MovieLover12

In todays world people are ridiculed when they come out with theories and opinions. So why wasn't Hitler ridiculed when he wrote Mein Kampf. In that book, he wrote about the "Superior Race" and the erdication of Jews. In todays world, that book would never have been published.

Steve Crook

It wouldn't be published today because of what Mein Kampf led to. Or not by any respectable publisher, but self-publishing isn't that hard nowadays

Steve

MovieLover12

I went to France this year on the Battlefield tour. One of the places I visited was Pegasus Bridge. This place is wicked.

Anybody else been on this tour, it includes the 5 beaches, the Michael Witmann story and Bocage.

pitchfork

One of my cousins was in the second glider to land at Pegasus Bridge. They had trained for months to get it right including keeping the same duo of Tug and glider pilots together where possible.
They then fought their way through France up to the Ardennes etc.
Their reward was a posting to Palestine after the war to act as peacekeepers. Many were murdered by the Israelis and a certiain terrorist called Begin many years later became a Prime Minister of Israel ( think I am right in saying).

MovieLover12

Has anyone been to the Normandy town of Saint Mere Eglise? Its the one where Red Buttons was hanging from the clock tower in The Longest Day.

alan french

Hi.
I take this subject seriously. I was born during the latter part of WW2 and consider myself lucky to be alive. I also have been around The Somme and have seen the War Graves of WW!. I also a few years ago partook in the BBC's People's War project and contributed articles for it. But what intrigues me with the progression of time is that most references, not all, refer to the European perspective. Gradually the Japanese part seems less discussed. And yet this part is a turning point not only in WW2 but in world history with the dropping of the 2atom bombs. It therefore could be intellectually argued that WW2 ended as a nuclear war. It certainly gave us a taste of it.
Alan French.

Harleybloke

I certainly have! We've spent a lot of time in the Normandy area. All of the beach sites, the US Cenetery are well worth a visit. Also, watch 'A Foreign Field', Alec Guinness, Leo McKern and an all round superb cast re-visiting Normandy!

In 2 weeks time, we're going to see Oradour-Sur-Glane, the preserved French village, left just as the Das Reich Division left it after they slaughtered most of the inhabitants. It is the village used at the start and end of The World at war series.

.....You couldn't hear it, if they were shooting at me with howitzers!

Marky B

I know of it very well,because of the series. The last few moments say more than words or action. I would like to visit Oradour-Sur-Glane if I am ever in the vicinity. My brother-in-law,niece and her partner visited Krakow a couple of months ago,and my niece had the intention of going to Aushwitz,but never got around to it. I too would like to visit there,although I have heard there is a bit of commercialism developing at the death camp.

As for your visit to Oradour-Sur-Glane,say a prayer for me for those killed in the massacre.
Mark

I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas - how he got in my pyjamas,I'll never know

Harleybloke

Will do Marky B., I'm told it's a very moving place. I'm not looking forward to it but feel I should go.

My Son and his friend are in Krakow now. they went 2 years ago with the school and liked so have gone back. They visited Auschwitz with the school. It must have made a big impression with my son because he wouldn't speak much about it when he got home.

I want to visit Ravensbruck as a homage to Violette Szabo & the other SOE women. That can be part of a Berlin visit, one day hopefully!

.....You couldn't hear it, if they were shooting at me with howitzers!

alan french

Hi.
I have visited Oradour-Sur-Glane. I can assure you it is a very emotionaly moving place. What happened there is not for the squeamish and sensitive. One has to have a stone heart not feel horrified and saddened by it all. I gather General De Gaule wanted the village to be left and remain a memorial to the victims. It certainly works.

Alan French.

Steve Crook

Larry Olivier's chilling voice-over that opens the series:
Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, the community, which had lived for a thousand years, was dead. This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road, and they were driven into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle. They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, China, in a World at War...

Steve

Marky B

Unforgettable. Thanks,Steve!
Ta ta
Marky B

I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas - how he got in my pyjamas,I'll never know

Harleybloke

We visited the ruins and I was suprised how many French people were there, it was heaving! Very thought provoking, very sad. I couldn't get to grips with how the whole thing was planned and calculated. I mean early morning 'Coffee Fritz?' - 'Ja, OK then, just time before I have to butcher 642 men, women & children.....'

I can't imagine that hard I suppose......................

Said a prayer for you Marky B - in the Church, amidst the bullet holes and grenade damage.

I glad I went but wouldn't want to go back.

.....You couldn't hear it, if they were shooting at me with howitzers!