#Really wanted to do something to commemorate one of the main sources of comfort from my culture alongside my special

[loverboygordon]

Felíz día de muertos from the science team!! chumbala cachumbala ca-chum-ba-lA!! :}

[meinkampfortzone]

Who Was Hans-Joachim Marseille’s Fiancee?: An Opinion-Based Commentary, Part 2

(cont. from Part 1): 

HJM’s Family’s Attitude Toward Hanne-Lies

So one of the things I noticed when I first started getting curious about finding out who HJM’s fiancee was was the fact that she seemed so comfortable around his mom. That was, in fact, one of the first indicators to me that she was a bit older than him, other than her face. Had she been around his age, most of their interactions would have taken place outside of the house, away from his parents, so that they could make the most of their time alone together. That was, in fact, the norm among young people in the 40s, especially with the growing availability of cars which made getting around a lot easier and faster. When in the presence of each others’ parents, both parties had to act very reserved toward each other, and refrain from things such as holding hands or kissing, etc. (their parents would have been from the generation born in the 1800s, where doing things like that in public was inappropriate and prospective couples were meant to act with restraint when together). Therefore, the fact that 85% of the interactions between Hanne-Lies and HJM (except for the outing in Bad Saarow and their trip to Rome) took place at his parents’ apartment in Berlin was something that stood out to me. I took this to mean that Hanne-Lies was either a friend of the family or mature enough to want to spend time with and build a relationship with her future mother-in-law. As my research later proved, the latter ended up being true. 

After Hans-Joachim Marseille’s death, Hanne-Lies was allowed to live in Bad Saarow in Charlotte Marseille’s summer house that she owned there. I found this strange because Hanne-Lies had only known HJM and subsequently his family for approximately 7 months (they met in March 1942; he died in September 1942), which was hardly a long enough time for Charlotte Marseille to get to trust her enough to give her her house and allow her to live in it. Hanne-Lies remained in that house, keeping it as her main residence, until she got married in 1944 to former LSSAH member Martin Stephani. This led me to think that perhaps, like her son, Charlotte Marseille saw something in Hanne-Lies that reminded her of her dead daughter Inge, and due to the fact that she had lost her daughter so recently, she built a good relationship with Hanne-Lies. After HJM died, I believe that Charlotte Marseille sort of saw Hanne-Lies as the last thing she had left of her deceased son, and decided to let her have the house and stay there for as long as she needed as a sort of gesture of goodwill.

This is a picture of HJM at a bar in Berlin called the Regina Bar (between the two girls) and Hanne-Lies (at the other end of the table). This was taken during his leave in 1942, during which he met Hanne-Lies and became engaged to her. Notice that even in the presence of his fiancee HJM has no issue cozying up to other women. Judging by the look on her face, she doesn’t seem too pleased about it either. 

HJM’s Comrades/Contemporaries’ Attitudes/Opinions Concerning His Engagement

Another thing that I find sort of striking is the complete lack of commentary on the part of HJM’s comrades and friends concerning his engagement, or rather, his lack of commitment to his fiancee. According to Colin Heaton, the news of HJM’s engagement “shocked” those who knew him, only because of his playboy nature. However, once that shock subsided, and everyone saw HJM going back to his old ways and sleeping with various women, not one of his comrades thought to mention how they found it strange that he was engaged and yet having all of these publicized affairs. Although sex outside of marriage, etc. was common in the 1940s, it wasn’t until the 1980s that it became the norm. Up until then, infidelity and sexual promiscuity was kept carefully under wraps, more so for women than men. However, back in those days engagement was essentially a binding contract--the couple was considered married for all intents and purposes until they actually went and legally tied the knot. I found it strange that Marseille’s comrades and those who knew him, when interviewed about him, had no problem talking about his various sexual escapades but didn’t mention how he still did these things while he was engaged. I would have expected at least one of them to mention how it was strange that he continued to do this even after he was committed to one woman. It was almost as if the existence of Hanne-Lies in HJM’s life was unknown to them. This led me to believe that maybe HJM never bothered to tell anyone he was engaged or probably only mentioned it in passing and never really made a big deal about it, or perhaps his comrades knew that this was just part of his nature and that it was foolish to think that he could ever be faithful to one person. 

When asked to describe the nature of HJM and Hanne-Lies’ relationship, Hans-Rudolf Marseille (HJM’s half-brother) proceeded to talk about how he convinced her to go to Rome. 

Of all the things he could have said that would demonstrate that they really loved each other and that there was something between them, he chose this anecdote, which really doesn’t demonstrate anything between them. 

Even the members of the Nazi high command who had interacted with Marseille, when interviewed by Colin Heaton, had no issue talking about how, when receiving a complaint from an Italian officer who stated that Marseille had “violated the family honor”, they all had a good laugh about it, and one of them even said, “Damn it, Marseille, have some shame, man.” However, none of them bothered to point out that this was going on while he was engaged, which was something he had even mentioned to Hermann Goering. Overall, none of the members of the high-ranking Nazi hierarchy seemed surprised at his behavior in the slightest.

Some Miscellaneous Points 

1- All of the people who were close to HJM gave interviews about him or attended events commemorating him and gave speeches/contributed to the event in some way, shape, or form. Many of the primary sources used in Colin Heaton’s book come from interviews conducted with many of Marseille’s comrades, such as Eduard Neumann, Ludwig Franzisket, and Emil Clade. Marseille’s mother, Charlotte, attended the premier of the 1957 film “Stern von Afrika”, and an article appeared in Der Spiegel featuring her and the actor who played her son, Joachim Hansen. In the article, she thanks Hansen for his stellar portrayal of her son. 

Hans-Rudolf Marseille assisted authors and historians writing and researching about HJM, such as Franz Kurowski and Walter Wubbe, and also gave interviews, snippets of which were included in a 1999 documentary about HJM’s life. It was because of the efforts of Eduard Neumann and other airmen who had flown with Marseille that a set of Luftwaffe barracks in Appen were renamed the “Marseille Barracks” (Marseille-Kaserne in German). Even Marseille’s batman, Mathew “Matthias” Letulu, gave an eulogy for Marseille in Germany during a ceremony held at the monument for Marseille in the Egyptian desert. 

The only person who had been closer to him than most of the people mentioned above, his ex-fiancee, was strangely absent from all of these efforts. Other than making an appearance at the 1967 Fighter Pilots’ Reunion event at Furstenfeldbruck, where she attended as a guest of honor with Charlotte Marseille (and this appearance isn’t even documented, as there are no photos of her at the event), she never gave any interviews about her ex-fiance, nor did she contribute to the efforts being made by those who knew him to keep his memory alive. 

2- During his interview, Hans-Rudolf Marseille showed a plethora of letters he had collected that had been sent by HJM to various members of his family--his mother, his sister, even his father. Some of these letters were reproduced and included in Walter Wubbe’s book “Hauptmann Marseille”. But with regards to any written correspondence between Hanne-Lies and HJM, there are absolutely no letters or anything whatsoever between them. Given the fact that they got engaged during one of HJM’s leaves, and they only saw each other once more after that when he was on vacation, it would make sense that they would be constantly writing to each other. Yet there doesn’t seem to be any sort of correspondence between them, at least as far as Hans-Rudolf Marseille’s cache of letters is concerned. The only testament to their relationship is the scarf that Hanne-Lies gave to HJM, and the photo she gave him of herself with “Ich habe dich sehr liebe!!” written on the back. 

3- When I read that Hanne-Lies had given HJM a picture of herself with “Ich habe dich sehr liebe” written on the back, I was curious because “Ich liebe dich” is “I love you” in German. Thus, I set out to find the difference in meaning between “Ich habe dich liebe” and “Ich liebe dich.” I found an answer to this on a German language learning forum that I’ll include below. 

In Closing...

When I think of what Hans-Joachim Marseille’s love life should have looked like, I immediately think of the relationship between Alain Delon and Romy Schneider (not how it ended, Alain cheated on her with another woman and she refused to get back together with him, but just how aesthetically pleasing they were and how big of a power couple they were in the years they were together.)

 I believe that he only got engaged to Hanne-Lies because of the emotional turmoil he was going through at the time. I think that even if they had gotten married, their marriage would have never lasted long. After all, grief isn’t forever, and eventually he would have realized that with that therapist aspect gone, there isn’t actually anything that binds him to Hanne-Lies at all. Hanne-Lies, too, would have had a hard time putting up with his infidelity and flighty personality, especially since she would have been reaching that age when she wants to have children and start a family and settle down (she was almost 30 when she got engaged to HJM). I honestly just wish that Inge Marseille wouldn’t have died so that HJM could have actually gone and found someone who had the personality and temperament to be his other half. I feel like, had he met someone like that, they would literally have been the power couple of the Third Reich. 

I’d love to hear your guys’ comments/opinions regarding this in the comments. Thanks for reading!

[duchesscambridges]

'I can feel the hugs she used to give us': Prince Harry remembers Diana

The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry have spoken as never before about Diana, Princess of Wales, in an interview designed to teach a new generation about their mother.

The brothers, now aged 35 and 32, have given the most intimate insight yet into their childhood, as they opened their family photo album for the nation. In a 90-minute documentary, featuring the Princess's closest family and friends, the Duke and Prince will bring their mother's memory to life, detailing her efforts to give them a normal childhood, her final letters and phone call, and her love of pranks.

They share her own photograph album, found earlier this year and containing pictures of the brothers as children, as the Duke speaks of how he felt her presence as a source of comfort before his 2011 wedding to Catherine Middleton. It will reveal how their parents' divorce left them constantly travelling between houses, that their mother's death was like an "earthquake", and how the Queen was at one point so concerned she took friends aside to check on the Princess.

Introducing the film at a Kensington Palace screening, the Duke said he and his younger brother had never spoken so frankly in public before, explaining that the 20th anniversary of the Princess's death in August felt like an "appropriate time to open up a bit more".

"We won't be doing this again," he said. "We won't speak as openly and publicly about her again, because we feel that hopefully this film will provide the other side: from her closest family and friends, that you might not have heard before, from those who knew her best, and those who want to protect her memory and want to remind people of the person she was; the warmth, the humour, and what she was like as a mother.

"Harry and I feel very strongly that we want to celebrate her life, and this is a tribute from her sons to her."

Sitting with Prince Harry to look at photographs and talk about memories had been "cathartic", he added.

As well as her sons, the film also features the Princess's brother, Earl Spencer, who speaks frankly about how the bitter divorce of their parents affected her; Sir Elton John, who sang at her funeral, and a host of friends. The Duke and Prince have also taken part in a BBC documentary, due out later this year and focusing specifically on the week following the car crash that killed the Princess in Paris in 1997. They marked what would have been her 56th birthday last month by rededicating her grave at Althorp, the Spencer family home, and will commemorate the anniversary of her death in August.

"We want her legacy to live on in our work, and we feel this is an appropriate way of doing that," said the Duke.

The ITV film opens with the Duke and Prince leafing though the Princess's photograph album. Prince Harry tells his brother: "Part of me never really wanted to look at them and part of me was waiting to find the right time where we could sit down and look at them together." One shows him on his first day of school, while another captures a beach holiday, where he is hugged tightly by his mother.

"She would just engulf you and squeeze you as tight as possible," he recalls, speaking to camera. "And being as short as I was then, there was no escape, you were there and you were there for as long as she wanted to hold you. Even talking about it now I can feel the hugs that she used to give us and I miss that. I miss that feeling, I miss that part of a family, I miss having that mother to be able to give you those hugs and give you that compassion that I think everybody needs."

The Queen was so concerned about the Princess in her low points that she took a friend aside quietly at Balmoral to talk about her.

Harry Herbert, whose father was the 7th Earl of Carnarvon and racing manager to the Queen, says: "After a lunch at Balmoral and going [on a walk] up high and looking down on to this beautiful setting of heather and castle, [we had] an incredibly important chat. A very personal chat. And the Queen wanted to know how was Diana feeling, and was it as bad as it was? It was a sad discussion, a sad moment really because that was everything at its worst."

But he said he had visited the Princess when she was struggling, and even then her face would "light up" when her sons came "thundering" into her room.

Before the trauma of the Princess's death, Prince William and Prince Harry endured the fall-out from their parents' divorce, finalised in 1996 after a long and public battle.

"The two of us were bouncing between the two of them... we never saw our mother enough or we never saw our father enough," Prince Harry says.

"There was a lot of travelling and a lot of fights on the back seat with my brother, which I would win. So there was all of that to contend with. And I don't pretend that we're the only people to have to deal with that, but it was an interesting way of growing up."

Exploring the Princess's main causes, from HIV awareness to homelessness, the film also reveals her final, incomplete challenge: landmines.

Prince Harry tells how he found a "whole series" of letters around a month ago; dated Aug 31, 1997 and waiting for her signature.

"She knew exactly what needed to be done," her youngest son says. "And it's only recently over the years that I've actually really understood the effect that she was having in those areas and on an international scale as well."

In the film, he speaks with two young victims of landmines in Bosnia, telling them they had seen his mother more recently than he had, as she had made the visit before going on holiday to Paris just a few weeks later.

In a light-hearted moment, Prince Harry speaks with mock fury about the outfits he was compelled to wear as a child. The two young boys were photographed regularly in an array of elaborate and old-fashioned clothes.

"I genuinely think that she got satisfaction out of dressing myself and William up in the most bizarre outfits," he says. "Normally matching. It was weird shorts and, like, little sorts of shiny shoes with the old clip on. I just think, 'how could you do that to us?'"

Eventually, the princes began to rebel, with William first refusing to match his brother and then Harry taking a stand. "I like to think that she had great fun in dressing us up," Prince Harry says. "I'm sure that wasn't it, but I sure as hell am going to dress my kids up the same way."

The Princess, her sons say, tried valiantly to teach them about a normal life, despite their privileges.

"She made the decision that no matter what, despite all the difficulties of growing up in that limelight and on that stage, she was going to ensure that both of us had as normal a life as possible," says Prince Harry.

"And if that means taking us for a burger every now and then, or sneaking us into the cinema, or driving through the country lanes with the roof down of her old-school BMW listening to Enya, I think it was... all of that was part of her being a mum."

Described as a "total kid through and through" by Prince Harry, the Princess attempted to embarrass her sons at every opportunity, from sending rude cards to them at school to roping in models to help her.

Prince William tells how he once returned home, aged 12 or 13, to find Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell, the fashion models, waiting at the top of the stairs.

"I went red and didn't quite know what to say and sort of fumbled, and I think I pretty much fell down the stairs on the way up," he says. "I was completely and utterly sort of awestruck. But that was a very funny memory."

At other times, he says she would post him "the rudest cards you can imagine" to boarding school, leaving him in fear of being spotted by a teacher.

Prince Harry recalls how she would smuggle sweets into their socks when she came to watch them playing football. He says: "One of her mottos to me was 'you can be as naughty as you want, just don't get caught'."

If she excelled as a mother, the Princess would have been an "absolute nightmare" as a grandmother, the Duke jokes. Saying he is "constantly" mentioning "Granny Diana" at home, he has also mounted photographs so Prince George and Princess Charlotte learn about her. "It's hard because obviously Catherine didn't know her, so she cannot really provide that level of detail," he says. "So I do regularly put George or Charlotte to bed, talk about her and just try and remind them that there are two grandmothers - there were two grandmothers - in their lives."

He adds: "She'd love the children to bits, but she'd be an absolute nightmare. She'd come and go and she'd come in probably at bath time, cause an amazing amount of scene."

The Princess's death, the Duke says, was like an "earthquake". "There's not many days that go by that I don't think of her, you know - sometimes sad, sometimes very positively," he notes.

"You know, I have a smile every now and again when someone says something and I think, that's exactly what she would have said, or she would have enjoyed that comment. So they always live with you, people you lose like that. My mother lives with me every day."

Prince Harry says: "There's not a day that William and I don't wish that she was still around."

He concludes: "You know, and of course as a son I would say this, she was the best mum in the world."

Source