The fact is, this happened all over America, so much so, that the movie makers shortened the title to The Madness of King George. This did not happen in any other country! Don't try to defend the indefensible, most Americans hate history, it is uncool to be a history geek! Hollywood can make good historically accurate films, Tora, Tora, Tora, Ironclads and the Civil War movie that all others are judged by, Gettysburg! Theres no excuse, all these movies made a good profit, Pearl Harbour did poorly, and it had all the Hollywood devices in it!Aristaeus said:
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"Discovery of U-Boat Wrecks Rewrites the History Books"
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Stearmen said:
Is it possible that a lot of this has to do with the American education system rather than Americans being any sillier than other nationalities?
In previous discussions with two Americans I know and a Kiwi who went to school in the US, they all said that there was an enormous focus in the school curriculum on US history, geography, issues, etc and not a terrible amount on anything which didn't have some kind of US connection. Both the Americans thought that they were far less proficient with foreign history and geography than a NZer (this conversation happened in NZ where they now live). This might explain why a lot of those Americans Stearman mentions would have no idea about George III or 18th century British history.
Aristaeus
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Tora, Tora, Tora and Gettysburg are two of my favorites but unfortunately Pearl Harbour grossed more then those movies combined and is considered the top move of 2001.Stearmen said:
I really don't think that is the reason for the title change, nor do I think a nation wide survey of moviegoers garnerd the above results. Do you have any sources, Web site, magizine article, interview of the ppl who made the movie, video?Stearmen said:
"until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."
Winston Churchill.
dr greg
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WHOSE TRUTH IS IT ANYWAY?
I addressed some of these issues in an essay about 10 years ago, it might be of interest...
Fact and Fiction in Film
In the case of:
ENEMY AT THE GATES
(Saving Private Ivan?)
There is a trend in big-budget films made with US money in Europe. It involves the depiction of various socio-cultural and language groups by what it is supposed we would perceive to be their English equivalents. The examples of this are increasing; the most recent being Chocolat, set, (and filmed) in a French village, where grizzled peasants converse in some ba***rd form of cockney, and the petit-bourgeoisie of the village have various varieties of plums in their mouths, and make no attempt at any indication of where the action took place, apart from addressing each other as “M’sewer”.
Now we have all winced at awful accents affected by American actors mangling every vowel as they try to portray stereotypes, but the assumption that we suspend all disbelief in cultural matters is a worrying development. This film is a good example: a film about Russia, and arguably the most crucial battle in their history, and no Russian actors in it. Not even a bit-part. Instead we have a procession of whey-faced pommy pin-up boys and the odd gnarled character actor for gravitas. We must assume that the entire Russian acting community have absolutely no grasp of the most basic English, or good marketing demands pretty and recognisable faces, or else the US market won’t bother with a war movie that isn’t about them saving the world.
Which is what this film touches on: the fact that it was the Red Army that broke the back of the Wehrmacht, and the titanic struggle that took place in Stalingrad was the pivotal clash of the war.
I read the story on which this film was based many years ago, and have reasonable familiarity with its setting. The symbolic nature of the battle, and its scale and ferocity are something we can only imagine. It was the first time that two armies of such numbers (nearly half a million each) had fought in an urban setting.
The Germans had conquered plenty of cities in their sweep through Byelorussia and the Ukraine by the tactics of encirclement. Stalingrad was a different proposition.
The blitzkrieg tactics of Heinz Guderian had been adopted with brutal efficiency, and, given a big enough canvas on the steppe, were highly effective.
The collapse of the Red Army before this onslaught had brought the country to its knees, and although Moscow had been saved by the onset of the previous winter, the main thrust of the Germans was towards the Caucasus and the oil fields around Baku. If they took the Black Sea fields they would have had enough reserves to push on into Iran, which was the long term goal of Hitler in that theatre; control of the oil in the Middle East, and therefore the world. (1)
The name Stalin meant ‘Man of Steel” and it was an industrial town on the Volga that he chose to name after himself. It was the home of the massive Krasny Oktobr factory, and therefore docks and infrastructure. The Germans saw it as the best place to take a modern army across the river for the southward thrust. This did not take into account the mythic status of the Volga in Russian culture; it is seen as something akin to blood of the people, and has a deep resonance in the Russian soul. It was down this river that the tribe who called themselves the Rus came in their longboats from Scandinavia to settle the land in the first millennium C.E.
Being named after him, the dictator of all the Russias saw it as a matter of personal pride that the city not fall. No expense in men or material was to be spared in holding the city, and the tenacity of the defence meant that the battle degenerated into street fighting in the ruins of the town centre. The superior armament of the German Army now made no difference, and the conflict devolved into localised actions such as hand-to-hand combat for individual houses. In this environment the sniper became a critical factor in the struggle: crack shots from both sides concealed themselves in the rubble and picked off the unwary and the foolish in a game of cat-and-mouse.
The film tells the story of the struggle between the two best shots on either side as a condensation of the greater struggle. Much has been made of the inclusion of a love interest in the screenplay, and I found it unnecessarily intrusive, even allowing for the considerable charms of Rachel Weisz. But this raises the question of whether there is any responsibility to tell the real story, and who cares if they do or not. In an era when the teaching of history is not compulsory in our school system beyond a certain level, I would argue that half-baked historical perceptions and concomitant ignorance are formed by people viewing films of a historical nature as fact. The controversy over Oliver Stone’s JFK was an excellent case in point: it was presented as a story, but was viewed as an expose by many people (according to surveys), and was really Stone’s version of what MAY have happened, convincing though it was.
In Enemy at the Gates we follow the elevation of Vassily Zaitsev to national hero as he kills large numbers of German officers with the shooting skills he learned as a peasant boy in the Ural Mountains, his relationship with the political officer who reports his deeds, and the dispatching of a German expert marksman to duel with him for the honour of the Wehrmacht. The final showdown is triggered by the nasty German hanging a little boy who has been a spy for the Russians and climaxes when the bad guy gets his just deserts. Most of it unfortunately fictional, not just from the filmmaker’s point of view, but history’s as well.
*Indeed, the whole story of the sniper duel is fiction. There is absolutely no trace in
the German military archives or SS records of SS officer Heinz Thorwald.
Also there is absolutely no report of the duel in the Red Army files which concentrated
on sniper activities (the daily reports of the Political Department of Stalingrad Front to Moscow)
This great story can be classified as Soviet propaganda. (2)
Therefore what we have is a real life historical figure whose sharpshooting exploits are accepted as historical reality, but the famous duel, and his subsequent heroic status, are fictions dreamt up as morale boosters by the Red Army propaganda unit at the time. There were other snipers on the Stalingrad front who shot a lot more Germans, but were not immortalised as Zaitsev was. The Political officer responsible for these stories was Danilov, and in the film he is portrayed as using the story for his own advancement, which rings true, but it didn’t work too well, as he was killed by another sniper while out observing Zaitsev at work, (or so the story goes). It is worth noting that Zaitsev told the story of the duel himself in interviews, but of course one did what one was told in Stalin’s time, and it would have done his social status as a national hero irreparable harm to have denied any of his actions. The story had acquired its own momentum, and as a metaphor for the greater struggle may have been seen by him, and definitely others, as best left the way it was told; facts notwithstanding.
We now must ask whose truth is the film obligated to tell? The entire microcosm of human drama they are using to tell the greater story is revealed to be a concoction, therefore any liberties taken with the “facts” are of no actual consequence except as a variation on an original fiction.
The representation is as much the reality as anything else, considering that the story as told when first invented was believed as literal truth by millions of Russians desperately in need of heroes in their darkest hour, and served as an inspiration to the fighting men hanging on by the skin of their teeth on a few hundred yards of the west bank of the Volga. Did the lie serve a greater purpose than the truth in these circumstances, and does revisionism require a dismissal of the effects that the story had at the time?
The filmmakers obviously felt that the old adage about not letting the facts get in the way of a good yarn applied in this case. They can’t be blamed for doing what they wanted with the story, which doesn’t mean that it went in a direction that satisfied the critics and audiences, who generally felt that a focus on the relationship between the protagonists and the myth-maker would have provided quite enough drama in the hands of a skilled auteur, and the love interest was an unnecessary distraction. (3) .
It is worth noting that Zaitsev apparently did meet his future wife at the front, although such things were not uncommon in the Red Army as women were in the front line, and suffered heavily in combat. The Communists had no qualms about equality of the sexes at times of crisis, and the fact that Hitler abhorred the idea of women doing anything outside the home, and prevented their physical involvement in the war effort is no doubt grounds for a feminist reading of those opposing viewpoints in some other forum.
Whose truth matters?
The victor’s is generally accepted as what is read by posterity, unless one takes a revisionist approach subject to one’s particular ideology, and accepts that post-modern theory allows for no absolutes.
Therefore; who cares?
All facts can be subject to readings conforming to the relevant point of view acquiring the sobriquet of truth in that perception of reality.
This film does attempt to show the “reality” of the conflict in its large scale battle scenes, the crossing of the Volga under German fire is harrowing stuff, and nothing is spared in the depiction of the practise that Stalin instituted of sending NKVD units to sit behind advancing Soviet units and shoot anyone who retreated. This was grim stuff, but is a widely accepted fact as the orders actually exist on record, and it was reported openly as an indication of the determination of the leadership.
Thousands were executed out of hand behind the lines, and we can only imagine the desperation of the men caught between the guns in front and behind, often with no weapon of their own. Troops were sent into battle with one rifle between every two or three men and you had to wait till someone was killed to get your hands on one. (4) This is depicted right at the start of the film and again is not an indictment of the methods or the ideology, but more a reflection of the desperate nature of the struggle.
The scale of the film is spectacular, and lots of attention is paid to such details as the actions of Kruschev who later went on to lead the country and reverse some of the excesses of Stalinism.
I return to the point of historical accuracy because I personally wonder what is the point of telling a story that is purportedly true, if the writers have no intention of sticking to even the agreed facts such as they may be. I do not propose that drama be saddled with the strictures of documentary, but surely there must be some obligation to the perceived catalogue of events. Why not have World War Two won by the French after dropping atom bombs on India? Patently absurd, but why? A fact bent is a fact gone, and where does the line between fact and fiction lie? Wherever the writer feels he can put it would seem to be the answer, and actual events just the canvas on which smaller dramas may be played. This very issue arose with the recent Mel Gibson film The Patriot” set during the American Revolution. It was easily dealt with.
Mel Gibson's character in "The Patriot" was originally named after real-life Revolutionary War figure Brigadier General Francis Marion, whose trademark use of swamps to evade capture earned him the nickname of 'The Swamp Fox'. Unfortunately, when historians pointed out that Marion was an avowed racist (in addition to hunting Native Americans for sport, he was also guilty of raping his slaves), Emmerich and Devlin quickly renamed their protagonist to avoid controversy. Unfortunately, this 'whitewashing' of historical record is pervasive throughout "The Patriot", betraying the film's preference of entertainment over education.(5)
The British troops were demonised to a ridiculous degree, and shown burning churches and massacring civilians, all of which is complete invention without any basis in fact. Predictably the British press raised concerns about this wilful distortion of history, engendering heaps of publicity for the film, but really to no avail. Today’s Consuming Generation, knows nothing of the real events and likely cares even less than they do about where their overpriced sandshoes are made.
Therefore where does the obligation lie? The dry historical record, or the needs of a market thirsting for cardboard heroes in easily understood conflicts?
No contest these days, and the blame cannot all be laid at the feet of the feckless consumer. Films have been made about historical events, which stick as closely as possible to the agreed facts, such as Gettysburg, a 4-hour reconstruction of that epic battle of the American Civil War. Military experts and advisers ensured that the sequence of events followed as closely as possible those on the three days of the battle. The film is now a staple of US military educational institutions and a damn good shoot-em-up as well, and did reasonable box-office. The line between fact and fiction is slightly blurred in one scene however, and Joseph Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels)’s speech to rally the deserters sent to join the 20th Maine regiment, although a stirring piece of oratory, is an invention of the writer’s. This does not stop it being the centrepiece of motivational courses in the US!! (along with a speech by George C. Scott from the movie PATTON).(6)
A case could be made that these decisions are based merely on the perceptions of the screenwriters and producers, and a reductive process ensures that the awareness of, or interest in, historical accuracy becomes less important to all involved, especially the audience.
In conclusion: unless you are a historical nut or general pedant, no one knows or cares if what they are watching really occurred, or if those personages actually existed or did what is shown. The recent massive success of Gladiator would bear this out.
As the old saying goes: Perhaps it didn’t really happen this way, but here’s how it should have!
1 Yergin, Daniel. The Prize The Epic Quest for Oil Money & Power. POCKET BOOKS London 1991
2 Beevor, Antony . Stalingrad, The fateful siege : 1942 - 1943. (Ref: Shooter.com/snipers)
3 Ebert Roger Chicago Sun- Times FilmReviews. http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews
4 Clark, Alan. Barbarossa, The Russian-German Conflict 1941-45 Hutchison London 1965
5 http://www.geocities.com/aleong1631/patriot.html
6 http://faculty.darden.edu/ClawsonJ/Chamberlain.pdf
I addressed some of these issues in an essay about 10 years ago, it might be of interest...
Fact and Fiction in Film
In the case of:
ENEMY AT THE GATES
(Saving Private Ivan?)
There is a trend in big-budget films made with US money in Europe. It involves the depiction of various socio-cultural and language groups by what it is supposed we would perceive to be their English equivalents. The examples of this are increasing; the most recent being Chocolat, set, (and filmed) in a French village, where grizzled peasants converse in some ba***rd form of cockney, and the petit-bourgeoisie of the village have various varieties of plums in their mouths, and make no attempt at any indication of where the action took place, apart from addressing each other as “M’sewer”.
Now we have all winced at awful accents affected by American actors mangling every vowel as they try to portray stereotypes, but the assumption that we suspend all disbelief in cultural matters is a worrying development. This film is a good example: a film about Russia, and arguably the most crucial battle in their history, and no Russian actors in it. Not even a bit-part. Instead we have a procession of whey-faced pommy pin-up boys and the odd gnarled character actor for gravitas. We must assume that the entire Russian acting community have absolutely no grasp of the most basic English, or good marketing demands pretty and recognisable faces, or else the US market won’t bother with a war movie that isn’t about them saving the world.
Which is what this film touches on: the fact that it was the Red Army that broke the back of the Wehrmacht, and the titanic struggle that took place in Stalingrad was the pivotal clash of the war.
I read the story on which this film was based many years ago, and have reasonable familiarity with its setting. The symbolic nature of the battle, and its scale and ferocity are something we can only imagine. It was the first time that two armies of such numbers (nearly half a million each) had fought in an urban setting.
The Germans had conquered plenty of cities in their sweep through Byelorussia and the Ukraine by the tactics of encirclement. Stalingrad was a different proposition.
The blitzkrieg tactics of Heinz Guderian had been adopted with brutal efficiency, and, given a big enough canvas on the steppe, were highly effective.
The collapse of the Red Army before this onslaught had brought the country to its knees, and although Moscow had been saved by the onset of the previous winter, the main thrust of the Germans was towards the Caucasus and the oil fields around Baku. If they took the Black Sea fields they would have had enough reserves to push on into Iran, which was the long term goal of Hitler in that theatre; control of the oil in the Middle East, and therefore the world. (1)
The name Stalin meant ‘Man of Steel” and it was an industrial town on the Volga that he chose to name after himself. It was the home of the massive Krasny Oktobr factory, and therefore docks and infrastructure. The Germans saw it as the best place to take a modern army across the river for the southward thrust. This did not take into account the mythic status of the Volga in Russian culture; it is seen as something akin to blood of the people, and has a deep resonance in the Russian soul. It was down this river that the tribe who called themselves the Rus came in their longboats from Scandinavia to settle the land in the first millennium C.E.
Being named after him, the dictator of all the Russias saw it as a matter of personal pride that the city not fall. No expense in men or material was to be spared in holding the city, and the tenacity of the defence meant that the battle degenerated into street fighting in the ruins of the town centre. The superior armament of the German Army now made no difference, and the conflict devolved into localised actions such as hand-to-hand combat for individual houses. In this environment the sniper became a critical factor in the struggle: crack shots from both sides concealed themselves in the rubble and picked off the unwary and the foolish in a game of cat-and-mouse.
The film tells the story of the struggle between the two best shots on either side as a condensation of the greater struggle. Much has been made of the inclusion of a love interest in the screenplay, and I found it unnecessarily intrusive, even allowing for the considerable charms of Rachel Weisz. But this raises the question of whether there is any responsibility to tell the real story, and who cares if they do or not. In an era when the teaching of history is not compulsory in our school system beyond a certain level, I would argue that half-baked historical perceptions and concomitant ignorance are formed by people viewing films of a historical nature as fact. The controversy over Oliver Stone’s JFK was an excellent case in point: it was presented as a story, but was viewed as an expose by many people (according to surveys), and was really Stone’s version of what MAY have happened, convincing though it was.
In Enemy at the Gates we follow the elevation of Vassily Zaitsev to national hero as he kills large numbers of German officers with the shooting skills he learned as a peasant boy in the Ural Mountains, his relationship with the political officer who reports his deeds, and the dispatching of a German expert marksman to duel with him for the honour of the Wehrmacht. The final showdown is triggered by the nasty German hanging a little boy who has been a spy for the Russians and climaxes when the bad guy gets his just deserts. Most of it unfortunately fictional, not just from the filmmaker’s point of view, but history’s as well.
*Indeed, the whole story of the sniper duel is fiction. There is absolutely no trace in
the German military archives or SS records of SS officer Heinz Thorwald.
Also there is absolutely no report of the duel in the Red Army files which concentrated
on sniper activities (the daily reports of the Political Department of Stalingrad Front to Moscow)
This great story can be classified as Soviet propaganda. (2)
Therefore what we have is a real life historical figure whose sharpshooting exploits are accepted as historical reality, but the famous duel, and his subsequent heroic status, are fictions dreamt up as morale boosters by the Red Army propaganda unit at the time. There were other snipers on the Stalingrad front who shot a lot more Germans, but were not immortalised as Zaitsev was. The Political officer responsible for these stories was Danilov, and in the film he is portrayed as using the story for his own advancement, which rings true, but it didn’t work too well, as he was killed by another sniper while out observing Zaitsev at work, (or so the story goes). It is worth noting that Zaitsev told the story of the duel himself in interviews, but of course one did what one was told in Stalin’s time, and it would have done his social status as a national hero irreparable harm to have denied any of his actions. The story had acquired its own momentum, and as a metaphor for the greater struggle may have been seen by him, and definitely others, as best left the way it was told; facts notwithstanding.
We now must ask whose truth is the film obligated to tell? The entire microcosm of human drama they are using to tell the greater story is revealed to be a concoction, therefore any liberties taken with the “facts” are of no actual consequence except as a variation on an original fiction.
The representation is as much the reality as anything else, considering that the story as told when first invented was believed as literal truth by millions of Russians desperately in need of heroes in their darkest hour, and served as an inspiration to the fighting men hanging on by the skin of their teeth on a few hundred yards of the west bank of the Volga. Did the lie serve a greater purpose than the truth in these circumstances, and does revisionism require a dismissal of the effects that the story had at the time?
The filmmakers obviously felt that the old adage about not letting the facts get in the way of a good yarn applied in this case. They can’t be blamed for doing what they wanted with the story, which doesn’t mean that it went in a direction that satisfied the critics and audiences, who generally felt that a focus on the relationship between the protagonists and the myth-maker would have provided quite enough drama in the hands of a skilled auteur, and the love interest was an unnecessary distraction. (3) .
It is worth noting that Zaitsev apparently did meet his future wife at the front, although such things were not uncommon in the Red Army as women were in the front line, and suffered heavily in combat. The Communists had no qualms about equality of the sexes at times of crisis, and the fact that Hitler abhorred the idea of women doing anything outside the home, and prevented their physical involvement in the war effort is no doubt grounds for a feminist reading of those opposing viewpoints in some other forum.
Whose truth matters?
The victor’s is generally accepted as what is read by posterity, unless one takes a revisionist approach subject to one’s particular ideology, and accepts that post-modern theory allows for no absolutes.
Therefore; who cares?
All facts can be subject to readings conforming to the relevant point of view acquiring the sobriquet of truth in that perception of reality.
This film does attempt to show the “reality” of the conflict in its large scale battle scenes, the crossing of the Volga under German fire is harrowing stuff, and nothing is spared in the depiction of the practise that Stalin instituted of sending NKVD units to sit behind advancing Soviet units and shoot anyone who retreated. This was grim stuff, but is a widely accepted fact as the orders actually exist on record, and it was reported openly as an indication of the determination of the leadership.
Thousands were executed out of hand behind the lines, and we can only imagine the desperation of the men caught between the guns in front and behind, often with no weapon of their own. Troops were sent into battle with one rifle between every two or three men and you had to wait till someone was killed to get your hands on one. (4) This is depicted right at the start of the film and again is not an indictment of the methods or the ideology, but more a reflection of the desperate nature of the struggle.
The scale of the film is spectacular, and lots of attention is paid to such details as the actions of Kruschev who later went on to lead the country and reverse some of the excesses of Stalinism.
I return to the point of historical accuracy because I personally wonder what is the point of telling a story that is purportedly true, if the writers have no intention of sticking to even the agreed facts such as they may be. I do not propose that drama be saddled with the strictures of documentary, but surely there must be some obligation to the perceived catalogue of events. Why not have World War Two won by the French after dropping atom bombs on India? Patently absurd, but why? A fact bent is a fact gone, and where does the line between fact and fiction lie? Wherever the writer feels he can put it would seem to be the answer, and actual events just the canvas on which smaller dramas may be played. This very issue arose with the recent Mel Gibson film The Patriot” set during the American Revolution. It was easily dealt with.
Mel Gibson's character in "The Patriot" was originally named after real-life Revolutionary War figure Brigadier General Francis Marion, whose trademark use of swamps to evade capture earned him the nickname of 'The Swamp Fox'. Unfortunately, when historians pointed out that Marion was an avowed racist (in addition to hunting Native Americans for sport, he was also guilty of raping his slaves), Emmerich and Devlin quickly renamed their protagonist to avoid controversy. Unfortunately, this 'whitewashing' of historical record is pervasive throughout "The Patriot", betraying the film's preference of entertainment over education.(5)
The British troops were demonised to a ridiculous degree, and shown burning churches and massacring civilians, all of which is complete invention without any basis in fact. Predictably the British press raised concerns about this wilful distortion of history, engendering heaps of publicity for the film, but really to no avail. Today’s Consuming Generation, knows nothing of the real events and likely cares even less than they do about where their overpriced sandshoes are made.
Therefore where does the obligation lie? The dry historical record, or the needs of a market thirsting for cardboard heroes in easily understood conflicts?
No contest these days, and the blame cannot all be laid at the feet of the feckless consumer. Films have been made about historical events, which stick as closely as possible to the agreed facts, such as Gettysburg, a 4-hour reconstruction of that epic battle of the American Civil War. Military experts and advisers ensured that the sequence of events followed as closely as possible those on the three days of the battle. The film is now a staple of US military educational institutions and a damn good shoot-em-up as well, and did reasonable box-office. The line between fact and fiction is slightly blurred in one scene however, and Joseph Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels)’s speech to rally the deserters sent to join the 20th Maine regiment, although a stirring piece of oratory, is an invention of the writer’s. This does not stop it being the centrepiece of motivational courses in the US!! (along with a speech by George C. Scott from the movie PATTON).(6)
A case could be made that these decisions are based merely on the perceptions of the screenwriters and producers, and a reductive process ensures that the awareness of, or interest in, historical accuracy becomes less important to all involved, especially the audience.
In conclusion: unless you are a historical nut or general pedant, no one knows or cares if what they are watching really occurred, or if those personages actually existed or did what is shown. The recent massive success of Gladiator would bear this out.
As the old saying goes: Perhaps it didn’t really happen this way, but here’s how it should have!
1 Yergin, Daniel. The Prize The Epic Quest for Oil Money & Power. POCKET BOOKS London 1991
2 Beevor, Antony . Stalingrad, The fateful siege : 1942 - 1943. (Ref: Shooter.com/snipers)
3 Ebert Roger Chicago Sun- Times FilmReviews. http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews
4 Clark, Alan. Barbarossa, The Russian-German Conflict 1941-45 Hutchison London 1965
5 http://www.geocities.com/aleong1631/patriot.html
6 http://faculty.darden.edu/ClawsonJ/Chamberlain.pdf
MisterCairo
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Aristaeus said:
fftopic: Oh, we (UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, etc.) were handling Germany AND Italy AND Japan until you guys had your hand forced on December 7 1941. I don't recall suggesting we needed you guys to "run to our rescue". Nazi, Facist and Imperialist expansion world wide made it OUR war. Being sucker punched by the Japanese made it yours. Not complaining, just saying!
"Always late for every war" - Fowler, in Chicken Run
The Lonely Navigator
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That's my feeling about the whole issue. While at Reading, I do come across many 'aware' Americans (and not just reenactors - the 'general public' as well). I also think a part of it is that which one chooses to focus on (what aspect of the war) and this can become very focused down to the point of being a 'specialty' in that area.
Take the Battle of the Atlantic for example - it can be broken down into:
North Atlantic operations
South Atlantic operations
'Eastern'/Orient operations
Taken further:
Allied side
Axis side
Further:
Pre War-Early War
Mid War
Late War
Further down:
Surface Fleet or Submarines/U-Boats
And I feel that due to this, for lack of a better word 'hyper-focus', that one won't know about other things. This is why, when I go to Reading, I like to talk with the other reenactors from both sides...because they are the ones studying and researching and portraying that specific impression. I rely on them to answer my questions because I just don't have the time or financial resources to study anything and everything.
@ Dr. Greg: I will read your essay as I am very interested in 'listening' to what you have to say.
The Lonely Navigator
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This immediately reminded me of my research on Prien. There was a book that came out during the war that was to by his autobiography "Mein Weg Nach Scapa Flow" (it is now published under the title 'U-Boat Commander') but was actually ghost written by Paul Weymar.
I have quite a bit of information that I will pull from my site:
Regarding 'Mein Weg Nach Scapa Flow' (U-Boat Commander)
Quotes from: Nightmare at Scapa Flow
"Early in 1940, Paul Weymar reappeared openly on the literary scene with an assignment from Deutscher Verlag to 'ghost' Lt. Prien's autobiography. It is not clear whether he accepted the task out of hunger, patriotism or lack of any choice in the matter. Says Hanns Arens, who now lives in Munich but was one of Paul Weymar's clandestine supporters in the old Berlin days: 'All I know is that he was no Nazi in his personal outlook' - and certainly his decision to co-operate in the writing of Mein Weg Nach Scapa Flow was one he lived to regret.
"A three sided contract between Lt. Prien, Paul Weymar and the Deutscher Verlag was signed on February 29, 1940, with each of the signatories receiving and equal share of future royalties. In addition, Lt. Prien was to be paid an advance of 3,000 Reichsmarks (about GBP 150), whose receipt he acknowledged in a letter dated March 4 from his home at 12 Knivsberg, Kiel.
"Prien's widow, now Inge Sturm, confirms how little opportunity he had to write his own account of the attack.
"Some - but by no means all - of the flaws in Mein Weg Nach Scapa Flow must have arisen as a result of the speed with which the book was written. The contract called for Paul Weymar to deliver the manuscript by April 15, which gave him only six weeks to obtain his raw material and turn it into an autobiography. During this period, Lt. Prien was available to be interviewed for little more than a week. U 47 sailed from Wilhelmshaven on March 11, returned on March 29, sailed again four days later, on April 2, and arrived back in Kiel on April 26."
...
"News of the English edition, he [Weymar] wrote, had come as 'an extremely disagreeable surprise' and his letter went on: 'In my view a new edition of such books can be justified only when they are placed firmly on the basis of historical truth...
'In Prien's case, one is duty-bound in my opinion to correct demonstrably false facts - the account of the Scapa Flow mission was 'touched up' in the 1940 on understandable military grounds - and also to clarify those other aspects of the war at sea which are given insufficient expression, to say the least, by the juvenile and aggressive style of this book for boys, the hardships and horrors of the U-boat war, which Prien also discovered but was unable to voice at the time.
'I recall one statement which he made to me in confidence: "When I saw the first burning tanker in front of me and thought of the wretched hundreds of men perishing in this dome of flames, I felt like a murderer before the scene of his crime." It should be an obligation to include this and similar utterances in a new edition, also from the point of view of Prien's memory.'
...
"Herr Soschka, now retired, lives in a flat in the suburbs of West Berlin. Despite three hours of conversation, lubricated with a bottle of Schapps, he was unable to add much to the background of Mein Weg Nach Scapa Flow.
"'In those days, of course, you could publish only what you were allowed to publish', he said."
"Herr Soschka thought it improbable that Mein Weg Nach Scapa Flow could have been published without Lt. Prien's approval of the text. On the other hand it was difficult to believe that the man who volunteered for the mission to Scapa Flow...the man who gave a drink to Cadet Bird because he was cold and showed concern about the men he was forced to send to their deaths...the man of whom Herbert Herrmann says: 'He hated all the fuss when he was ashore and was always glad to get back to sea'...would willingly lend his name to this tissue of lies, errors, and distortions and jingoist nonsense. The one person most likely to know the truth seemed to be Frau Ingeborg Sturm-Prien, his widow.
"Frau Sturm wrote in her first letter: 'There is no need to apologize for making your request. After all, it is also in my interest that a wrong conception of the character and personality of my dead husband is neither created nor allowed to continue. For that reason I will gladly contribute to clearing up the matter, as is also your wish.
'I can confirm that my husband was unable to correct the final manuscript of his book prior to its going to print. He was calld away on duty after about a week of discussions with Herr Weymar, who completed the book. It is obvious that the strictly historical course of events was not Herr Weymar's major concern - for example, he misrepresented the way Gunther Prien and I met. Bringing out an exciting book for boys, written in the spirit of the times, was most important to him.
'The quotation about the burning oil tanker in Herr Weymar's letter is characteristic of the way my late husband really thought. I hope my information will be of assistance to you. I should like to meet you in person. You are always welcome to visit us.'"
...
"According to Mein Weg Nach Scapa Flow, Lt. Prien first saw her as a stranger, a pretty girl standing in a garden, presented her with a bunch of flowers, later came upon her likeness by accident in a photograph, met her, wooed her and married her. 'Actually', she told me, 'we first met when we were paired off as table companions at a wedding.'"
...
"The weeks prior to the formal announcement were traumatic for her. 'Three U-boat commanders, all well known, were lost within a few days of each other', she said. 'I was informed that U 47 was missing, presumed lost, but ordered to keep the information to myself. It was thought that the news would be too much of a shock for Germany. For weeks my friends asked: 'When is your husband coming home again?' and I had to pretend that he would be.'
"She, too, went to Berlin when Lt. Prien and his crew were flown there after Scapa Flow. At the time she made a note, still in her possession, to the effect that her husband was critical of the circus made out of his whole exploit: 'He resented being caught up in the political-propaganda machine. He saw his deed solely as a sailor's acheivement.'
"'He hated fuss', she went on. 'After Berlin, we went on holiday to Austria and I remember how uncomfortable he was in the train when people kept nudging each other and pointing him out.' If there was one word to describe him, she would choose the word 'realist'. 'He asked a lot of himself and a lot of others,' she said. 'I know he was disappointed not to have achieved more in Scapa Flow - he told me so - and he was angry about the recurrent torpedo failures. After the Norwegian campaign he visited Berlin and complained forcefully about the whole matter.'
"'But he always remained a realist and never set himself goals which were impossible to achieve...'"
About Mein Weg Nach Scapa Flow
"'He was very angry and kept crossing things out,' she said. She is quite certain in her own mind, however, that these changes were never made and that he did not know until the book was published. 'The wrong spelling of the names von Hennig and Varendorff are certainly something he would have noticed and corrected', she explained.
Mr. Lees: '"It describes a voyage to South America by Lt. Prien in a ship called the Pfalzburg when he was a merchant navy officer. I haven't been able to trace a ship called the Pfalzburg. The book describes a fire aboard the sailing ship Hamburg when Lt. Prien was a member of the crew. The fire is not mentioned in the ship's log. The Hamburg is supposed to have been wrecked off Dublin in a storm at the end of a voyage from Pensacola. Actually she was wrecked a year later at the end of a voyage from Australia.'"
*True - there was no Pfalzburg, but rather the Oldenburg*...after the Hamburg. Information on the Hamburg's damage can be found here:
Hamburg. Steel ship, 1985 tons. Built at Nantes, France, 1886, as the Marechal de Castries; renamed Henriette, then Hamburg in 1924. Lbd 216.2 x 43 x 23.1 ft. Originally a French bounty ship, then modified to operate as a cargo carrying cadet vessel, and called at Australia to load grain.. Left Melbourne for home on 18 April 1925, but was forced to call at Sydney sixteen days later with a broken rudder, and did not sail again until 29 May. Arrived off The Lizard after 144 days and was sailing around to Cork to discharge her wheat when she went ashore in Dublin Bay, 29 October 1925. Refloated a month later, was dry docked for examination and although found to have suffered only minor damage her owners decided not to repair her and she was sold to the shipbreakers. "Wrecks on the Australia Run"
There was also the HAPAG ship Olivia, but I haven't been able to find anything more on it - other than its mention in the postcard from his mother to him. A postcard from her to "Herr Günther Prien on SS 'Olivia', 'Hapag' - Hamburg" in 1927, "My Günther ... Achim drove alone and felt very proud as a great independent travel boy, the little guy ... Your Mom. "" (From Hermann Historica - Auction 54)
After that came the San Francisco - which did not have any collision. (*Note - I did read about the collision being made up in this book, but I don't recall the book - as it was several years ago. I'm now trying to find out where I had read it. But I have emailed HAPAG-Lloyd and their reply was: "We found no information regarding the mentioned
accident near Hoheweg Lighthouse within our archive.")
*The Oldenburg was another Cape Horn ship which Prien served on with Jost Metzler (Wiki Gunther Prien)
StetsonHomburg
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I second that!Prien said:
Aristaeus
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MisterCairo said:
Oh, we (UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, etc.) were handling Germany AND Italy AND Japan until you guys had your hand forced on December 7 1941. I don't recall suggesting we needed you guys to "run to our rescue". Nazi, Facist and Imperialist expansion world wide made it OUR war. Being sucker punched by the Japanese made it yours. Not complaining, just saying!
"Always late for every war" - Fowler, in Chicken Run
LOL did you throw the off topic smilie at me? First name calling and now off topic for responding to your comments.
I don't believe Britian and France were fighting the Japanese prior to Dec 7th 41 and Italy didn't declare war untill after it was obvious France would fall.
MisterCairo said:
Then quite complaining about the U.S. choosing to stay out of the European armed conflict.MisterCairo said:
You are right I think Mr Prien's thread has been HIJACKED long enough. Since this is a WWII forum I think it would be niffty to explore (In a new thread) The actions of Britian and France after Germany's invasion of Poland or lack there of. Who Britian and France declared war on, and for reasons unkown who they didn't,a large German ally of the time who also invaded Poland, Finland and gained control of three other Balken states. What do you say?
"until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."
Winston Churchill.
Aristaeus
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Sorry top 10 movie of 2001.Smithy said:
"until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."
Winston Churchill.
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