What if? – History of Sorts

Alternative World War II—In Cinema

I am always intrigued by “What if ?” scenarios, like what if Columbus had taken another route to India? Or what if JFK had not been in Dallas that day?

What intrigues me most of all is the question, “What if the Nazis would have won the war?” or alternatively “What if Hitler would have been killed sooner?” I am not the only one who ponders these questions. There have been many authors and filmmakers who had the same idea and put those ideas on paper and in film. I am only selecting a few for this blog.

The picture above is from the 1965 film “It Happened Here.”

It is the Second World War. The Nazis invaded Britain. There is a split between the resistance and those who prefer to collaborate with the invaders for a quiet life. The protagonist, a nurse, is caught in the middle. Following the British army’s retreat at Dunkirk, England has been invaded and conquered by Nazi Germany. Irish nurse Barbara Murray comes to London as part of a civilian evacuation forced by American resistance forces massing off the coast of Ireland. She finds that in order to get a job as a nurse her only choice is to join the pro-Nazi civilian organization known as Immediate Action, which she does even though she is avowedly non-political. However, once on the job, she is faced with complicity in a number of disturbing acts being conducted by Immediate Action.

“Fatherland” is a 1994 TV film written by Stanley Weiser and Ron Hutchinson and directed by Christopher Menaul as an adaptation of the 1992 novel of the same title by Robert Harris. The film was produced by HBO and starred Rutger Hauer and Miranda Richardson.

In a world where the Nazis won World War II, Germany corralled all European countries into a single state called “Germania” and continues fighting against the Soviet Union. It is now 1964 and Germany’s war crimes against the Jews have so far been kept a secret. Germany believes that an alliance with the United States would finally beat the Soviet war machine. As his 75th birthday approached, Adolf Hitler wants to talk about peace with President Joseph Kennedy. An S.S. homicide detective and an American journalist stumble into a plot to destroy all evidence of the genocide; evidence that could destroy the peace process with America and evidence that Nazi and S.S. leaders will stop at nothing to keep hidden.

“Inglourious Basterds” is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger and Mélanie Laurent. The film tells an alternate history story of two plots to assassinate Nazi Germany’s leadership—one planned by Shosanna Dreyfus, a young French Jewish cinema proprietor, and the other by the British but ultimately conducted solely by a team of Jewish American soldiers led by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine. Christoph Waltz co-stars in the role of Hans Landa, an SS colonel in charge of tracking down Raine’s group.

“Strange Holiday” is a 1945 American movie directed by Arch Oboler. Claude Rains is featured as a man who returns from a fishing vacation to find America controlled by fascists. Businessman John Stevenson returns from a camping holiday in the mountains to discover the whole of America has been taken over by foreign invaders. His family has been taken away and he is thrown into prison and must come to terms with the new USA.

So if you are ever bored I would recommend you look up these movies and watch them.

sources

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038125/?ref_=tt_mv_close

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361748/?ref_=tt_mv_close

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109779/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055024/

The Holocaust in Thessaloniki, Covid 19 Vaccine and Viagra.

Some people will probably accuse me for using specific words in the title as ‘clickbait’, and to an extend that is true. But anyone who writes a blog, and especially one with an extraordinary story, want readers to click on that link to read that story.

I make no excuse for the use of the title, basically because all the words are linked.

There were an approximate 50,000 Jews in Thessaloniki ,Greece, before World War 2. Only 2000 of them survived.

In the summer of 1942, the persecution of the Jews of Thessaloniki started. All men between the ages of 18 and 45 were conscripted into forced labor, where they stood for hours in the hot summer sun and were beaten and humiliated. The Jewish community was depleted of its wealth and pride. Jews were ordered to wear the yellow Star of David and forced into an enclosed ghetto, called Baron Hirsch, adjacent to the rail lines.

On March 15, 1943, the Nazis began deporting Jews from Thessaloniki. Every three days, freight cars crammed with an average of 2,000 Thessaloniki Jews headed toward Auschwitz-Birkenau. By the summer of 1943, the Nazi regime had deported 46,091 Jews.

Two of the survivors were the parents of Albert Bourla. For many of you the name Albert Bourla will mean very little. However is the CEO of a company which will have made an impact to millions ,and possibly billions, of people across the globe. The company if Pfizer, the first company ,the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was the first approved vaccine used to provide protection against infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus in order to prevent COVID-19. Of Course Pfizer is also known for Viagra, initially used as a treatment for heart-related chest pain. But is now primarily used as a treatment of erectile dysfunction (inability to sustain a satisfactory erection to complete sexual intercourse). Its use is now one of the standard treatments for erectile dysfunction.

Dr. Albert Bourla joined the Sephardic Heritage International on January 28th for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, where he shared his family’s story of tragedy and survival during the Holocaust.

Below is an excerpt of his speech.

“My father’s family, like so many others, had been forced from their homes and taken to a crowded house within one of the Jewish ghettos,” recounted Bourla. “It was a house they had to share with several other Jewish families. They could circulate in and out of the ghetto as long as they were wearing the yellow star.”

“But one day in March 1943, the ghetto was surrounded by occupational forces and the exit was blocked. My father and his brother (my uncle) were outside when it happened. Their father (my grandfather) met them outside, told them what was happening and asked them to leave the ghetto and hide because he had to go back inside as his wife and two other children were home. So later that day, my grandfather, Abraham Bourla, his wife Rachel, his daughter Graziella and his youngest son David were taken to a camp outside the train station and from there, left for Auschwitz. My father and uncle never saw them again,”

“When the Germans had left, they went back to Thessalonki and found that all of their property and belongings have been stolen or sold.”

Bourla’s mother was well known which caused her to hide at home “24 hours a day” out of fear of being recognized on the street and turned over the Nazis . She left the house very rarely, but it was during one of her rare ventures outside that she was captured and taken to a local prison.

“My Christian uncle, my mother’s brother-in-law, Costas de Madis approached a Nazi official and paid him a ransom in exchange for a promise that my mother would be spared,”

“However, my mother’s sister, my aunt, didn’t trust the Germans. So she would go to the prison every day at noon to watch as they loaded the truck of prisoners. One day, her fear had been realized, and my mom was put on the truck. She ran home and told her husband, who then called the Nazi official and reminded him of their agreement – who said he would look into it. That night was the longest night in my aunt and uncle’s life because they knew that next morning, my mom would likely have been executed.”

“The next day, my mom was lined up with other prisoners. And moments before she would have been executed, a German soldier on a motorcycle arrived and handed some papers to the men in charge of the firing squad. They removed my mother from the line. As they rode away, my mom could hear the machine gun slaughtering those that were left behind. Two or three days later, she was released from prison after the Germans left Greece.”

Eight years later Bourla’s parents met by way of matchmaking, through which they agreed to get married.

I fully respect anyone’s decision whether to take or not to take the vaccine, or any vaccine for that matter. Once this decision is based on sound, verified and peer researched information, and not by social media memes or sources which can’t be traced or verified.

However I will never condone the current vaccinations being compared to the Holocaust, it is absolutely vile and disgusting.

Just imagine i

sources

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/pfizer-ceo-shares-his-familys-tragic-story-during-the-holocaust-658818

https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/holocaust-in-greece/thessaloniki

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-familys-story-why-we-remember-albert-bourla/

Dirk de Klein- T 4 Victim

Dirk de Klein, born April 10 1888.

Died November 25,1939.

Place of residence: Heinsberg- Germany

Cause of Death: Pneumonia

Dirk de Klein was diagnosed with an incurable disease in 1936. He was also an ardent opponent of the Nazi regime. He had criticized Hitler and Himmler, publicly on several occasions. He did not like the direction his beloved Germany was going.

He had moved to Heinsberg from the nearby Dutch town of Geleen in 1930.

In late November 1939 during a check up in the Hospital he was transported by Gemeinnützige Krankentransport GmbH(Charitable Ambulance)

—-a National Socialist subdivision of the Action T4 organization. The euphemistically named company transported sick and disabled people to the Nazi killing centers to be murdered under the Nazi eugenics program and was known for the gray buses it used.—

ambulance

Dirk de Klein was transported to the nearest T 4 facility and was gassed there.

His family was told that he was transferred from his nearby Hospital to a specialist Hospital to treat his condition. But unfortunately he died of pneumonia caused by complications in his medical treatment.

Now you all probably know by now that this Dirk de Klein is in fact me. But this blog is meant to illustrate that anyone could have been a victim of the Nazi regime. I was just lucky I was born in 1968 rather then 1888.

But it easily could have been me, Even the geography could have been a possibility. A lot of people moved to German from the Netherlands and vice versa, especially in the south Eastern part of the Netherlands. My hometown and the town I mentioned Heinsberg are only a few miles from each other, A walking distance even.

Let us never ever forget what happened to millions of innocent lives, and let us remember that this could easily happen again but this time you might be the victim.

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Violet Gibson,would be assassin-The Irish woman who nearly killed Mussolini

Mugshot Violet Gibson

This is one of those ‘What if’ stories, a different result would have made a massive impact on world’s history.

Gibson was born in Dublin, Ireland, on August 31 1876. Her father was an Irish lawyer and politician, Edward Gibson, who was created Baron Ashbourne in 1886.

Portrait_of_Edward_Gibson,_1st_Baron_Ashbourne

Her mother, Frances, was a Christian Scientist. Violet grew up in well-heeled Merrion Square. Her early life was one of privilege and society events as part of a large Anglo-Irish family dividing their time between Dublin and London. At 18, Violet was a debutante in the court of Queen Victoria.

In 1913, Violet moved to Paris, working for pacifist organisations. She contracted Paget’s disease; a mastectomy left a nine-inch scar on her chest. She returned to England, where botched surgery for appendicitis resulted in lifelong chronic abdominal pain.

In 1922, she suffered a nervous breakdown, was declared insane and committed to a mental institution. Two years later, accompanied by a nurse called Mary McGrath, Violet was released and traveled to Rome, where she lived in a convent. She had developed a religious mania convinced of a divinely inspired mission to kill.

On 7 April 1926, Violet Gibson shot Mussolini, Italy’s Fascist leader, as he walked among the crowd in the Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome after leaving an assembly of the International Congress of Surgeons, to whom he had delivered a speech on the wonders of modern medicine. Gibson had armed herself with a rock to break Mussolini’s car window (not needed), and a Modèle 1892 revolver hidden in a black shawl.

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She fired once, but Mussolini moved his head at that moment and the shot hit his nose; she tried again, but the gun misfired.[She was almost lynched on the spot by an angry mob, but police intervened and took her off for questioning. Mussolini was wounded only slightly, dismissing his injury as “a mere trifle”, and after his nose was bandaged he continued his parade on the Capitoline. Wounded Mussolini

Violet was captured and beaten by a mob; the police smuggled her away before she was killed. Under interrogation, she claimed to have shot Mussolini “to glorify God” who had kindly sent an angel to keep her arm steady.

violet-gibsons-prison-id-card-1926

At the time of the assassination attempt she was almost fifty years old and did not explain her reasons for trying to assassinate Mussolini. It has been theorised that Gibson was insane at the time of the attack and the idea of assassinating Mussolini was hers and that she worked alone. She was later deported to Britain after being released without charge at the request of Mussolini.

Her family wrote, apologising, to the Italian government. She was declared a “chronic paranoiac” and returned to England and St Andrew’s Hospital. Violet died on May 2, 1956. Sadly, there were no mourners. dsc_0221_nef_embedded-resized

What if she would have been successful? It is strange to see the’softer’ side of Mussolini, he could have easily made sure she’d get a death sentence.

By sad coincidence, Gibson would share her last years at St Andrew’s with another notable patient of Irish origin, Lucia Joyce. That was the culmination of an even more torturous family tragedy, one begun in 1930 when, romantically rejected by Samuel Beckett, James Joyce’s daughter had first shown signs of mental illness.

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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Sources

Irish Times

Irish Independent

What if Henry Tandey had taken that shot.

henry-tandey

Most of you will never have heard of the soldier called Henry Tandey, but this very soldier could have allegedly changed the course of history by carrying out one action. It could actually be disputed he changed the course of history by not firing that one shot.

Henry Tandey was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was the most highly decorated British private of the First World War.

On Sept. 28, 1918, one of the greatest mysteries of World War I is said to have taken place. During the fifth battle of Ypres, near the French village of Marcoing, 27-year-old Henry Tandey earned the Victoria Cross, which along with other medals, made him the highest decorated private of the First World War.

Q 57546

But during the battle, a wounded and defenseless Austrian soldier i the German army stumbled into Tandey’s line of fire. Though he had his gun pointed right at him, Tandey decided not to kill him. This one act of compassion would forever overshadow his military record.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain would be the first to hear about this story from the German that Private Tandey had spared. His name was Adolf Hitler.

hitler-military-uniform

Apparently Hitler identified the soldier carrying the wounded man as Tandey from the photo of him in the newspaper clipping he had obtained in 1918.[16]

In 1938, when Neville Chamberlain visited Hitler at his alpine retreat, the Berghof, for the discussions that led to the Munich Agreement, he noticed the painting and asked about it. Hitler replied:

“That man came so near to killing me that I thought I should never see Germany again; Providence saved me from such devilishly accurate fire as those English boys were aiming at us.”

Although the story is disputed by some, but Tandey heard the story from an officer who had, in turn, heard the story from Chamberlain. Tandey admitted he had spared soldiers on the 28 Sept. but could not confirm if Hitler was one of them.

adolf-hitler-ww1

When the Coventry Herald interviewed him in 1939, he said: “According to them, I’ve met Adolf Hitler. Maybe they’re right but I can’t remember him.”

A year later he seemed more certain. “If only I had known what he would turn out to be. When I saw all the people and women and children he had killed and wounded I was sorry to God I let him go.”

What if he had just taken that shot.

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Sources

BBC News

Vconline

Recasting Movies-What if?

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I have never made a movie but I am a movie buff. It is hard to cast movies, not every actor is suited to every movie.

I do have a theory of ‘ Stand-by’ actors which is purely and solely based on my own imagination, what I mean with ‘stand-by’ actors is , when a studio doesn’t get the actor they want for a movie or if their budget isn’t big enough to hire a big movie star, they hire an actor that looks like the star. For example, I have seen movies which I thought were suited for Nick Nolte, but Gary Busey was cast instead,

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Another example would be Mel Gibson and Aidan Quinn.

But again this is purely my own theory there is no back up for this.

Recently I came across some movie posters of classic and more modern movies with a completely new cast on them. I don’t know who made the posters but they are fantastic and it make you wonder, if you could back in time and shoot a movie who would you pick to play in it. What if you could remake a movie with a different cast, would it work?

Hell Boy with Sly Stallone

Scanners with Frank Sinatra

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A new(old) ensemble cast for Watchmen

Blade Runner with Bogart and Brando

Not David Bowie but Jimi Hendrix in Labyrinth

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Dean Martin, Jack Lemon and Jerry Lewis in The Hangover.

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What If? WWII Social Media.

I wonder sometimes how WWII would have been broadcast if Social Media outlets like Facebook and Twitter would have been around then.

Below are quotes from WWII which easily could have been Tweets or Facebook posts.

We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Winston Churchill

“Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well-trained, well-equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely”

Dwight Eisenhower

“Maybe there are 5,000, maybe 10,000 Nazi bastards in their concrete foxholes before the Third Army. Now if Ike stops holding Monty’s hand and gives me some supplies, I’ll go through the Siegfried Line like shit through a goose.”

George Patton

“The Limeys want us in even with our hastily made plans and our half-trained and half-equipped troops. I claim we got a hell of a beating. We got run out of Burma and it is as humiliating as hell. I think we ought to find out what caused it, go back and retake it.”

American General Joseph Stilwell