Georg Elser: The Man Who Almost Killed Hitler

Past Imperfect:

The Munich bomb, on the other hand, exploded on November 8, 1939, at the height of the Führer’s popularity and less than three months after the outbreak of World War II—before the final order was given for the invasion of France, and when Russia remained a German ally and the United States remained at peace. Not only that; this bomb was the work of just one man, an unassuming carpenter who was far more principled than Stauffenberg and whose skill, patience and determination make him altogether much more interesting. Yet the Munich incident has been almost forgotten; as late as 1998 there was no memorial, in Germany or anywhere else, to the attempt or to the man who made it.

His name was Georg Elser, and this is his story.

Born in 1903, Elser was just below average height and just above average intelligence. He was not much of a thinker, but clever with his hands: an expert cabinetmaker who never read books, rarely touched newspapers and had little interest in politics. He had voted Communist, and briefly joined the Red Front Fighters’ League—streetfighters who took on their Nazi counterparts, the Brownshirts. But Elser was no Marxist, just a typical member of the German working class in the 1930s. He certainly wasn’t a brawler; for him, the attraction of the Fighters’ League was the chance to play in its brass band. In 1939, the only organization that he belonged to was the Woodworkers’ Union...

A fascinating story, one of which I was completely unaware. Click and read...

A little piece of history

Along with Billy Graham, one of the most important individuals of the modern evangelical movement was Harold John Ockenga. "Dr. Harold Ockenga co-founded and first presided over the National Association of Evangelicals, co-founded the Fuller Theological Seminary, and was the first president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary all while serving as Park Street's Minister, a role he defined while occupying the seat from 1936-1969."

And now, Park Street Church has made available the Ockenga Sermon Archive, recordings of sermons preached by Dr. Ockenga over the years, with more than 50 available now, and more coming. It's very interesting to go back and listen to the sermons from earlier times...

Youth Culture - Megan McArdle - National - The Atlantic

Megan McArdle is a little bit surprised that "a significant number of teens didn't know who Osama Bin Laden was until we killed him." Megan attributes this to "youth culture," making the observation that

Teenagers live in their own little world, only tangentially connected to the one the rest of us occupy. Today's high-school freshmen weren't even in Kindergarten when 9/11 happened. Why would they remember?

I'm not even a little bit surprised. And I don't think it's anything to do with "youth culture," or "teenagers liv[ing] in their own little world." It is, as I've written before, historical blindness. Kids learn what they're taught, and no one's taught them about this, because for adults, it's still a fresh memory. For today's teenagers, they're obviously not being taught about 9/11 in history class, because it's not integrated into the curricula yet (or at least, if it is, it's certainly not in enough for everyone to have been taught it.) For the adults, it is a secret de Polinichelle, which Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot¹ described as "a secret that everyone can know. For this reason the people who do not know it never hear about it - for if everybody thinks you know a thing, no one tells you."

One of my kids recently asked me, "what really happened on September 11?" They know the date, they've grown up with people talking about it, they know that something awful happened, but they don't really know any of the details. (And we were in the US Capitol building when the plane hit the Pentagon, and a couple of my kids got knocked down in the panicked rush to the exits when they evacuated the Capitol. We saw the smoke from the Pentagon. We saw the smoke in New York when we drove home later that week.) We don't talk about the details, all that much, because we all remember it. Except those that are too young. And we haven't taught it as history, because, well, it's still the present, the world in which we live, for those of us old enough to remember it.

Not only that, bin Laden's name isn't even a first-order part of the story. You can talk about Pearl Harbor without mentioning Hirohito; you can tell the story of 9/11 very effectively without ever mentioning Osama bin Laden. "Terrorists hijacked planes, flew them into the tallest buildings in New York, and the Pentagon, and the buildings in New York collapsed. Thousands of people were killed and everyone watched it happen." You've actually got to go into some detail to get to bin Laden.

So frankly, I'd be more surprised than not if a majority of the 13-18 cohort knew who he was...




¹ - Mrs. McGinty's Dead

Origin of the 21-Gun Salute

Because someone asked, and my guess that "I think it's probably because three and seven are both mystical/significant/lucky numbers" didn't satisfy my curiosity¹...

From the U.S. Army Center of Military History

The tradition of rendering a salute by cannon originated in the 14th century as firearms and cannons came into use. Since these early devices contained only one projectile, discharging them once rendered them ineffective. Originally warships fired seven-gun salutes--the number seven probably selected because of its astrological and Biblical significance. Seven planets had been identified and the phases of the moon changed every seven days. The Bible states that God rested on the seventh day after Creation, that every seventh year was sabbatical and that the seven times seventh year ushered in the Jubilee year.

Land batteries, having a greater supply of gunpowder, were able to fire three guns for every shot fired afloat, hence the salute by shore batteries was 21 guns. The multiple of three probably was chosen because of the mystical significance of the number three in many ancient civilizations. Early gunpowder, composed mainly of sodium nitrate, spoiled easily at sea, but could be kept cooler and drier in land magazines. When potassium nitrate improved the quality of gunpowder, ships at sea adopted the salute of 21 guns.

The 21-gun salute became the highest honor a nation rendered. Varying customs among the maritime powers led to confusion in saluting and return of salutes. Great Britain, the world's preeminent seapower in the 18th and 19th centuries, compelled weaker nations to salute first, and for a time monarchies received more guns than did republics. Eventually, by agreement, the international salute was established at 21 guns, although the United States did not agree on this procedure until August 1875.

¹ - And because I didn't have anything else ready to write about, nor the time to find something and do it, this morning...

I wouldn't have guessed that there was still one left...

And then there were none...

Frank W. Buckles died Sunday, sadly yet not unexpectedly at age 110, having achieved a singular feat of longevity that left him proud and a bit bemused.

In 1917 and 1918, close to 5 million Americans served in World War I, and Mr. Buckles, a cordial fellow of gentle humor, was the last known survivor. "I knew there'd be only one someday," he said a few years back. "I didn't think it would be me."

Attack Ads, Circa 1800

One of the most tiresome aspects of any election season is the endless media hectoring and plaintive cries of the uninterested about how campaigning is much more negative than it used to be. The folks at ReasonTV have got a little historical perspective. Ain't it great?



Historical perspective. It's a good thing.

But don't you dare question his patriotism...

"Mexicans" Were Here "Long Before America Was Even An Idea"

"Long before America was even an idea, this land of plenty was home to many peoples. The British and French, the Dutch and Spanish, to Mexicans, to countless Indian tribes. We all shared the same land," President Obama told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Do you suppose that in 2012 we could elect a President who, you know, likes America? Or is that too extreme a concept?

Will Bush be another Truman?

Mark McKinnon:

Truman holds the dubious distinction of achieving the lowest in-office job approval of 22 percent, edging out Nixon at 24 percent and Bush at 25 percent.

And yet, time and history have been kind to Truman. In the 2009 C-Span Historians Presidential Leadership Survey, the top four slots go to, no surprise: Lincoln, Washington, Franklin Roosevelt and Teddy Roosevelt. And No. 5? Truman. Today George W. Bush sits at 36, while his father comes in at 18.

Will time be as kind to Bush? There are some early indicators that his resurrection may well be under way...

It's a fairly short but interesting read. For the record (again), I've been saying for years that I think history will look on George W. Bush much more favorably than the media did during his Presidency. On the big issues of taxes, judges, and the war of civilization vs. Islamism, he was basically right. Lord knows that he did plenty of things that I disapproved, and still disapprove, of, but he was a good man and he was right on most of the big picture stuff.

History can take a while to get it right...

James Taranto:

the 44% who say they'd prefer Bush to Obama is twice Bush's approval rating in the final CBS News poll during his term. With Bush out of office less than a year, it seems unlikely that a revisionist view of his presidency has already taken hold. Thus these results almost surely represent a backlash against Obama and Congress's Democrats. Their insistence on pushing ahead and forcing on the country a health-care scheme that by now is almost as unpopular as it is monstrous is without a doubt a major factor here.

It has long been my position that history will be far kinder to the Presidency of George W. Bush than the media coverage of him in office was. I see no reason to change that assessment.

And, while I'm still very scared that they're going to manage to push this health care debacle through, I'm starting to think it possible that the Democrats are committing the worst kind of party suicide - pushing hard enough to convince everyone that they cannot be trusted, and paying that price in a losing effort.

On history

The US House of Representatives having had their "historic" vote on taking over the nation's health care system, the House making "history," brings to mind this quote from Chesterton.

People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.

- G. K. Chesterton

Were it not that he's been dead for 73 years already, one might think he was talking about America's current ruling elite...

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Day

Chris Lynch is noting the 181st birthday of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a Maine boy who served two terms as Governor and spent years as a professor and President at Bowdoin College, but is best known for his heroics in the Civil War, particularly as the leader of the 20th Maine at Gettysburg.

It is not too much of a stretch to say that if not for the heroics of Chamberlain and the 20th Maine at Little Round Top - the Confederate Army under Robert E. Lee could have won the Battle of Gettysburg and with that battle maybe won the Civil War. The respect of Chamberlain as a leader was such that General Grant chose Chamberlain to receive the formal surrender of the Confederate Army at Appomattox.

Chamberlain won the Medal of Honor for his actions at Little Round Top

As a Maine boy myself, I take enormous pride in the 20th Maine, and I love thinking, and have more than once stated, that "they saved the Union at Little Round Top." I'm not certain that it's actually true, however.

I recently finished Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine by Thomas Desjardin, and account of the Gettysburg campaign from the perspective of the 20th Maine. It's a decent read, but a detailed description of the fight for Little Round Top from both sides, the things that led up to it and the events that followed. And Desjardin doesn't think that the fight was as vital as we have long thought.

What Oates never knew, or at least never accepted, was the fact that his fight with the 20th Maine never imperiled Little Round Top as gravely as he perceived...And had his men held the summit, Oates would have better understood the limits of his prize as an artillery position and perhaps reconsidered the importance of the hill. Though Law, Longstreet, Meade, Jeff Davis and others all favored Little Round Top as a point d'appui in the battle, an artillery site from which the Union army along Cemetery Ridge could be pummelled into submission, none of them ever took the time to walk the summit or northern slope saying, "I would have placed a gun here, here, and here." Had any of them done so, they would quickly have encountered terrain on which only eight guns, at best, could have been brought to bear against the line that Meade's army held on July 3. Carefully studied, the boulder-strewn "round top" of the hill simply does not provide the flat open ground needed to operate more than a pair of batteries firing northward to strike the Union line. Even in this ideal sense at least two pair of guns would have had to fire over the heads of the others, a dangerous practice even on the best ground, and this only with ammunition run up from farther below. In advance of the huge Confederate assault on July 3, twenty times this number of cannon fired at a small span of the Union line at much closer range for two hours and were unable to break it. No eight cannons on Little Round Top, under fire from dozens of Federal batteries in response, could have destroyed any significant portion of the Union army that day.
...
In this great event, the 20th Maine bore no small part, but its contribution has been unusually swelled, though only in recent years, by the popularity of Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Killer Angels and the subsequent movie Gettysburg, based upon it.
...
Most serious scholarship of the battle dating back to the 1880s makes only brief mention, at best, of the Maine regiment on the left wing of the Union army. Until Shaara's work was published, General Warren was almost universally considered the hero of Little Round Top.

Of course, what would have happened without Chamberlain and the 20th Maine is unknowable. And there is no doubting or denying their heroism, and no one begrudges Chamberlain his Medal of Honor. Did the defeat of the 15th Alabama at Little Round Top "save the Union?" There's no way of knowing.

I like the story, though, and since it's unknowable, and reflects well on Mainers, I'll probably keep telling it...

Fife and drums on parade

The William Diamond Junior Fife and Drum Corps



Performing at the Bedford (MA) Pole Capping, 4/11/09


Group photo, Bedford, MA, 4/11/2009

Hiding in plain sight

Two UCLA economists claim to have figured out what my Grandmother, who lived through the depression, taught my father 50 years ago, and he taught me, and I've taught my kids; the New Deal didn't end the depression, World War II did. The New Deal exacerbated the Great Depression, and the "FDR saved the country from the depression" propaganda is just that - propaganda.

Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.

"Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump," said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA's Department of Economics. "We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies."

This is, of course, a "great mystery" of the same sort as the Kennedy assassination - it's a mystery only to those with an emotional interest in a storyline that isn't the real story...

Cultural amnesia

Bill Bennett has an important column up at National Review Online today, discussing the current state of American history education.

Our country’s adults are expected to instill a love of country in its children, but the greatness and purpose of that country are mocked by the chattering classes: Newspaper columns and television reports drip with a constant cynicism about America while doubts about her motives on the world stage are the coin of the realm. Too many commentators are too ready to believe the worst about our leaders and our country, and our children’s history books — and even some of the teachers — close off any remaining possibility of helping children learn about their country.

It was in 1984 that Jeanne Kirkpatrick talked about the blame-America firsters. "The San Francisco Democrats didn't blame Soviet intransigence. They blamed the United States. But then, they always blame America first." Unfortunately, those people have been running the education system in this country for the past 30 years...