Veteran speaks on Hurtgen Forest and the Bulge

[Eat Uranium]

I don't remember what history we did at Primary School.  Probably sugar coated BS about Ancient Egypt and Romans etc.  At Secondary School, the 3 years of compulsory history started with the Norman invasion, then we also covered the English Civil War, the French Revolution, and I think something to do with the Industrial Revolution too.  After that, I did a year of GCSE History in after-school sessions (normally done in two years).  In that we focused on Britain from 1901 to 1918¹ and Germany from 1918 to 1939 (because of the way the exams worked we could cut out the bit covering the post war US so the course could be done in one year).  The last bit was the only time we had to start to examine multiple sources for biases etc.

There was very little taught about any of the actual wars, mostly about the politics behind them and their effects on various groups of people.  Even then, I know most of my history from being an avid reader in my spare time (mostly directed towards useless crap these days I'm afraid).

¹Mostly seemed to be women's suffrage.

[siben]

I refuse to believe that kids today never saw a dead body.

I have never seen i dead body in real life, only pictures, i think the experience of the 2 can't be compared. I have no clue how i will react to it and i am not eager to find out. (i have seen body parts though, like organs)

[Fuchs]

Only saw one dead body, that of my grandfather a few years ago. It's strange, that's all. Just very strange, you see the person but they are not there. Hard to grasp for tiny human mind.

[hslan.GN_Angrybeaver]

i dealt with a lot of dead bodies in anatomy class and i have never learned so much in my life ever again.

edit:
i just remember one detail.
one of the bodies was a woman not that old and i rember while digging in her interestines i took a look at
her painted finger nails and it felt somehow friggn sureal.
good old memories lol

[Ts4EVER]

What did she die off?

[hslan.GN_Angrybeaver]

some serious heart problems.there was a replaced aorta and a not so healthy heart.

[LHeureux]

lol AngryBeaver, that's disturbing   

[Dukat]

OK I had a look at the official hessian curriculum for high school. I only posted the main topics except for the parts interesting for our discussion.

9th grade, 4th quarter
Mandatory topics

WW1, a result of nationalism and imperialism

1. Rising competition between industrial states

2. Racism, militarism, war as savior of society

3. Alliances and objectives of war, escalation

4. The industrialised war, strategic role of the railroad, "homefront" and "trench warfare", mass production and mass destruction (verdun, "bleeding out), communication techniques and new weapon systems (aircraft, tank, U-boat, machine gun), faulty assumptions, mentality.

5. Peace, forming of legends and myths, hero worship, desertion and mutiny, Wilson-Plan etc

10th grade, 2nd quarter
Mandatory topics

National Socialism

1. Traces of national socialist gouvernment today

2. Grab for power

3. Mass unemployment to full employment - an "economical miracle"?

4. Conviction or adaption

5. Jews and other minorities

6. Foreign political objectives, Revision of Versailles, Conquest of Lebensraum, propagandistic and tactical/strategic steps towards those goals, appeasement, Invasion of Poland, occupation of european states, german reign in occupied countries, war in eastern europe, destruction and oppression of civilians, role of the Wehrmacht, escalation into world war, "total war", plight of the civilian population, capitulation, Losses (Humans, goods, ideals)

7. Inner German resistance

Now, that is kinda interesting. We've gone totally off topic, but still. First off all: You live in southern germany. Everybody knows that they instil knowledge there using a cone.
Secondly I had a look at the curriculum for lower saxony. And I came to the conclusion, that nothing changed since I left school. I'm also wondering about the detail of your list.

Lots of things are optional while it apears only mandatory to deal WWII twice, using one of these options:

• Escape, displacement and relocation surrounding World War II
• National socialism and german self conception ( additional option: the situation of men and women during national socialism)
• remembering the victims of national socialism

Topics sourrounding World War II

• The society of the german empire (1871-1918)
• The Weimar Republic and its citizen
• The Great Depression
• The german-french relationship during 19th and 20th century

Actually that is exactly what I learned in school.
 

[Aetius]

@ LHeureux:
I don't know how old you are but when I was in high school more than ten years ago, history classes were quite minimal. One world history class in grade 8 and one Québec/Canadian history class in grade 10. Sometimes there would be a history option in grade 11. I even heard that they got rid of the "knowledge emphasis" to the benefit of the "emphasis on competence". An example of this is : Here are five facts about Canadian women in the 21st century and five facts about Greek women in fifth century BC Athens, would you rather be a woman in Athens or in Canada? (I actually saw this one in a manual which was shown to me). This approach is completely stupid and will not teach proper history. I understand that people would like to stimulate discussion and reasoning rather than just learn dates. However, you need a basic frame of knowledege before you can do so.

Even at university level things can be disappointing. I was annoyed with the amount of mandatory classes (mostly Canadian history) I had to take during the BA. I understand the logic of focusing on the country's history but they could leave us alone after the first year and allow us to choose what history classes we would like to take. It's only during the M.A. that options finally allowed one to properly specialize in one's field.

I'm still amazed by the ignorance of some of my PhD colleagues in Canadian history regarding western history. Some don't know in which century Alexander the Great lived, when Antiquity more or less ends, when Napoleon ruled, etc. I was told that some women history professor even said that people studying Antiquity, i.e. me, were only studying the oppression of women. Another women history professor was against hiring a World War Two specialist because "We feminists are against war". I think I am far from being a macho guy but this kind of declaration makes me want to cry.

From what I have gathered from my European colleagues and from what I saw, history and geography are taught much more intensively in Enrope than in North America. It is depressing and pathetic how few Quebecers can correctly situate the ten Canadian provinces on a map. One of my American colleagues recently told me that, back in the States, he had a conversation with a lady in Vermont who asked him: "Where is this Québec thing? I always wanted to know that." My friend answered:"Well you know, we share quite a long border with them..." He also told me of another American in Charleston who did not know that Vermont was a State.

I don't mean to bash North Americans, I am one, but I find that having more history anb geography classes as in Europe would be highly profitable.

[Zoologic]

There is a reason why people called your countries "first world" folks.

In Indonesia, our history class curriculum is a revisionist bullshit that still glorifies war. Brought so much to the disillusioned young generations. The discussion in our class is only based on, "So you know this things happened, and bam! Please memorize and write this on your exam paper to get good grades (typical Asian)."

It starts with stone age, and progressing into modern era, and finally our independence 1945, then followed by numerous rebellions and Dutch reoccupation attempts, ending in Republic of Indonesia today in 1975. With some addition of our 1998 major reform after Asian Financial Crisis.

These are parts where wars are discussed:

World history (other than Asia and us):
Phoenician war - Roman won, kthxbye!
Crusades - like 11 times or more, but Holy Land is still under Muslim control, and finally Turkic Caliphate
American independence - George Washington won (single-handedly?) and USA is born, eff the rest
Napoleonic war - finally, Wellington defeated Napoleon in Waterloo, so you can show up in TV quiz and look smart knowing this trivia. We are not told that Waterloo is in Belgium, not UK or France as most people here think.
WW1 - we have to memorize treaty of Versailles
WW2 - same thing, Blitzkrieg, turning point, atomic bomb, USS Missouri, besides some text books referred Erwin Rommel as "dessert lion"

Asian Nationalism:
Chinese - Sun Yat Sen
India - Mahatma Gandhi
Arab - Gamal Abdul Nasser
Turkey - Mustafa Kemal Attaturk
Japan - Meiji restoration
Chinese boxer rebellion - failed attempt
Chinese revolution - successful attempt by Sun Yat Sen
Japan vs. Russia - Japan won, fueling Asian nationalism
Israel vs. Arab wars - Arab failed because of corruption, outdated equipment (really? What did North Vietnam use?), stupid smartass facts...
India peaceful struggle - success
Turkish modernisation - "westernisation," a success
etc...
All was delivered in a nationalistic pan-Asiatic tone.

Our history:
Fight between ancient kingdoms, some gave detailed account on what kind of wound a cursed Kris dagger could inflict upon its victim.
Fight between Sundanese kingdom vs. other Sundanese kingdom that resides in Jakarta, backed by Portuguese, the Europeans lost and the city of Jakarta (Sunda Kelapa) is born.
Fight against Dutch occupation, some lengthy chapter... it took us 12 full years, from VOC era to post VOC era, where the struggle took form in a political opposition instead of bloody fight. Some wars are described in detail, like tactics, tricks, or even political anecdotes or motivations behind the war.
Japanese occupation - more brutal in just 3.5 years than Dutch' 350 years.
Independence - some Japanese sympathizers, some Dutch hero, eeevil Allied re-occupation forces, negotiations, kidnapping of Soekarno, some organizations, etc etc
Struggle after independence - more fights, Islamic separatists, foreign-backed militias, dejected army officers, crazy sects, and so on.

I learn more from TVs, Forgotten Hope, Wikipedia, rotten, Cracked, Youtube... shit, I don't even pay for these. There goes my tuition fees.

[LHeureux]

I don't know how old you are but when I was in high school more than ten years ago, history classes were quite minimal. One world history class in grade 8 and one Québec/Canadian history class in grade 10. Sometimes there would be a history option in grade 11.

I'm just out of school, I'm 17. History classes followed me for all my years in school. It was mostly about Québec history and we heard a really minimal ammount of how the rest of the provinces formed.

I'm still amazed by the ignorance of some of my PhD colleagues in Canadian history regarding western history. Some don't know in which century Alexander the Great lived, when Antiquity more or less ends, when Napoleon ruled, etc.

My father can't believe it, I was never taught about Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Ramses, The Rome Empire, Persian Empire, etc. This is really sad, I know about the beaver furs of course, but I don't know how long the romans ruled. I learned some about antiquity though, learned alot about Athens, first democracies, some of mesopotanians origins, but that's about it.

It is depressing and pathetic how few Quebecers can correctly situate the ten Canadian provinces on a map.

I hear you there, while many students of my generation know where each provinces are, many others just don't give a sh*t about the rest of Canada and this is really sad.

There's one thing that I always noticed, all people that hate/don't like the rest of Canada or the english people in general are always the one that fail miserably in English course. It's like a reason they give themselves to not be good in english "I'm not good in english because I don't like how english people tried to convert french people to english". I have proof of this, both of my sisters are really bad in english and both don't like the rest of Canada or english people in general, but both listen heavily to english music, watch originaly english movies, english series, etc. And many still think that the english are all rich and control our province lol. When you learn a language, you quickly learn to like it's people and forget about the unreasoned hate that you had before.

It goes the other way too, english people that don't like French for no reasons whatsoever even if English is composed of French principaly.

Quotes from Wikipedia :

A survey by Joseph M. Williams in Origins of the English Language of 10,000 words taken from several thousand business letters gave this set of statistics:[93]

    French (langue d'oïl): 41%
    "Native" English: 33%
    Latin: 15%
    Old Norse: 2%
    Dutch: 1%
    Other: 10%

A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973)[92] that estimated the origin of English words as follows:
Influences in English vocabulary

    Langue d'oïl, including French and Old Norman: 28.3%
    Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
    Germanic languages (including words directly inherited from Old English; does not include Germanic        words coming from the Germanic element in French, Latin or other Romance languages): 25%
    Greek: 5.32%
    No etymology given: 4.03%
    Derived from proper names: 3.28%
    All other languages: less than 1%

[djinn]

I cant help but notice that he said, you shot at a green uniform, they [the Germans] shot at a BROWN uniform [Americans].

Are we therefore a tad simplistic in our use of the OD Green and brown pants in all our models in FH2?
Cuz really, I have seen too many brown uniformed movies since WWII, including footages to be told its all effects, bad research, dirt or colour of the footage.


I find the interviewer very interesting. Sure, shooting POWs is a bad thing, but in a war that big and appreciating how soldiers in war are like brothers, it is understandable, even I do not condone it, to see why they would kill Germans with American souvenirs after they saw their killed by his.

Its too easy when you arent in combat for as long as he's been to sit back and judge everything as black and white, good and bad, different when you are right there.

You are hero if you DO realize its wrong in the situation, but if not, especially if you are not actively going to kill POWs etc, i think it just makes you a regular guy

What I like the most about the interview is his storytelling. He has a way of narrating that lets you get the horror of it, but not in a heart-wrenching and yet, not in a 'it was nothing' kinda way, but more in a matter-of-fact sort of way.

It certainly was an adventure, a terrible, terrible adventure, but an adventure of a lifetime none the less, especially for Tom Sawyrer-like kids who had never gotten out of their farm prior, let alone out of the country and were now suddenly in Eurpoe.

[sn00x]

i would have put Every single god damn war criminal to the court, no matter if they "won" the war or not.

[LHeureux]

Ok Sn00x, it's been too long now, what the heck is the bunker in your signature?

[sn00x]

Maginot line i belive it was, azreal made it iirc