7 ms·

Operation Leg – a pilot unlike any other (2020)

175 points by FinnLobsien 2y ago

blitzar 2y ago
I have not read the book (Reach for the Sky - 1954) nor watched the movie (Reach for the Sky - 1956) in a very very long time however I recall them fondly from my youth.
birdalbrocum 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
cperciva 2y ago
In a remarkable piece of wartime diplomacy, German General Adolf Galland notified the RAF of Bader's missing right prosthetic leg and, with Hermann Goring's permission, the RAF was given safe passage to parachute in a replacement prosthetic in a mission called 'Operation Leg'. Not so remarkable when you consider that tying up RAF planes and burning their fuel on missions like this reduces their combat capabilities. It's the same logic which says that seriously injuring enemy infantry is more effective than killing them, since one dead soldier is one soldier who can't fight but one injured soldier is one soldier who can't fight plus one or two who won't fight because they're evacuating him. (Of course, Russian doctrine now seems to counter this by leaving seriously injured soldiers on the battlefield to bleed out...)
- reaperducer 2y ago
  Not so remarkable when you consider that tying up RAF planes and burning their fuel on missions like this reduces their combat capabilities. Or, sometimes human beings act like human beings, even in a time of war. In addition to the whole notion of "rules of war," there are thousands of examples, but here is a famous one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce > The truces were not unique to the Christmas period and reflected a mood of "live and let live", where infantry close together would stop fighting and fraternise, engaging in conversation. In some sectors, there were occasional ceasefires to allow soldiers to go between the lines and recover wounded or dead comrades; in others, there was a tacit agreement not to shoot while men rested, exercised or worked in view of the enemy. People like you and me work at computers all day and start to think like computers and try to use "logic" to explain everything away. Fortunately, there are real people in the real world who are free of our burdens.
  - aja12 2y ago
    > Fortunately, there are real people in the real world who are free of our burdens. You might be right about the general, who knows. But Goring? No, that man was definitely a computer.
  - cperciva 2y ago
    Christmas truces were absolutely a thing, but they came about through the action of troops on the ground -- and the commanding officers absolutely hated them.
    - short_sells_poo 2y ago
      I'm not condoning it at all, but I think it's easy to understand why commanding officers didn't like their troops fraternizing with the enemy. If GI John and Soldat Hans share a coffee and a cigarette together, and perhaps even a pleasant chat, they will quickly come to realize that both of them are human beings, with human feelings, a family worrying about them, children possibly, hopes and dreams, and so on. And once you are acutely aware that your enemy is just like you, only perhaps speaks a different language, you are much-much less inclined to shoot them and stop being an efficient soldier. I've never been in a war, and hope I never live to see myself in one, but the only way I can see one human viciously trying to kill another is by not thinking of their enemy as a human being, but rather just a thing.
      - cperciva 2y ago
        Absolutely. They were described as "disastrous to morale" and units which had engaged in Christmas truces would routinely be moved to other parts of the front in order to avoid the issues you mention.
      - wizzwizz4 2y ago
        > you are much-much less inclined to shoot them and stop being an efficient soldier. But you also take the other side's soldiers out, in the same way. Why wouldn't commanding officers like that?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bb123 2y ago
  I don't think that was the rationale. For captured senior/important figures were given all kinds of affordances and gestures made which contrast shockingly with the conditions we know people endured in concentration camps. For example Senior officers at Colditz often received parcels from home with stuff like cigars, chocolates, and spirits, sometimes through diplomatic agreements with the Red Cross. This was at a time when Germany in general was starving. They also organised theatre productions, orchestras, and even sports events. I think this is just a relic of a different era and a different code of war - similar to how long before this Naval captains from opposing sides often shared meals after a ship's surrender. It is hard to imagine now.
  - advisedwang 2y ago
    > I think this is just a relic of a different era and a different code of war It's worth noting that this kind of civility only happened on the Western front. The eastern front was a no-mercy teeth out display of barbarism. I think the conclusion is that it's to the era, but the specific conditions that resulted in acts like this.
  - cperciva 2y ago
    For captured senior/important figures were given all kinds of affordances and gestures made which contrast shockingly with the conditions we know people endured in concentration camps. It wasn't just senior and important figures; POW camps generally were nothing like the Nazi concentration camps since their purpose was internment rather than extermination. People tend to conflate the two, partly because Eisenhower worked so hard to document the Holocaust. Western POWs were also treated better than Eastern POWs out of fear of retaliation; the USSR wasn't a signatory to the Geneva conventions and already treated their prisoners poorly so there was no similar incentive to treat Eastern POWs well. (And also layered on top of this was Nazi ideology about Slavic races being inferior etc.)
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - carabiner 2y ago
- Slava_Propanei 2y ago
  [dead]
- hindsightbias 2y ago
  The older cadre of Luftwaffe officers considered themselves better than other forces, with a generational code of honor/conduct. Their highest award was the Knight's Cross, so the concept of chivalry among peers was at least a thing. Aircrew POW camps were run by grounded/older Luftwaffe officers. Goring was a WWI ace, Galland was younger so maybe eager to please.
  - schroeding 2y ago
    Göring also directly gave the order to Reinhard Heydrich to organize the "Final Solution of the Jew Question" aka Holocaust. So code of honor with strict restriction to "Aryan" pilots of the western Allies, if at all, IMO.
  - Rebelgecko 2y ago
    At least towards the end of the war, Galland was not a fan of Göring (he was a ringleader of the Fighter Pilots' Revolt)
untouchable 2y ago
Small note, the airdrop was to Saint-Omer, a Luftwaffe airbase in France not a castle. Bader was later imprisoned in Colditz Castle.
cluckindan 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- kitd 2y ago
  The "soldier's honour" normally came from the Wehrmacht, professional army officers & soldiers who were very different (and considered themselves very different) to the SS divisions whose leadership were little more than Nazi sadists.
  - wbl 2y ago
    The wehrmacht happily collaborated with SS units or engaged in actions such as https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zambr%C3%B3w_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zambr%C3%B3w_massacre or https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciepiel%C3%B3w_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciepiel%C3%B3w_massacre
- Yoric 2y ago
  As a side-note, you can have a sense of honor, or even consider yourself a good person, and nevertheless murder pregnant women and children as part or your day job. They key is to not consider them as human beings or, alternatively, to consider that you're somehow doing it for their own good, e.g. by saving their soul. Nazis (and Imperial Japan, and Crusaders, and plenty of others throughout history) made this possible at large scale by spending years of propaganda dehumanizing the "other". Sadly, we're seeing a trend of doing the same alongside political lines these days. It's not yet as bad as Mein Kampf, but it's very, very worrying.
  - close04 2y ago
    > consider that you're somehow doing it for their own good I was surprised to read about Fritz Haber, the man who catalyzed nitrogen fertilizers and other "nice" things like mustard gas, that he was convinced that mustard gas is the humane solution for ending the war. Since WW1 would end faster from his perspective he was saving lives. Almost perfectly mirrors the view that people dropping atomic bombs on Japan had. Both horrible weapons, one used mainly on the battle field, the other on cities packed with civilians. Both deployed with the same "we're actually saving lives" attitude. Today only one is considered an atrocity almost everywhere in the world. The other still gets the same explanation as it did 8 decades ago.
kylecazar 2y ago
"Bader then used this leg to mount multiple escape attempts from various prisons" Coming soon to Netflix...
- jonp888 2y ago
  A film was made about his life a few years after the war, which is now something of a classic, if only due to how often it is shown on British Television. It was a flop in the US though.
  - chgs 2y ago
    Probably because it didn’t have an American saving the day
    - lern_too_spel 2y ago
      The screenwriters could simply insert American characters into the story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Escape_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Escape_(film)
kitd 2y ago
Ben Mackintyre's book about Colditz reveals that Douglas Bader was actually a pretty unpleasant character, often tolerated by his peers at best, and often loathed by his subordinates whom he would bully. He was an outstanding pilot though and was given the benefit of the doubt as a result. To his credit, after the war he used his fame to become a vocal advocate for the disabled. I remember him as such when I was young.
- simonbarker87 2y ago
  Thoroughly enjoyable book. I read it recently and, having gone to a UK boarding school, the stories about life in Colditz being treated like a high stakes public (posh) boarding school by the British Officers rang very true to me.
  - lazyeye 2y ago
    Britain setup a holiday/prison camp for high-ranking german officers and bugged everything. It's a fascinating story.. https://www.amazon.com.au/Walls-Have-Ears-Intelligence-Operation/dp/0300238606 https://www.amazon.com.au/Walls-Have-Ears-Intelligence-Opera...
- bloopernova 2y ago
  In WW2, Admiral Ernest King is reputed to have said "When they get in trouble, they send for the sons of bitches." There were a lot of utter assholes and bullies around at that time. There were huge inter department feuds that resulted in many thousands of deaths. Part of why Eisenhower was a good supreme commander was that he could wrangle the assholes into at least not fighting each other!
  - potato3732842 2y ago
    >Part of why Eisenhower was a good supreme commander was that he could wrangle the assholes into at least not fighting each other! That's a spicy take on the British. (I kid, but the joke is in fact based in historical fact, managing relations with the British was a key reason he was given the job)
abuMZ 2y ago
[flagged]
tetris11 2y ago
We had one member of the troup that did the real life Great Escape visit our school. He handed out schematics of how they tunneled, their day-to-day logistics, communication with the outside, etc. It was a really fun talk, but it ended on a somber note where those who did not escape were later punished/executed in revenge for the escape taking place. In this context, someone asked him, "was it worth it?" and all I remember about his answer was him gripping his handout and giving a monosyllable reply.
- dataflow360 2y ago
  What syllable?
  - tetris11 2y ago
    I genuinely can't remember, but it left me feeling washed out.
  - CornishFlameHen 2y ago
    I want to think it was "nuts"
- byteknight 2y ago
  Both yes and no are one syllable. Your drawn out drama-incucing style of writing left a huge hanger that makes it unpleasurable.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - pinkmuffinere 2y ago
    I suspect that’s intentional. Not all writing aims to be pleasurable, and I suspect the parent comment illustrates the gut-wrenching pain of war really well. What do I as a reader want the answer to be? That it was worth the death of his friends? That he’d rather they never tried? No answer is happy, and I think that’s somewhat the point. Even more touching if it’s a true story, life is sometimes so poetic it hurts.
nullbyte 2y ago
This is an awesome story
gambiting 2y ago
I don't know, I cannot accept in my head that in one part of Europe Nazis were shaving men, women and children to use their hair as industrial filling before throwing them in gas chambers by the thousands, but somewhere else Nazi general was gracious enough to allow British troops to airdrop a prosthetic leg for their pilot - they even remained friends after the war! I'm sorry but it just sounds like.....some kind of joke? Like it happened in a different reality than the one that happened in Europe at the time? Why was that general even allowed to visit the UK and not in prison? Oh that's right - because Churchil has personally advocated against prosecuting nazi generals because it would be "unsporstmanlike". I'm sorry, I cannot enjoy this article in the spirit it was written in. I grew up next to Auschwitz and the idea of borderline friendly(sorry, "diplomatic") relationship with nazi forces makes me sick.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- appleorchard46 2y ago
  It makes the horrible things the Nazis did even more horrifying. It's easy to think of the Nazi regime as a pure, isolated evil, but when articles like this show that there was room for even a little humanity, it makes it clear how many individual choices for evil were made elsewhere every step of the way.
- Slava_Propanei 2y ago
  [dead]
- schroeding 2y ago
  They maybe just forgot the extend of it. Don't forget that many don't even know the difference between the "normal" (already incredibly horrible and vile) concentration camps like Dachau and the pure extermination camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka or Sobibor. The Brits and Americans only liberated the first kind, and it (mostly) wasn't their citizens who were gassed or shot by Einsatzgruppen. Also doesn't help that some think it was only done and caused by the SS or Hitler / Himmler / Göring, as if there was no connection with the remaining government, the police or the Reichsbahn, and as if the Wannseekonferenz[1] and Reichskristallnacht[2] had never happened. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference, also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URSNN5mnI2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URSNN5mnI2g [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht
lovegrenoble 2y ago
Aleksey Petrovich Maresyev (1916 – 2001) was a Soviet and Russian military pilot who became a Soviet fighter ace during World War II despite becoming a double amputee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksey_Maresyev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksey_Maresyev
xpl 2y ago
> Bader then used this leg to mount multiple escape attempts from various prisons Oh, that reminds me of the prosthetic leg joke from 'Guardians of the Galaxy'. So it was a reference? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJfMSE_3iSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJfMSE_3iSc
Onavo 2y ago
Pilots (that are not bombers) were treated pretty well by the Luftwaffe. Aviators share a comraderie that's hard to describe (very similar to software engineers in a sense).

175 points by FinnLobsien 2y ago

I have not read the book (Reach for the Sky - 1954) nor watched the movie (Reach for the Sky - 1956) in a very very long time however I recall them fondly from my youth.

birdalbrocum 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

cperciva 2y ago

In a remarkable piece of wartime diplomacy, German General Adolf Galland notified the RAF of Bader's missing right prosthetic leg and, with Hermann Goring's permission, the RAF was given safe passage to parachute in a replacement prosthetic in a mission called 'Operation Leg'. Not so remarkable when you consider that tying up RAF planes and burning their fuel on missions like this reduces their combat capabilities. It's the same logic which says that seriously injuring enemy infantry is more effective than killing them, since one dead soldier is one soldier who can't fight but one injured soldier is one soldier who can't fight plus one or two who won't fight because they're evacuating him. (Of course, Russian doctrine now seems to counter this by leaving seriously injured soldiers on the battlefield to bleed out...)

reaperducer 2y ago
Not so remarkable when you consider that tying up RAF planes and burning their fuel on missions like this reduces their combat capabilities. Or, sometimes human beings act like human beings, even in a time of war. In addition to the whole notion of "rules of war," there are thousands of examples, but here is a famous one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce > The truces were not unique to the Christmas period and reflected a mood of "live and let live", where infantry close together would stop fighting and fraternise, engaging in conversation. In some sectors, there were occasional ceasefires to allow soldiers to go between the lines and recover wounded or dead comrades; in others, there was a tacit agreement not to shoot while men rested, exercised or worked in view of the enemy. People like you and me work at computers all day and start to think like computers and try to use "logic" to explain everything away. Fortunately, there are real people in the real world who are free of our burdens.
- aja12 2y ago
  > Fortunately, there are real people in the real world who are free of our burdens. You might be right about the general, who knows. But Goring? No, that man was definitely a computer.
- cperciva 2y ago
  Christmas truces were absolutely a thing, but they came about through the action of troops on the ground -- and the commanding officers absolutely hated them.
  - short_sells_poo 2y ago
    I'm not condoning it at all, but I think it's easy to understand why commanding officers didn't like their troops fraternizing with the enemy. If GI John and Soldat Hans share a coffee and a cigarette together, and perhaps even a pleasant chat, they will quickly come to realize that both of them are human beings, with human feelings, a family worrying about them, children possibly, hopes and dreams, and so on. And once you are acutely aware that your enemy is just like you, only perhaps speaks a different language, you are much-much less inclined to shoot them and stop being an efficient soldier. I've never been in a war, and hope I never live to see myself in one, but the only way I can see one human viciously trying to kill another is by not thinking of their enemy as a human being, but rather just a thing.
    - cperciva 2y ago
      Absolutely. They were described as "disastrous to morale" and units which had engaged in Christmas truces would routinely be moved to other parts of the front in order to avoid the issues you mention.
    - wizzwizz4 2y ago
      > you are much-much less inclined to shoot them and stop being an efficient soldier. But you also take the other side's soldiers out, in the same way. Why wouldn't commanding officers like that?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bb123 2y ago
I don't think that was the rationale. For captured senior/important figures were given all kinds of affordances and gestures made which contrast shockingly with the conditions we know people endured in concentration camps. For example Senior officers at Colditz often received parcels from home with stuff like cigars, chocolates, and spirits, sometimes through diplomatic agreements with the Red Cross. This was at a time when Germany in general was starving. They also organised theatre productions, orchestras, and even sports events. I think this is just a relic of a different era and a different code of war - similar to how long before this Naval captains from opposing sides often shared meals after a ship's surrender. It is hard to imagine now.
- advisedwang 2y ago
  > I think this is just a relic of a different era and a different code of war It's worth noting that this kind of civility only happened on the Western front. The eastern front was a no-mercy teeth out display of barbarism. I think the conclusion is that it's to the era, but the specific conditions that resulted in acts like this.
- cperciva 2y ago
  For captured senior/important figures were given all kinds of affordances and gestures made which contrast shockingly with the conditions we know people endured in concentration camps. It wasn't just senior and important figures; POW camps generally were nothing like the Nazi concentration camps since their purpose was internment rather than extermination. People tend to conflate the two, partly because Eisenhower worked so hard to document the Holocaust. Western POWs were also treated better than Eastern POWs out of fear of retaliation; the USSR wasn't a signatory to the Geneva conventions and already treated their prisoners poorly so there was no similar incentive to treat Eastern POWs well. (And also layered on top of this was Nazi ideology about Slavic races being inferior etc.)
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- carabiner 2y ago
Slava_Propanei 2y ago
[dead]
hindsightbias 2y ago
The older cadre of Luftwaffe officers considered themselves better than other forces, with a generational code of honor/conduct. Their highest award was the Knight's Cross, so the concept of chivalry among peers was at least a thing. Aircrew POW camps were run by grounded/older Luftwaffe officers. Goring was a WWI ace, Galland was younger so maybe eager to please.
- schroeding 2y ago
  Göring also directly gave the order to Reinhard Heydrich to organize the "Final Solution of the Jew Question" aka Holocaust. So code of honor with strict restriction to "Aryan" pilots of the western Allies, if at all, IMO.
- Rebelgecko 2y ago
  At least towards the end of the war, Galland was not a fan of Göring (he was a ringleader of the Fighter Pilots' Revolt)

untouchable 2y ago

Small note, the airdrop was to Saint-Omer, a Luftwaffe airbase in France not a castle. Bader was later imprisoned in Colditz Castle.

cluckindan 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
kitd 2y ago
The "soldier's honour" normally came from the Wehrmacht, professional army officers & soldiers who were very different (and considered themselves very different) to the SS divisions whose leadership were little more than Nazi sadists.
- wbl 2y ago
  The wehrmacht happily collaborated with SS units or engaged in actions such as https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zambr%C3%B3w_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zambr%C3%B3w_massacre or https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciepiel%C3%B3w_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciepiel%C3%B3w_massacre
Yoric 2y ago
As a side-note, you can have a sense of honor, or even consider yourself a good person, and nevertheless murder pregnant women and children as part or your day job. They key is to not consider them as human beings or, alternatively, to consider that you're somehow doing it for their own good, e.g. by saving their soul. Nazis (and Imperial Japan, and Crusaders, and plenty of others throughout history) made this possible at large scale by spending years of propaganda dehumanizing the "other". Sadly, we're seeing a trend of doing the same alongside political lines these days. It's not yet as bad as Mein Kampf, but it's very, very worrying.
- close04 2y ago
  > consider that you're somehow doing it for their own good I was surprised to read about Fritz Haber, the man who catalyzed nitrogen fertilizers and other "nice" things like mustard gas, that he was convinced that mustard gas is the humane solution for ending the war. Since WW1 would end faster from his perspective he was saving lives. Almost perfectly mirrors the view that people dropping atomic bombs on Japan had. Both horrible weapons, one used mainly on the battle field, the other on cities packed with civilians. Both deployed with the same "we're actually saving lives" attitude. Today only one is considered an atrocity almost everywhere in the world. The other still gets the same explanation as it did 8 decades ago.

kylecazar 2y ago

"Bader then used this leg to mount multiple escape attempts from various prisons" Coming soon to Netflix...

jonp888 2y ago
A film was made about his life a few years after the war, which is now something of a classic, if only due to how often it is shown on British Television. It was a flop in the US though.
- chgs 2y ago
  Probably because it didn’t have an American saving the day
  - lern_too_spel 2y ago
    The screenwriters could simply insert American characters into the story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Escape_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Escape_(film)

kitd 2y ago

Ben Mackintyre's book about Colditz reveals that Douglas Bader was actually a pretty unpleasant character, often tolerated by his peers at best, and often loathed by his subordinates whom he would bully. He was an outstanding pilot though and was given the benefit of the doubt as a result. To his credit, after the war he used his fame to become a vocal advocate for the disabled. I remember him as such when I was young.

simonbarker87 2y ago
Thoroughly enjoyable book. I read it recently and, having gone to a UK boarding school, the stories about life in Colditz being treated like a high stakes public (posh) boarding school by the British Officers rang very true to me.
- lazyeye 2y ago
  Britain setup a holiday/prison camp for high-ranking german officers and bugged everything. It's a fascinating story.. https://www.amazon.com.au/Walls-Have-Ears-Intelligence-Operation/dp/0300238606 https://www.amazon.com.au/Walls-Have-Ears-Intelligence-Opera...
bloopernova 2y ago
In WW2, Admiral Ernest King is reputed to have said "When they get in trouble, they send for the sons of bitches." There were a lot of utter assholes and bullies around at that time. There were huge inter department feuds that resulted in many thousands of deaths. Part of why Eisenhower was a good supreme commander was that he could wrangle the assholes into at least not fighting each other!
- potato3732842 2y ago
  >Part of why Eisenhower was a good supreme commander was that he could wrangle the assholes into at least not fighting each other! That's a spicy take on the British. (I kid, but the joke is in fact based in historical fact, managing relations with the British was a key reason he was given the job)

abuMZ 2y ago

[flagged]

tetris11 2y ago

We had one member of the troup that did the real life Great Escape visit our school. He handed out schematics of how they tunneled, their day-to-day logistics, communication with the outside, etc. It was a really fun talk, but it ended on a somber note where those who did not escape were later punished/executed in revenge for the escape taking place. In this context, someone asked him, "was it worth it?" and all I remember about his answer was him gripping his handout and giving a monosyllable reply.

dataflow360 2y ago
What syllable?
- tetris11 2y ago
  I genuinely can't remember, but it left me feeling washed out.
- CornishFlameHen 2y ago
  I want to think it was "nuts"
byteknight 2y ago
Both yes and no are one syllable. Your drawn out drama-incucing style of writing left a huge hanger that makes it unpleasurable.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- pinkmuffinere 2y ago
  I suspect that’s intentional. Not all writing aims to be pleasurable, and I suspect the parent comment illustrates the gut-wrenching pain of war really well. What do I as a reader want the answer to be? That it was worth the death of his friends? That he’d rather they never tried? No answer is happy, and I think that’s somewhat the point. Even more touching if it’s a true story, life is sometimes so poetic it hurts.

nullbyte 2y ago

This is an awesome story

gambiting 2y ago

I don't know, I cannot accept in my head that in one part of Europe Nazis were shaving men, women and children to use their hair as industrial filling before throwing them in gas chambers by the thousands, but somewhere else Nazi general was gracious enough to allow British troops to airdrop a prosthetic leg for their pilot - they even remained friends after the war! I'm sorry but it just sounds like.....some kind of joke? Like it happened in a different reality than the one that happened in Europe at the time? Why was that general even allowed to visit the UK and not in prison? Oh that's right - because Churchil has personally advocated against prosecuting nazi generals because it would be "unsporstmanlike". I'm sorry, I cannot enjoy this article in the spirit it was written in. I grew up next to Auschwitz and the idea of borderline friendly(sorry, "diplomatic") relationship with nazi forces makes me sick.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
appleorchard46 2y ago
It makes the horrible things the Nazis did even more horrifying. It's easy to think of the Nazi regime as a pure, isolated evil, but when articles like this show that there was room for even a little humanity, it makes it clear how many individual choices for evil were made elsewhere every step of the way.
Slava_Propanei 2y ago
[dead]
schroeding 2y ago
They maybe just forgot the extend of it. Don't forget that many don't even know the difference between the "normal" (already incredibly horrible and vile) concentration camps like Dachau and the pure extermination camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka or Sobibor. The Brits and Americans only liberated the first kind, and it (mostly) wasn't their citizens who were gassed or shot by Einsatzgruppen. Also doesn't help that some think it was only done and caused by the SS or Hitler / Himmler / Göring, as if there was no connection with the remaining government, the police or the Reichsbahn, and as if the Wannseekonferenz[1] and Reichskristallnacht[2] had never happened. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference, also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URSNN5mnI2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URSNN5mnI2g [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht

lovegrenoble 2y ago

Aleksey Petrovich Maresyev (1916 – 2001) was a Soviet and Russian military pilot who became a Soviet fighter ace during World War II despite becoming a double amputee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksey_Maresyev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksey_Maresyev

xpl 2y ago

> Bader then used this leg to mount multiple escape attempts from various prisons Oh, that reminds me of the prosthetic leg joke from 'Guardians of the Galaxy'. So it was a reference? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJfMSE_3iSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJfMSE_3iSc

Onavo 2y ago

Pilots (that are not bombers) were treated pretty well by the Luftwaffe. Aviators share a comraderie that's hard to describe (very similar to software engineers in a sense).