Michael

“Sacrosanctis was in fact the public face of a corporate conspiracy between the leading men of three powerful European families: the Medici (in the form of Pope Leo); Jakob Fugger, head of the Augsburg banking and mining dynasty and a man often said to have been the richest in human history; and Albert, archbishop of Mainz, a member of the politically influential Hohenzollern dynasty and (not coincidentally) the man to whom Luther mailed the first copy of his Theses.
The nature of the agreement between these three was broadly thus: Albert, who was already archbishop of Magdeburg, had been permitted by the pope to become archbishop of Mainz at the same time – which made him the most senior churchman in Germany, and meant he controlled two of the seven electoral votes which determined the identity of the German emperor. (His brother already controlled a third.) Vast fees were due to Rome as a tax on taking office as an archbishop – but Albert could afford these, thanks to a loan from Fugger, who advanced the money on the basis that he would have the Hohenzollern and their electoral votes in his pocket. Albert, for his part, promised Leo he would do all he could to make sure that German Christians bought as many indulgences as possible, partly because his share of the proceeds could repay his debt to Fugger and partly so that funds would flow rapidly to Leo in Rome for the completion of St Peter’s. For the parties involved this was a neat arrangement by which they all got what they wanted – so long as the faithful did their part and kept pumping money into pardons.”
― Dan Jones, Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages

“Es kam auch zu weiteren Überläufen, allen voran 4000 Sachsen, die Reyniers Korps zugeteilt waren und ganz einfach in geschlossenen Reihen zu den Alliierten marschierten. Zu den Augenzeugen dieses bemerkenswerten Seitenwechsels zählte Marschall Macdonald, der durch das Fernrohr beobachtete, wie die Sachsen, während sie einen erfolgreichen Vorstoß gegen die Verbündeten anführten, einfach kehrtmachten und ihre Waffen auf die Franzosen richteten, die ihnen folgten.
»Kalten Blutes, in himmelschreiender Weise«, erinnerte er sich später, »schossen sie die Ahnungslosen nieder, mit denen sie bis hierher in treuer Waffenbrüderschaft gefochten.« Verzweifelte Versuche Marschall Neys, die Reihen zu schließen und einen Gegenangriff zu führen, wurden von der britischen Raketenbrigade zunichte gemacht, deren Congreve’sche Raketen, benannt nach dem britischen Erfinder William Congreve, unter den vorrückenden Kolonnen Angst und Schrecken verbreiteten.”
― Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947

“Hitler was head of the catchily-named Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party). But, like the Cambridge University Netball Team, he hadn’t thought through the name properly. You see, his opponents realised that you could shorten Nationalsozialistische to Nazi. Why would they do this? Because Nazi was already an (utterly unrelated) term of abuse. It had been for years.

Every culture has a butt for its jokes. Americans have the Polacks, the English have the Irish, and the Irish have people from Cork. The standard butt of German jokes at the beginning of the twentieth century were stupid Bavarian peasants. And just as Irish jokes always involve a man called Paddy, so Bavarian jokes always involved a peasant called Nazi. That’s because Nazi was a shortening of the very common Bavarian name Ignatius.

This meant that Hitler’s opponents had an open goal. He had a party filled with Bavarian hicks and the name of that party could be shortened to the standard joke name for hicks.”
― Mark Forsyth, The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language

“In vielen österreichischen Einheiten sprachen Offiziere und Mannschaften unterschiedliche Sprachen. So berichtete der Stabschef des österreichischen I. Korps bei der Schlacht von Münchengrätz, dass das gemischte polnische und ukrainische 30. Regiment tapfer bis zum Einbruch der Dämmerung gekämpft habe, die Männer dann aber nicht mehr in das Lage gewesen seien, die pantomimisch erteilten Anweisungen ihrer Offiziere zu erkennen.”
― Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947