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Old April 22, 2010, 04:11 PM   #76
Lavid2002
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Very cool : D
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Old April 27, 2010, 01:52 PM   #77
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Beware using the History Channel for information, after Monster Quest, anything I see there is suspect.
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Old May 2, 2010, 12:52 AM   #78
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Hi all, guess I'm new and it's odd to have my first post go in this thread, but I just can't help myself.

Yes the lipstick case story is true, they were purchased as lipstick cases from France and also copper sheet was purchased to manufacture the cases in Israel.

About 2 million 9mm cartridges were made in "the Ayalon institute" the headstamp was EA (for Eretz Israel "land of Israel" and A for Ayalon).

While I'm not exactly sure what machines they had there my understanding is that they had everything necessary to turn copper sheet into cartridges and turn the cases into cartridges.

The idea I believe actually came from Australia, which did the reverse. A company that had made lipstick cases before WWII had switched to the manufacture of ammo.

http://150.theage.com.au/view_bestof...pe=1&intid=746

I'm not sure where the idea came from that lipstick cases would be too thin, my grandmother had a few from the 40's and they were pretty solid...it wasn't the same disposable culture as it is today, the cases were often engraved and given as gifts, the lipstick itself was replaceable. It was normally sold in just wax paper.

I would think in the time frame most of this went on 1944-1948 lipstick cases were quite probably made the exact thickness of some sort of ammo, since there were probably many trainloads of brass sheet scattered across Europe that was on its way to make ammo that had lost all demand right after the war.

I would imagine that anyone wanting to buy exports from Europe of brass sheeting, or worked brass would find many people very happy to sell. I would also imagine that there were still a large number of displaced persons and others who spent their time picking up empty brass to get a bit of eating money.

By 1948 things were back in boom in the US, but Europe was not in such good shape

My understanding is that some of the cases were given as gifts to the British soldiers to help allay doubts

As to the original topic, while it does sound like it has a number of possible holes, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. I met a man who survived in the camps by repairing soldiers watches with minimal tools (no actual tools from his trade), he had made an entire pocketwatch out of various bits of scrap and hid it in the camp hoping he might get some chance to use it as a bribe or to trade after the war if he survived. I met him back in the 1980's and he still carried the watch. Apparently he filed the gears with flecks of stone. He said it saved his life by giving him something else to focus on during those years.

Never underestimate what people are capable of doing (or achieving) when their back is really to the wall.
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Old May 28, 2010, 10:29 AM   #79
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As to the support of the German people, I will say again that there was almost no resistance to the Nazis even before Hitler gained absolute control; only toward the end was support gained through fear. After the Rheinland incident, Hitler called for a plebicite and got a resounding victory (I think it was 98.5%) in a free election with a large turnout. And don't forget that all those tens of thousands of people cheering, crying, and screaming "Sieg Heil" were NOT bussed in or forced to attend the rallies (unlike the practice in the USSR or modern China); they were there because they wanted to be there to cheer their hero.
This seems correct. Let's recall that we are not discussing a culture in which, unlike this board's population, people thought about government and authority in terms of its limits.

Germans had emerged from national humiliation and poverty that made our Great Depression seem mild. They had also recently been deprived of their kaiser, and been handed a democracy that fit like a cheap suit. To a politically unsophistocated population a fellow of Hilter's carisma and political acumen must have seemed a sort of national saviour.

I've read a vignette about prussian attitudes. A prisoner at the turn of the prior century is drilled in army maneuvers by the officer running the prison. He gets out with an exhaustive knowledge of how an officer of that time and place conducts himself. He procures a uniform, finds a contingent of soldiers, walks them into a bank, and orders the bank personnel to assist the soldiers in turning the money over to him.

All comply because...he was a prussian officer and his actions were, therefore, correct. The idea that "I was following orders" would not be a complete legal defense was genuinely baffling to people of this background.

Sadly this applied to jews as well. Lots of german jews (who were often more assimilated than the jews of other places) hopped onto trains because they received a notice in the mail to do so. They weren't culturally set up to ask "Why would I comply with this order from the State?"

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The best explanation is that they were caught up in the moment,...
I've heard this before, but don't like it. It's a sort of political insanity defense. They were caught up in the moment for what, seven, eight years? That's not a moment.

"My country went to war and I answered" seems to more closely match what happened. I've prussian family killed and impoverished by the NSists, but the fact of enormous tragedy doesn't make what unfolded especially mysterious, imo.
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Old May 28, 2010, 01:35 PM   #80
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As to the support of the German people, I will say again that there was almost no resistance to the Nazis even before Hitler gained absolute control; only toward the end was support gained through fear. After the Rheinland incident, Hitler called for a plebicite and got a resounding victory (I think it was 98.5%) in a free election with a large turnout.
I think you need to go back and read a few history books. There was actually a fair amount of resistance to the Nazis before Hitler gained control of Germany, and Hitler and the Nazis NEVER achieved a 98.5% vote in any election.

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Old May 28, 2010, 09:07 PM   #81
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Hi, Darren,

Perhaps it is you who need to beat the books a little. I did use the wrong word in referring to the referendum (not plebiscite) following the Rheinland remilitarization in 1936. On March 7, 1936, Hitler dissolved the Reichstag and called for a new election which included a referendum on the Rheinland move. While "elections" in any dictatorship are suspect, William L. Shirer (who was there) says there were some irregularities and some fear of the consequences of voting against the Nazis, but he had no doubt that support for the Nazis was overwhelming. In the event, the official count for the "Ja" vote approving Hitler's actions was 98.8% with 99% of the 45.4 million registered voters going to the polls. (Figures from "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", by William L. Shirer)

There was also a plebiscite (the correct term, this time) in the Rheinland itself, which was German, with some 90% favoring the remilitarization.

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Old May 28, 2010, 10:39 PM   #82
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I'll have to see if I can find which book it was again and it is also in one episode of the military channels World at War series but not all jews that fought or killed germans were shot on the spot, A large number in one of the ghettos had smuggled in weapons and one day started fighting and killing the local german garrison and killed quite a number of them and it took some time for the germans to overtake the ghetto
Once they did and had captured the resistance fighters all jews in the ghetto weather guilty or not were sent straight to death camps.
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Old May 31, 2010, 06:27 PM   #83
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Jim Keenan is correct, the German public voted support for Hitler in huge numbers. Of course not all were allowed to register or vote. Communists, Jews, and other enemies of the state were not oout voting. Notwithstanding that, the German people supported HItler and the NSDAP, especially around the Rhineland remilitarization. Many considered him uncouth, a "provincial", and were a little wary of his more demonstrative speeches and policies, but he was bringing them out of the dark years of Versailles, inflation, and unemployment.

However not every policy was a tremendous success, the people, churches, and some big business could still voice their oppostiion, especially in the early years. Read about the Party's plan to kill off disabled Germans. The programs were curtailed, kept out of sight, and even stopped due to church and public opinion. As the German people followed Hitler down through the war, and the situation became more and more desperate, so did the risks you took to voice dissent.
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Old May 31, 2010, 06:57 PM   #84
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Hi Jim,

After reading your response I realized my reading comprehension must have took a nose dive as I thought you were referring to the years prior to Hitlers coming to power in 1933.

In that regard however my post still stands. There was not a tremendous amount of support for the Nazis prior to Hitler being appointed as Chancellor in 1933 or even for a couple of years after. As Bigjack59 pointed out many of their policies were met with lukewarm reception or outright disdain including among other things their scapegoating of the Jews. Even "Kristallnacht" was not a huge success.
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Old June 1, 2010, 04:42 PM   #85
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There is a pretty good summary of the rise of Naziism in Germany here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_timeline_of_Nazism

Remember that Germany had a parliamentary government (like England), so Hitler had to form a coalition with the conservative DNVP to form a government. From there on, it was mainly ruthless force by the Nazis. Most constitutions and laws assume some degree of honesty in public officials. Even the US, with all the suspicious nature of the founders, and all the checks and balances, could be susceptible to a president who uses a combination of politics and brute force to gain dictatorial power. Of course, the founders did put in one "if all else fails" paragraph - it is called the Second Amendment, and we should be highly skeptical of anyone who claims it is no longer needed.

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Old June 3, 2010, 07:50 AM   #86
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What you have is a ZIP gun.

What you have is a zip gun. There were guns improvised from a few items that were put together hastily in a variety of places and situations - especially in Poland.

You have to remember that many German enlisted men and officers were killed by political prisoners who were never detected as the killers, and most of those killings happened outside of the confines of the camps. These went around in groups, some of which were organized groups and some of which were improvised groups. At times, the groups fought each other, over food or over territorial issues. Many were in the partisan movements and fought with improvised weapons.

Auschwitz was a massive operation with many satelite camps. Many of the satelite camps supplied workers - many of whom were machine operators working metal projects. Quite a number of political prisoners were skilled machine operators in factories that made everything from tools to truck and place parts to weapon parts, etc, etc, etc. Not everyone who was sent to Auschwitz was placed in a killing center. Some were registered labor working on specific production goals. There were even some who made chemical components for primers and powders for small arms ammo, artillery, solid rocket propellants, etc, etc.

The workers were not always searched. In fact, weeks could go by and no searches took place. There were no metal detectors. Workers were awaken in a barracks, counted in a muster place, formed into columns and marched to their work station. At night, they were marched back to the muster place, counted, put on to barrack details and then sent in to sleep. Many weapons were manufactured. Many improvised explosives were manufactured. Many of these items were smuggled OUT as well as IN to the camps. There were partisan groups and resistance groups on the outside who needed product from the shops. There were also organized criminals operating who needed the weapons and product, often to trade.

There were also many weapons manufactured on the outside that were used in ghetto uprisings and assasinations. When political prisoners were taken, often participants in these uprisings were taken and the Germans having no idea who they had just rounded up, as was often the case. Many smuggled weapons in with them by simply bording a transport vehicle among a large group of prisoners. Most had not been able to bathe and due to this, some soldiers did not want to search them at all. Many were covered with lice, making smuggling all the easier.

Something else to keep in mind. A German NCO was also referred to as an "Officer" commonly in Europe. Those who patrolled the ghettos were often sniped at - especially at night - and many died. Often there was no way to find out who killed them. Many were stabbed to death, some beat to death, some shot, some pushed off of buildings, etc, etc. Even when patrolling in pairs, some were lost. When ghettos were liquidated, large numbers of the occupants were sent to a form of sortierungs platz - a sorting place -where they were classified as to usefulness to the Reich, based upon experience and occupation. Other sortierungs platz were to sort valuables, and not people. Many prisoners were simply not searched, or they buried items that they returned for later.

Yes, his story is entirely possible. He was obviously skilled enough to make a pistol....then he most probably had access to tools......and so was probably assigned to a production facility as a skilled laborer. Had he been old, or sick, or disabled or lacking certain needed industrial skills he would have been sent to a different division of the Auscwitz system.

Most of the Auschwitz system was captured by Russian troops, who simply set all workers free and all of the prisoners free. Many wandered the country side and many joined partisan groups. Some were too weak to leave and died of illness even after liberation. Russian forces had no food to spare, though there were some examples of Russian kindness that did take place. Many of thes prisoners later came into contact with American units who had plenty of food and rations to give and share. Sometimes prisoners traded with Americans for coats, trousers, shoes and boots especially.

There were hundreds of thousands wandering about the scene like the man you described who gave up the pistol. The story is entirely possible and probably was the truth.

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Old June 3, 2010, 02:22 PM   #87
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Forgive me, but I can't quite see a picture of such massive armed resistance that concentration camp inmates were smuggling guns OUT of the camps to huge armies of anti-Nazi resistance fighters. Yes, weapons were made in camps, and many were sabotaged in various ways, but I somehow doubt control was so lax that the camps became ordnance factories for an underground. That seems very unlikely even in Poland, and even less likely in Germany itself.

There was an active Polish underground; I knew a man who was part of it. But they had no illusions about being able to do more than irritate the German forces; they certainly could never have freed their country without an Allied military invasion. (That the invasion, when it came, was Russian, and the Poles were condemned to another 45 years of oppression is another story.)

Polish underground weapons did not come from concentration csmps, but from Russia and from the Germans themselves, plus fair numbers owned by Polish civilians or retained by Polish soldiers who melted into the civilian populace after the surrender. (They once took an American Thompson SMG from a German motorcycle messenger who unfortunately lost his head in an "accident". After trying it out, they threw it in a lake because there was no more ammo.)

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Old June 5, 2010, 08:35 AM   #88
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I got to piggyback on Mr. Keenan's comments. A thorough study of this history over the past thirty years has failed to turn up any such scenario. Undoubtably, the story is an embellishment, or worse. Zip gun killing twenty officers? Please. If you recall the person in question was sent to the camps for this. Hmmm, he kept the gun after he was arrested? Did he move all over Europe shooting these men, or did he shoot them in one locale? Either way, how did he move all around, and not get captures, or how did he killed twenty separate times without being captured earlier? Enough said.
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Old June 9, 2010, 09:27 PM   #89
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as far as the Polish underground.. well it was the best organized the largest and the deadlies underground organization/s during and after IIWW. In fact as Polish army did not surrender most of the Polish military structures went underground, gathering intelligence, manufacturing arms , documents.. et.c it was a military structure with ranks , divisions depts etc etc..lets not forget that things like the entire V rocket was captured and smugled bolt by bolt to London, by Polish underground.. after cracking the Enigma code by Poles ..Polish underground managed to send couple of complete Enigmas to London.. The Nazis were suffering so much from the underground that for any single German killed they would execute 100 Polish civilians any village linked to partizans would be burned with all citizens killed on the spot.. in Poland during the German occupation the roads would have all trees cut down and removed within 100 yards radius from each side to protect their convoys from the attacks from the underground troops. ...Same time no other country suffered as much as Poland did..imagine 9/11 with 99% of all New Yorks building destroyed!!! that is Warsaw after IIWW ... I have visited Warsaw in 1974 ..it was still being rebuilt after the IIWW .. Every fift citizen of Poland lost its life including newborn and the grandmas..turn around and count by five .. four will live the fift will die.. do it it is devastating.. The war started in September 1939 by the end of October between the nazis and soviets 93% of Polish Intelligencia was eliminated!!!!93% of all educated people .exterminated .. and that is a blow to the nation...the rest soviets finished after the war..
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Old June 10, 2010, 01:16 AM   #90
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Stunning description of the devastation wrought on Poland!

Best,
Oly
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Old June 10, 2010, 01:38 AM   #91
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I have visited Warsaw in 1974 ..it was still being rebuilt after the IIWW
wow! thats incredible! I didn't know Warsaw was destroyed THAT MUCH! seriously, this sounds sarcastic but it's not, I promise. I would assume German cities would still be being rebuilt in 1974, not a Polish city. Learn something new everyday, very interesting
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Old June 10, 2010, 05:52 PM   #92
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few pics of Warsaw during WW II

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obg2Hm2nS8g

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Old June 10, 2010, 05:57 PM   #93
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The Warsaw Uprising.. not to confuse with comparably very small Warsaw Getho uprising...
Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FraPAIvIOT0

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ0Vo0XMMzQ

Part3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BISs_0tHIoA

Part4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Wk7zRQLnCU

Part 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd6LExmjBe8

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Old June 10, 2010, 06:00 PM   #94
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Warsaw today...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulxQcGp0LoE
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Old June 10, 2010, 06:24 PM   #95
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" I would assume German cities would still be being rebuilt in 1974, not a Polish city."

The Poles did not get American aid to help them rebuild. They were under Soviet control and helping to rebuild Sovbloc cities was not high on the Russian priority list.

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Old June 10, 2010, 07:27 PM   #96
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Also, Didn't the russians envoke a policy of scorched earth on their way to Berlin? Meaning any Polish city they fought in they would have destroyed? I'm not sure, but... didn't the russian pass through warsaw?
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Old June 10, 2010, 07:46 PM   #97
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well.. the soviets actually stopped advancing to let the nazis finish off the warsaw...that would take a couple of pages to explain ..however in a few minutes everything is presented in the four above youtube videos about the Warsaw Uprising and the politics ...and the role of Soviet and German armies at the time.... only few minutes....

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Old June 10, 2010, 08:03 PM   #98
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So, the Soviets Didn't do anything to Warsaw? I'll watch those videos eventually, right now, it's not my forte with WWII history. Allied actions I know fairly well. I've been very interested in this thread, as it's the parts of the war that I didn't know about.

Edit: also, I thought Poland wasn't a Sovereign nation of the Soviet Pact (or however you call it) until after WWII. So... But, I'm interested in the Soviet policy of scorched earth in Poland, now. You've got me reading a lot now! Thanks!
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Old June 10, 2010, 09:23 PM   #99
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yes you are correct..untill the WW II Poland considered the Soviet Union as its nr.1 enemy..well looking through a prizm of so called Great War of 1920 between Poland and Soviets it could not be any other way...

yes it was not untill the end of WW II when Poland lost its independence becoming a part of the soviet block...
not untill the end of the war ..although the fate of Poland was decided earlier as early as in "Jalta" and "Teharan" when USA and Great Britain made deal with Stalin dividing the post war Europe ... unfortunately the deal was kept secret during the war..and Polish people were dying fighting with Soviets and Germans hoping to have a free country.. the world decided otherwise.. Poland was left ...betrayed and alone.....sad.

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Old June 11, 2010, 04:23 PM   #100
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Fighting in a city is not good for business, buildings, or the general welfare of the citizens. But "scorched earth" is practiced by retreating armies; advancing armies don't destroy what they have captured.

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