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Havaniero-Giese β Christmas at the Front
#war #germany #military #wwi #germanydeutschland #wwigerman
Published: 2020-01-17 11:27:35 +0000 UTC; Views: 8154; Favourites: 334; Downloads: 25
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It's one of the illustrations in my cycle about WWI. Character with harmonica - Moses Shtern, jewish musician. This is his first Christmas at the front and not the last (unlike another soldiers on picture). Ernst Juenger, the popular german writer, is on right. Also, I drew soldiers of Wuerttemberg regiments and Juenger here is likeΒ reference only.Related content
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This is gorgeous. Few people even realise that the majority of German soldiers were conscripts with no say in the matter. Β
German soldiers were human beings, in both World Wars, with families and hopes and feelings. We tend to forget that these days
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I couldn't agree more! I'm a Brit, I grew up with Blackadder, the end of the last series just left me stunned and speechless.Β
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Oh yes, we British have a way of doing that. Blackadder ends the way it does because war really isn't funny... And so many ordinary men died because of their leaders.Β
After the episode ended, when I was watching on live TV, I rang my father (who I hadn't really spoken to for years) and we talked for hours about it
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That's absolutely true. I think most people see WW2 as a conflict that caused great suffering, but also rid the world of two terrible regimes. Of course, it also kind of created them too, most notably with Stalin.
But yes, we should remember the people, the ordinary soldiers, who had to endure the wars. And give credit to them. That's why I loved this picture 
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Oh certainly - throughout the ages, war has been an agent for change, both good and bad. The world that emerged after WW2 was very different to everything that had come before.Β
And against Hitler and the Nazis, Russia had not choice but to fight back with everything they had. Hitler was wiping entire cities off the map and wanted to basically exterminate everything in eastern Europe. Against evil of that magnitude, it was fight back or be destroyed.
Β Β
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Oh, completely agree too.
You know, the one book I have never been able to finish is Anthony Beever's 'Stalingrad'. He gets the history perfectly right, but his dry accounts of what actually happened are just too harrowing to read.Β It's literally like a horror film at time, but nobody would believe it was true.Β I also didn't realise how literally crazy Hitler was until I read that book. Literally frothing-at-the-mouth crazy. Β
There's a great deal of its marks throughout all of Europe. In the UK, we didn't suffer anywhere near as much, but several streets in my city were bombed completely, and there are little plaques up all over Cardiff. And in the scheme of things we got off lightly 
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I guess that Hitler - like all populists everywhere - used people's discontent to get to power. We see it happening even today, with radical Islam, and the rise of fascist groups in Europe now. Its not a pleasant sight
We forget our past at our peril.
My country didn't suffer anything like continental Europe did, of course, but it affected us deeply. We fought in Europe too of course, and lost many fathers and sons, and civilian populations were bombed until the end of the war. As you say, pretty much every village here has a plague or a memorial to those we lost. Never forget.Β
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War is complicated. People are people, and it's been proven that they can be capable of doing both wonderful and terrible things, especially in times of great hardship and violent conflict, as both World Wars showcased.
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Oh, I agree totally Mike. At the end of the day, war is a thing done by humans, and humans are incredibly complex creatures. As you say, the good and the bad in everyone comes out in all its manifestations. Β
I was thinking more about films like 'Wonder Woman' - which I LOVED, but there was this little voice in the back of my head saying 'you know ALL the nations in WW1 used chemical weapons, right?' and how the film tries to convince you that the German soldiers were sort of 'Nazis', when in fact most of them were conscripts who had no idea what they were doing there. But the more we think about that, the worse we feel about Gal Gadot slaughtering them.Β
I think it's nice to see things like this, little bits of humanity about things which are popularly dehumanised. There are two sides to every story
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True, though I feel like it can very easily can go the other direction also. I have a lot of respect for soldiers and what they do, but the current climate in the US is so that they are essentially worshiped. Of course the obvious downside to that is that even when they legitimately do wrong, we often still take their word at face value. The whole story of what happened at My Lai during the Vietnam War being one of the most egregious examples in recent years for US forces. What happened with Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher last year of course being a horrific shit show of its own.
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This is really well drawn, almost professional portrait quality.
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Ah interesante
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