in the night we had no option other than staying there.
Steffani was running here and there as the leader of our team and decided who and who should sleep where and told the driver should take the room for the night. It was such interesting to see Steffani who was in her early twenties acting as commander in the isolated deep rural jungle surrounded by LTTE-controlled areas as though she did things at her home. She was at times shouting at me saying it was my fault for ending up here for the night. Steffani decided to stay in the van and I went to sleep in the hall and Romy and Yong in the front veranda which they preferred as there was more ventilation.
The Jaffna Lagoon's mild wind wafting from the jungle soothed my mind and drifted me into sleep.
The place where we were spending the night was just close to where the Irish-American Area Director of CARE International was staying.
I could recall an incident vividly. At times we used to have meetings with dinner at her residence when there were officials visiting from CARE head office in Colombo or from overseas. Once a visiting evaluation team had come and I had an unforgettable experience with a Scottish young lady while at dinner. She was such interesting person and in her late twenties but a little aggressive when our discussion touched on Scottish issues in medieval times.
She burst out at once, placing her palm on my chest, told how the Scottish people had been deprived by the then English rulers some centuries ago and asked me whether I would accept that. I was shocked by her emotional outburst and was able to imagine to what extent the Scottish people had been affected by the practices of various atrocities by the English Lords.
I couldn't reconcile myself to the practice of newly married Scottish brides spending their first night with English Lords instead of their newly-married husbands.
As I had come with on our previous trip with the German Praktikum (Internship) students, when I was moving towards the restaurant front entrance, the earlier incidents came to my memory. There were sweet memories to be recalled over and over again.
When we were seated, I watched there were a few European ladies and a lady with an infant having dinner at the next table. The staff of the restaurant amused the infant with many pleasantries. Steffani was trying to smell out who these European ladies were.
She might have guessed already that they were probably from Germany or around and tried to confirm her guess by observing their lip movements to identify in which language they were speaking.
She said at one point they were speaking German and approached them and had a good chat.
When we walked into the garden after having our dinner I found a number of Europeans who were working in the various NGOs, entering the restaurant.
Once again our journey in the jungle highway started with our witnessing the nearly stone-age life-style and the strange silence everywhere. The twinkling lights from chimney lamps in the houses were a reminder of the people who were undergoing various hardships in the war-ravaged areas which could be hardly expressed in words.
It was only when we met the LTTE media coordinator and its spokesman that I realized the difficulty we were to face in undertaking such a survey in the LTTE - controlled areas. The prominent columnist and a Pro- Tamil nationalist Sivaram's murder had put everyone in a sad mood in Kilinochchi. They had forgotten to arrange accommodation for us and the alternative accommodation after many failed attempts was congested and far from comfortable.
The rooms had been by occupied by many foreigners, leaving us only one room with a broken bed. We were truly in a mess and as it was late in the night we had no option other than staying there.
Steffani was running here and there as the leader of our team and decided who and who should sleep where and told the driver should take the room for the night. It was such interesting to see Steffani who was in her early twenties acting as commander in the isolated deep rural jungle surrounded by LTTE-controlled areas as though she did things at her home. She was at times shouting at me saying it was my fault for ending up here for the night. Steffani decided to stay in the van and I went to sleep in the hall and Romy and Yong in the front veranda which they preferred as there was more ventilation.
The Jaffna Lagoon's mild wind wafting from the jungle soothed my mind and drifted me into sleep.
The place where we were spending the night was just close to where the Irish-American Area Director of CARE International was staying.
I could recall an incident vividly. At times we used to have meetings with dinner at her residence when there were officials visiting from CARE head office in Colombo or from overseas. Once a visiting evaluation team had come and I had an unforgettable experience with a Scottish young lady while at dinner. She was such interesting person and in her late twenties but a little aggressive when our discussion touched on Scottish issues in medieval times.
She burst out at once, placing her palm on my chest, told how the Scottish people had been deprived by the then English rulers some centuries ago and asked me whether I would accept that. I was shocked by her emotional outburst and was able to imagine to what extent the Scottish people had been affected by the practices of various atrocities by the English Lords.
I couldn't reconcile myself to the practice of newly married Scottish brides spending their first night with English Lords instead of their newly-married husbands.
German Memory in Asia - A Discussion on American and World Affairs
Lionie, a German Praktikum (Internship) student entered the discussion speaking on various interesting issues.
She was sharing her ideas to organise an awareness program on landmine issues between the AGSEP and the PDIP. John Stephen III, a Foreign Affairs Officer at the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement of the Bureau of Political and Military Affairs of the US State Department was so helpful and has taken a personal interest to help us, to make the awareness program a success by sending various materials from the US State Department.
Leonie is from Düsseldorf, a city located in the Western part of Germany close to The Netherlands. She told she had come across various Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka and asked various issues on the region. Though it was her first visit to Asia, she is well-informed on various Asian crises.
She said she is a vegetarian because she couldn't bear the way they are rearing poultry in congested cages, giving no chance for those birds to feel free during those few weeks in the world before they were killed. She was a lover of animals and in Germany many homes have pets such as dogs, cats, guinea pigs and even birds. I found her to be a sincere animal lover when she said, "Even I won't eat eggs if those are from hens which are denied a comfortable living".
She had switched on to a new subject and said, "Number of universities in Sweden especially the University of Uppsala, is offering master degrees without any charges" and came out with the fact that, "The British and the American University Programs are very expensive".
She left Germany to study in The Netherlands and France because of the benefit the International exposure. Sometimes certain universities have more international exposure in their curricula than others. Recently a friend of mine told me that the American education is more American-based than International.
When my friend told me this, what struck me was the statement by Dr. Mahathir Mohammed, the one-time Malaysian Prime Minister: "Most Americans, I think, know very little about East Asia or Southeast Asia. American business people who have been here, they are very knowledgeable about this area, but the average America? No. We are horrified to find most Americans do not know the capitals of foreign countries or even the capitals of American states. I mean, our education system emphasizes knowledge of the outside world. The America education system apparently stresses knowledge of the United States. An American [baseball] tournament, for example, is called a world series, but is confined only to America. It's not a world series at all".
But some time back when I spoke to a friend of mine who was a manager at a firm in the State Minnesota of the USA and then as the head of IBM in Sri Lanka, he said, "There are people in the US, who haven't visited even New York, Los Angeles or other major American cities in their life. So how can we expect they should look or travel into other parts of the world?" The American way of life is more individualistic and achievement-oriented and its life-style is not based on living in common harmony. He pointed out that there was no need to look to other countries if it wouldn't help to earn their daily bread.
Lionie is a student of the popular Maastricht University in The Netherlands and had spent a year at Bordeaux University in France. Her specialization in European studies at Maastricht and Political studies at Bordeaux was well reflected, in her advice to me on various issues. When spoke of the Lebanon crisis, she said that it would become more political and supported my earlier viewpoint on landmine issues.
She said, "I can't understand why people are spending so much of money at the famous Italian Bocconi University for MBA to learn something in a year so much".
She asked me whether I think, we could learn something unique within a year in proportion to the money spent which is more than 30,000 Euros.
She was sharing her ideas to organise an awareness program on landmine issues between the AGSEP and the PDIP. John Stephen III, a Foreign Affairs Officer at the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement of the Bureau of Political and Military Affairs of the US State Department was so helpful and has taken a personal interest to help us, to make the awareness program a success by sending various materials from the US State Department.
Leonie is from Düsseldorf, a city located in the Western part of Germany close to The Netherlands. She told she had come across various Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka and asked various issues on the region. Though it was her first visit to Asia, she is well-informed on various Asian crises.
She said she is a vegetarian because she couldn't bear the way they are rearing poultry in congested cages, giving no chance for those birds to feel free during those few weeks in the world before they were killed. She was a lover of animals and in Germany many homes have pets such as dogs, cats, guinea pigs and even birds. I found her to be a sincere animal lover when she said, "Even I won't eat eggs if those are from hens which are denied a comfortable living".
She had switched on to a new subject and said, "Number of universities in Sweden especially the University of Uppsala, is offering master degrees without any charges" and came out with the fact that, "The British and the American University Programs are very expensive".
She left Germany to study in The Netherlands and France because of the benefit the International exposure. Sometimes certain universities have more international exposure in their curricula than others. Recently a friend of mine told me that the American education is more American-based than International.
When my friend told me this, what struck me was the statement by Dr. Mahathir Mohammed, the one-time Malaysian Prime Minister: "Most Americans, I think, know very little about East Asia or Southeast Asia. American business people who have been here, they are very knowledgeable about this area, but the average America? No. We are horrified to find most Americans do not know the capitals of foreign countries or even the capitals of American states. I mean, our education system emphasizes knowledge of the outside world. The America education system apparently stresses knowledge of the United States. An American [baseball] tournament, for example, is called a world series, but is confined only to America. It's not a world series at all".
But some time back when I spoke to a friend of mine who was a manager at a firm in the State Minnesota of the USA and then as the head of IBM in Sri Lanka, he said, "There are people in the US, who haven't visited even New York, Los Angeles or other major American cities in their life. So how can we expect they should look or travel into other parts of the world?" The American way of life is more individualistic and achievement-oriented and its life-style is not based on living in common harmony. He pointed out that there was no need to look to other countries if it wouldn't help to earn their daily bread.
Lionie is a student of the popular Maastricht University in The Netherlands and had spent a year at Bordeaux University in France. Her specialization in European studies at Maastricht and Political studies at Bordeaux was well reflected, in her advice to me on various issues. When spoke of the Lebanon crisis, she said that it would become more political and supported my earlier viewpoint on landmine issues.
She said, "I can't understand why people are spending so much of money at the famous Italian Bocconi University for MBA to learn something in a year so much".
She asked me whether I think, we could learn something unique within a year in proportion to the money spent which is more than 30,000 Euros.
German Bavaria - The Wonder Land
I was seated in one of the chairs at the beach - end table facing the Indian Ocean.
I had hardly seen any objects in the Ocean, but the shining stars in the far distance and the Bavarians near me triggered my thoughts back into the good old Bavaria over the Alps.
Now I could see the several beautiful rivers across Bavaria. The Danube, the Main, the Isar and the Inn were passing so silently. I could also visualise the largest lake in Bavaria, the lake Chiemsee with other picturesque lakes Starnberger and Ammersee near Munich and in the little distance the lake Königssee in Berchtesgaden, which is surrounded by the impressive mountains of the Alps. The lake Bodensee, one of the largest lakes in Europe, which belongs to Bavaria, is silently shining to sun beams.
The scenic panorama of the Bavarian beauty in the vicinity of the Alps lasting for many centuries was saturating my mind. Now I could see with my inward eye the very impressive Alps Mountains with its highest peak Zugspitze offering a breathtaking panorama across several hundreds of peaks with a scenic view of four countries, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. Bavaria is one of the oldest states in Europe.
The ethnic group of the Bavarians had come to be mixed with Romans, Celts and Teutons some 2500 years ago. The Otto of Wittelsbach founded the State of Bavaria. Hitler took over power in 1933 and Bavaria became no longer an independent state. After Germany's capitulation in 1945, the American Forces occupied Bavaria.
The events were moving in my inner eye one by one towards the present day Bavaria. Fredrike Wagner has inspired me a lot on Bavaria and the Munich on our tsunami visit to the Northern part of the Island. When I remember Fredrike Wagner, my mind used to recall the legendary Richard Wagner who revolutionized German opera by making the music secondary to the dramatic action. Still in Bayreuth every year the Wagner festival takes place - a high society event. Wagner's most famous works "The flying Dutchman", "The ring of the Nibelungen" and "Tristan and Isolde" are such fascinating works which could inspire any one in the world.
Bavaria is the largest land of the federal republic of Germany with nearly 18 million people. Munich, the capital of Bavaria with more than 1.2 million inhabitants is one of the dynamic cities in Europe and in the world. A number of German Praktikum (Internship) students from Bavaria told me that the culture in Bavaria is very distinct from the rest of Germany. They have told the differences are very marked still in the rural areas but are less significant in the major cities.
The religious faith in Southern Bavaria is the predominant faith of Roman Catholicism, contrasting with the more Lutheran-Protestantism in the Northern parts of Bavaria. The students told the typical expression of greeting in Bavaria and Austria is: "Grüss Gott!" which means God greet you. Bavaria could be proud of the present pope, Benedict XVI, his name being Joseph Alois Ratzinger who is from the Marktl am Inn in Upper Bavaria.
But when I asked Fredrieke Wagner which religion she is practising, she told simply, "I don't have religion". I wondered and couldn't make out whether she does practise a religion in the Catholic-dominated Bavarian region or she had expressed a mere pleasantry.
I heard that Bavarians resemble the inhabitants of Latin countries and tend to give great attention to their personal appearance, while folks in some other parts of Germany dress more casually. It is fascinating even at business meetings to see southern Bavarians wearing traditional clothing.
Bavarian cities and towns, whether they are rich or poor, are the best looked-after locations in Germany. The students also told me that Bavarians are very proud of their different dialects and most of them speak with a Bavarian, Franconian or Swabian accent.
I also heard from some of the German students and others that the Christian Social Union, which has ruled Bavaria uninterruptedly since 1957, is arguably the most inward looking of the major German political parties, which combines socially conservative positions with an advocacy for extensive involvement of the state in its economy.
I had hardly seen any objects in the Ocean, but the shining stars in the far distance and the Bavarians near me triggered my thoughts back into the good old Bavaria over the Alps.
Now I could see the several beautiful rivers across Bavaria. The Danube, the Main, the Isar and the Inn were passing so silently. I could also visualise the largest lake in Bavaria, the lake Chiemsee with other picturesque lakes Starnberger and Ammersee near Munich and in the little distance the lake Königssee in Berchtesgaden, which is surrounded by the impressive mountains of the Alps. The lake Bodensee, one of the largest lakes in Europe, which belongs to Bavaria, is silently shining to sun beams.
The scenic panorama of the Bavarian beauty in the vicinity of the Alps lasting for many centuries was saturating my mind. Now I could see with my inward eye the very impressive Alps Mountains with its highest peak Zugspitze offering a breathtaking panorama across several hundreds of peaks with a scenic view of four countries, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. Bavaria is one of the oldest states in Europe.
The ethnic group of the Bavarians had come to be mixed with Romans, Celts and Teutons some 2500 years ago. The Otto of Wittelsbach founded the State of Bavaria. Hitler took over power in 1933 and Bavaria became no longer an independent state. After Germany's capitulation in 1945, the American Forces occupied Bavaria.
The events were moving in my inner eye one by one towards the present day Bavaria. Fredrike Wagner has inspired me a lot on Bavaria and the Munich on our tsunami visit to the Northern part of the Island. When I remember Fredrike Wagner, my mind used to recall the legendary Richard Wagner who revolutionized German opera by making the music secondary to the dramatic action. Still in Bayreuth every year the Wagner festival takes place - a high society event. Wagner's most famous works "The flying Dutchman", "The ring of the Nibelungen" and "Tristan and Isolde" are such fascinating works which could inspire any one in the world.
Bavaria is the largest land of the federal republic of Germany with nearly 18 million people. Munich, the capital of Bavaria with more than 1.2 million inhabitants is one of the dynamic cities in Europe and in the world. A number of German Praktikum (Internship) students from Bavaria told me that the culture in Bavaria is very distinct from the rest of Germany. They have told the differences are very marked still in the rural areas but are less significant in the major cities.
The religious faith in Southern Bavaria is the predominant faith of Roman Catholicism, contrasting with the more Lutheran-Protestantism in the Northern parts of Bavaria. The students told the typical expression of greeting in Bavaria and Austria is: "Grüss Gott!" which means God greet you. Bavaria could be proud of the present pope, Benedict XVI, his name being Joseph Alois Ratzinger who is from the Marktl am Inn in Upper Bavaria.
But when I asked Fredrieke Wagner which religion she is practising, she told simply, "I don't have religion". I wondered and couldn't make out whether she does practise a religion in the Catholic-dominated Bavarian region or she had expressed a mere pleasantry.
I heard that Bavarians resemble the inhabitants of Latin countries and tend to give great attention to their personal appearance, while folks in some other parts of Germany dress more casually. It is fascinating even at business meetings to see southern Bavarians wearing traditional clothing.
Bavarian cities and towns, whether they are rich or poor, are the best looked-after locations in Germany. The students also told me that Bavarians are very proud of their different dialects and most of them speak with a Bavarian, Franconian or Swabian accent.
I also heard from some of the German students and others that the Christian Social Union, which has ruled Bavaria uninterruptedly since 1957, is arguably the most inward looking of the major German political parties, which combines socially conservative positions with an advocacy for extensive involvement of the state in its economy.
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German university students donate a boat and engine to an affected fisherman.
Germans university students with Dietmar Doering (centre) at Marawila beach.
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