What Are You Reading

[Harp]

The shadow of Manhattan looms large, but doesn't own Brooklyn - something will never feel right without the Dodgers there (and I was too young to remember, I've just read enough to "feel" the loss).

A tragic mistake that still looms over baseball and casts a pale shadow across time.
Ranks right up there with the witch's spell cursed upon the Chicago Cubs.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The best book ever written on O'Malley's Betrayal was published a few years back -- Robert Murphy's "After Many A Summer," which blows the lid off the modern revisionist theory that The Big Oom was forced into leaving New York by the machinations of Robert Moses, and that without Moses' intractability, he would have stayed. Murphy thoroughly documents how all of the arguments O'Malley put forward to justify his move were due to circumstances *entirely of his own deliberate creation* and that his negotiations with Moses were essentially a blind to distract attention from what was really going on.

The Dodgers were, by far, the most profitable team in baseball from 1947 thru 1957. Their radio and television contracts alone assured them of a profit before the first turnstile clicked each season. O'Malley abandoned Brooklyn out of pure, unalloyed capitalist greed, and then constructed an elaborate smokescreen of rationalization to justify his act. His family maintains that smokescreen, through a bought-and-paid-for Hall of Fame plaque, to this day.

You're in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Walter O'Malley. You have a gun with two bullets. What do you do?

You shoot O'Malley twice.

 

[Wally_Hood]

Brave Companions by David McCullough.

 

[AmateisGal]

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, set in Occupied France during WW2.

I'm also re-reading "A Woman in Berlin: 8 Weeks in the Conquered City" by Anonymous. I read this years ago, but it's one that I wanted to re-read again in light of the new novel I'm writing.

 

[Historyteach24]

Currently reading James McPherson's Trial By War about Lincoln as commander in chief.

 

[Harp]

I'm also re-reading "A Woman in Berlin: 8 Weeks in the Conquered City" by Anonymous. I read this years ago, but it's one that I wanted to re-read again in light of the new novel I'm writing.

A book I was recommended in college but declined to my regret.
Raymond Pretzel's memoir, Geschichte eines Deutschen, penned under the pen name Sebastian Haffner is on my
list, though it will task my college German. A good English translation unfortunately does not exist. I will need to read the
anonymously penned A Woman in Berlin afterwards. I believe the author's identity was revealed as a journalist and
this insight conflicted sharply with a numbed public, so the book was never accorded any literary status within
Germany until after her death.

I look forward to reading your Nebraska POW account. I once met a former German paratrooper in Marburg
whom had been captured in France and sent to Texas for the duration. He asked to remain there but was involuntarily
repatriated back to Germany and still yearned for "Tejas." :coffee:

 

[AmateisGal]

A book I was recommended in college but declined to my regret.
Raymond Pretzel's memoir, Geschichte eines Deutschen, penned under the pen name Sebastian Haffner is on my
list, though it will task my college German. A good English translation unfortunately does not exist. I will need to read the
anonymously penned A Woman in Berlin afterwards. I believe the author's identity was revealed as a journalist and
this insight conflicted sharply with a numbed public, so the book was never accorded any literary status within
Germany until after her death.

I look forward to reading your Nebraska POW account. I once met a former German paratrooper in Marburg
whom had been captured in France and sent to Texas for the duration. He asked to remain there but was involuntarily
repatriated back to Germany and still yearned for "Tejas." :coffee:

There were a great many German POWs who, after being sent back to Germany for repatriation, returned to America to live. They were treated very well here. (Even if they were Nazis...though those POWs didn't opt to come back! ) I hope you enjoy the book.

A Woman in Berlin is indeed a harrowing account. My next novel's main character will be based partly on this anonymous woman's experiences.

 

[hatguy1]

Though born here and so was his parents, my grandfather spoke fluent German. So he was made to supervise German POWs on roadwork in the Plains states during the War. He said many told him they didn't want to go back to Germany because they had it better as a POW than they had it in Germany and post-War they know it would be even worse over there for the foreseeable future.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[AmateisGal]

Though born here and so was his parents, my grandfather spoke fluent German. So he was made to supervise German POWs on roadwork in the Plains states during the War. He said many told him they didn't want to go back to Germany because they had it better as a POW than they had it in Germany and post-War they know it would be even worse over there for the foreseeable future.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This was very common throughout the Plains states since there was a large German immigrant population here. I had a lot of people share stories with me of having the POWs actually come into the house (which was verboten) and eat lunch with them around the family table where they talked about the "old country." So many wanted to stay, but every single one had to go back to Germany.

 

[Dennis Young]

Just finished "Killing Patton". Really good book, but I'm not (yet) convinced of the conspiracy that someone murdered him.

 

[HadleyH]

I have to put down my tablet, I really have to

The Grand Duchess Olga ...sister of Tzar Nicholas II is waiting for me...

but you see.... If I may ... I will tell you my secret....

I am always looking for WW3 Prophecies ....

it's all coming.... so

how can I read Olga in peace?

I am worried about WW3 .

 

[Fading Fast]

This was very common throughout the Plains states since there was a large German immigrant population here. I had a lot of people share stories with me of having the POWs actually come into the house (which was verboten) and eat lunch with them around the family table where they talked about the "old country." So many wanted to stay, but every single one had to go back to Germany.

Not hard to understand why in 1945 there wasn't a lot of appetite in this country to let the German POWs stay. With the passage of time and the ability to bring nuance and reflection, we now know some Germans wanted no part of the Nazis and the war and that they were just sucked into the the vortex of Hitler's rule, but that perspective takes time - in 1945, I doubt that argument would have flown anywhere in the US.

 

[AmateisGal]

Not hard to understand why in 1945 there wasn't a lot of appetite in this country to let the German POWs stay. With the passage of time and the ability to bring nuance and reflection, we now know some Germans wanted no part of the Nazis and the war and that they were just sucked into the the vortex of Hitler's rule, but that perspective takes time - in 1945, I doubt that argument would have flown anywhere in the US.

Indeed. There was actually a lot of problems within the camps themselves because of this. There were a lot of Nazis and anti-Nazis, so essentially, there was a battle going on inside the camps between these two groups. Many men were threatened because of their anti-Nazis views - some died because of it. Many were beat up because of it. This led directly to the War Department's reeducation program, i.e. the Intellectual Diversion Program, which sought to "de-Nazify" the POWs. It really was against the Geneva Convention which is why it was kept top secret until the end of the war in Europe.

Also, it was mandatory that all the POWs had to go back to Germany. I believe this was mandatory for every POW, regardless of their country of origin, i.e. all American POWs had to come back to America, all British POWs had to go back to Britain, etc. What is different about the POWs' experience in America, however, is that many WANTED to return. That couldn't be said for those POWs held in Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, etc.

 

[Fading Fast]

Indeed. There was actually a lot of problems within the camps themselves because of this. There were a lot of Nazis and anti-Nazis, so essentially, there was a battle going on inside the camps between these two groups. Many men were threatened because of their anti-Nazis views - some died because of it. Many were beat up because of it. This led directly to the War Department's reeducation program, i.e. the Intellectual Diversion Program, which sought to "de-Nazify" the POWs. It really was against the Geneva Convention which is why it was kept top secret until the end of the war in Europe.

Also, it was mandatory that all the POWs had to go back to Germany. I believe this was mandatory for every POW, regardless of their country of origin, i.e. all American POWs had to come back to America, all British POWs had to go back to Britain, etc. What is different about the POWs' experience in America, however, is that many WANTED to return. That couldn't be said for those POWs held in Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, etc.

Not trying to match my haphazard knowledge of history with your impressive and expansive one (and you aren't arguing the opposite anyway), but I believe the Russians took the "mandatory" return of POWs that they had as a technicality not to be bothered with as I think countries were still trying to get their POWs back from the USSR well into the '50s.

 

[AmateisGal]

Not trying to match my haphazard knowledge history with your impressive and expansive one (and you aren't arguing the opposite anyway), but I believe the Russians took the "mandatory" return of POWs that they had as a technicality not to be bothered with as I think countries were still trying to get their POWs back from the USSR well into the '50s.

I think you're right. Stalin was pretty loose and fast with the "rules."

 

[Fading Fast]

I think you're right. Stalin was pretty loose and fast with the "rules."

Hitler was a monster, but I never understand why it seems like the current meme around Stalin is that he was less bad, but in truth, he was up there with Hitler (and has the body count to prove it).

 

[Dennis Young]

I have to put down my tablet, I really have to

The Grand Duchess Olga ...sister of Tzar Nicholas II is waiting for me...

but you see.... If I may ... I will tell you my secret....

I am always looking for WW3 Prophecies ....

it's all coming.... so

how can I read Olga in peace?

I am worried about WW3 .

I believe WW3 is already here. Or at least the beginnings of it. I watch how the various political alliances are being made with regard to the Middle east. What's going on in Iran, Syria, and the Ukraine. Interesting and scary.

 

[Dennis Young]

Not hard to understand why in 1945 there wasn't a lot of appetite in this country to let the German POWs stay. With the passage of time and the ability to bring nuance and reflection, we now know some Germans wanted no part of the Nazis and the war and that they were just sucked into the the vortex of Hitler's rule, but that perspective takes time - in 1945, I doubt that argument would have flown anywhere in the US.

That’s a good point about some Germans not wanting anything to do with the Nazis. You take a guy like Werner Klemperer (who played Col. Klink on Tvs Hogan’s Heroes). He was a German Jew who fled during WW2. In fact he, and a host of the actors who played Germans on the series, actually joined the US military and served during WW2. Cpl LeBeau actually was put into a concentration camp! John Banner, (Sgt Shultz) was a sgt in the Army Air Corp. He was born in Austria and fled when Austria was annexed. Geneeral Burkhardt was also Austrian I think and served in our military.

Fascinating.

 

[Dennis Young]

Hitler was a monster, but I never understand why it seems like the current meme around Stalin is that he was less bad, but in truth, he was up there with Hitler (and has the body count to prove it).

Yep. He may have been even worse.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Conveyor," by James Steele. Published in 1935, this gritty proletarian novel does for the automobile factories of the pre-unioniization era what "The Jungle" did for the meatpacking industry. It's the pseudonymous work of Robert Cruden, who had worked at Ford's notiorious River Rouge plant during the Depression, and who later went on to become a distinguished professor of American History. A tough, uncompromising look at the abuses of industrial capitalism, as seen thru the eyes of one who was on the front lines.