BS: German decree banishes Trump's grand dad

Subject: BS: German decree banishes Trump's grand dad
From: Andrez
Date: 21 Nov 16 - 06:31 PM

The vagaries of history or as the old Phil Ochs song goes: '….. there but for fortune…' Something for us to ponder on from this article in the Guardian.

Historian finds German decree banishing Trump's grandfather. Royal decree ordered Friedrich Trump to leave Bavaria and never come back after he failed to do military service.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/21/trump-grandfather-friedrich-banished-germany-historian-royal-decree

Cheers,

Andrez

Subject: RE: BS: German decree banishes Trump's grand dad
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 21 Nov 16 - 08:17 PM

An awful lot of our (read "my and my late wife's", among
others) ancestors, and a lot of our fellow American
contemporaries in the 70s and 80s, might be said to have
earned a like banishment, if truth be told.

This is no brief for Mr. Trump or his forebears, but today
it's not really in itself a black spot on the scutcheon. He's
his own black spot, say I.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: German decree banishes Trump's grand dad
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Nov 16 - 09:57 PM

Black spot? More like a chancre.

Subject: RE: BS: German decree banishes Trump's grand dad
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Nov 16 - 02:37 AM

There have been members of my family who moved to the U.S. to avoid conscription in Prussia and Bavaria during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I see no shame in that, and see no honor in serving the Hohenzollerns or Hapsburgs or the kings of Bavaria.

I also see no shame in more recent immigrants wanting to leave what has happened in Mexico in the last century. If the U.S. wants to claim to be "the land of the free," then it should welcome such immigrants with open arms. And since we are partly to blame for the war in Syria, we have a moral obligation to welcome refugees from that war - just like we welcomed refugees from Germanic nations in the late 19th century.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: German decree banishes Trump's grand dad
From: robomatic
Date: 22 Nov 16 - 01:51 PM

Not to mention many Germans "Hessians" who came to the Colonies to serve His Majesty but went AWOL and married the locals.

Subject: RE: BS: German decree banishes Trump's grand dad
From: Andrez
Date: 22 Nov 16 - 07:29 PM

Hi folks, the point of the post for me was linked to the Ochs reference: 'there but for fortune' and sought to highlight the irony around the fact that one event and a particular bureaucratic decision so long ago could have led to the Trumps being forced to leave Europe and head for New York.

There are also parallels with the stated Trump attitude to other ethnic minorities and their rights to remain in the US that I don't need to spell out here.

Cheers,

Andrez