Article

2005-06-07 Europe

French mayor invites german paratroops to join jump at Normandy

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Posted by too true 2005-06-07 12:24|| || Front Page|| [7 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Luftwaffe aircraft in a BOB re-enactment? Shit Yeah! Landser at Normandy Memorials? Hell why not? We should ask a certain turn-coat E. Tennessee Cav. about this.

Posted by Shipman 2005-06-07 12:32|| 2005-06-07 12:32|| Front Page Top

#2 No good deed goes unpunished...

Why risk our necks for anyone except ourselves and our English-speaking allies?

Posted by anon1 2005-06-07 12:38|| 2005-06-07 12:38|| Front Page Top

#3 Only if we can do a re-enactment of the Crete landings.

Posted by mmurray821 2005-06-07 12:58|| 2005-06-07 12:58|| Front Page Top

#4 French mayor invites German paras, eh? So how is this different from the last time Germans parachuted into France?

Posted by SteveS 2005-06-07 13:35|| 2005-06-07 13:35|| Front Page Top

#5 To begin with it was the Britsih who parachuted to Normandy.

And the Geman paratroopers didn't see action in France in 1940: they jumped over the Neterlands and made a glider assault on the Belgian front of Ebben Emmael.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-06-07 14:07|| 2005-06-07 14:07|| Front Page Top

#6 Should have read it was the British who parachuted first into Normandy. Ever heard of Pegasus Bridge?

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-06-07 14:08|| 2005-06-07 14:08|| Front Page Top

#7 M Lefevre remained deflated at the cancellation of his Euro-friendly stunt. âWe are all devoted to world peace now,â

And that is he wants to make peace with Nazism.

A month ago I was in Germany (Baden-Wurtemberg) and I never found more charming people than there. Far more than my beloved compatriots. And still I don't want any German however charming coming to Normandy commemorations or, worse, jumping over Normandy: the Germans were defending one of the more murderoous and evil regimes who ever plagued humankind and every minute they managed to delay Germany's defeat meant roughly the more people being gassed (I have made the calculations). The mere idea of honouring German soldiers is repellent. What is the next step for this clown? Inviting German concentration camp guards to the ceremonies at Auschwithz? Have them make an exhibition of handling attack dogs?

PS: I suspect that pressure from his voters was not foreign to his change of mind: I was in Normandy last September and to my delight (I was enraged by Chirak's decision to invite Schroeder) I saw the shops had tags "Welcome to war veterans" with little flags of every allied country and no German flag be it the old or the new.

PS2: There was a monument in Omaha Beach funded by French citizens from their own pocket. The prefet ie the governemnt representative wanted it withdrawn. There was a petition against it. I signet it but don't know how the whole thing ended.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-06-07 14:39|| 2005-06-07 14:39|| Front Page Top

#8 Oops again. Should have read: "every minute the Germans managed to delay the defeat meant ten more people being gassed"

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-06-07 14:42|| 2005-06-07 14:42|| Front Page Top

#9 Private Steele is now commemorated by a mannequin permanently suspended from the church.

OK, that's just bizarre. Sounds like some of the more oblique semi-abstract "installation" sculptures inflicted on unsuspecting unversity campuses by deranged artists and their faculty enablers.

Posted by Mitch H.">Mitch H. 2005-06-07 16:08|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/]">[http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/] 2005-06-07 16:08|| Front Page Top

#10 I think he's just trying to pull some gay shit on those guys.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2005-06-07 16:09|| 2005-06-07 16:09|| Front Page Top

#11 I've been to normandy. turning the corner into the american cemetary, my knees weakened at the sight of row upon row of headstones marking the extinguished lives of young men. we may be friends with germany now, but they do not belong there. they simply do not belong there.

if a loved one were killed, and the killer was repentant, I would not invite him to weep with me. though I may at some point forgive him (though I think I could never do so, fully), my pain, my loss, my grief is not his to share.

as for germany, it's the same. watch from the sideline. but do not "commemorate" with us ESPECIALLY if you include your own dead in the commemoration.

Posted by PlanetDan">PlanetDan 2005-06-07 16:11|| 2005-06-07 16:11|| Front Page Top

#12 By God I've changed my mind. Let's ban the Japanese from Pearl and keep the Yankees outa ~~Richmond~~ Manassas.

Recreations aren't history and they aren't holy.

Posted by Shipman 2005-06-07 16:25|| 2005-06-07 16:25|| Front Page Top

#13 All it would have taken was for the invited German paratroopers wait on the LZ and help those landing and saying last time we were opposed,today we are allies and we like it much better this way. Honor satisfied,and today's realities respected.

Posted by Stephen 2005-06-07 17:08|| 2005-06-07 17:08|| Front Page Top

#14 Stephen

These guys were buying time to gas chambers operators to finish the job.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-06-07 17:25|| 2005-06-07 17:25|| Front Page Top

#15 One of the most moving places at West Point is the Civil War Reconciliation plaza. It documents step by step the coming back together again of West Point grads who fought for each side.

What is missing in this case was an invitation by those who actually fought to the Germans to participate. It was presumptuous, arrogant and manipulative for the French mayor to issue the invitation. But it might have been a healing occasion if the British and Americans had talked it over and done so themselves.

Posted by rkb 2005-06-07 17:31|| 2005-06-07 17:31|| Front Page Top

#16 This perfidious bastage LeFevre should be strung up by his thumbs from the same church steeple where Steele dangled.
I spit on his toupee from a great height!
I urinate on his favorite vineyard after drinking 12 pints of Guinness!
I force him to drink from his mother's bidet! while he is drunk!
Pttui! We protest!
That ought to scare 'em.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2005-06-07 19:24|| 2005-06-07 19:24|| Front Page Top

#17 Maybe the Vietnamese Nike-shoe Reds will invite French paras to drop in on the 60th anniversary of Dien Bien Phu in 2014.
Who knows, they might accept.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2005-06-07 19:26|| 2005-06-07 19:26|| Front Page Top

#18 Maybe we can invite the Royal Marines to a celebratory Rose Garden bonfire on the 200th anniversary of the burning of Washington in 2014.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2005-06-07 19:32|| 2005-06-07 19:32|| Front Page Top

#19 It's almost as stupid as recreating Trafalgar without a "French" enemy.

Posted by Pappy 2005-06-07 19:32|| 2005-06-07 19:32|| Front Page Top

#20 Not yours AC. The French idiot-mayor.

Posted by Pappy 2005-06-07 19:34|| 2005-06-07 19:34|| Front Page Top

#21 I feel sorry for the German paras of today... they are some fine young dedicated people.

But really, they don't belong there.

Posted by True German Ally 2005-06-07 19:51|| 2005-06-07 19:51|| Front Page Top

#22 AC in 2014? Hell Yes! Have 'em come over in the Victory

Posted by Shipman 2005-06-07 20:30|| 2005-06-07 20:30|| Front Page Top

#23 Shipman - The Victory can fight the Constitution and the modern world can see exactly why the Royal Navy issued orders that American frigates were to be engaged only when outnumbered by 3-1 or better odds. ;)

Posted by Laurence of the Rats">Laurence of the Rats 2005-06-07 22:56|| http://www.punictreachery.com/]">[http://www.punictreachery.com/] 2005-06-07 22:56|| Front Page Top

#24 Hardly. The Victory is a 104 gun Man O'War with 32 pounders. The Constitution is a 54 gun Frigate with 24 pounders. It would be like a fight between a battleship and a cruiser.

Posted by ed 2005-06-07 23:42|| 2005-06-07 23:42|| Front Page Top

#25 JFM,
I rather doubt too many of today's German paras fought in WW2. As for most of the Germans at the time they fought for victory,for Germany and towards the end to delay the Russians long enough to get as many civilians as possible to Western Powers occuppied areas.
I have not and will never forget about the death camps. Just as I will not forget the Soviet gulags. I had distant relatives disappear into each. The question is how long does the guilt linger?
To me,the French Mayor was wrong to invite the Germans to participate in the jump,as that was part of a ceremony to show respect for the sacrifice made by the Allies who liberated France. But once he did,there was a better way out than saying Germans go home.

Posted by Stephen 2005-06-07 23:46|| 2005-06-07 23:46|| Front Page Top

00:01 ed
23:59 trailing wife
23:57 Seafarious
23:52 True German Ally
23:46 Stephen
23:44 Pappy
23:44 Phil Fraering
23:42 ed
23:42 trailing wife
23:38 3dc
23:37 phil_b
23:33 Seafarious
23:27 Charles
23:18 True German Ally
23:10 True German Ally
23:05 badanov
22:59 Captain America
22:57 OldSpook
22:56 Laurence of the Rats
22:53 OldSpook
22:53 Captain America
22:50 Alaska Paul
22:48 OldSpook
22:48 Jame_Retief