Dimitri > Recent Status Updates

Towards the end of March, on the eve of Stalin's last lunge at his strategic objectives, the multiple Soviet penetrations were deep enough to trouble most ofthe German command [YET]not one of the Armeegruppen had been ripped to pieces, tough the ragged edges of their lines & the deep penetrations into their flanks attested to the enormity of the crisis through which they were slowly but now more surely passing.

For the penetration into Armygroup South (the Donbas & Charkiv area), the Russians fought from their snow forts, the Germans huddled in the warmth of hurs and houses, so that while the high command fought for strategic objectives, the infantrymen grappled with each other in a hunt for simple but essential warmth, with merciless persistence.

"Not that the formal Front command organisation was sacred to Stalin. When he required, he merely connected himself by direct wire or telephone to the formation commander he wished to advise or chastise, directing the hunting of the Germans westward himself... but on the battlefronts it needed more than this verbal grapeshot to sweep away the great iron rocks of German resistance which stood out in a Soviet sea.

Barely had Zhukov & Timoshenko "saved Moscow" by pushing Army Group Center back to the Volga, than Stalin envisioned a final push against Army Group Center to Smolensk via the junction with North, even while Guderian's 3rd Panzer Group was still at large.

Legends offer a truth beyond realities, a remembrance beyond memories. They attract the very best in our times, just as ideologies attract the average and the whispered tales of gruesome secret powers behind the scenes attract the very worst.

National institutions resisted the megalomania of imperialist aspirations & bourgeois attempts to ùse the state for its own economic purposes were always only half succesful. This changed when the German bourgeoisie staked everything on Hitler & aspired to rule through the mob instead. After destroying the nation state, the mob proved quite capable of taking care of politics by itself & liquidated the bourgeoisie.
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The antisemites who called themselves patriots introduced a complete whitewash of one's own people & a sweeping condemnation of all others, as everywhere nothing but termites in an otherwise healthy body of state; it did not matter that the corruption of the body politic had started without the help of such outsiders.

[By Disraeli's time] Secularisation & assimilation of the Jewish intelligentsia had changed self-consciousness & self-interpretation in such a way that nothing was left of the old memories and hopes [of belonging to a specific religion or nationality] but the awareness of belonging to a chosen people.

"Society, confronted with political, economic and legal equality for X, made it quite clear that none of its classes was prepared to grant them social equality and that only exceptions from the X people would be received"

X is Jews, but you can substitute any minority.

As in the case of the Norwegians, who were distracted by the crisis of British mine-laying & saw all German preparations for a DUTCH invasion, the British government didn't properly piece together the various items of information arriving at the Foreign office & the three armed services.

Whatever the legal pros and cons of the Altmark incident (16.02.40) , they mattered little to Hitler. As Churchill & his supporters may have hoped, it was the event that energised him into action, convinced that the British government would no longer respect Norwegian neutrality (.. no matter if they defended it strongly or not. My precious bodily ores!)

"Bases in Norway would not enhance Germany's strategic position. The fact that Germany was negotiating with the USSR for the lease of a base near Polarnoje might have influenced the Seekriegsleitung's conclusion. The lease took effect in november 1939 and German submarines used it frequently."

Random: how many, which routes, why, until when? That bay borders the Artic sea, you have to go around Scandinavia!

Operations in Scandinavia & assistance to Finland would probably have resulted in war with the USSR while Sweden & Norway might have become Germany's reluctant allies.

A steep prospect for control over Sweden's iron ore mines via a winter wilderness beyond the capabilities of even British & French mountain troops, no matter how hard Churchill pushed the plan until the end of the Winter War.

"The mask was dropped"

It's all about spot the lost cause sentences

If Ben Wallace had ignored Grant's urgings & continued his division along his original line of march, he'd have struck the Confederate army on its left flank. At the very least, Johnston would've been forced to divert Breckinridge toward Shiloh Church.

"It's even possible that Wallace might've routed the Southern Army." - one phrase. Full stop. No long editor footnote. Elaborate, my good sirs!

Grant's steamer reached the landing with an additional passenger on board, Ohio war correspondent Whitelaw Reid who quietly slipped in while it was tied up. For years thereafter Grant probably regretted neither he nor his staff had tossed the pushy reporter into the Tennessee river.

The fall of Fort Henry punctured a deep hole in the entire Confederate defensive arrangement in the West, which was straddling Kentucky & Tennessee with only 45.000 effectives between these two states.

The battle of Mill Springs "or whatever it might be called" was the first step in the conquest of the Confederate heartland, significant because of the complete collapse of the right wing on the Cumberland. Hence the way was open for an invasion of East Tennessee (to aid Unionist sympathisers, as Lincoln saw it) or thrust further against the flank of Albert Johnston's line of communications, the line to Bowling Green

If the best of intentions were to be assigned to him, the Shah demanded obedience & gratitude in exhange for an imagined fairy-tale land that he believed was within his grasp.. rather than a complex society deprived of a voice and often skeptical of his enterprise.

Becoming a civil servant meant success for the younger generation, including the children of ranking clergy, who saw little future of donning the garb when sources of clerical income where drying up - even if a desk job was as tedious as cramming the intricate rules of Arabic syntax in the madrasa, as a student or as a teacher.

It could be argued that Reza's dynasty option as an alternative to a Republic perpetuaded a long tradition (while granting him maximum legitimacy) but it undermined the Majiles, crushed all sources of opposition & would be a long-term obstacle to long-term political change after 1941.

So here I arrive at the 20th century with the chapter on the Constitutional Revolution.

So far, the sections on economy are weak but politics are adequate. The constant is tribal tensions; the impact European intrusion is vague. Amani is more comfortable with art, literature and the outsider views of Enlightenment visitors and their travellogues.

Wel zijn er plannen bij de Duitse Marineluchtvaartdienst om een volwaardige luchtverkenning uit te bouwen die steunt op luchtschepen. Vliegtuigen waren namelijk volgens de toen gangbare mening niet geschikt om grote afstanden te overbruggen en te licht om uitgerust te worden met draadloze telegrafie [radiozenders]

It's remarkable how often unexpected revolts and impregnable fortresses sit across Alexander's lines of communication, from Egypt as the final piece in his Mediterranean sea lanes to the mountain passes south of Kabul on the way to the Indus.

Willy Nilly every German or ex Austrian anywhere is an active Nazi agent, under rigorous supervision.
Friends of mine had an Austrian maid. No sooner was Hitler in Vienna than she was summoned to the German embassy. Her Austrian passport was inpounded & replaced by a German one. She was compelled to fill up a questionnaire showing what qualifications and opportunity she had for obtaining information in England.

Having re-read Mein Kampf in 4 days, I closed my eyes & tried to recall what were the impressions that stood out most vividly. They were in this order:
Violence
Attack
Brutality
Blood
Terror
Extermination
Intolerance
Hate
Fanaticism
Hysteria
Mass Suggestion
Domination
Mastery
Blind Obedience
Fourteen watchwords of the Gospel according to Adolf Hitler.
I gave thanks that there are still countries where mercy is heard

The English reader, remembering with gratitude how much the stability of British finance has owed to the cooperation of generations of British Jews, would like some indication of just HOW Jewish finance was necessarily so fatal to Germany, but Hitler does not attempt to PROVE any of his amazing theses. He asserts and in Nazi Germany is believed, such is the magic of the Führer's word.

"The spectacular failure at Desert One had lanced the boil." (In the mind of the American public there had been a mounting expectation of war over the hostage crisis in the preceeding week)

The possibility of a peaceful solution, albeit by a secret deal struck indirectly, became impossible to hide. Those following the story closely via the newspapers in February 1980 saw plenty of evidence, such as the government asked a publisher to delay a book by Kermit Roosevelt about the CIA role in the 1953 coup.

"He recognised certain types of young Iranians from his years of teaching in Shiraz. Confused kids living in a bizarre society that for reasons of religion of tradition or religion closed off most of the usual avenues of growth and self-improvement. It produced young people who were restless and arrogant, ripe for a demagogue.. like Khomeini."