snookered

Several things I've meant to blog about. Today's weather could be a new one, took our income tax return documents to PCB then had lunch commitment but the atrocious weather and horrendous traffic got the best of us seniors and forced to cancel it. Unpredictable stormy weather of lightning, pouring rain and strong winds turned cold and unpleasant, so made our way back home to a pot of hot black coffee and a tiny nibble of German rye bread with a smush of soft limburger cheese. I have limburger from Germany and limburger from Wisconsin, and the domestic product is more fragrant and enjoyable. Both need further aging.

The traffic may be Spring Breakers, we saw several out in the weather, I feel sad for them that the spring break weather here is always so iffy. By the Time it's predictable it's too late to change plans without financial disruption. If I were them I'd plan to fly to Spain every year for spring break instead of risking Florida "sunshine".

Right.

One of my special interests is World War 2, probably because I was a child all the way through it from beginning to end and still feel the trauma of fear and horror, and the effect of our intensive anti-Jap and anti-German propaganda, and the eager boy thing of learning to recognize all the warplanes on all sides. My favorites, the Stuka, the Zero, the Flying Tiger, and the P-38 Lockheed Lightning. We had some really good two- and four-engine bombers too, but the idea of being up in a large heavy slower plane that was a prime target for enemy fighters was unappealing.

So, where this is going is that because of my special interest, I have read many books about the era and watched many films, especially documentaries. Last week I got caught up short! Googling for Youtube "WW2 films German perspective" brought up several things I've not already watched, which is not easy. One is "D Day Through German Eyes," which turned out to be a two-volume book read aloud by the author. It's fascinating. I watched, heard, read all of one book and most of the other. Captivating, but several things seemed really strange, unexpected.

The books are presented as a series of personal interviews, each an individual chapter, between a German journalist who'd written articles for the Wehrmacht, and individual German soldiers. The German journalist speaks perfect natural English, the German soldiers, one or more of whom said they didn't speak English, spoke perfectly expressed English but with a thick German accent. I could not tell one interviewee's voice from another. Several expressions were used that, not knowing their German original, I thought to get the German language book or recording and see them, but could find no German language originals. Details of battle actions are deep and total, including descriptions of the wounds of others, suffered at the terrible height of battle. Descriptions of the Sherman mine-clearing "crab".

More than one interviewee voiced identical disapproval that his comrades shot American or English tank crews as they were trying to escape burning tanks. It's as if one soldier interviewee is giving all the interviews but under different names. I tried to explain that to myself as maybe an American was interviewing Germans later, but this was meant to be the original interviews that the German journalist made ten years after D Day, with former German soldiers he had gone back and tracked down, and the interviews were tape recorded originals. It doesn't add up, but okay, the stories are fascinating anyway.

Last weekend however, going back to find the books again, I ran up against allegations that the whole project was a hoax. By an unknown author, using the names of people, both "author" and interviewed soldiers, who never existed, yet the whole thing made up and becoming one of the most popular Amazon publications about D Day. Names of nonexistent people and published by a nonexistent publishing house. So, caught like a fish going after a shiny lure. I had several chapters to finish, but am not going back to it.

This is my confession then, that they got me! Even though I had uneasiness about several things that didn't make sense, I'd decided to just let all that be and learn and enjoy the author's work. There is incredible detail, including knowledge of German weapons, and D Day timing experiences that are so convincing. The descriptions of the night of June 5/6, with unending flights of allied planes overhead starting after midnight, were so real that they transported me there. Descriptions of German weapons were so real, sending me online to google and learn more about various German anti-tank guns. A nearly perfected thermobaric weapon that was deployed and came within seconds of being fired over an assembly of hundreds of American tanks, apparently concocted. Discussion of what German troops were taught to believe about the sacred German mission to establish a Unified Europe and protect it from invaders, Russia in the East, England and the US in the West. It's so credible, so very real. But the cracks in the story ...

Still, he got me. Whoever developed "D Day in German Eyes" got me. I was completely snowed.

There's much more, but it's nap time.

RSF&PTL