History

General history issues, although a lot will be about WW2

  • Regardless how talented you were, or how much value you could add to the German culture, if you didn’t comply to the Nazi ideology or dared to criticize it, you stood a good chance of getting executed. Karlrobert Kreiten born 26 June 1916,  in Bonn, Germany) was a Dutch-German pianist,  holding Dutch citizenship his short life…

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  • Despite all the horrors of World War II—there was still room for humour, satire, and a healthy dose of sarcasm. Although, sometimes the price to pay for a joke could be extremely high. In this blog, these are just a few examples of some WWII jokes, the consequences for some of them, and the way…

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  • Nazis and Cinema

    Ever since its inception , the media of  film has been a perfect tool to inform the masses be it in an entertaining way or in a more sinister manner. It was and still is the perfect way to distribute propaganda material en mass, although in more recent  years social media has taken over that…

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  • May 10 1940 must have been one of the busiest and chaotic days in WWII.I won’t go to deep into the details because most of the events are well documented, however not everyone might know that these events happened on the same day. The invasion of the Benelux(Belgium,Netherlands, Luxembourg) On the 10th May, 1940, the…

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  • As I sat doing research on the days before the Germans invaded the Netherlands, I came across a newspaper article about the murder of Gretha Melaard. Gretha Melaard was a 26-year-old student nurse who was killed on Friday, May 3rd, 1940. She had left Rotterdam that day at 8:30 pm to go to work in…

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  • The word ‘Hero’ is branded way too easily nowadays, Recently I heard someone on a current affairs program saying he saw the Kardashians as his role models and heroes, that actually scared me. If people whose only contribution to society is self indulgence and self promotion are seen as heroes, then real heroes like Father Józef…

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  • Theresienstadt was a 1944 Nazi propaganda film depicting  Theresienstadt concentration camp as a sort of idyllic rest stop, in an attempt to convince world opinion that there was no such thing as Nazi death camps.  The film intended to be viewed in “neutral” nations  showing how “humane” conditions were at Theresienstadt. Nor only was it enough…

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  • I have always been a great fan of the cop show Columbo with Peter Falk in the title role. However I did not know that Peter Falk and I had a few things in common. Born in New York City, Falk was the son of Michael Peter Falk , owner of a clothing and dry…

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  • I have mentioned this before in other blogs that the IOC(International Olympic Committee) has very little to do with sports but more with politics. But I have to admit they made the right decision on the 1940 Summer Olympics, although they didn’t really have much choice in the matter. The 1940 Summer Olympics, officially known…

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  • On 4 May 1940, the Vatican advised the Netherlands envoy to the Vatican that the Germans planned to invade France through the low countries. With the blessing of the Pope, the Vatican sent a coded radio message to its nuncios in Brussels and The Hague. The messages were intercepted by the Nazis On May 5…

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