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What an exciting story, but I doubt it has anything to do with history. It's chockablock full of narrative candy, eg: > Bohr and his wife, Margarethe, left th

What an exciting story, but I doubt it has anything to do with history. It's chockablock full of narrative candy, eg: > Bohr and his wife, Margarethe, left their home at the Carlsberg brewery estate within hours of the tip-off from Harald. As they slipped out of the back of their house a Nazi snatch squad was already on its way. When the couple later crawled on all-fours from a beach hut to a waiting boat, the most famous man in Denmark had with him a single bag, a beer bottle full of heavy water retrieved from the lab, and a sketch purporting to be of the Nazi’s reactor design. How could we possibly know the such things as 'Nazi snatch squads' even existed, nevermind that such a thing was on its way just as he decided to leave.. It's all very Biggles. These read to me like narrative plot twists to hold the reader's attention, rather than anything relating to what actually occurred. Basically every paragraph is like this. Still, it adds to the drama, brings story narratives vividly to life in the imagination. The question for me, it's why is the history we are presented turned into these types of evidence-free stories? It's almost like its purpose is to propagandise the population into believing fantasies.

fsckboy 3y ago
>How could we possibly know the such things as 'Nazi snatch squads' even existed Germans keep good records, and after the war all the archives were captured and read through and cross indexed. Every incident in Allied logs was compared with German logs to see what matched.
- verisimi 3y ago
  And are you prepared to state that you've verified this? Or is this something you imagine?
  - jabl 3y ago
    So, how have you verified that your statement about this being made up by the author is correct? Or is it something you imagine?
    - Gibbon1 3y ago
      His comment history has the hallmark of a low trust obligate contrarian.
      - verisimi 3y ago
        What does this mean? I have low trust in authorities for good reason, I think. From there, it makes sense to look at whatever is being pushed in contrarian terms. So, no the state is not there to help, yes it is acting nefariously attempting to take greater power for itself, and yes it uses convenient stories pushed in education, media, etc to expound it's nonsense (lies, that if believed, harm the individual). I really do think this.
    - verisimi 3y ago
      I'm saying that the story reads like the type of thing I enjoyed reading and writing about when I was around 12 years old. I think I recognise lots of narrative tricks in play, to get the excitement levels up. Which is entirely unlike reality. You are of course free to defend this article as truth or whatever. However, if I see these sorts of tricks in play, I reserve the right to dismiss it as a manipulative narrative. I also reserve the right to express my opinion, esp if I am able to easily support my assertion using the provided text itself. Do you realise that even the news is a manipulation? You are free to be curious about the 'facts' that are presented to you.
  - _dain_ 3y ago
    have you verified that the country of belgium exists? have you ever been there?
    - verisimi 3y ago
      I am prepared to give my testimony and state that Belgium exists. I have been there, and they make delicious chips and chocolate. Perhaps the best chips I've had. Your point about verification is valid. People should explain what verification they have undertaken. This article is full of hyperbole. I don't trust these sorts of imaginative excursions to deliver me the truth about WW2, any more than I expect rambo to tell me about Vietnam or whatever. Both are plainly way over exuberant. Quite entertaining I guess, but not much more than that.
  - wolfendin 3y ago
    If GP said they did, would you be prepared to accept that verification? My intuition is that you wouldn’t.
_djo_ 3y ago
While the article did use very dramatic language, that the Nazi snatch squads in Denmark existed, were about to strike, and indeed did end up arresting many Danish Jews just a few days later over the Jewish New Year is very well documented history. I find it surprising that you decided to write a skeptical comment here rather than just Googling it, as sources are plentiful. What are those 'fantasies' that you believe people are being made to believe? For instance: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/rescue-of-the-danish-jews https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/rescue-of-the-danish-jews https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24427637 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24427637 https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/academic/denmark-and-the-holocaust.html https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/academic/denmark-and-the-... https://echoesandreflections.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/08-02-05_Student-Handout_Rescue-In-Denmark.pdf https://echoesandreflections.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/... https://natmus.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/Editor/natmus/frihedsmuseet/October_1943_The_Rescue_of_the_Danish_Jews_from_Annihilation.pdf https://natmus.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/Editor/natmus/frihed... https://sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/node/17135 https://sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/node/17135
- sououwantchina 3y ago
  [flagged]
- verisimi 3y ago
  Let's accept your defence of the article: > While the article did use very dramatic language, that the Nazi snatch squads in Denmark existed, were about to strike, and indeed did end up arresting many Danish Jews just a few days later over the Jewish New Year is very well documented history. But contrast this with the article author says: > As they slipped out of the back of their house a Nazi snatch squad was already on its way. It's not the same thing.
  - _djo_ 3y ago
    What you said was: > How could we possibly know the such things as 'Nazi snatch squads' even existed Now you’re pretending you were only questioning the imminence of the arrest as described in the article, rather than the existence of the Nazi snatch squads themselves. That’s dishonest.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
People have eyes. People see Nazi snatch squads. People write it down in their journal. People write news articles. You seem to have zero clue about what happens in a society in wartime. This is how people sleepwalk into facism.
eesmith 3y ago
> How could we possibly know the such things as 'Nazi snatch squads' even existed Even setting aside the description "Danish woman working for the Gestapo saw an order for Bohr’s arrest and tipped off Bohr’s brother" from this account, we can look at other accounts, like the chapter "Escape" from his biography at https://archive.org/details/nielsbohrmanhis00moor/page/300/mode/2up?q=%22Nuremberg+trials%22 https://archive.org/details/nielsbohrmanhis00moor/page/300/m... "Many years later at the Nuremberg trials it was revealed that the Nazis had intended to arrest Bohr on the day martial law was declared. There was, however, a dispute about it, and the decision was made to put off his arrest and deportation to Germany until the Nazis began their roundup of the Jews. In the general excitement, they thought the arrest of Bohr would attract less attention and the furor would be less." The contents of the chapter are mostly aligned with the linked-to account, though the chapter says the beer bottle of heavy water was not true: "The prosaic truth was quite different. Heavy water was used in the institute's accelerator. When the supply had to be replenished, someone remembered that Bohr had once had a bottle the Norwegian manufacturer had presented to him. The institute men were unable to find it and sent an underground query to Rozental in Stockholm. Rozental sent back full instructions about where to find it and pointed out that the bottle was unlabeled." - https://archive.org/details/nielsbohrmanhis00moor/page/308/mode/2up?q=%22heavy+water%22 https://archive.org/details/nielsbohrmanhis00moor/page/308/m... > Basically every paragraph is like this. That is not lost on anyone. From the second page of the book chapter I linked to, "Bohr and Margrethe, feeling like the principals in a spy melodrama, as indeed they were".
rsynnott 3y ago
_Extreme_ bit of HN’s signature “nothing ever happens” tendency there.

fsckboy 3y ago

>How could we possibly know the such things as 'Nazi snatch squads' even existed Germans keep good records, and after the war all the archives were captured and read through and cross indexed. Every incident in Allied logs was compared with German logs to see what matched.

verisimi 3y ago
And are you prepared to state that you've verified this? Or is this something you imagine?
- jabl 3y ago
  So, how have you verified that your statement about this being made up by the author is correct? Or is it something you imagine?
  - Gibbon1 3y ago
    His comment history has the hallmark of a low trust obligate contrarian.
    - verisimi 3y ago
      What does this mean? I have low trust in authorities for good reason, I think. From there, it makes sense to look at whatever is being pushed in contrarian terms. So, no the state is not there to help, yes it is acting nefariously attempting to take greater power for itself, and yes it uses convenient stories pushed in education, media, etc to expound it's nonsense (lies, that if believed, harm the individual). I really do think this.
  - verisimi 3y ago
    I'm saying that the story reads like the type of thing I enjoyed reading and writing about when I was around 12 years old. I think I recognise lots of narrative tricks in play, to get the excitement levels up. Which is entirely unlike reality. You are of course free to defend this article as truth or whatever. However, if I see these sorts of tricks in play, I reserve the right to dismiss it as a manipulative narrative. I also reserve the right to express my opinion, esp if I am able to easily support my assertion using the provided text itself. Do you realise that even the news is a manipulation? You are free to be curious about the 'facts' that are presented to you.
- _dain_ 3y ago
  have you verified that the country of belgium exists? have you ever been there?
  - verisimi 3y ago
    I am prepared to give my testimony and state that Belgium exists. I have been there, and they make delicious chips and chocolate. Perhaps the best chips I've had. Your point about verification is valid. People should explain what verification they have undertaken. This article is full of hyperbole. I don't trust these sorts of imaginative excursions to deliver me the truth about WW2, any more than I expect rambo to tell me about Vietnam or whatever. Both are plainly way over exuberant. Quite entertaining I guess, but not much more than that.
- wolfendin 3y ago
  If GP said they did, would you be prepared to accept that verification? My intuition is that you wouldn’t.

_djo_ 3y ago

While the article did use very dramatic language, that the Nazi snatch squads in Denmark existed, were about to strike, and indeed did end up arresting many Danish Jews just a few days later over the Jewish New Year is very well documented history. I find it surprising that you decided to write a skeptical comment here rather than just Googling it, as sources are plentiful. What are those 'fantasies' that you believe people are being made to believe? For instance: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/rescue-of-the-danish-jews https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/rescue-of-the-danish-jews https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24427637 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24427637 https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/academic/denmark-and-the-holocaust.html https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/academic/denmark-and-the-... https://echoesandreflections.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/08-02-05_Student-Handout_Rescue-In-Denmark.pdf https://echoesandreflections.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/... https://natmus.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/Editor/natmus/frihedsmuseet/October_1943_The_Rescue_of_the_Danish_Jews_from_Annihilation.pdf https://natmus.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/Editor/natmus/frihed... https://sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/node/17135 https://sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/node/17135

sououwantchina 3y ago
[flagged]
verisimi 3y ago
Let's accept your defence of the article: > While the article did use very dramatic language, that the Nazi snatch squads in Denmark existed, were about to strike, and indeed did end up arresting many Danish Jews just a few days later over the Jewish New Year is very well documented history. But contrast this with the article author says: > As they slipped out of the back of their house a Nazi snatch squad was already on its way. It's not the same thing.
- _djo_ 3y ago
  What you said was: > How could we possibly know the such things as 'Nazi snatch squads' even existed Now you’re pretending you were only questioning the imminence of the arrest as described in the article, rather than the existence of the Nazi snatch squads themselves. That’s dishonest.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

People have eyes. People see Nazi snatch squads. People write it down in their journal. People write news articles. You seem to have zero clue about what happens in a society in wartime. This is how people sleepwalk into facism.

eesmith 3y ago

> How could we possibly know the such things as 'Nazi snatch squads' even existed Even setting aside the description "Danish woman working for the Gestapo saw an order for Bohr’s arrest and tipped off Bohr’s brother" from this account, we can look at other accounts, like the chapter "Escape" from his biography at https://archive.org/details/nielsbohrmanhis00moor/page/300/mode/2up?q=%22Nuremberg+trials%22 https://archive.org/details/nielsbohrmanhis00moor/page/300/m... "Many years later at the Nuremberg trials it was revealed that the Nazis had intended to arrest Bohr on the day martial law was declared. There was, however, a dispute about it, and the decision was made to put off his arrest and deportation to Germany until the Nazis began their roundup of the Jews. In the general excitement, they thought the arrest of Bohr would attract less attention and the furor would be less." The contents of the chapter are mostly aligned with the linked-to account, though the chapter says the beer bottle of heavy water was not true: "The prosaic truth was quite different. Heavy water was used in the institute's accelerator. When the supply had to be replenished, someone remembered that Bohr had once had a bottle the Norwegian manufacturer had presented to him. The institute men were unable to find it and sent an underground query to Rozental in Stockholm. Rozental sent back full instructions about where to find it and pointed out that the bottle was unlabeled." - https://archive.org/details/nielsbohrmanhis00moor/page/308/mode/2up?q=%22heavy+water%22 https://archive.org/details/nielsbohrmanhis00moor/page/308/m... > Basically every paragraph is like this. That is not lost on anyone. From the second page of the book chapter I linked to, "Bohr and Margrethe, feeling like the principals in a spy melodrama, as indeed they were".

rsynnott 3y ago

_Extreme_ bit of HN’s signature “nothing ever happens” tendency there.