Wow! You never see what a beautiful city Berlin was in the 1930s.

Documented in two great films: PEOPLE ON SUNDAY (29-Criterion Collection and Film Struck) and BERLIN SYMPHONY OF A GREAY CITY (27-also on Film Struck).

For the post-war destruction, Billy WIlder's A BERLIN AFFAIR (48).

Of course, this is what that same zoo looked like after the Allied bombing raids of 1943.

Oh, what could have been if only they hadn't shat it all up. But whatever, Berlin looks glorious and modern today, so it's not that big of a loss.

r2 Why the fuck would you bomb a zoo?

What I find fascinating is that less than 40 years earlier, it was still the horse-and-buggy/bustles-and-suits era.

Absent from this 1936 footage: Jews, the homeless, wounded WWI vets, non-Aryans, poor people, Roma, sex workers, roving groups of single young men, the halt and the lame.

Berlin looks totally sanitized here.

I watched that film and I wondered two things...how many of those healthy prosperous looking people were complicit in turning on their jewish neighbors and how many of them suffered untold horrors when the end came.

R4, We Bombed A Zoo

R1 A Berlin Affair is one of my favorite films, but it’s always nearly impossible to find it on streaming sites. Needless to say, it’s not on FilmStruck.

OP=Sally Bowles

R4, bombing during WWII was not nearly as precise as it is today, hence there was extensive collateral damage. In addition, carpet bombing, often used during WWII, was not intended to be precise.

But the British made sure that one of the first buildings they got was the Irish Embassy; Hitler had given them a grand piano they blew to shreds.

What's with the beaches? I thought Berlin was land-locked.

They have lakes

[quote]Possibly the most charming of Berlin's many lovely lake beaches, the Strandbad Grünau is tucked away in deepest east Berlin. But it's well worth the journey. Unlike the more popular Strandbad Wannsee in the posher west, the water here is deep enough for proper swimming and it doesn't get quite as horrendously busy on a hot summer's day. There are striped Strandkörbe (beach baskets) to hire as an alternative to a boring old deckchair and a decent cafe too. Those so inclined can go nude in the secluded area marked FKK.

and at Wannsee

OMG!

(NSFW)

[quote] They have lakes

Big deal; so do I.

I was looking up old World Cup results a few weeks ago and on the 1938 table, Germany's flag was of course a swastika. It's jarring to think of life continuing as normal - sport, entertainment, etc. - under Hitler's reign.

I highly recommend the Netflix series "Babylon Berlin" for more of the flavor of this city in the 1930s, at a time which i think was much more interesting; right BEFORE Hitler had taken over, when it was still decadent and not quite so cleaned up.

I couldn't handle more than 5 minutes of it, R19. It was highly recommended to me.

OP there were many glorious cities in Europe, which was a continent of empires and very rich.

WWI and WWII did a lot of damage, as did communism.

The destroyed historic centers in some newly communist cities were rebuilt as perfect replicas, but often only a small qty of buildings. Then there were many kilometers of communist blocks.

Berlin was a handsome and huge city but not among the prettiest thats for sure.

This was a propaganda film for the Berlin Olympics in 1936.

They cooled down on the anti-semitism for a while and these sorts of signs from shop windows etc... disappeared...for a while.

nicht bidient = not served

R4 the entire town of Clydebank in Scotland was destroyed. Why would you bomb a greengrocer or a swing park?

It happened all over. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened if the Germans hadn’t decided to rampage across Europe murdering Jews, gays, disabled, Roma etc. I think Dresden looked pretty before it was landscaped by the RAF but I don’t waste a second regretting it because those people voted for a monster and did nothing but cheer him on. Fuck them.

What about those who did not vote for Hitler, r24? Did they deserve to have their city razed to the earth and to be annihilated?

Hear, hear r25 The logic behind such thinking is perplexing.

I recommend Berlin Symphony of a City filmed in 1927. It's a fascinating glimpse of pre-Nazi Berlin and is available on Youtube.

Hitler was a fan of architecture, and had grandiose plans drawn up for the redevelopment of Berlin. Thank God for the war and lack of money/resources, otherwise this monstrosity would have seen the light of day. And It would all have been built with slave labor supplied by the concentration camp system.

What about the people of Britain r25? Did they deserve to have their cities razed? No, not all Germans voted for Hitler but the vast majority did.

r29 and Brits bombed the shit out of so many cities in Europe outside of Germany. None of those cities and cultural heritage had to be annihilated in the name of liberation. Not by Germans, nor by the allies.

I watched the 1931 movie version of "Emil and the Detectives" (written by Billy Wilder) recently and there were many nice shots of pre-war Berlin streets shown - it seemed like a nice and very lively city. But it was sad to check out that film's IMDB page - most of the male child actors from that film (inluding the one who played the title role) died in battle a few years later, fighting for the German Reich.

[quote]What about those who did not vote for Hitler, [R24]? Did they deserve to have their city razed to the earth and to be annihilated?

There's footage of some kitschy Nazi parade and there's a man in the crowd looking at the stuff going by and you can see he's thinking "Gurl, please!

[quote]No, not all Germans voted for Hitler but the vast majority did.

It must have been hell for Germans who hated him. I'm not referring to the Jews etc...

[quote]Hitler was a fan of architecture, and had grandiose plans drawn up for the redevelopment of Berlin. Thank God for the war and lack of money/resources, otherwise this monstrosity would have seen the light of day. And It would all have been built with slave labor supplied by the concentration camp system.

Tricky, as they were killing them off.

They would have enslaved the Poles etc...

I'm German-American, and I feel deeply conflicted about my heritage. During WWI, my grandfather fought on the American side, and during WWII, my great-uncle did, too. Germany has contributed so much to the arts (especially music) and science. They had a vibrant society, but their actions during WWII and the years leading up to it will never be forgotten. German-Americans are the largest single ethnic origin for white Americans, but unlike, say, the Italians or Irish, you won't find many people bragging about it. Of course, the British Royal Family is also of German origins, and they even changed their name to disassociate themselves from the Germans.

R32, it's currently hell for us Americans who didn't vote for Trump.

Amazing how this comes alive through the use of color films. If it had been shot in b&w don't think it would have nearly the impact.

[quote][R32], it's currently hell for us Americans who didn't vote for Trump.

Hardly the same. Keep it real.

I know this isn't what the thread is about - but this documentary is fascinating, about the Jews who hid in Berlin for the whole war.

One of them wrote a book and in it, he talks about the non-Jews who hated Hitler. Some who hid him.

r37 what's the name of the book he wrote? I cant't watch the video now.

^^ you can tell immediately how good that documentary is.

here, R38 >

....

Thanks r40

Sure, Berlin and Germany were all the rage in the 1930s.

Hey OP, want to play us a Leni Riefenstahl propaganda film too?

You're an idiot, R43. But you know that already.

I would much rather visit in 1926, not 1936!

Name them r30. The US did a fair bit of bombing, name those cities too.

I am amazed anyone is actually trying to defend the Germans destruction of Europe. The bottom line is NONE of this would have happened if Germany didn’t start the war. None.

r47 No one's defending the German destruction of Europe. Go back and read.

R48 go back and read all the whataboutism. Yes, the Allies bombed Germany heavily, the rest of Europe not so much. This was in response to German aggression and it was the only way to deal with it, like a rabid dog. The whole of Europe suffered because of German aggression. Keep your tears for the bombed to smithereens Brits who didn’t start it, didn’t want it but were forced to stand up to it.

A Foreign Affair, not Berlin! Hand over that fag film fan card, Mary!

Another Hollywood film shot on location in Berlin in 1948, showing it all bombed out, is I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE, which contrives to get Cary Grant in comic drag.

Rabid dog? Right, F&F for you, r49.

The Allies bombed Vienna, they bombed Monte Cassino, even the damage that was done to Paris in WWII all came from Allied bombing.

By your reasoning I guess everybody in New York and Washington and LA deserves to get bombed to hell soon too, because a minority of the US population voted a populist wannabe dictator into office, and he and his cronies are now busy dismantling democracy and persecuting minorities. Starting a war may be a logical next step for them.

And carpet bombing of civilians and cultural monuments is such a great way to win a war.

Oh, never mind. Of course you and your buddies at the Internet Research Agency are all in favor of that. Keep talking about bombing Western cities, keep stoking old hatreds, and keep up the memories of the Great Patriotic War!

Do you think rabid dog is an insult to Nazis r52? Oh you poor delicate flower.... fuck the Nazis, they were rabid dogs and your defence of them is ridiculous.

Schweinhunde is a big insult to call someone in German.

It means “pig dog”

Weimar Berlin was a fascinating place. The visual elements I love so much in "Babylon Berlin" - the clothes, the 20's German Deco furniture, and the Russian Constructivist cartoons rolling under the credits.

And "Berlin: Symphony of a Great City" is also pretty terrific.

"Voluptuous Panic" gives you an idea of the HARDCORE decadence of Weimar Berlin. There was a street in Berlin in the 20's where pregnant prostitutes frequented. Women lined themselves up on the street by how many months along they were in their pregnancy.

Everyone once in Berlin!

r24/ r29/ r47/ r49/ r53 = bitter Brexiteer.

It must sting that all of us ungrateful ex-colonists don’t thank England enough for being the only good-guy nation in Europe, who single-handedly saved everyone from The Evil Huns while spreading joy and enlightenment throughout the Empire.

Keep up the name-calling, hon. It’s going to make everything so much better when you flounce away from all those Frogs and Nazis and stinky smelly foreigners in the EU next year.

[quote]carpet bombing of civilians and cultural monuments is such a great way to win a war

How many days did it take for Japan to surrender after we obliterated two whole cities? Six.

War is hell. But winning a war means total destruction of the enemy.

Cologne before WW2

Seems odd the link at R56 goes into great detail of the female prostitutes available in Berlin but not one word about males or trannies.

R57 I’m American but keep up your creative writing classes hunty, they’ll pay off eventually.

I think when you lay down with Nazi Dogs, you wake up with your beautiful city in ashes.

Cant we all get along?

So much fun before the bombs dropped.

Hitler's reign and Trumps reign, very much alike. How far will Trump go? All the way.

"Hunty" R61? Is that a word you made up?

I can't stop laughing at the moron who got offended that someone compared Nazi Germany to a rabid dog.

[quote]I can't stop laughing at the moron

It's good to laugh.

R66 you’ve not been here lng have you?

They were keen on stripping down in the middle of the city. 1937.

I guess these are taxis.

I love early neon.

An elderly friend of mine lived in Nazi Germany. She was 5 or 6 years old when Hitler committed suicide. Her family, German Catholics, were against Hitler. They were not unusual in that respect, just not the prevailing majority. She worked as an German translator in the early 1960’s which is how she met and her Jewish American lawyer husband. Her 4 grandchildren now live in Boston and London. All of her children and grandchildren are Jewish.

She says her German Catholic family felt deeply ashamed by Germany’s actions. (And she has been warning me since the Bush-Gore election that she and her siblings were worried the same thing would happen in the U.S.)

R8 is why I love datalounge so much.

It wasn't the Nazis he was comparing to a rabid dog, r67, it was the bombed German cities and human victims.

Do you see a difference? Because r49 doesn't.

The book at R41 is a fascinating look at the full spectrum of sexual opportunities, I guess you could say, that were available in Weimar Berlin.

Most of those women and girls who weren’t dead and still in the city by 1945 were gang raped by the Russians.

You girls are slipping. I thought this would turn into a Trump thread by the third reply. It took more than 20. Are you back on your meds?

No, it wasn’t r76. I was talking about Nazis. But nice that you’re spending so much time handwringing about them and seem to blame the nations that were attacked. Got some white sheets you need to launder?

[quote]Most of those women and girls who weren’t dead and still in the city by 1945 were raped by the Russians

There's a pretty interesting movie called A Woman in Berlin (with Nina Hoss) about that time

What did you want them to do? Drop bags of feathers during the war?

NIna Hoss is also in the astounding recent post-war Berlin flick PHOENIX. It's in the Criterion Collection.

Petzold does a fantastic job re-imagining the Berlin of 1945-6.

[quote]Of course, this is what that same zoo looked like after the Allied bombing raids of 1943.

I wonder if any of the animals survived and ran rampant around the city.

most had probably already been eaten.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

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My Dad and his infantry friends were always angry at the Air Force for bombing the zoos.

OMG. They still have a zoo, it seems.

Whoa! Look at his willy! ^^

I still love Berlin. Certainly the most exciting city in Europe today. But the subway has too damn many steps and not enough escalators. Never got over Hitler flooding it.

As pretty as it looks (absent all the signs of Nazis), what struck me is how filthy all the buildings were from air pollution.

Did you look at Syria or Iraq? Smart bombs are bullshit, they still carpet bomb.

Whatever, r80. If you go back and read your post at r49, you're explicitly talking about bombing Germany, no mention of the Nazis.

But I see that you've been too busy spewing bilge all over this thread to bother with consistency, so I'll just hit ignore.

Fuck you R36. This feels like hell. You guys don't get it, you assume he is no Hitler...pardon me but I think he is. There is no one to stop him, everyone is asleep at the wheel, assuming he is not a Hitler.

Sanitized images. Curious lack of traffic, with few visible pedestrians. And no streetlights. And uniforms everywhere, of course.

Seemed like a lot of it was staged.

I’m currently reading a series of very well-written mysteries by Philip Kerr, about a detective named Bernie Gunther in 1930’s Berlin. Interesting to see film of the city from that time.

R94 is throwing a tantrum because I said bad things about the Nazis. Funny how his bleeding heart doesn’t encompass all the millions of people they killed, all the millions of civilians maimed, all the homes destroyed by German bombs, nope, just piteous bleating for the poor misunderstood Nazis.

[quote] [R1] A Berlin Affair is one of my favorite films, but it’s always nearly impossible to find it on streaming sites. Needless to say, it’s not on FilmStruck.

It's called A Foreign Affair, not a Berlin Affair.

If anyone wants a good book about the decadence of pre-war Berlin, check out Voluptuous Panic. I bought it as a guidebook while working on a production of Cabaret.

[quote]My Dad and his infantry friends were always angry at the Air Force for bombing the zoos.

Was he British?

They should have been bombed even more. Then Germany should have been deindustrialised on a mass scale, with the Germans being forced to become illiterate peasants working on the land.

Also, the Jews should have been given Bavaria as compensation for the Holocaust. Israel is miserable desert surrounded by hostile Muslims. The Jews would have been far happier in fertile Bavaria, especially after all the Germans had been forced out. The Jews could have even kept a few as slaves and agricultural workers, like the Spartans did with the helots. All the political nastiness and terrorism could have been avoided in the Middle East if this had been carried out.

The nazi flags are scary.

My thought was that the Jews should have been given the Ruhr River Valley. All that heavy industry would mean $$$ and true independence.

Berlin was lovely. Pity about the Hun.

R100? Take yer meds, hon.

"Christopher and His Kind" is also pretty great. Move version of Isherwood's stories that led to "Cabaret". The real Sally Bowles was a complicated gal.

Yes, they did r84 and yes, some were r85. I think I recall reading something a while back about elephants wandering around the bombed out ruins looking for food and water.

[quote] Whatever, [R80]. If you go back and read your post at [R49], you're explicitly talking about bombing Germany, no mention of the Nazis.

This is an utterly ridiculous distinction to attempt to make.

[quote]Hamburg zoo animals put to use after the war

Everybody has to pitch in, R108! Even Christmas Moose is said to have done his military training. He’s in RAF reconnaissance and did two tours over Afghanistan. He won’t speak about it. I got it off a drunk Aussie at the Zoo Cafe.

My Mother sheepishly will admit to, maybe, attending a Communist meeting in NYC in the 1930s as a child, “because they had food there”, she explIned. They were literally dirt poor. I suspect that it was really a German Bund meeting. She lived in Germantown. I went to the cemetery there, and many of the markers are in German, old font. That was her influence, plus it’s more dramatic.

My father would never have done such a thing, he was playing ball, working, or taking care of his widowed mother.

It’s shocking to see the US flag intermingled with the NAZI flag, as in the link.

Who's the nutcase , so caught up in "aesthetics" that he is damn near praising the shitty , cowardly, more easily led than a Trumpard German cunts of the 1930s ? Somebody needs to slap the amoral, false equivacating bastard straight clean in the maw. Germany got what it deserved . Led by an objective mad man whose craziness never knew any hitch or brake. Appeasment didn't work. He made a whole planet have to fight against his fuckry, not just the continent of Europe. And his fuckry led to the carving up of Europe in such a short time and people went from one extremist situation to another (communism). That is what that fucker Hitler and the stupid German fuckers did. And Europe still deals with the legacy even as German who were around in WW2 are alive and kicking , in Western European comfort whilst other Europeans are just dragging themselves out of the remnants of Communism whilst Merkel thought that they should be prepared for social extremists to come and live in their countries, bundle and pile.

Germany along with their Anglo cousins still have that "if it's good enough for us, it's good enough for everybody" attitude. The only saving grace is that the Anglo side of that equation is less excited about following "rules".

I aint got no "kin" skin in this game what with my black arse. But fuck this rewriting history towards a people that after they would have killed off the jews, gays , disabled, non blondes ( apart from Hitler) Roma, fucked around with the North Africans and Arabs , "Conniving" or nay, they would have come for us blackies to the point that I wouldn't even be here. THAT is the narrative that was supported by the recent kith and kin of the Germans , overwhelmingly so, too. So excuse me if I put my "white germans are the bomb" cape in the back of my wardrobe. I trust them even less than other white populations , thank you very much.

Duplicitous fuckers on here chatting like it was seven hundred years ago this shit happened as if people were just born in 1980 .Fuck that and fuck the "the uniforms were sexy, what a lovely place Germany was in the 1930s because they were au fait with the left field life". Hardly anywhere on earth is as beautiful as the U.S South. Think I'm gonna let aesthetics get in the way of any reality. Fortunately , England has enough grime that to be fooled by any beauty would render one a fool. There simply isn't enough of it to go around to delude a fucker as to the disposition of its 'indigenes". such a small place doesn't set out to conquer the world without having too much of the savage about them, "controlled" or not.

THAT'S the reality of the Anglo Saxon. I will always keep in mind that one side of that coin comes from Germany along with England. Once Hannibal got round them Romans , they generally cooled their heels apart from "Abyssinia" and Mussolini who they eventually dealt with, unlike the Germans with Hitler. And Italy does beauty better than the ex two sides of Germany together could EVER aspire to, but no fucker is out there trying to 'rehabilitate' them, are they? How cheeky , considering that their ancestors taught Europeans where to shit and how to regularly bathe!

But, are you sure, R111?

My great uncle was Syrian Ambassador to the United Kingdom. He was from Aleppo which was a lovely and elegant city. Humanity is waging war and destroying cities in this century!

I know people say the holocaust could have happened anywhere but I have sometimes wondered if there was something in the German soul or character that made them more prone to fascist genocide. There's an interesting little nyt clip on YouTube about German Paraguayan communities. At one point a German descended Paraguayan asserts that Germans are still the best at everything and naturally superior. They seem culturally prone to black and white aspergers type thinking. Interestingly, the German settled Midwest seem to be very conformist culturally. However, I am a fan of German cinema and would still love to visit Munich or Hamburg.

R83 I'm very happy to see another fan of Nina Hoss and the excellent film Phoenix. Ronald Zehrfeld is also wonderful. I thought no one else had seen the film. Zehrfeld and Hoss also team up in another film by Petzold, called Barbara. It is set in communist east Berlin. I would also recommend the Nina Hoss movie Yella, a very haunting film. Nina is a true star in the old Hollywood sense.

R114, I think it’s just a different culture, so it is a different experience. It’s a challenge not to look down on them [italic] and feel superior about our own culture. [/italic]

And it can happen anywhere.

Like American in the South.

Or Armenians in Turkey

Or Belgium in the Congo. Yes, Belgium!

Or Russia in Ukraine

Or Japan in China, Korea, Philippines, Malaysia, oh, everywhere.

Or China in China

Or Britain in India and Ireland

And that’s just off the top of my head, and all in the 20th Century. A reason Germany is so notorious is that they fough the US, did so after the invention of film, and liked to record accurate records of everything.

R60 Which is an outrage considering trans women of color single handedly won World War II

R83 Jerichow is another interesting Nina Hoss film I forgot to add.

Bump

This seems to be a home movie taken by an American visiting Europe in March 1939.

He gets to Berlin @ 9:28

Note the sign in the window @ 18:17

Berlin 1920s >

R120 Thank you for posting that. I particularly loved seeing the SS Normandie, the most beautiful ocean liner ever built.

I don't really know much about history, but do you think that the fact that the Jewish people were so wealthy had a lot to do with World War II? They were seriously, seriously wealthy. They had all that fabulous art, jewelry, money, homes and other riches. I can see how that would foster a lot of hatred toward them. I'm not saying it was right. But I could understand how easy that would be to use against them and get most of the country to turn against them or turn a blind eye to them

Like I said, I don't know much about history, but If I were a super rich person in America, I would definitely downplay my wealth. Because I could see a civil war happening between the rich and the poor. Not now, but in a few decades definitely. I wonder if the 1% ever think of WW II and think, that could very easily be us? I hope at least some of them do. I guess it's a good thing most Americans are too stupid to realize the 1% are using them and fucking them over every single chance they get.

I still don't get how Germans were such assholes. Today they're so passive they're barely present when they're in a room. Like ghosts. Even the young ones.

R123: That’s right, many Germans felt that the Jews had gone too far. The same feeling is building now in the United States. The Jews seen as are harbouring too much wealth, and, because they are sly, duplicitous and only look out for their own, keeping gentiles locked out of many businesses.

Stephen Miller at R125 needs to be banned.

R123 there is an attitude among the elite in this country that I could see fostering major problems down the road. If you even bring up the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, or the loss of the middle class they'll screech that you just need to "work harder " or that people are jealous of their success and that they don't "owe the government their money . These are the conditions you see before revolutions. I am not drawing a parallel between Nazi Germany by the way, just commenting on what's going on here.

R123, what about the Jews who lived in small, rural towns in Eastern Europe? My God, why were they executed the way they were, and the towns people did nothing to stop it. They surely could not have been much better off than their Christian neighbors. Why were they so hated?

R128: Because they never assimilated. And contrary to your assertion they were quite successful, running businesses and looking out for their own interests. One of the main reasons that so many died in Eastern Europe was due to the large Jewish Hasidic communities residing in those countries. Poland especially had one of the largest Orthodox Jewish communities in Europe.

They also caused a lot of problems. They had their own gymnasiums and schools that were denied to normal Poles, while also demanding admittance into Polish academies and universities.

The ordinarily Polish population was agrarian and quite poor, while most of the merchants, doctors, dentists and shopkeepers were Jewish. They were seen as being very exploitive, driving down prices of locally produced farming products for their own gain.

R127 my sense of the super rich is they know they are privileged and would be ok paying higher taxes in a lot of cases (ex, look at all the super rich living in high tax NY and CA). But why offer - when the government is giving you a tax cut, you don’t turn it down. A key element of the problem is politicians need money and will do anything to cater to the interests of the rich because their money gets them elected. If you could get the money out of politics, there a chance it self-corrects. It we are going in the opposite direction. And it seems the working class’ anger is focused on Democrats - who would help them (more anyway) - rather than the actual rich. It’s brilliant how the Republicans have channeled anger that should be aimed at the rich towards the poor, immigrants and minorities.

I think most of the Polish Jewish population was very poor. The rich were very much a minority.

[quote]Like I said, I don't know much about history, but If I were a super rich person in America, I would definitely downplay my wealth.

The rich in America do NOT tend to downplay their wealth. Quite the opposite.

But in this current era - the rich are SO rich. Not just in the USA. It's phenomenal.

R123 "I don't really know much about history...."

That's right, you don't. Blaming WWII on the Jews is outrageous. Yes there were part of the Jewish communities that had become rich because they were astute businessmen, but the majority were middle class, lower middle class and even poor. Some like the very orthodox and the Hasidics did not assimilate well, but the rest of them did to some extent, but they were mostly unwelcome by the general population because they were not Christian. Xenophobia and hate and propaganda exacerbated the problem.

Can any of those criticising the allies for bombing Germany’s beautiful cities share with us pictures of Wielun (75% destroyed in the first few days of the war), Warsaw, Rotterdam (in a country committed to neutrality), Clydebank, Coventry (a city widely revered for its remarkable Tudor centre), Exeter, Bath, Belfast, Liverpool, London, Belgrade (obliterated in the charmingly named Operation Punishment for having the temerity not to hoist the white flag as soon as Hitler decided he wanted it), Canterbury, Malta, Stalingrad and a host of other cities? Many of these places may not have had the aesthetics of Dresden, but they were all full of people who had not wanted this war, and who were nevertheless given a lesson on how Nazi Germany regarded civilian populations?

The story of bombing during the early stages of the war is a story of Nazi escalation and British retaliation. Germany bombed the Brits at Orkney, so Britain bombed the seaplane sites on Sylt, Germany invaded the neutral Netherlands and Belgium and destroyed Rotterdam, so Britain started bombing military targets west of the Rhine. Then Germany launched the blitz on London, so Britain attacked military targets throughout Germany whenever it could (although at that time most planes couldn’t be spared because Britain was fighting off invasion). The real turning point though was the destruction of Coventry, which taught the British airforce two things: that the Germans would happily drop bombs until they had none left, and that cities built mainly out of wood burned really well, especially if you dropped blast bombs first (to open up the buildings to allow fire to spread and to destroy water mains) before dropping incendiaries. After Coventry, Goebbels was cheered as he intorduced a new verb to the German language: coventrate = to reduce a city to ashes. Britain responded by using German tactics against Mannheim.

Am I supposed to regret that those civilians who cheered the destruction of the Polish state, and who filled the streets of Berlin to wave the swastika after the Fall of France were themselves forced to see the consequences of the cruelty they unleashed? I’m afraid I’m not that saintly. Germany unleashed war in the world twice in less than thirty years, and civilisation only just survived by the skin of its teeth. Bombing Germany as it was losing the war was a grim lesson to teach, but probably necessary. Without the bombing campaign, Germany would have remained relatively unscathed until it was finally invaded in 1945 and that invasion would have been all the harder for the allies. For years, the bombing was the only way to bring war home to the German population and to try to impress on them the suffering they themselves were inflicting on others.

It was better under the Kaiser.

R134 I have sometimes wondered if there was something about the German character that made support of Nazism more likely. I'm not convinced it could have happened anywhere.

The anti-semitism on DL is shocking.

Part of the problem was Hyper-inflation. Hitler used fear and blamed the jews. Their economy was falling apart and Hitler promised to fix it.

Lot's of pretty cities in the U.S. that I'm sure will still be business as usual when we become Trumpistan.

Trumpistan is a wholly owned subsidiary of Putin Entertainment.

[quote]Some like the very orthodox and the Hasidics did not assimilate well, but the rest of them did to some extent, but they were mostly unwelcome by the general population because they were not Christian

But then you had Denmark. Of course, they were helped by the fact that the Danish Jewish population was small, about 8000 people. But the entire country helped protect them. They helped the vast majority of them across the Baltic to neutral Sweden, and the Danish government pressured the Nazis not to send the few hundred that were captured to the extermination camps, so they went instead of Thereisenstadt, their fake concentration camp the Nazis used for PR. They also made the Germans allow them to send food and medicine to the camp.

8000 people and they saved almost all of them.

AS I've said before, one of the first buildings the RAF got was the Irish Embassy. Hitler had given them a grand piano they blew to shreds. Although the RAF did saturation bombing, they made sure that was a target.

Those poor zoo animals. Torn from their native lands and families... plopped in the middle of the city ... and then war. And then the ones who survived are made to rebuild the city. Fucked up.

Berlin Affair was an Italian film, r1. You're weferwing to A Forweign Affair.

R134 nice insight. I agree German destruction was justified by the atrocities and aggression they unleashed.

And I didnt know that about Coventry / coventrate. Despite the craziness of the Trump era, I’m grateful to have lived in a 50 year period of relative peace which is an anomaly in the history of the world.

R141, what on earth is your fascination with the grand piano at the Irish embassy about? It’s a truly weird detail to fixate on. The Irish embassy was in the capital of Nazi Germany and was bombed. It’s regrettable but you spare no thought for any of the embassies bombed in Warsaw in 1939, or in Belgrade in 1941, or in London in 1940. Why is that?

Or maybe you could spare a thought for Frampol. It’s not really given much attention nowadays, but the Luftwaffe were quite interested in it in September 1939. Militarily defenceless, the Germans decided to use this little town of 4000 people as a test ground, on the grounds that it had a large marketplace in the centre and a grid system of streets which made it look like a bullseye.

For three or four hours, 125 German planes rained bombs, destroying 90% of the town. The German bomber pilots got their training dropping bombs on their victims, and the German fighter pilots trained by strafing any civilians who attempted to escape from the town. Do you have any thoughts for them, or are your feelings really only reserved for musical instruments?

I missed this thread when it first came around; it is hysterical and yet educational.

Those pics of Berlin are GORGEOUS! I wish I could have visited in person; I mean sure, the Nazis became problematic but what a stylish city!

Berlin of the 30s was doomed regardless of how the war went.

Losing the war: The British nighttime bombing simply flew over the city and dropped their bombs without really being able to aim at more then "Berlin". Their bombs hit anywhere. The American daylight "precision" boimbing scored it as a hit if the bomb landed anywhere within a mile of the target, so again the bombs went anywhere.

Winning the war: Hitler was going to demolish old Berlin and let Albert Speer rebuild from the ground up as "Germania", the capital of the Greater Reich.

What an interesting thread.

Jews being wealthy- please read real history. Jews were forced into ghettos and restricted by law from many jobs.

They could be money lenders because they could charge interest.

Charging interest went against church belief. So, Jewish business men could do the dirty work and make money for Christians.

This happened all over Europe.

Anyway, thanks again for this thread.

Weren't Jews also restricted from farming? Thanks to the law of unintended consequenced, they focused on banking and education and the rest is history.

Somebody told me the reason Jews are smart is because the smartest boy became a rabbi and propagated the league, whereas the smartest Catholic boy became a priest and that was the end of it. how well we know!

r141, that story was from a column by Robert Fisk. He also pointed out that Prime Minister de Valera signed Hitler's condolence book.

"Why the Germans? Why the Jews?" spends 400 pages looking at the origins of anti-Semitism through the 19th century. Anti-Semitism has existed in Europe for centuries of course, but Hitler had the skills to turn background prejudice against Jews into government policy.

IMHO, the one thing we're lucky about with President Shitgibbon is that, compared to fascists of history he has no fucking clue what he's doing.