I wonder if any of the people in this picture survived the war, or if this family managed to make it through the war intact.
Thank God for two oceans between us and our enemies.
8 thoughts on “Picture from the Czech General Mobilization, 1938”
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Unless they were Jewish they probably did survive. Not a great deal of fighting went on in Czechoslovakia. Did you know, by the way that this mobilization resulted in just half a million fewer than the German one a few months previously?
“Thank God for two oceans between us and our enemies.” Particularly since you’ve become so good at cultivating new enemies.
Our enemies are actually here.
Dearime most of our so called enemies we inherited, in almost every case from saving Britain. In rare cases France.
Including the entire Mid-east mess.
Which was by the way doomed to be a mess with the inevitable collapse of the Ottomann Empire. Due to the Ottomans geography and their own internal contradictions.
Had we let England hang, in all likelihood England would have sued for peace, not been occupied, and might actually have a larger role in the world today then now.
“Our enemies are actually here.”
They are not driving swarms of PzKpfw IIIs and IVs, or flying Stukas overhead strafing swarms of refugees fleeing before them, the Gestapo is not rounding people up, and the
Reichs Protectorate isn’t posting lists of people to be sent off as forced laborers, or reducing the rations of millet bread.
Its just not the same. Not yet. Hopefully never.
Why would they do that? They don’t need to.
VXXC razor applies: “You’ll eat that too.”
Now if they need to, and they can find the forces to do it, they will.
They just might need to, because they’re out of money and that changes things. The REPO squeeze is on again, not enough dollars or T-Bills.
They will do whatever they need to to thrive and survive, while ruining and impoverishing us in the process. They seem to have some deep hubristic need to degrade. This is what they do.
You’ll eat whatever it is too. That’s what you do. Hopefully? Bush was dumb but that’s not a plan.
BTW if you wait for that machine to get going it’s too late.
When you’re getting beat by Obama, don’t wish for Hitler, the wish being “then I’ll do it.” No, you won’t.
Hitler held occupied France with ZERO divisions.
Frankly if you weren’t on the racial elimination lists you were smart to make a deal with Hitler. Which most did. The Czechs for instance.
Many others.
Take the deal if offered, don’t delude yourself.
Taking the deal only works if you can learn to live with it. I hope I can not. I have in mind a deal for them. Just as when I sat in my tank in Germany as a young man, wondering when they’d come. I calculated if they did I’d be dead in less than 12 hours and my wife and son soon after that. I spent my time figuring out how I could increase the number I could take before I died. No deals, I had to be certain I could live with myself. The French underground didn’t take the deal. Their contributions are legion, many died.
I calculate that we have a much larger proportion that will offer them the same deal I will. It isn’t about being “smart”, clever or crafty. It’s about self-respect. Some folks might not consider self-respectt a remote possibility since they’ve lived on the crafty side so long. Be careful with that. You might get the same deal if you collaborate. I won’t likely have much effort to spare for figuring out how to distinguish who are the oppressors versus the merely cowardly collaborators. I wouldn’t recommend you take their deal. Time to get some big boy pants.
Just as with the cold war, it might never come down to having to execute the choice. Sometimes enough folks having the will is enough to back them down. Do we have enough? I don’t know, but “smart” won’t be any part of that eventuality. It is right to want to avoid conflict, but is an absolute to be free. If it isn’t, then you won’t be. You’ll just be “smart”, but empty, self-loathing and owned. Some are already there.
Mike
Great comment.