#die franz. fiancee

[lorenzlund]

per Kamera sich an ein zu filmendes Objekt heranzoomen (oder Person). Der auch private Filmemacher. der Zoom. die französische Braut oder Fiancee.

‚Nur eine dominante Nation fehlt komplett“ (die Deutsche Bank wählt sich einen neuen Vorstand). ,kunterbunte Regenbogennation‘. UNESCO Welt(kultur)erbe (Städte). Frankfurt/O. ist ,doppelter Stadtstaat‘.

Manfred Rommel (OB). dt. Innenminister Baum, Gerhard.

Auch Tanzen ist Sport. Männermode. Damenmode. True Crime.

[meinkampfortzone]

Behind Enemy Lines by James Dean Sanderson: Excerpt About HJM

So this is a screenshot I took of an excerpt of the book “Behind Enemy Lines” by James Sanderson. This book has a whole chapter dedicated to Marseille, and it also mentions his fiancee in detail (shown above). 

Based off of my other sources that I’ve read about Marseille’s fiancee and the overall timeline of his life, the information given in this book is more or less correct; however, there are a few discrepancies that I’m going to point out. 

First of all, the correct stuff: Marseille’s fiancee’s name was indeed Hanneliese Bahar (however, it’s spelled Hanne-Lies, and she only used that name as her stage name in her budding acting career; in real life she went by Hanne-Lies Kupper).  Hanne-Lies did go to Rome with Marseille to get the medal from Mussolini, and he did tell Hanne-Lies that story about how Mussolini wasn’t shaved, etc. (this was confirmed by Hans-Rudolf Marseille, who said that Hanne-Lies later told him this story).  She also did give him a picture of herself with “Ich hab dich (sehr) lieb!” written on the back, and according to Walter Wubbe, Marseille kept it with him at all times. 

Now for the incorrect stuff: Marseille didn’t meet Hanne-Lies in Augsburg; he was nowhere near Augsburg during the time he met Hanne-Lies because during that time he was recuperating in Berlin from his illnesses he contracted in Africa. During the visit to Mussolini, Marseille was definitely not “more embarrassed than honored--according to Colin Heaton, Marseille turned to Count Chiani during the ceremony and said, “That man sure thinks a lot of himself, doesn’t he?” After the ceremony was over, Marseille did not “fly off to Africa”; he was meant to take a plane back, whose takeoff was delayed because of bad weather. When the plane did take off, Marseille was not on board, and it was later discovered that he had deserted. He was found in a village in the suburbs of Rome and had to be convinced to rejoin his unit. 

 For now, I’m not going to talk about the highlighted stuff or the stuff I underlined in red (I’ll talk more about that in my “Who Was HJM’s Fiancee” opinion commentary). However, I will say that just from reading this, it’s really obvious that HJM would never have even paid any attention to Hanne-Lies if his sister had still been alive when he met her, and that the main reason behind their engagement was that he was still in a lot of pain from what happened with his sister. 

It’s also obvious that these two other books (which I found while I was searching for “Behind Enemy Lines”) also used this book as a reference for the information they included about HJM’s fiancee, right down to the identical spelling of her name (albeit incorrectly). 

Behind Enemy Lines: written in 1944

Die beruhmten Me-109 und ihre Piloten: written in 1994

Hunters in the sky: written in 1991

They both say more or less the same thing: “HJM met Hanneliese Bahar; he fell in love with her and they got engaged; they planned to get married at Christmastime). 

Which brings me to another topic: I’m still trying to verify the source of information that states that “they planned to get married at Christmastime”. According to Franz Kurowski’s book, Marseille mentioned this to Erwin Rommel during a telephone call a few days before his death where he declined Rommel’s invitation to go back to Germany and attend an event with the Fuhrer. He said that he was saving his leave for December, when he planned to get married. Initially, I doubted the verity of this information, because how could anyone other than Marseille and Rommel have known what was said in the telephone call between them? But then I realized that Marseille may have told someone else about what had been said between him and Rommel, and that person may have been one of Marseille’s friends, many of whom Franz Kurowski was in touch with when writing his book about Marseille. So I suppose it is true after all, or at least it is true that those were Marseille’s intentions. 

The question is, how did an author in 1960 know that Marseille had made such plans? Literally the only source of information about Marseille in those times was the 1957 film “Star of Africa”--or at least that I know of. In this movie, Marseille never mentions any such plans. So then where did this information originate from? Did any of Marseille’s comrades/friends do any interviews back then, the contents of which were then republished in newspapers?

I’ve been looking through Franz Kurowski’s Bibliography in my copy of his book “The Life Story of the Star of Africa”, and I’m going to try to get my hands on as many of the books that he used for his research and see if I can find any information in those. 

[missysmadhouse]

The Rise and Fall of The Rochester Rappers

Maggie and Kate Fox; Source: American Hauntings

Spirtualism, the idea of communication with spirits of the dead, has been part of human consciousness for ages. Tales of seances, Ouija boards and spirit mediums continue to be part of pop culture in fiction, film, reality TV and social media. Spiritualism's popularity rose significantly during the 19th century as society began to change. Believe it or not, two young sisters who heard strange noises in their house at night played a significant part in spiritualism's growth.

It all started with two young girls in a small farmhouse in Hydesville, N.Y., who claimed to hear thumping or "rapping" noises in their bedroom at night. Margaretta "Maggie" Fox, age 14, and her 11-year-old sister, Kate, convinced their mother, Margaret, that their house was haunted. Maggie and Kate demonstrated how "Mr. Split-foot," as they called the spirit, could respond to questions with specific numbers of raps. Their mother asked questions such as how many children she had and how many are surviving. The spirit responded with the correct amount of raps. However, their father, John, was sceptical.

Mrs. Fox wanted to know who the spirit was and her daughters told her that he was a man who died at 31-years-old and was married with five children. Their mother decided to show a neighbor and even asked the spirit permission beforehand. The spirit consented.

It was late on March 31,1848 that the girls shared their experience with a neighbor, Mrs. Redfield. Curious and most likely sceptical, Mrs. Redfield came to the Fox home to see for herself. Mrs. Fox led the "seance" for Mrs. Redfield, commanding the spirit to knock specific numbers of times. The accurate amount of raps sounded in response each time. Their neighbor was convinced and spread the word.

The night after Mrs. Redfield's reading, a large group of neighbors came to the Fox home. One of the men devised a code for the spirit to spell out messages, with specific numbers of raps corresponding to a letter of the alphabet. The spirit said he was a peddler who had been murdered and that his remains were buried in the Foxes' basement. The Fox farmhouse was located near a creek. A storm caused the basement to flood, forcing further investigation to be postponed.

Not all of the Foxes' neighbors were amused by Maggie and Kate's supposed talents. John and Margaret Fox were asked to leave the congregation at the Methodist Episcopal Church because of the "unholy" activities of their daughters.

A pamphlet was published in 1848, "A Report of the Mysterious Noises Heard in the House of John D. Fox in Hydesville, Arcadia, Wayne County," consisting of information compiled through interviews with neighbors, former residents of the Foxes' house and John and Margaret Fox. The interviews were conducted by E.E. Lewis, an attorney from Canandaigua, N.Y., near Hydesville.

The Foxes' home in Hydesville, N.Y.; Source: Smithsonian Magazine from Hudson Valley Halloween Magazine

Leah Fox Fish, Maggie and Kate's older sister, happened to read Lewis' booklet. At age 33, Fish was much older than her sisters, divorced and a mother. After finding out about the supposed haunting in her family's home, Fish traveled from her home in Rochester, N.Y., about 20 miles from Hydesville.

Fish was already familiar with spiritualism, having read Andrew Jackson Davis' "The Divine Principles of Nature." Davis was inspired by an 18th century mystic, theologian and scientist, Emanuel Swedenborg, who described a multi-dimensional spirit world human beings enter when they die. Davis was referred to as the"John the Baptist of Modern Spiritualism" and claimed that Swedenborg's spirit communicated with him. Davis believed that the living were in contact with the dead but unable to communicate. He predicted that the lines of communication between the living and the dead would eventually open and make communication possible.

By the time the Fox family introduced their "rapping spirit," the ideas of another 18th century figure were known in the U.S. Franz Anton Mesmer was a self-proclaimed "healer" who said that human bodily functions were controlled by a "magnetic fluid." By putting people under hypnosis, Mesmer claimed that he could manipulate this magnetic fluid and correct any imbalances which cause illness. Mesmerists began operating in the U.S. Some people who were put under hypnosis said that they had seen spirits.

American society was changing with the industrial revolution, urbanization and inlux of immigrants from various cultures. Populations in cities were expanding, leading to unsanitary conditions, causing outbreaks of cholera, whooping cough, influenza and diptheria.The death rate due to disease and lack of proper medical care increased along with the population. In addition to adults, many children died in infancy. Communication with dead loved ones became a comforting thought.

Ideas about religion began to change. The fire and brimstone of old time religion gave way to a desire to help those in need. Philanthropy replaced stern piety. Many charities and organizations were established to help the needy.

Spiritualism's popularity grew in this atmosphere of questioning of conventional religion plus the increasing death rate.

Leah Fox Fish brought her younger sisters back to Rochester. Fish wanted her sisters to continue to conduct the seances at her home. Maggie and Kate's first seance in Rochester was with friends of Fish, a Quaker couple, Isaac and Amy Post. At first the Posts were sceptical but open-minded enough to come for a session with the sisters. The Posts had become disenchanted with their religion. The couple were involved in many causes including the underground railroad. They left their church because they thought the congregation was intolerant.

Initially sceptical, the Fox sisters gave a reading accurate enough to make them believers. The Posts spread the word about the girls' abilities.

From left: Maggie, Kate & Leah Fox; Source: Wikipedia

While interest in the Fox sisters grew, not everyone was a fan. Of course there were sceptics but others thought that the seances were blasphemous. However, the sisters were contacted by an overwhelming number of requests for seances. Fish hosted the seances and usually one of the sisters acted as medium.

Maggie refused to participate for a short period. She eventually got over her melancholy and rejoined her sisters. Maggie may have changed her mind because of her sisters' financial situation. Fish was a divorced woman living at poverty level. Resuming the seances was the only way of improving their finances.

Claiming that the spirits demanded that the sisters go public and take their abilities to the community, Fish set up a seance at Rochester's largest venue, Corinthian Hall. The date was Wednesday, November 14, 1849, with the seance set to begin at 7 p.m. and admission was 25 cents. The show wasn't well-received. While the spirit did perform and raps sounded in the auditorium, there were many sceptics in the community who wanted answers.

Committees were formed to "test" the sisters in an attempt to uncover a hoax. The sisters were placed on pillows, glass and even had their underwear inspected by women of the community. In the end, it was determined that there was no hoax. A source for the rapping noises wasn't found.

On November 17, the community gathered at Corinthian Hall to hear the committees' findings. When it was announced that a hoax wasn't discovered, the audience went ballistic. Pandemonium erupted when some members of the audience set off firecrackers. People were screaming and yelling, insisting that the sisters had some object hidden on them to produce the noises. The audience tried to rush the stage. The Fox sisters and other spiritualists had to be escorted from auditorium by police.

The Fox sisters did indeed receive publicity - mostly negative. The local press in Rochester claimed that sceptics and their questions weren't welcome at the seances. One writer questioned the spirit's behavior, describing it as silly and childlike.

As that old expression goes, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Despite all the anger and negativity surrounding the Fox sisters, they reached celebrity status. The girls' decided to hit the road, taking their show to Troy and Albany, arriving in New York City in June of 1850.

Source: Wikipedia

In a matter of two weeks the sisters attracted the attention of many highly-respected writers and editors. Their most immpressive session included receiving communication from the deceased sister of author James Fenimore Cooper. The reading included details about Cooper's sister's death while horseback riding. Cooper became a believer along with many others.

The Fox sisters became known as the "Rochester Rappers." A song was sung about them on Broadway and merchandise was sold with their image on them. People from all across the U.S. claimed to have psychic abilities. Spiritualist publications began circulating: Spirit World, Spiritual Philosopher, New Era and The Spiritualist Messenger.

Many other spiritualists gained large followings: Edgar Allan Poe's ex-fiancee Sarah Helen Whitman and levitating medium Daniel Douglas Home, both in Connecticut; teen medium Cora Scott of Buffalo, N Y. and a Boston woman known as "Mrs. Sisson," a clairvoyant physician. A farmer from Ohio, Jonathan Koons, claimed that spirits provided the instructions for him to build a spirit room. Two other men from Ohio, George Walcutt and George Rogers painted portraits who relatives recognized were deceased family members who neither of the Georges had ever met.

Along with the spread of spiritualism came more varied methods of spirit communication, including table tipping, spirit music and dancing lights. Spiritualism also attracted many critics including transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, who dismissed the spirits' raps and taps as "rat revelations."

Spiritualism was debated in the press as well as in the U.S. Congress. More spiritualists appeared on the scene and added table tipping and levitation as part of their repertoire. Maggie and Kate Fox were being slowly pushed out of the spotlight. All was not well with the sisters who had begun to fight with each other and with their supporters.

There were many claims that the Fox sisters were making the rapping noises themselves by cracking their toes, knees and ankles, mechanical devices and ventriloquism. During one seance, the spirit of Benjamin Franklin supposedly came through. A spectator observed that Franklin's spirit surprisingly had no command of grammar. Maggie is described as removing herself angrily from the table, saying that she never understood grammar. However, no fraud was uncovered after the girls had been tested many times.

Source: How It Works Magazine

Maggie Fox quit mediumship for Elisha Kent Kane, an Artic explorer from an aristocratic background. The couple met with disapproval from Kane's family. Fox and Kane did have a ceremony with their friends in attendance but were never legally married. Maggie returned to mediumship after Kane's death in 1857. Broke and in mourning, she began to drink heavily.

Kate also began a downward spiral into alcoholism. Her excessive drinking affected her readings but nevertheless, she was still in demand as a medium. She went to England and performed for spiritualists in 1871. Kate also experienced more luck with marriage than Maggie. The following year, still in England, she married barrister Henry Jencken. The couple had two sons. Kate's eldest son, Ferdinand, supposedly demonstrated mediumistic abilities by age 3. However, Kate's luck would run out.

Around 1885, spiritualism's popularity was declining. Society was starting to question and "crack-down" on fraudulent psychics and mediums. A commission in New York called Maggie Fox to appear for a test of her abilities - she failed. Kate came back to New York in 1888 after her husband died from a stroke. Her children were taken away by welfare workers after Kate was arrested for drunkenness and idleness. Maggie did intervene to help her sister, getting Kate's sons' uncle in England to take custody.

Maggie had begun to contemplate suicide but instead made the decision to publicly debunk spiritualism. She managed to book an appearance at the New York Academy of Music in 1888.

Before her appearance, Maggie gave an interview to the New York World, who paid her $1,500. Maggie vented her anger at spiritualists as well as her sister Leah, who had publicly disparaged Kate because of her alcoholism and losing custody of her children. Kate was going to attend Maggie's confession.

Source: Dusty Old Thing

Maggie took the stage and told the audience:

“My sister Katie and myself were very young children when this horrible deception began. At night when we went to bed, we used to tie an apple on a string and move the string up and down, causing the apple to bump on the floor, or we would drop the apple on the floor, making a strange noise every time it would rebound.”

Maggie went on to say that her and Kate began to make the rapping noises by cracking their toes, knuckles and joints. “A great many people when they hear the rapping imagine at once that the spirits are touching them. It is a very common delusion. Some very wealthy people came to see me some years ago when I lived in Forty-second Street and I did some rappings for them. I made the spirit rap on the chair and one of the ladies cried out: ‘I feel the spirit tapping me on the shoulder.’ Of course that was pure imagination.”

She also said that her sister Leah knew that her and Kate made the rapping noises. Maggie said that Leah used her and Kate to make money. She then took off her right shoe, propped up her bare foot on a stool and proceeded to make short raps.

Maggie wrote in her 1888 memoir, "The Death Blow to Spiritualism," that her and her sister, Kate, continued their story out of fear of punishment by their parents and being ostracized by neighbors.

Spiritualists claimed that since Maggie couldn't profit from mediumship, she looked to profit from debunking it. Maggie also went incognito to a debate at the Manhattan Liberal Club. Under the name Mrs. Spencer, Maggie divulged all of the tricks that mediums supposedly use such as writing messages on slates with their teeth or feet. Spiritualists would be further outraged one year after Maggie's confession when she claimed her spirit guides prompted her to recant her confession.

Maggie remained estranged from Leah until Leah's death in 1890. Leah Fox Fish had married a second time to a wealthy businessman and wanted nothing to do with Kate or Maggie. Kate succumbed to alcoholism in 1892. Maggie passed away in 1893, destitute and living in a friend's home in Brooklyn. Oddly enough, the year that Maggie died also marks the establishment of the National Spiritualist Association, now known as the National Spiritualist Association of Churches.

Despite Maggie Fox's confession, spiritualism continues today. Countless mediums have written books, hosted TV shows and have a presence on social media. Many reality TV shows about paranormal investigation have also popped up on TV, especially in recent years. The belief in life after death has existed since time immemorial. As always, the debate continues - is life after death reality, delusion or just showbiz?

- Missy Dawn

Sources:

"The Fox Sisters and the Rap on Spiritualism," by Karen Abbott, Smithsonian Magazine, October 30, 2012.

"The Fox Sisters: The Rise and Fall of Spiritualism's Founders," American Hauntings Ink, The Haunted Museum

The Fox Sisters: Spiritualism’s Unlikely Founders," by Nancy Rubin Stuart, American History Magazine, August 2005.

[omgkatsudonplease]

Hi, I hope you don't mind me asking but would you recommend any books to read? I'm trying to decide what next to read, and I thought I like your writing so I'll ask what you would rec? Don't worry about genre, just any book you'd think one should read or anything that inspires your writing ? I love your writing so automatically felt you must read books with depth. I hope this ask doesn't feel too pushy or intrusive. Thank you :)

Hahaha, oh my god. I don’t consume as much published fiction as I should (so much fanfiction. So little time) so I’m probably not the best person for book recs that aren’t classics/things you’d probably read for school, so :P but I can tell you some books that have stuck with me over the years or have informed portions of my works!

The entire Middle-earth legendarium (the Hobbit, LotR, the Silm) by J.R.R Tolkien has been with me since sixth grade, and I guess his attention to detail in worldbuilding really rubbed off on me! The Hobbit is a very short light read, though you’ll probably get irritated at the lack of female characters. LotR requires stamina because he goes on and on and on about Tom Bombadil for a chapter or two and it’s… It reads like a history book. Because he made up LotR to disseminate his elvish languages Sindarin and Quenya. It wasn’t the other way around. And it’s pretty obvious. (And the Silm is even more of a history book, but with added Elves Behaving Badly. and suffering.)

Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy is one of my favourite pieces of classic literature, not only because Thomas Hardy drags 19th century British society for their double standards regarding female sexuality but also the prose is so beautiful? There’s a scene where Angel Clare carries Tess across a river and it’s nothing but doki doki schmoop schmoop in the most beautiful of words, and now that I really think about it no wonder most of the selkie AU was also doki doki schmoop schmoop in pretty words. I love Tess so much, I would fuckin die for her, and fuck EL James for completely misinterpreting the entire novel in Fifty Shades.

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare is probably one of my favourite comedies of his (but I like. am a huge Shakespeare nerd? check out my Shakespeare sideblog @eighttwotwopointthreethree lmao). I’ve got mixed feelings about the slutshaming section of it but like, it’s pretty obvious that Claudio is a foil to Benedick when that plot point rears its ugly head so like. Kill Claudio amirite. Anyway. The point is, the entire setup between Bea and Ben is fucking amazing and @actualyuuri and I super duper want to see a Viktuuri AU set to Much Ado for this reason

(I could also talk about Julius Caesar, and Twelfth Night, and Richard III, and Romeo and Juliet – but then I’d be here all day. I love Shakespeare so much)

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro fucked. Me. Up. That quiet moody introspective narration! This terrible dystopian universe told in such a soft way!!! Pls let me live oh my god. 

Life on Mars by Tracey K Smith is a book of poems that she wrote to work out her feelings around her father’s death, couching it in stuff about the endless unknown of space (and also David Bowie). I feel like her style of poetry at least lowkey influenced some of the poems in the selkie AU? Also I just love space poems.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is so… relevant. And I’m so pumped for the Hulu miniseries oh my god. It’s a really gripping, slightly terrifying in the current climate kind of read. 

The Princess of Cleves by Mme de Lafayette. oH MY GOD OH MY GOD. I know like most French students hate having to read this novel but I am SO ALIVE, I LIVE for longwinded descriptions of how fuckin besotted M de Nemours is, I LIVE for the sweet sweet drama of people who clearly wanna bone each other deciding not to and then pining away terribly forever and ever. (I also LIVE for the ending lmfao because that’s exactly how I like het media to end.) Anyway, if I were to write a period drama Viktuuri AU I would probably utilise elements of the plot of the Princess of Cleves that is how much I love this novel okay. You’ll probably see influences from it in my writing from the way a lot of the action gets driven by introspection and stream of consciousness, so yeah.

Also, I don’t know if you also want nonfiction recs, but I really enjoyed Day of Empire by Amy Chua, the Dark Net by Jamie Bartlett, How to Ruin a Queen: Marie Antoinette and the Diamond Necklace Affair by Johnathan Beckman (it doesn’t even read like a history book it reads more like a whodunit!) and oh. my god. The Reluctant Empress by Brigitte Hamann. I am such trash for this biography of the Empress Elisabeth I of Austria. I would also probably put in elements of the early parts of her life into this hypothetical period drama AU for Viktuuri because fuckin Franz Joseph disregarded all of his duties to watch his fiancee get her portrait done like he’s not the fuckin Emperor of Austria? What the hell? And she commissioned portraits of herself in deshabille for an anniversary present??? which he hung over his desk like BABE. DON’T PUT NUDES OF YOUR WIFE UP IN YOUR OFFICE OH MY GOD. (like I recognise that her story was ultimately super duper tragic and the Habsburgs are all just a big mess but every time I think about this stuff I just die a little on the inside from happiness so)

Anyway that’s probably enough to get you started, and I’m sorry for my disintegrating coherency. Like I said I really should read more published works! Pretty high on my list rn is the Miniaturist by Jessie Burton mostly because I stole so much of what happened to her regarding the publication and success of that novel for the selkie AU that I’m really genuinely interested in what caused such hype lmao. So yeah happy reading!