filmtwit
Desperate but not serious
Raoul Minot would have been forgotten in the grand sweep of history until that photo album turned up, and the quest to identify him began.
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raid
Dad Photographer
This is very interesting. Thanks.
Coldkennels
Barnack-toting Brit.
That was a fantastic read over a coffee on a dreary English Saturday. Thanks for sharing.
Bill Clark
Veteran
I have read books on history, especially World War I and II. I have often thought how the world would have been shaped if reparations weren’t subjected to Germany after World War I. Did they help, along with the depression, bring rise to power Hitler and his group? Of course the Great Depression, which affected Europe as well as the United States also had something to do with the conditions. It took a wheel barrow full of marks just to buy a loaf of bread.
After World War II, the U.S. devised the Marshall Plan to help Europe get back on its feet. We didn’t want the seeds to be planted of poverty again to start World War III.
My mom’s family (her grand parents) emigrated from Germany, before World War I, and came to the United States via Cleveland Ohio. They had 1 suitcase, that was all. The U.S. Government through Eminent Domain gave immigrants land in the Dakotas. One of her sons, my Uncle Wayne, fought in World War II. Here he is in Germany and he is German but on the U.S. side. He spent time in a German POW camp. After I came back from Vietnam, visiting with my Uncle Wayne, I remember him telling me how he still could see the eyes of the first German solder he killed.
He did take a Leica camera from someone’s house in Germany that I now have. It still works!
The ship I was on stopped in Sasebo Japan and I figured out how to take a bus to Nagasaki where I photographed the city. I didn’t realize, until I was there, that they drive on the left side of the road like England, at least it was that way in 1972.
At any rate, I’ll close for now.
After World War II, the U.S. devised the Marshall Plan to help Europe get back on its feet. We didn’t want the seeds to be planted of poverty again to start World War III.
My mom’s family (her grand parents) emigrated from Germany, before World War I, and came to the United States via Cleveland Ohio. They had 1 suitcase, that was all. The U.S. Government through Eminent Domain gave immigrants land in the Dakotas. One of her sons, my Uncle Wayne, fought in World War II. Here he is in Germany and he is German but on the U.S. side. He spent time in a German POW camp. After I came back from Vietnam, visiting with my Uncle Wayne, I remember him telling me how he still could see the eyes of the first German solder he killed.
He did take a Leica camera from someone’s house in Germany that I now have. It still works!
The ship I was on stopped in Sasebo Japan and I figured out how to take a bus to Nagasaki where I photographed the city. I didn’t realize, until I was there, that they drive on the left side of the road like England, at least it was that way in 1972.
At any rate, I’ll close for now.
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Retro-Grouch
Veteran
"Whether it's the smile of a man with something to hide, or maybe nothing to be ashamed of, the archives don't say." --- from the article.
I think it's the smile of a man who is proud to have done the right thing. He resisted evil.
I think it's the smile of a man who is proud to have done the right thing. He resisted evil.
wlewisiii
Just another hotel clerk
I read that too.
History never repeats itself but it sure does echo. We'd do well to remember those like him in the near future.
History never repeats itself but it sure does echo. We'd do well to remember those like him in the near future.
WoodallP
Pragmatist Barnack lover
Whilst this is a photography forum, I hope there is always a space for balanced discussion about history as historical events have made for classic photography. The idea that WWI reparations led to WWII is something that has been ingrained; but as can often be seen, if something is repeated often enough it becomes true, though I am not saying it isn't.
One of the champions of the idea that reparations were the cause of Hitler's rise was the economist John Maynard Keynes but during the interwar years he had a sparring partner by the name of Etienne Mantoux, a young French economist who believed this was not the case. They battled on the Times letters page and elsewhere, frequently. Mantoux was the son of Paul Mantoux, the translator for Clemenceau at the Versailles conference; so few people probably had more insight to what had been discussed than Etienne.
When the second world war came Etienne escaped France to finish his education at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, where he had a scholarship. Having finished his study he returned to Europe to fight for the Free French Army from Britain. During the battle for Paris he acted as navigator on a Piper Cub to deliver the important message to the besieged central Paris police station that help was coming. This story is described in the book "Is Paris Burning"
Once France was liberated he continued into Germany, dying at the very end of the war in a car accident. His studies were published posthumously in a book called: "The Carthaginian Peace or the Economic Consequences of Mr Keynes" which gives a detailed analysis of the effect of war reparation on Germany and argues that they were not the cause of WWII.
For full disclosure Etienne was my Wife's uncle, though she never met him.
As this is a photography forum I attach a picture of him looking every bit the war hero. More can be found at:
photos du Peloton d'Aviation d'Artillerie 2 DB 25eme SOAA
Photos de la 25e SOAA du Peloton d'Aviation d'Artillerie de la 2° Division Blindée
www.alat.fr
Attachments
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WoodallP
Pragmatist Barnack lover
Living in Paris, that first picture shows a metro station I use often. It's strange to see it that way.
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wlewisiii
Just another hotel clerk
Having studied the economics of WWII as a part of verifying "The Wages of Destruction" by Adam Tooze, I do still find Keynes argument more compelling. That said, it's always good to have multiple thoughts on complex questions. Thank you for the photo and the link.Whilst this is a photography forum, I hope there is always a space for balanced discussion about history as historical events have made for classic photography. The idea that WWI reparations led to WWII is something that has been ingrained; but as can often be seen, if something is repeated often enough it becomes true, though I am not saying it isn't.
One of the champions of the idea that reparations were the cause of Hitler's rise was the economist John Maynard Keynes but during the interwar years he had a sparring partner by the name of Etienne Mantoux, a young French economist of who believed this was not the case. They battled on the Times letters page and elsewhere, frequently. Mantoux was the son of Paul Mantoux, the translator for Clemenceau at the Versailles conference; so few people probably had more insight to what had been discussed than Etienne.
When the second world war came Etienne escaped France to finish his education at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, where he had a scholarship. Having finished his study he returned to Europe to fight for the Free French Army from Britain. During the battle for Paris he acted as navigator on a Piper Cub to deliver the important message to the besieged central Paris police station that help was coming. This story is described in the book "Is Paris Burning"
Once France was liberated he continued into Germany, dying at the very end of the war in a car accident. His studies were published posthumously in a book called: "The Carthaginian Peace or the Economic Consequences of Mr Keynes" which gives a detailed analysis of the effect of war reparation on Germany and argues that they were not the cause of WWII.
For full disclosure Etienne was my Wife's uncle, though she never met him.
As this is a photography forum I attach a picture of him looking every bit the war hero. More can be found at:
photos du Peloton d'Aviation d'Artillerie 2 DB 25eme SOAA
Photos de la 25e SOAA du Peloton d'Aviation d'Artillerie de la 2° Division Blindéewww.alat.fr
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
There seems to be a denial in France over the German occupation during WW II. There is the comfortable self-deception that it never happened. This is the cause of the French movie in 1969, The Sorrow and the Pity (The Sorrow and the Pity - Wikipedia). I am an ardent Francophile but I am not blind. This failing is one we all experience. The movie is a must. Then you can move on to Shoah (Shoah (film) - Wikipedia), another French film about WW II on this anniversary of Kristallnacht in Berlin. The night when Germans could no longer ignore or deny the Nazis were out to eliminate the Jews. Both French films are unsettling for reasons obvious when watched. Watch at your peril.
filmtwit
Desperate but not serious
OVer the years when I hear folks talk about Nazi occupied France and ignore Vichy France and it's complete compliance with Nazi Germany, I always bring up the The Sorry and the Pity and how major part of French Occupation came from the French themselves including the final solution.
BTW - Marcel Ophuls the director was for Frankfurt but his family (his dad was Max Ophuls - famous German film director) left in 1933 because of the Nazi's and grew up in France and later Vichy France till his family could flee to Spain and then to the USA (he spend high school at Hollywood High, then went of Occidental College and UC Berkeley). He has citizenship in Germany, France and the USA.
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boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
I understand completely. And the film itself arose from a conversation where one fellow said he did not remember seeing Germans in Clermont Ferrand during the war. I believe that is early on in the film, footage of the Germans in Clermont Ferrand. The broader lesson is that we all gloss over our faults and failings at the personal, family, village, county, state and national level. It is part of our nature to pretend it never happened. Just like Germany after Kristallnacht, this evening, in 1938 IIRC. After that evening no one in Germany could deny. Yet my German relatives all just hummed when asked about folks who disappeared. This was before Kristallnacht, the humming. And it did not stop until late in 1945. This is a part of our nature, denying who and what we are. I wish it were not so.
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
Let it be known that not all of France was collaborationist nor was all of Germany Nazi. While I did my Army tour on a tiny post in France in the early 60's Vichy was still passionately discussed with raised voices and reddened faces. Normally agreeable people would become enraged on the subject. And it is a tender one. Could France have defended itself without having so much of it and its beauty destroyed? To appraise it we have to think then not now.
Likewise, the social and political pressure in Germany was immense. And at the same time there were those who help the threatened, mostly Jews, escape to safety. Leitz sent Jewish employees abroad to overseas offices with jobs there and with cameras that could be sold for a stake in their new country. William Tecumseh Sherman said it so well and so succinctly, "War is Hell." In my time in uniform and after I have never met a combat veteran who thought war was a good idea. I have never met a decorated veteran who wanted to talk about his decorations even though he proudly wore them.
But this is a board concerned with photography and I will get back to it, click, click, click.
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filmtwit
Desperate but not serious
It sounds like you need to a picture of it and do a "Then" and "Now"
Alpsman
Well-known
I have two photo albums from my grandfather from his time in the german army, with photos from France, across Europe and into Russia.
My great-great-great-grandfather has written a diary that describes his time in the Napoleonic Wars. He marched to Moscow and back again.
On foot.
When you read that, you realize what a soft-hearted generation we are.
My great-great-great-grandfather has written a diary that describes his time in the Napoleonic Wars. He marched to Moscow and back again.
On foot.
When you read that, you realize what a soft-hearted generation we are.