BS: Kaiser's Holocaust

Subject: BS: Kaisers Holocaust
From: Raggytash
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 10:49 AM

I went to a fascinating lecture this morning on the Kaisers Holocaust.

The lecture was based on a book by David Olusoga and Casper W Erichsen published by Faber ISBN 978-0-571-23142-3.

This is a piece of history I was totally unaware of and now I'm looking forward to reading the book which I purchased this afternoon.

One comment the lecturer made had me sitting up "the Kaiser made Adolf Hilter look like a schoolboy"

More to follow.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaisers Holocaust
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 01:03 PM

A far larger proportion of the Herero died from the German massacres than Jews in Eastern Europe. And the war in East Africa caused damage the area hS never recovered from and a couple of million deaths.

Small potatoes compared with the Belgians and French in the Congo, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaisers Holocaust
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 01:35 PM

Or Cecil Rhodes.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaisers Holocaust
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 01:42 PM

No, Rhodes wasn't in the same league of immediate destruction, though again the places he fucked up have never recovered.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaisers Holocaust
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 01:49 PM

"Kaisers Holocaust": The lack of an apostrophe leaves the reader wondering whether this was brought about by one Kaiser, or by several.

I realise some people won't understand the distinction. Possibly Raggytash is one such person.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: wysiwyg
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 02:35 PM

Thanks!!!

https://www.amazon.com/Kaisers-Holocaust-Germanys-Forgotten-Genocide/dp/057123142X

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 02:36 PM

The correct title of the book does indeed feature
an asterisk before the 's, so the distinction is singular. One Kaiser.


Ian Hancock Ph.D., a self-identified Roma born in the UK whose career has largely been in United States, learned about the "schwarzer Deutscher" while researching the Shoah and its impact on the Roma.
In the university class I took with him, Professor Hancock made a point of breaking the silence about the "schwarzer Deutscher."

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 02:39 PM

Google Books has a helpful summary:

On 12 May 1883, the German flag was raised on the coast of South-West Africa, modern Namibia. As settlers began to take over the tribal lands of the indigenous peoples, the Herero and Nama resisted and Germany launched a war of extermination. It ended with the construction of concentration camps, in which prisoners were systematically worked and starved to death. Years later, the soldiers and bureaucrats who had administered the camps, and the racial theories that had inspired them, would play a role in the formation of Nazism. David Olusoga and Casper W. Erichsen have uncovered extraordinary links between the Nazis and the atrocities committed in Africa under Kaiser Wilhelm. The infamous brown shirts worn by the Nazi storm troopers were colonial uniforms, originally designed as camouflage for the desert sand. The memory of Germany's African empire was revived as inspiration for the Nazi's wartime empire in the European East. Using shocking new archival evidence, The Kaiser's Holocaust is the definitive account of a genocide that was deliberately concealed for a century - a history that modern Germany has not yet come to terms with. Today, as the graves of the victims are uncovered in the Namibian deserts, the re-emergence of the Kaiser's holocaust poses a profound challenge to the notion that Nazi violence was an aberration in European history. (Faber)

Apparently, the book has been out for a while. This review (click) in the Guardian is dated 2010. Years ago, one would occasionally see references to the cruelty of Germans and other Europeans in Africa, but it was all past history by the time we were born, so nothing was done about it.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: wysiwyg
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 02:39 PM

More info:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Namaqua_genocide

Nemmind the thread title, this Wikipedia entry is what the book SHOULD be called-- centering the victim groups instead of the perpetrator.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Thompson
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 03:01 PM

Has anyone calculated the number of Native Americans killed during the invasions of their land?

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Iains
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 03:25 PM

The book covers some history of German sw africa I was only vaguely aware of, despite spending a period of time in the area, both in the northern cape and namibia. The scenery is   breath taking and the spring flowers of Namaqualand have to be seen to be believed. It becomes increasingly arid as you go north becoming true desert and then ameliorating once into southern Angola. For anyone incarcerated near the coast the conditions would be extremely unpleasant. The Benguela current runs north from near the pole and the temperature drops markedly as the coastline is approached. This is further accentuated by the rolling banks of fog that occur throughout the year.(Hence the skeleton coast) Certain of the Germans there can still be extremely unpleasant. I spent Christmas eve in 1974 in a hotel in Walvis bay. There was a repeat of WW1 in the bar that evening. We were thrown out of the hotel and spent the rest of the night on the beach and waited on a chopper that picked us up the following morning.

That was my first intro to Africa. It has been a topsy turvy relationship ever since, though many many more ups than downs.

There are now very few Nama or San people left in Namibia or Namaqualand. A school of thought suggests the San have lived in the area 30,000 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 08:02 PM

I hate to see the word Holocaust used for anything other than for the six million murders perpetrated by the Nazis under Hitler.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 08:46 PM

The Guardian article would agree with you, Steve. And so would I.

By 1908, as David Olusoga and Casper Erichsen show in this horrifying and graphically told account, only 16,000 Hereros and 10,000 Namas were left alive. And it is tempting to see the whole ghastly saga in the terms that these authors propose – as another Aryan seizure of Lebensraum resulting in the final solution to the Namibian problem. As their title and subtitle indicate, they emphasise the continuity between the kaiser and Hitler and suggest that nazism stemmed from colonial roots of evil, themselves long forgotten.

This is highly dubious. In the first place it is nonsense to say that the genocide in south-west Africa is forgotten. Admittedly, it could be better known. Germans did their best to suppress the evidence and to portray their homicidal activities as a triumph of civilisation, and British imperialists, with their own guilt to hide, were sometimes complicit in the obfuscation. But particularly since Horst Drechsler's pioneering study, Let Us Die Fighting (1966), on which the present book draws heavily, academic and popular interest in the subject has been strong.

Secondly, it is misleading to represent the Führer as the kaiser's heir. National Socialism had no time for monarchy and its trappings. To be sure Wilhelm was antisemitic: he once advocated employing gas in a pogrom. But His Impulsive Majesty was as erratic in this as in everything else. Damned by Hitler as an "incorrigible fool", he had rich Jewish friends, disliked nazism and said that Kristallnacht made him ashamed to be German. The kaiser, who died in 1941, would hardly have endorsed Hitler's Holocaust. And since this was an event unique in scale and method, the term should probably not be applied to the genocide in Africa.

Finally, Hitler's drive to secure living-space from Slav untermenschen owed little or nothing to Germany's imperial endeavours in Africa. Indeed, as the authors briefly concede, he regarded them as an outdated diversion from the Third Reich's destiny on the steppes. None of the kaiser's colonies would compare with his eastern empire, he boasted, and the only bit of the "dark continent" he wanted back was the Cameroons. Hitler's malign philosophy was fertilised by much dung, but it did not grow out of African soil.

But it is staggering to learn that large-scale genocide was committed by Europeans on every continent on earth. How could our ancestors have thought they had the right to do that?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Raggytash
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 10:25 AM

Nigel, please desist from being so nit-picking, it is unecessary and fruitless. I'm sure everyone knew exactly what I meant. Your pedantry is extremely tiresome.

Note I did say please :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 11:18 AM

"But it is staggering to learn that large-scale genocide was committed by Europeans on every continent on earth."
This feller OUTDID THEM ALL
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 12:27 PM

Not just Europeans, jc.

"In the Middle East, and particularly in Iran, Genghis Khan is almost universally condemned as a destructive and genocidal warlord who caused enormous destruction to the population of these areas.[68] Steven R. Ward wrote that "Overall, the Mongol violence and depredations killed up to three-fourths of the population of the Iranian Plateau, possibly 10 to 15 million people. Some historians have estimated that Iran's population did not again reach its pre-Mongol levels until the mid-20th century."[69]

In Afghanistan (along with other non-Turkic Muslim countries), he is generally viewed unfavorably, though some groups display ambivalence as it is believed that the Hazara of Afghanistan are descendants of a large Mongol garrison stationed there.[70][71]

The invasions of Merv, Samarkand, Urgench, Nishapur, Bamyan, Balkh and Herat among others caused mass murders, such as when large portions of Khorasan Province were completely destroyed. His descendant Hulagu Khan destroyed much of Iran's north and sacked Baghdad, although his forces were halted by the Mamluks of Egypt. Hulagu's descendant Ghazan Khan once returned to beat the Mamluks and briefly gain the control of Syria, but were eventually defeated. According to the works of the Persian historian Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, the Mongols killed more than 70,000 people in Merv and more than 190,000 in Nishapur. In 1237, Batu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, launched an invasion into Kievan Rus'. Over the course of three years, the Mongols annihilated all of the major cities of Eastern Europe with the exception of Novgorod and Pskov.[72]

Giovanni de Plano Carpini, the Pope's envoy to the Mongol Great Khan, travelled through Kiev in February 1246 and wrote:

“ They [the Mongols] attacked Russia, where they made great havoc, destroying cities and fortresses and slaughtering men; and they laid siege to Kiev, the capital of Russia; after they had besieged the city for a long time, they took it and put the inhabitants to death. When we were journeying through that land we came across countless skulls and bones of dead men lying about on the ground. Kiev had been a very large and thickly populated town, but now it has been reduced almost to nothing, for there are at the present time scarce two hundred houses there and the inhabitants are kept in complete slavery.[73]
"



and that was a larger percentage of the world population, by far.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 12:34 PM

You want to go back that far and you need to calculate in incalculable - how nany died over the three centuries of the Inquisition, the Crusades, the deaths caused while building Empires.....
This is about modern society and modern so-called civilised capitalism - not feudal and tribal societies
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:01 PM

Before one of our right wing hit men pick up on it, Jim, I should point out that it was not just civilised capitalists that did the damage. Uncle Joe and Chairman Mao had a good line in making people disappear too :-(

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:24 PM

Ze-Dong Mao (China, 1958-61 and 1966-69, Tibet 1949-50) (see note at the bottom of this page)
Adolf Hitler (Germany, 1939-1945) 12,000,000 (concentration camps and civilians deliberately killed in WWII plus 3 million Russian POWs left to die)
Leopold II of Belgium (Congo, 1886-1908) 8,000,000
Jozef Stalin (USSR, 1932-39) 7,000,000 (the gulags plus the purges plus Ukraine's famine)
Hideki Tojo (Japan, 1941-44) 5,000,000 (civilians in WWII)
Ismail Enver (Ottoman Turkey, 1915-20) 1,200,000 Armenians (1915) + 350,000 Greek Pontians and 480,000 Anatolian Greeks (1916-22) + 500,000 Assyrians (1915-20)
Pol Pot (Cambodia, 1975-79) 1,700,000
Yakubu Gowon (Biafra, 1967-1970) 1,000,000
Leonid Brezhnev (Afghanistan, 1979-1982) 900,000
Jean Kambanda (Rwanda, 1994) 800,000
Saddam Hussein (Iran 1980-1990 and Kurdistan 1987-88) 600,000
Tito (Yugoslavia, 1945-1980) 570,000
Suharto/Soeharto (Indonesian communists 1965-66) 500,000

2.Mao is widely credited in the West with tens of millions of killings (49-78,000,000) but the sources are generally vague and contradictory. It is particularly difficult to pin down the deaths of the Cultural Revolution on him. Even assuming that the numbers are correct (and living witnesses saw very few people die during those years), Mao certainly started it, but after a few months he had lost control over the events, and there is no evidence whatsoever that he ordered or approved the many killings committed in the name of the Cultural Revolution: they were not carried out by the army or the police but by radicals. Crimes committed by the "red guards" cannot be automatically blamed on him. His wife Jiang Qing is widely despised in China and considered to have exerted an evil influence on those events (and was eventually arrested). In 1968 Mao called for "Big Unity" between the radical and conservative factions that were fighting all over China (not for more blood but for less blood). Before dying he appointed Hua Guofeng, a provincial governor, as his successor bypassing all the senior officials who were responsible for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution indirectly caused starvation, but the number of people who died of that starvation is probably lower than Westerners thought (again, judging from living witnesses) and he can only be considered indirectly responsible for them. A failed policy does not constitute "genocide" (otherwise this list of genociders would be much longer).

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:29 PM

These weer not deliberate and ruthless attempts at annihilation for profit - whatever they were.
Stalin went to war against his party, largely with the backing of the people
Mao forced through the modernisation of a totally impoverished semi-feudal country at a pace they could not handle, also with the backing of the people
Neither was profiteering which bothe the Kaisers and Leopold's was
I don't wish to create a diversion with this, nor do I wish to condone the demands made
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:37 PM

If you are going to divert this into something else you may as well say World War One which was basically a conflict to decide who should rule the planet, as the greatest example

Alfonso Bullock, studies Warfare & Warfare at Military Technology (2024)
Answered Jun 6, 2018
World War One was one of the deadliest conflicts in the history of the human race, in which over 16 million people died. The total number of both civilian and military casualties is estimated at around 37 million people. The war killed almost 7 million civilians and 10 million military personnel.

"Leopold II of Belgium (Congo, 1886-1908) 8,000,000 "
Why downgrade one of the main perpetrators - the lowest estimate is 10 million, but due to the lack of real information, and the nature of the terrain and cultures, it is calculated as high as 20 million
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:45 PM

I didn't want to divert it, Jim. Just pointing out what others will say. Now you have mentioned the first world war, heaven knows where it will end. As long as you are aware of where this is going to go, you can prepare for it!

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:53 PM

"you can prepare for it!"
I think Bruce's anonymous quotes from a right-wing think tank with links to The Manhattan Project and the US security service and military have taken it in the direction it is going to go
These discussions about mass-murder should never be allowed to reach the - "your atrocity is worse than my atrocity" level, but don't they always?
I chose to mention belgium and WW1 because theyare more ot less contemporary to the topic in hand
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Raggytash
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 02:05 PM

Any chance of getting back to the subject matter of the thread of which I know little about.

This 'my program was bigger than than your program" doesn't enhance my knowledge of the subject.

Ta ........!

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Iains
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 03:13 PM

It was probably fortunate that the first diamond is Namibia was not discovered until 1908, otherwise the killings would probably have been even more severe.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 05:12 PM

" Bruce's anonymous quotes from a right-wing think tank with links to The Manhattan Project and the US security service and military "

You don't have any idea, Jimmy boy. But then, the Far Left here doesn't consider Truth, just mandated beliefs.

http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html


OK?


Check his site- http://www.scaruffi.com/index.html

NOW tell me he is "a right-wing think tank with links to The Manhattan Project and the US security service and military ", you ignorant bigot.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 02:49 AM

"You don't have any idea, Jimmy boy. "
I always know when you people are making things up when you try to talk your opponents down - it seems a trait
I get a little tiresdd of te "far left" strope -it allways conmes from people who regard anything more prgressive than Attila the Hun as 'Far Left' so I regard it as a comliments - why not substitute honest argument Bruce?
You have me ine, now show me yours as stop wrecking discussions with personal insults - it's not very impressive andf it doesn't contain enough information to persuade anybody

If it's all the same to you I prefer a lifetime's interest and reading in European history rather than a bloog by a pop music expert - especially when his figures on the Leopold massacres are at least two million below the historically reasearched ones
You might try Adam Hochschild's 'King Leopold's Ghost (quite easy, if uncomfortable reading)
Can we please stop this childish name-calling and attempts at talking down - there is far too much of this already - always from people hardly in the position to do so
Jim Carroll




jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 03:34 AM

Jim the worst offender was Mao,it gives me pleasure havint to admit it

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 03:52 AM

Sigh!!!!
Leave it Dick
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Iains
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 09:41 AM

The true death toll both from King Leopold and chairman Mao is heavily disputed. Surely the realissue is how they died and why they died and what can we learn from it going forward. Arguing over numbers that can never be accurately established is a pointless exercise.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 10:31 AM

"he true death toll both from King Leopold "
Leopold's death toll is not disputed - the ten Million was established by Mark Twain and has only varied upwards
Hochshild more or less established that the ten million was correct - it's all accessible as history
One of the facts of history that suggests the figure to be an underestimate is that, on the fall of Leopold's Company his employees spent three days feeding the records into furnaces, so the estimatesd are based on reports, coming largely from missionaries

As far as Mao is concerned - the figure claimed included natural disasters, mismanagement by a brand-new political force and a state of permanent warfare in seizing the country by the people
Leopold's victims were slaves - Mao's followers were willing supporters of a popular revolution
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 10:41 AM

This is probably the most comprehensive account of KAISER'S HOLOCAUST along with its historical implications freely available on the web
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Iains
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 11:44 AM

I believe Natal was the closest Mark Twain came to the Belgian Congo. His King "Leopold's Soliloquy" is a work he can be proud of. It is probably the earliest work on modern human rights. BUT. Back in that period with no census and no accurate centralised record keeping any kind of mortality figure has to be treated with scepticism.
Using the sentence "Hochshild more or less established that the ten million was correct" may convince you but the first census of the Congolese population was made in 1924, there is a consensus among historians that accurate predictions of the population fall or number of deaths is impossible. There is no denying the figure was in the millions but quotes of 6,10 or 13 million cannot be reliably established. The crime has been established, the death toll was high,in the millions, Just how high simply distracts from the main issue- that it was a crime against humanity. Louis and Stengers state that population figures at the start of Leopold's control are only "wild guesses".
Another factor reducing population was disease. Colonialism also played a part in the mortality from sickness.Diseases imported by Arab traders, European colonists and African porters ravaged the Congolese population and "greatly exceeded" the numbers killed by violence. Smallpox, sleeping sickness, amoebic dysentery, venereal diseases (especially syphilis and gonorrhea), and swine influenza were particularly severe. Sleeping sickness, in particular, was "epidemic in large areas" of the Congo and had a high mortality rate. In 1901 alone, it is estimated that as many as 500,000 Congolese died from sleeping sickness. It goes without saying that malaria is endemic in the area including cerebral malaria.

Even today it is estimated severe malaria kills approximately one million children in Sub-Saharan Africa alone.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Raggytash
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 12:19 PM

Thank you for your link Jim, I shall read it with interest.

Once again could I ask people to stick to the subject matter of the thread.

I am all too aware to other atrocities that occured in many states perpetrated by many nations on other nations but I would like to learn a little about this particular part of history that until two days ago I knew nothing about.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 01:14 PM

"I believe Natal was the closest Mark Twain came to the Belgian Congo"
MWE have a holocaust denier in out midst
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: robomatic
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 01:18 PM

I think the following:

Mao's followers were willing supporters of a popular revolution

are words of INFAMY.
As well as saying the same thing about Stalin's depradations.

It's exactly the same thing as big brother telling little brother to "Stop Hitting Yourself" magnified by a hundred million and going to the extreme of death and torture.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Raggytash
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 01:23 PM

Hey up lads, the history of numerous atrocities over the centuries is vast.

We could discuss them for years and thousands of posts.

I do understand that, OK.

Can we limit this thread to "The Kaiser's Holocaust" PLEASE !!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Raedwulf
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 02:12 PM

*sigh* I was halfway through a very lengthy & entirely comprehensive reply and then... to the delight of everyone else it got et! In brief, then (I kid you not!).

Jim - you know better; bruce should, but bruce never does. If you want to squabble, children, take it to PMs please & spare everyone else!

Genocide is an ill-used word & an over-used one. I can understand Steve's reservations over Holocaust with a capital H, as per the title; holocaust with a small h works as a class noun... Except that it's an unnecessary word because we already have genocide (& many wouldn't recognise a distinction between upper- & lower-case). Both are used where they are not justified because they evoke... The Nazis on the Jews was an attempted genocide. The Hutu on the Tutsi was an attempted genocide. What happened in the break-up of Yugoslavia was an attempt at genocide. What worth in comparing them? Numbers? The Tutsi suffered far more than the Jews. The horror of how they died? Does anyone *really* want to quantify that? I agree that "Whose was worse" is utterly fatuous.

The dikker def of genocide amounts to "systematic & deliberate attempt at mass-murder, usually along racial lines". What about the Turks on the Armenians, or America's several Trail of Tears inflictions on the Native? There are those who would argue that these were also genocides. Certainly, they were brutal, callous, careless of human life, inhumane. But, as with the various Japanese "Death Marches" of Allied POW's, I don't believe that any of them were genocides. They were "brutal... ...inhumane", but they weren't "systematic & deliberate..."

Thus, after preamble, I arrive at Raggy's original purpose. Colonialism was never benign or, at least, not wholly so. All of Europe was Wherever for a given object of Profit. If you know even a little of European involvement in Africa & Asia up to the earlier part of the 20thC, you will know (rather than just believing) that all of the colonial powers were seeking some sort of a profit (for a given value of 'profit'). However! If you know even a little, you will also know that most colonialism wasn't simply rapacious either.

Also consider this. If the Industrial Revolution had occurred in, say, Ulundi or Bombay, how different would the world be? We might have had Hindu priests or those of the ancestral spirits proselytising across Western Europe... My point here is that people are people the world over. The balance of power would be different, globally the centre would different; we might all be using an Indian language, isiZulu, or some other Bantu language as a lingua franca, rather than English. But the repercussions of the balance would probably not be different. Western Europe would have been conquered, the resentments et al would be the same.

The German & Belgian versions of colonialism were particularly brutal & unpleasant. But were they genocide? It seems that at least some of the German efforts have been classified by rather higher powers than me as genocide. But someone above (I forget who) used the word "profiteering".

It is a common mistake to view history through the prism of our own times (and all too many historians, who ought to know better, are guilty of it). It was Joe, above, who asked How could our ancestors have thought they had the right to do that? The simple answer is, "Because they were them then." And perhaps it sounds trite, but if they had not been them then, we would not be us now. We change & evolve socially as well as physically. Four hundred years ago, everyone accepted that slavery was normal; nowadays, few cultures do, for one very obvious example.

Our ancestors, Joe, did not see the world in the same terms that we do, any more that everyone across the world now does. I have been known to remark that the problem with Islam is that their calendar is about five & a half centuries behind ours. I mean no offence by this, but if you look at it that way that all too much of the Muslim world behaves, its level of tolerance & its reaction to aberration is not so very different from the way the One True Church was behaving 1440 CE, which is where their calendar currently is. Plus ca change etc; 'oomans is as 'oomans does, nowt so queer as folk, etc!

I can't comment very directly on the Kaiser's holocaust, Raggy. I am well aware that it did happen, but my knowledge is more general than specific. I doubt anyone on the 'cat can do better. If you google, you'll only find what I would look up to check that what I told you had a shred of accuracy! ;-) I will repeat, though, colonialism was never unalloyed anything. It was never inherently inimical, it was never benign. It was for the colonisers benefit, and it's hard to make a profit out of dead people so, in most cases, genocide for the sake of it; as attempted in the examples at the beginning of this post; would make no sense, either now or then.

The Belgian & German versions of colonisation were particularly brutal, perhaps partly because they came late to it. The Portuguese, I seem to remember, were bad but nowhere near AS bad. The Spanish, well most of their old empire had gone by the start of the 20thC. The French? They certainly still had colonies then. There were tensions with Britain throughout the 19thC. As late as 1898, we might have gone to war over the Fashoda Incident (google it!). But whilst someone above suggested they were awful in the Congo, in general what I know suggests they were less awful overall. I don't know enough specifics to be able to be more specific.

The British, of course, the British... There my knowledge is far greater but it is perhaps also biased. Britain was a slaver. Bristol was the centre of the slave trade; there its prosperity was founded. Britain was the first nation to abolish slavery too. Our colonial history is long. It's also complicated. Up to the Indian Mutiny it was John Company, the EIC, that ran India. How much influence the UK govt had is very much open to argument! After the Mutiny... the Govt took over. There were characters in our colonial history such as Robert Clive & Cecil Rhodes who very definitely WERE rapacious bastards... But there again, they weren't unalloyed bad. There certainly were many, many thousands of people, often over several generations of a family, who went out to various colonies believing that it was their task to improve the natives' lot. Many died trying. And presumably the same can be said of other colonial powers as well if, perhaps, not to the same extent.

This isn't very much help, in terms of a direct response to you, Raggy, more of a caution. Remember, whatever period of history takes your interest, that they were them then as we are us now. If everyone reading this now had been born in Edo in 1914, some of us would have been in the Imperial Japanese Army in the 1930s. So one or two of us would have been in Nanking in 37/38, bayoneting babies, raping women, murdering civilians, not because we are evil, but because we are products of our culture. We are fortunate in that we all are products of relatively benign cultures in a relatively benign age. Judge not our ancestors too harshly because they were not so lucky!

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Iains
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 02:51 PM

"I believe Natal was the closest Mark Twain came to the Belgian Congo"
MWE have a holocaust denier in out midst"

If garbage like the above was deleted, one would not be driven to respond to the outright lie!

Then the thread could stay on course, as requested.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 02:52 PM

"are words of INFAMY.
As well as saying the same thing about Stalin's depredations."
You have claimed they were all brainwashed - make up your mind

You have shown no more knowledge of Chima than you have of Russia - both McCarthyite caricatures of the reality
Boh countries won their system of government by popular revolutions so the idea that you can enslave a revolutionary people id obviously nonsens
Both countries have health services far in advance of most counties - certainly in advance of the united states where they feel for you check-book before they feel your pulse
The same with the education systems - free at source and highly developed - you don't educate slaves as The United States taught us before their Civil war.
I am no admirer of Mao and I detest what Stalin did to the people's revolution, but in both cases the Parties modernised semi feudal states and made them economic world contenders in amazingly short times - over the same period they totally outstripped most of the ex-colonies.
I never got to visit China, thou I would dearly have loved to do so
I travelled through Russia twenty years after the war and was staggered at the progress I witnessed in cities like Moscow, Leningrad and Minsk - all devastated by the war - In Leningrad it was rare to see a man aged over forty who hadn't lost a limb or had been maimed in some way during the Siege

You people - especially you Yanks, really make me howl about 'freedom' when you have elected one of the most volatility world leaders who is now putting the entire planet at risk with his fascist behaviour
I can never remember feeling mor threatened and more depressed about the future of the planet as I do now
You Yanks have turned entire parts of the world into bloodbaths in order to keep your SUVs on the road - as for ecology - go count the storms bening caused by the "non-existent" climate changes according to Chairman Trump (with te help of "now free" Russia
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Raggytash
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 02:56 PM

For F***k's Jim, can you PLEASE to the keep of this thread or start a new one of your own.

I've started one for you already!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 03:06 PM

The Kaisers army committed despicable atrocities as they advanced through Belgium which were authorised from the leadership to subjugate the Belgians.

It was digust at that behaviour and concern that we would be next if the Belgian ports fell to the Germans that led to Britain entering the war.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Raedwulf
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 03:33 PM

Anther thread Keithed. It was all going so swimmingly up to now, even though Jim insists on continuing to squabble...

Fuck off, Keith. The atrocities attributed to the Germans in WWI (I presume you're referring to WWI rather WWII, but as per fucking usual, you're so damn inaccurate...) were PROPAGANDA. You gullible idiot. Same as the bullshit lies the Germans came out with - "We only invaded Belgium because..." "We only shoot Belgians because..." "You lot used gas first, we only retaliated, honest, guv..." (I have no idea what the German equivalent of 'guv' is...)

Do you know or understand anything at all, Keith? Or do your fingers just type of their own accord without reference to whatever passes for your brain?

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 07:05 PM

"For F***k's Jim, can you PLEASE to the keep of this thread or start a new one of your own."
For F****s sake Rag - I am not the only one involved here
I will agree with you totally when you address your anger to all involved
Don't patronise me - I'll strt my own threads thanks all the same
Jim

---

I couldn't see any actual discussion of King Leopold in the Leopold thread, so I closed it. Leopold seems reasonably related to the "Kaiser" thread, and I see no reason why it can't be discussed here.
Now, quit yer squabbling.
The topic of colonialism and related genocide is certainly interesting.
The squabbling is not.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: robomatic
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 11:10 PM

You have shown no more knowledge of Chima than you have of Russia - both McCarthyite caricatures of the reality
Boh countries won their system of government by popular revolutions so the idea that you can enslave a revolutionary people id obviously nonsens
Both countries have health services far in advance of most counties - certainly in advance of the united states where they feel for you check-book before they feel your pulse
The same with the education systems - free at source and highly developed - you don't educate slaves as The United States taught us before their Civil war.
I am no admirer of Mao and I detest what Stalin did to the people's revolution, but in both cases the Parties modernised semi feudal states and made them economic world contenders in amazingly short times - over the same period they totally outstripped most of the ex-colonies.
I never got to visit China, thou I would dearly have loved to do so
I travelled through Russia twenty years after the war and was staggered at the progress I witnessed in cities like Moscow, Leningrad and Minsk - all devastated by the war - In Leningrad it was rare to see a man aged over forty who hadn't lost a limb or had been maimed in some way during the Siege .

Both those countries, USSR and Mao's China had in common, along with Nazi Germany, that your thoughts were controlled, and if you went for freedom of thought, you would get killed. I visited the Soviet Union maybe a little after your period. I noticed that everyone's teeth had been fixed. Mighty impressive, if they didn't have real ivories, they had what looked like stainless steel in there.
Even in America we keep ALL the cattle healthy.

As for China, I didn't get over there, but I'll never forget a reporter showing a bookstore in China. There was only one book available. Even in Russia you had a broad spectrum of approved books, and they were inexpensive.

As for Popular Revolution, I'm wondering if you are as ignorant as you post or are simply simplifying the historical facts in order to make your preexisting world view palatable. Russia had a PAIR of revolutions in 1917, one in February, installing for all intents and purposes a weak democratic government, and one in October (old calendar) which put Lenin in as a dictator of a one-party state. (Kind of parallel to what happened in 1989 to the present reality of one-man control). The public were about as in control of what went on as the fleas on the back of a cur. China is an entirely different country, people, culture, etc. But it sure has not been popularly run. And both countries had internal deaths in the tens of millions, on the way to that wonderful economic progress that means so much to you.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Raedwulf
Date: 16 Sep 18 - 02:08 AM

I think perhaps, Jim, that Raggy is addressing you partly because you're the one most likely to listen. I'd take that as a compliment, rather than decide you've been patronised. I've also written recently in defence of the Mudcat Meander. A meandering thread is often entertaining & amusing. The sort of hostile to-ing & fro-ing that you are engaging in here (yes, with others) is neither of those, nor illuminating in any useful way. You can, as you say, open your own thread if you really feel the need to continue it...

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Sep 18 - 02:29 AM

"that your thoughts were controlled, "
The stuff ods Science Fiction - the ability to "control" the minds of many millions of people don't even exist in the twenty-first century (otherwise despotic madmen like Trump would have used it long before now.
Go read a book for crying out loud
Joe and Rag are right, this is no place for this discussion - you want to compare the comparative democracies of China, Russia and your own (which fought a genocidal war against a peasant nation for half century with the use of toxic chemicals and burning petrolium) - go open a thread on it.

Joe is also right anbout the ling between the Kaiser and Leopold - I apologise to rag for taking it up as did, but it really is part of this
These massacres were part of the expanding of Colonialism - in this case, Belgian and German, but other Empires were just as culpable of similar activities, including Britain whose Colonial history remains largely unwritten but whose effects still influence our everyday lives.
Without the bickering, I believe that the obvious (to me) links between incidents like these German and Belgian atrocities - and World War One itself, would be an opportunity to discuss our Colonial legacy
At the very least, their similarities make comparing them unavoidable.
Rag started this thread and it is really up to him how far he wants to take it as far as I'm concerned.
You have my opinion on the issue
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Sep 18 - 04:49 AM

Raedwulf, please drop the personal attacks and abuse.
In my post I stated only fact.
This article from the British library,
"The general German advance started on 18 August; by 28 August, the invasion force had crossed Belgium. The 10 days in between saw the worst violence. The troops, exhausted from the forced marches and often under the influence of alcohol, committed a series of large-scale massacres, pillaged and burned towns and villages, and deported survivors. The hardest-hit places were Aarschot on 19 August and Andenne on 20 August; the small industrial town of Tamines on the Meuse, where 383 inhabitants were killed on 22 August; the city of Dinant, where, on 23 August, the worst massacre of the invasion left 674 people, one out of every 10 inhabitants, dead; and the university town of Louvain (Leuven), where the treasured university library was burned and 248 civilians killed. Further south, hundreds of people were executed in the Belgian Ardennes; on one occasion 122 alleged francs-tireurs were killed in groups of 10; the last ones had to climb on the mound of corpses to be shot."
https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/civilian-atrocities-german-1914

Revisionist historians tried to deny the atrocitities but they happened.
The press hyped them but tens of thousands of Belgian refugees brought their eye witness accounts to Britain.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Sep 18 - 07:20 AM

Don't get Keith started on his "real historians selling books in real bookshops" kick Raed - that way lies madness
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Sep 18 - 11:01 AM

So, was I right or not?
If not, please list any errors.
Good luck with that.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Raggytash
Date: 16 Sep 18 - 11:27 AM

Sadly I am not at all surprised that certain factions do not want to discuss the subject of the topic in my opening post.

As I said I knew nothing of the subject before attending a lecture this week. I had hoped we could enlighten ourselves about a period of history which I feel few, if any of us, knew anything about.

Not surprisingly the usual subjects do not want to learn anything new.

I shall read the book I purchased and the link Jim provided with interested.

Meanwhile back to the music in town.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Sep 18 - 07:19 PM

When I looked around online, Raggytash,
I searched on the term "schwarzer Deutscher," or black Germans.

My search brought up the notice of an exhibition and panel of speakers
at the University of Cologne (Universität zu Köln)
in 2017, from 30 November to 18 December.

The exhibit was meant to demonstrate
"marginalisierte Geschichte" -- the Black Germans' "marginalized History."
Of course the webpage is all in German
(my search engine allowed me to put the page through a translator).


Did you know about this which follows? I never did till now:
There is a movement in Germany of which the initiators are women --
some of them, women with white-German mothers and African fathers.

ADEFRA: Afro-deutsche Frauen

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 03:17 AM

Rag, if you meant me, I posted about those African massacres some years ago now as evidence of the Kaiser's evil, so no I did not learn anything new.
I wonder if Raedwulf has now learned that the Kaiser's armies really did carry out massacres of civilians and children in Belgium during the invasion, and it was fact not propaganda, despite all the abuse he directed at me.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 04:10 AM

Rag, FYI,

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford - PM
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 05:55 AM

BBC Jim.
Germany admits Namibia genocide
German army hanging Hereros (archive pic)
Germany's military commander had vowed to wipe out the Herero
Germany has offered its first formal apology for the colonial-era massacre of some 65,000 members of the Herero tribe by German troops in Namibia.
German minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul told a commemorative ceremony that the brutal crushing of the Herero uprising 100 years ago was genocide.

But the German government has ruled out compensation for victims' descendants.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 06:19 AM

???
Has anybody denied any of that Keith - I certainly haven't
Your WW1 jingoism is a different matter
I, in fact, pointed out that the Keiser massacres were only a small part of a larger picture bound together by the predatory nature of Imperialism
My comment was aimed at your crass ly crude misquoting the works of historians you have not read, nor would understand if you had.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 10:39 AM

Jim, my last two posts were in reply to Rag.

What "jingoism" Jim?
You always have to accuse me of something, never just discussing the issues.

What have I said here that you disagree with?
If nothing, get off my case.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 12:55 PM

"I always know when you people are making things up when you try to talk your opponents down - it seems a trait"

Seems like Jimmy lives out what he says...

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 12:59 PM

"Jimmy "
Seems that I am right - thanks for making my point
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 06:42 PM

None so blind...

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: robomatic
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 08:36 PM

I thank Raggytash for exposing this calamitous period of which I was unaware. I knew the Germans had colonies in Africa but I was sort of 'snowed' by the supposedly outstanding record of the German General von Lettow-Vorbeck who supposedly had the devotion of his African troops and of course after reading a few news articles or online blurbs I only had superficial knowledge. And when I write 'knowledge' I mean 'information'. Not the same thing.


And of course Jim Carroll has not for the first time displayed his utter condemnation of those evil colonizers while excusing, ignoring, giving a pass to, maybe even approving of depradations committed by those he regards as ideologically pure, maybe because a great deal of it was indigenous-on-indigenous genocide. Like Cambodia. It reminds me of a conversation I had in college when I was at lunch with my Chinese buddy and a student of Japanese origin. The Japanese student was going on about white colonization across Asia. I don't recall disagreeing with his citations, but then my Chinese friend said: "How about the Japanese takeover of Indonesia's colonies. Not much of a liberation for the local people, was it?"

"That's different! Those people didn't want to WORK!"

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 08:50 PM

Would you care to expand on which perpetrators of massacres or genocide Jim regards as "ideologically pure," and quote from any of his posts the evidence to support your assertion? Seems to me that you so dearly wanted to tell us your little story that you've constructed this shaky little edifice around Jim to give it context. I call that bad behaviour.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: robomatic
Date: 18 Sep 18 - 01:15 AM

They are up there if you take the trouble to read'em Mr. Shaw. And I already done quoted him a couple of times. I call your behavior gang-related as JC has often taken the trouble to speak for himself. Just a bit more repetitively than yourself.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Sep 18 - 04:52 AM

I read this whole thread top to bottom before my previous post and I found NOTHING to substantiate your assertion. Equally, you can't substantiate your silly "gang" assertion, the default setting when you're rattled. Jim and I rarely communicate off-forum, in fact I can't remember the last time we did. The trouble with blokes like you on the far right is that you assume that all lefties are trammelled into thinking the same way and slavishly follow the same ideological code. Well we don't, and you don't get it.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Sep 18 - 05:37 AM

I regard both 'Genocide' and 'Massacre' as having specific meanings - both deliberate inhuman acts of mass murder

The dropping of two atomic weapons on two cities full of civilians I regard as 'mass murder' -massacres rather than genocide
I regard the slaughter of peasants by engulfing them in burning petrol massacres......
I regard mismanagement odf economic policies, or ruthless political policies as neither - they are neither genocide or mass murder, rather, they are comparable to wars (just or unjust) to achieve an aim
Both can be reprehensible, depending on their objective
It is noticeable that those who choose to misuse such terms refuse to discuss the objectives of any of these

Robomatic fespays an ignorance of politics of breathtaking proportions - he used the death of people to defend the death of more people
How about facing up to your own country's despotic behavior - you might start with the genocide of native Americans in order to create the mess that is Modern America
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Sep 18 - 02:12 PM

https://allthatsinteresting.com/boer-war#34


Jim go ahead and take the present and near future personally,
but not history. It makes you look bad.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Raedwulf
Date: 18 Sep 18 - 02:50 PM

Raedwulf, please drop the personal attacks and abuse.

Keith - I'll be sure to let you know IF I start, since I know you are unable to tell the difference. {Hint: If someone says something that Keith doesn't like, that doesn't make it a personal attack or abuse} For the rest of it. Veni, vidi, wondered why I'd bother. Not tonight, Josephine! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Sep 18 - 03:18 PM

Raedwulf, I made one brief post which was factual and accurate.
In reply I got this abusive post from you. Why?

"Anther thread Keithed. It was all going so swimmingly up to now, even though Jim insists on continuing to squabble...

Fuck off, Keith. The atrocities attributed to the Germans in WWI (I presume you're referring to WWI rather WWII, but as per fucking usual, you're so damn inaccurate...) were PROPAGANDA. You gullible idiot. Same as the bullshit lies the Germans came out with - "We only invaded Belgium because..." "We only shoot Belgians because..." "You lot used gas first, we only retaliated, honest, guv..." (I have no idea what the German equivalent of 'guv' is...)

Do you know or understand anything at all, Keith? Or do your fingers just type of their own accord without reference to whatever passes for your brain? "

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Sep 18 - 03:39 PM

keith relax, it looks like bi polar from here.
Besides you don't need some yahoos to define you

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Sep 18 - 04:00 PM

I don't mind admitting I'm either wrong or in the wrong (a subtle difference that probably escapes you),

No. You were "wrong" when you denied the Kaiser's atrocities in Belgium, and "in the wrong" when you told me to "fuck off" plus all the other undeserved abuse you posted about my brief, factual and accurate post.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Raggytash
Date: 18 Sep 18 - 04:00 PM

I've got mine ready, hope you're going to use BOTH barrels !!!

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Raggytash
Date: 18 Sep 18 - 04:05 PM

Someone turn the house lights down, quickly please.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 Sep 18 - 06:48 PM

Raggytash, I'm not entirely sure what your last post means,
but I have PM'd He Who Must Not Be Named.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 01:50 AM

Raedwulf, I think you crossed the line on that last post, so I deleted it. Keith isn't the one killing this thread. He just expressed an opinion that was contrary to yours, and you came unglued. Now, get back to the topic of discussion and stop attacking each other, or we'll have to close the thread. That would be too bad, because it's an interesting topic. There's now a "yellow card" on this thread. Any moderator who sees any more shenanigans here, is encouraged to close the thread.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 04:59 AM

There were undoubtedly atrocities carried out in Belgium, to some of us, a war based on sending men agaist each other for five years to be slaughtered in the mud was the greatest atrocity of all
The deplorable fact that those atrocities were deliberately ed to facilitate a bigger one makes WW1 the killfest is was
This sums up how the propaganda was used to send so many millions more to their deaths

"Agreeing with the analysis of historian Susan Kingsley Kent, historian Nicoletta Gullace writes that "the invasion of Belgium, with its very real suffering, was nevertheless represented in a highly stylized way that dwelt on perverse sexual acts, lurid mutilations, and graphic accounts of child abuse of often dubious veracity." In Britain, many patriotic publicists propagated these stories on their own. For example, popular writer William Le Queux described the German army as "one vast gang of Jack-the-Rippers", and described in graphic detail events such as a governess hanged naked and mutilated, the bayoneting of a small baby, or the "screams of dying women", raped and "horribly mutilated" by German soldiers, accusing them of cutting off the hands, feet, or breasts of their victims."

EXCELLENT SUMMING UP HERE

The sickest thing of all was that the "Gallant Little Belgium" that was used to send so many millions to ther deaths has, not so long before, slaughtered ten million Congolese and cut the hands off countless numbers of others, in pursuit of rubber to make an Emperor wealthy
Ignoring an atrocity to bring about another atrocity, if ever there was one

People who present one as an atrocity and staunchly defend the other (as some have done here interminably) really do have no case
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 06:22 AM

People who present one as an atrocity and staunchly defend the other (as some have done here interminably)

Really? Quote please.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 06:24 AM

Too well known to have to Keith - even they know who they are
How about addressing the points ?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 06:31 AM

We are discouraged from discussing WW1 anymore Jim, but I will answer your "points" if you start another WW1 thread.

People who present one as an atrocity and staunchly defend the other (as some have done here interminably)

No-one has done that.
Quote them if you can. Good luck with that.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 07:40 AM

I don't want you to answer my points Keith - I'm pretty sure nobody does
You say we are discouraged from discussing WW1 yet it was you who brought up the jingoist propaganda that encouraged people to enter a slaughter that wiped out entire generations
WW1 runs though this like Blackpool runs though rock
One side (naming no names) takes sides and describes it as a well-led fight for freedom
The other believes it to be five years off slaughter to maintain Empires
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 08:53 AM

The original poster, I believe,
gave this thread the title that it has
in order to highlight the book of the same title.

I guess the thread title preface 'review' might have made things more specific,
but otherwise the focus was clear enough.
With or without the 'review' indicator,
the focus was to be on the book and the subject of the book.

The Guardian review copied by Joe Offer
does mention the title of another book,
and the book conforms to the subject of the original post.
That other book might be worth looking into.
I wonder if the ADEFRA activists know of the "die fighting" book.

The ADEFRA activists, and the survivors and victims for whom they advocate,
might be worth a thread of their very own.
There would be a lot of German, unfortunately,
as that is the language spoken by these activists.

I dare to hope that such a thread
might be an improvement over this one.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 01:02 PM

it was you who brought up the jingoist propaganda

I have posted nothing that could be so described.
Another lie Jim. Why not just respond to what I actually say, or say nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 08:24 PM

C'mon. The accusations don't help the discussion. I wonder why World War I would a prohibited topic in this thread. Seems to me, that WWI was a major factor in bringing the Kaiser's colonialism to an end, although European colonialism was not otherwise significantly diminished until the 1960s.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 09:23 PM

Joe, Raggytash, or wysiwyg might be amongst those
interested in this English-language article:

Cameroon-German lecturer at Howard University

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Sep 18 - 09:32 PM

And then there is
A History of Black People in Germany

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Sep 18 - 04:15 AM

"Seems to me, that WWI was a major factor in bringing the Kaiser's colonialism to an end, "
World War one and The Easter Rising in Ireland (one brought about the other) that it brought about were the beginning of the end of Imperial system - a year late the Russian people walked away from the front and said enough was enough and four years after the war ended, Britain's oldest colony left the Empire (almost)
The rise of fascism in Germany was the death throes of the system of Empire
THat, for me, is the reason all these subjects are related
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Iains
Date: 20 Sep 18 - 05:11 AM

"Britain's oldest colony left the Empire (almost)"

Rubbish!
Ireland was one of the three kingdoms of James I of England, VI of Scotland (the others being England and Scotland — England including Wales at the time). He was king of Ireland, it was part of his realm, not a foreign colony. Ireland has never been a British colony.
Politically it was the Kingdom of Ireland under the British monarch until 1801, then part of the United Kingdom until 1922.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Sep 18 - 05:13 AM

It was a colony in all but name -it was ruled from Westminster
Which neatly sidesteps the point of the posting (not)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Iains
Date: 20 Sep 18 - 05:30 AM

Well there is a lot of controversy over the true definition of colony and whether Ireland fits the definition. Since william the conqueror is England a colony of France? At a stretch it could be argued within the pale was partially colonised. Does that define it as a colony?
There are several possible candidates for "earlier colonies" than Ireland. These are the English "possessions" in France.

Normandy, of course (unless we want to count England as a Norman colony), the duchies of Gascony and Aquitaine, the Counties of Anjou, Poitou, Maine, Touraine, Saintonge, Marche, Perigord, Limousin, Nantes and Quercy. In short, the Angevin Empire in France.

We could also possibly count Wales (or at least the Welsh Marches) as an early English Colony, and Cornwall.

Later, after the first English lordship of Ireland, but before the second English Kingdom of Ireland, Calais in France was an "English Colony" from 1347 to 1558.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Sep 18 - 05:45 AM

I really have no intention of allowing you to turn this into a discussion of Ireland
Irleland was culturally ann politically oppressed as a 'holding' of Britain longer than any other country - end of story

Back to reality
The first thing you notice when you begin to take an interest in Modern history is how much has been left out - even suppressed
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Sep 18 - 10:17 AM

I really have no intention of allowing you to turn this into a discussion of Ireland

Then why did you raise the issue?

-it was ruled from Westminster

Like every other part of Britain, and like every other part it sent its own representatives to Westminster.

that WWI was a major factor in bringing the Kaiser's colonialism to an end,

Yes, ending abuses such as those mentioned in the OP.
It treated the parts of Belgium and France it occupied as colonies, rounding up thousands and shipping them to Germany as slave labour.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Sep 18 - 01:38 PM

"Then why did you raise the issue?"
How dare you comment on what I reaised
I mentioned it in passing - not to carry out a discussion with a pair of anti-Irish racists who talk about bogtrotters and brainwashed children
Mind your own business
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Raggytash
Date: 20 Sep 18 - 01:50 PM

hoops Jim, ever more hoops.

Sadly the topic I wanted to know more about has been swamped by other issues (and before I am accused by the usual people, you are part of this)

I've got another list of books to read before I can get to "Kaisers Holocuast" (oh look Nigel I mis-typed it again) so more knowledge on this will have to wait a week or three.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Sep 18 - 01:55 PM

Raggytash, rather than trying to limit what other people say, why not say more yourself about the topic you wish to discuss? Guide by adding, not by restricting.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Raggytash
Date: 20 Sep 18 - 02:36 PM

Joe,

The reason I was trying to limit this thread to the Kaiser's Holocaust was because the conversation had lurched into WW1, the German invasion of Belgium and the abuse of the Belgium Congo all of which have been discussed, at length, ad nauseum on numerous occasions.

The Kaiser's holocaust was a subject I had not heard of previously and, hopefully, like other people I wish to expand my knowledge.

Obviously I was mistaken, that is not a view shared by some on here, and they want to rattle on about the same old tropes again.

Sadly I can only presume you are one of them.

Truly I am disappointed, I'll go back to the books.

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Sep 18 - 03:01 PM

"I've got another list of books to read before I can get to "Kaisers Holocuast" "
No harm in that Rag
Add 'The Kings Depart' to the top - one of the best books (the best in my experience) of the disastrous consequences of th fall of the German Empire and the near revolution between the wars
Like my dad once said about 'Grapes of Wrath' - if you haven't read it, you're lucky - you've got it to look forward to
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Sep 18 - 02:41 AM

Many of us could be interested in the topic you specified, Raggytash. But instead of trying to restrict what others say, what further information can you find to share with us on the topic?

When I lived in Berlin, I expected that every black person I encountered would be an American, most likely a soldier. I was surprised to meet a few black people who spoke perfect, unaccented German. I'm supposing they might be descendants of nations colonized by 19th century Germany.

Joe

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Sep 18 - 04:19 AM

Two books that marked the being and the end of the Imperial system

THE KINGS DEPART
and
WOLVES IN THE CITY

The first shows how the German people took up arms against the system that had slaughtered so many people and narrowly failed to create a worker's republic
The second is an account of the revolt of the French Army against a Government which had realised the days of Empire were over and marched on Paris with the intention of establishing a military regime - reads like fiction
Both still available
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Sep 18 - 04:19 AM

Should read beginning of the end
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust
From: Raggytash
Date: 22 Sep 18 - 11:32 AM

Joe, I have not said more because I know next to nothing about the subject.

I was hoping to learn more by opening a thread on the subject.

Is that really too difficult to grasp?

Talking of other atrocities in different wars, in different parts of the globe does not enhance my knowledge of the Kaiser's Holocaust.

Again, is that too difficult to grasp?

Those subjects have been discussed again and again ........ and again.

So I ask the question again, does anyone know anything about "The Kaiser's Holocaust"