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tellusd20 · 2 years ago

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Dev Journal 2 - Points of Departure

“What if Napoleon had won? And what if he had wizards?”

The first question alone creates quite an interesting array of scenarios, many of which depend on the point of departure in the RL timeline and how victory is defined, ranging from a total domination of Europe to something much more modest like the Frankfurt Proposals that would have allowed France to retreat to its ‘natural borders’ which included Belgium, Savoy, and the Rhineland. So which to select for a campaign setting? It needs to be interesting and can’t break suspension of disbelief. It needs to create opportunities for further storytelling by both the setting creators and DMs. We ended up selecting something along the lines of the Frankfurt Proposals for our definition of “Napoleon won” - he keeps his throne and France as well as some valuable conquered territory. More importantly, for story telling purposes, it creates a multi-polar continent where France’s enemies are still intact, still strong, and very much opposed to their old enemy. Next question: How long after the war do we want to set our timeline? Initially the idea was a couple decades. Our “Europe” would be in the middle of a long peace after the war, L'Empereur would be an elderly man, his rivals also aged or dead. A new generation of leadership would be emerging and keen to settle the old grudge for once and for all. This span of time was reduced through iterations, first to a decade, then to five years after the war. The wartime era leadership are all still alive, the wounds and grudges are still fresh, and the peace is fragile. The only thing keeping the continent from plunging into a renewed round of violence is economic and political exhaustion.

Worldbuilding Rules

So, keeping in mind the basic storytelling premise of using alternate history as a worldbuilding foundation, there are a number of creative points that were established earlier as sort of hard rules for the setting. This is not an complete list but covers the general feel we are working to accomplish:

1. Tellus is a ‘moderate’ magic setting. To provide a scale, I consider Forgotten Realms and Eberron to be “high magic” settings - magic is everywhere, low level parties will often have magic items, and no one is awestruck when a wizard casts a spell. On the other end of the scale is Dark Sun (or GoT for a more modern reference) - magic is rare, even the most minor enchanted items are highly sought after, and being capable of casting spells will quickly make one famous. Tellus exists in between these extremes. Magic exists and is relatively common but is largely gate kept among the elite of society*. Magic items of the adventuring sort are expensive and highly sought, but the types of magic items that the wealthy and elite would value for their quality of life are more available (to those who can afford them). *Sorcerers and warlocks are the exception to this and tend to be highly distrusted by authorities (if not outright criminalized, which will be covered in later journals). Wizards & clerics tend to be the respectable sort, given the wealth and connections they need for the proper arcane and theological educations and the organized hierarchies that exist to regulate their practice (guilds and temples).

2. Tellus is not steampunk.

Industrial fantasy or flintlock fantasy would be a more accurate description. We chose a general technological level roughly analogous to the 1830s on average though some sectors have greater or lesser advancement. There are no airships, few railways, and industrialization is still largely in its early stages. Technology is driven by demand and market forces and political interference largely directs the energies of invention to fill the gaps where magic is impractical or expensive.

3. “Europe” is not the center of the world.

The world exists outside of our version of Europe, and it is a large and interesting place with its own stories to tell. For much of history post-Roman Europe was an impoverished backwater compared to the teeming, wealthy empires of India and China, and our campaign setting aims to keep that in mind. The world of Tellus itself is multi-polar, and the economic center of the world is elsewhere. 4. Imperialism will not be one-sided.

Imperialism and conquest are largely a function of material conditions and ideology, the RL European colonial empires were notable largely for the technological changes that accompanied them and their intercontinental nature. Keeping that in mind, imperialism and colonialism in the Tellus setting is a thing that any state with sufficient motivation may engage in. On the other side of that, magic does quite a lot to even the odds. Consider the “disease, horses, and steel” advantages that the Spaniards in RL had. The Spanish conquest of the Americas wouldn’t have been remotely as easy if disease hadn’t wiped out the vast majority of the continental population. And well, Remove Disease and Lay on Hands among others helps negate the “disease” part that did such heavy lifting. Horses and steel are still an advantage, sure, but when both sides have magic at their disposal, the effect is again lessened. For the DM, this creates interesting worldbuilding potential like “What if the Aztec Empire survived and began to trade with Europe?” An Aztec Empire that traded gold for steel becomes quite a formidable prospect.

#Tellus #D&D #D20 #5e #worldbuilding #campaign setting

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samanthajameswriter · 4 years ago

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Today’s post will be the tale of a royal exit written by guest poster Simone T. Whitlow from the blog History and Imagination. Whitlow discusses and tells the life story of Princess Sophia Dorothea and her exiting the royal family. The consequences were enormous. it is a story filled with an unhappy marriage and daring escapes.

I have taken a few shots at writing it under the auspices of a whodunit, but I don’t think there’s any doubt who the murderers are. I then had another run – this time as a faux fairytale, an OG soap opera? I had a line from John Wilmott, Earl of Rochester kicking round in my head about his patron Charles II, and thought what about riffing off that; this is an example of what a crazy, swinging place Europe’s courts were in the late 17th Century after all… but I abandoned all of these.

Then Megxit happened; The Sussexes – Harry and Meghan – announced they were leaving ‘the firm’. In some quarters there was shock, and I understand there was an urgent family meeting. Harry didn’t get thrown into a cell in the Tower of London. There was no clandestine dash for the English channel (like the aforementioned Charles II after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651). No disguising himself as a servant. No hiding in oak trees. Public discourse re-centred on whether you wished them well, or thought them a pair of spoilt brats. This brought me back round to this tale again… Imagine you’re a deeply unhappy royal, but it is 1694. Does Sophxit play out any differently?

This tale begins on the evening of July 1st, 1694. The setting, Hanover – a Germanic Duchy which would eventually be subsumed into a larger German nation, and whose first family would go on to be kind of a big deal. A young man, aided only by moonlight, sails along the Leine river till he reaches the Leineschloss – the palatial riverside home of the duke and his family. He moors his boat, then cautiously enters the property. The man is Phillipp Christoph, Count Konigsmarck – an aristocratic German born Swede from a long line of mercenaries. His father had served King Gustav II Adolph in the 30 Years War, rising through the ranks to Field Marshall. Phillipp himself had fought the Turks for Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I. At this point in the tale however, he was under the employ of the Elector of Saxony. Tonight he’s been summoned to met his paramour – Sophia Dorothea, princess of Celle – the very unhappy wife of Duke George Ludwig.

Count Konigsmarck

Princess Sophia Dorothea

Duke Georg Ludwig

Sophia, though surprised- she never summoned him – is ecstatic over his arrival. They haven’t seen each other for weeks. She is also a little perturbed and angered at ‘that woman’s’ gall. “Well, clearly she’s still spying on us” I imagine one saying “Never mind, in a day we’ll be out of this nightmare” the other may have replied. With rather less poetic license you can imagine the rest of their night – Konigsmarck had not come to play solitaire after all, nor Sophia to play old maid. I like to imagine Sophia enfolding the count in her arms as he left and whispering “keep safe, hell hath no fury and all” but that is a little anachronistic – Congreve would not publish ‘The Mourning Bride’ till 1697. This is the last time Sophia Dorothea would see Count Konigsmarck – in the following hours he would disappear from the face of the Earth, never to be seen again.

Joining ‘The Firm’.

To explain how Sophia Dorothea found herself in an unhappy marriage, I need to take us back a generation. The first fact worth knowing is there was no German nation in the modern sense until January 1871. People could be ethnically Germanic, but Germany was a collection of feudal states for most of it’s history. Until 1806, they were also overseen by a ‘Holy Roman Emperor’. From 1346 the Emperor was elected by a council from the Elector states – This is important to know later. The second fact is marriages of convenience were very much a thing in the 17th Century, particularly among the aristocrats. Third, this tale concerns two duchies, Brunswick- Celle and Brunswick- Luneberg, afterwards known simply as ‘Hanover’. These duchies were ruled over by two brothers. Fourth their leading citizens of the duchies wanted to see the two areas reunited one day. Now that is out of the way…

Sophia Dorothea’s father was a man named Duke Georg Wilhelm of Brunswick- Celle. Georg W had been engaged to a princess from the neighboring duchy of Rhineland Palatinate (her name was also Sophia, though she hardly gets a mention beyond this point), but he was desperate to stay a bachelor a little longer. He cancelled the engagement – passing her on to his brother, Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick Luneberg. The leading figures of Georg W’s duchy were furious, but when Georg signed a legal agreement stating he would never marry – and would pass his duchy to Ernst, (merging the duchies) on his death, all was forgiven. Georg was not exactly out of the firm, but was free to enjoy his newly acquired freedom. The problem was Cupid laid Georg W low after he crossed paths with the beautiful Frenchwoman Eleonore d’Olbreuse.

Georg immediately knew they must marry and start a family. His own duchy and brother Ernst were unimpressed, so Georg W approached Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor for permission to marry Eleonore. Leopold gave his blessing, but many years after the fact– at this stage Georg and Eleonore had a child, Sophia Dorothea, now 10 years old. There was a caveat to Leopold’s blessing – Georg W had a daughter, Ernst a son (Georg L) – the two cousins would marry, uniting the duchies. This suited all, but the two cousins themselves, who detested each other.

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Georg Wilhelm

Eleonore d’Olbreuse.

Ernst August

Sophia Of Hanover

Complicating matters further, both Georg L and his father Ernst were openly having affairs outside of their marriages. Given what transpires it is worth mentioning Georg L’s double standards with affairs. The key fact to take on however is Ernst, Sophia’s uncle-stepdad, was involved with a lady named Countess Platen.

The Konigsmarck brothers.

We’ll come back to this lot in a second, but first let’s discuss Count Konigsmarck. He has quite a fraught backstory too. Konigsmarck was brought up at court, and knew the rest of this cast well. Both he and his brother, Karl, were sent to England in their mid teens, around 1680. They were sent off to learn courtly skills and mingle, but both brothers soon got into trouble. Phillipp’s trouble involved losing huge sums of money through gambling. Karl’s trouble was on a whole other level.

The two brothers began associating with several high society Britons- including Charles II. Karl had become smitten with Elizabeth Seymour, Duchess of Somerset. Elizabeth was – you guessed it – caught in a loveless, arranged marriage to a wealthy, cheating husband – the wealthy landowner and MP Thomas Thynne. On 12th February 1682, Thynne was travelling in a carriage through Pall Mall, when three men with pistols – Christopher Vratz, John Stern and George Borosky gunned him down. The three men were captured, and named Karl Konigsmarck as the man who hired them to make the hit. The assassins would hang, Karl walked free – but both young men were outcasts in England from this point on. Both returned to Europe and joined Leopold’s army. Karl would be killed in action fighting the Turks in Greece in 1686. As an aside, not long after Thomas Thynne’s murder, a poem circulated through London.

“Here lies Tom Thynne of Longleat Hall Who ne’er would have miscarried; Had he married the woman he slept withal Or slept with the woman he married.”

Let the Dangerous Liaisons begin.

In 1688, after eight years service in the wars with the Turks, Phillipp Konigsmarck returned to the court of what was then Hanover. The ladies of the court fell for this dashing, young soldier. He became a close friend and confidant of Sophia Dorothea – a sympathetic ear who would keep tales of Sophia’s horrible husband, hideous uncle/stepdad, and terrifying mistress of uncle/stepdad – Countess Platen, confidential. Konigsmarck also began an ill advised affair with Countess Platen himself.

The young count soon realized; one, he had fallen in love with princess Sophia – and two, Countess Platen is a dangerous lunatic he should have never become involved with. He took on a new military commission and left Hanover, hoping the countess would forget about him.

On his return to the court in the spring of 1690 he began wooing the princess. The countess, meanwhile resumed her wooing of the count. When left unrequited she hired spies to follow the couple, and intercept their letters. By 1693 Countess Platen stopped even attempting to repair the broken seals on the couple’s love letters. Phillipp resumed his affair with the countess, hoping to placate her; at the very least to stop her from spilling the beans on them. Phillipp and Sophia make the decision to run away together; to start a new life elsewhere- far away from courtly life. This presented a problem for the two. Phillipp was lousy with money, and currently broke – he had not been working, while wooing two ladies. Sophia, upon marrying Georg L, ceded all her possessions to her husband.

Phillipp took a commission with the elector of Saxony, in Dresden in May 1694. Sophia sat tight and waited for Phillipp to make some money. 1st July, at the urging of a counterfeit letter, Phillipp returned to Hanover. Possibly aware it was a trap, Phillipp had saved a month’s worth of wages. Most of the court were away at their summer house at the time – Georg. L included. Tomorrow morning they would run away – and begin a new, happier life together. The following day Count Konigsmarck was nowhere to be found. A distraught Sophia Dorothea eventually hears the scuttlebutt from the markets “the witches of Dresden…” lured Phillipp away.

So…. what happened?

Let’s work through the facts – and suppositions – of the case. There are at least five possibilities. It’s generally accepted the counterfeit letter came from the countess. She had spies watching the couple, who reported to her that the couple were planning to abscond the following day. It is established fact also that Countess Platen informed her other lover, the uncle/stepdad Ernst, of the two lovers’ plan. Ernst ordered four cavaliers to arrest Count Konigsmarck immediately. The four men caught him outside the palace, swords were drawn. When the men eventually faced trial they claimed the count had drawn his sword, a fight broke out, and the count got stabbed to death in the melee.

What happened to the body? Who the hell knows? That is the real mystery. The four suspects were never on record on this matter. One theory has his body thrown into the Leine river, or immolated, or buried on the property. There was excitement in 2016 when bones were dug up on the site, but DNA proved the bones belonged to five separate men (none Phillipp) and a selection of animals.

Possibility one is simple as this, manslaughter. Count Konigsmarck, the battle hardened soldier of fortune thought he could fight his way out of an awkward situation and the four men got the better of him. It was, at most, a case of manslaughter.

Two, when Ernst August sent the cavaliers out to stop Konigsmarck, did he give the order to murder him before the elopement uncovered his dalliances, causing him embarrassment? He may have wanted him out of the way for this reason. Besides personal embarrassment, Hanover had only just been appointed an elector state, who help choose the Holy Roman Emperor. A scandal involving their royals may have jeopardized that position.

Three, well that ‘hell hath no fury’ motive is also out there. Countess Platen was jealous, and involved in high level stalking behaviour. She had laid this trap for the couple, does it not make sense to go that one step further. Did she kill Count Konigsmarck, solipsisticly to say ‘if I can’t have him, no-one can’?

Four, did Georg Ludwig know of the affair, and order the assassination? An elopement certainly would have left him a cuckold. Working counter to this, Georg L seemed unaware of the affair till after the affair was exposed. As soon as he heard, he divorced Sophia Dorothea. He exiled her to house arrest in Ahlden Castle, another family possession. She was kept prisoner until her death 32 years later. Here’s my reason to doubt Georg as the mastermind – he divorced and imprisoned her six months after Count Konigsmarck disappeared. Perhaps Georg was an endlessly patient man? I doubt it.

Now, I want to put a fifth suspect on the table – I said I would not mention her again – but I need to in order to tie this to the Sussexes at the very least. Ernst August’s wife, Sophia the elder, scorned by Georg W, and in what one would imagine as unhappy a marriage as anyone else in this tale – Her husband was cheating on her with Countess Platen after all – well she had a dream.

Discontent with her lot in life, married to a petty duke of a tiny duchy, she daydreamed of a time when herself, or her son would run the larger archipelago to the north-west. This did not seem such a crazy daydream. Her grandfather had been James I of England. In 1685 Charles II died leaving 14 illegitimate children, but no heirs. The crown passed to his brother James II, who was deposed in the ‘Glorious Rebellion’ of 1688. This saw a joint rule by James II’s daughter Mary, and the Dutch Import William of Orange. The line of succession had gotten a little complicated of late, and Sophia the elder’s daydream was seeming less and less blue sky thinking, more a genuine possibility – just so long as a giant scandal didn’t break out about her cheating husband, cheating daughter in law, and surrounding rogues gallery. I can’t count her in, but I certainly can’t ignore she too has a motive.

By 1702 both Mary and William of Orange had died. The crown passed to Mary’s sister – Anne. Anne fell pregnant 18 times – and suffered six miscarriages, five stillbirths, and none of her remaining children lived beyond two years of age. When Anne died on August 1st 1714, the crown passed to one Georg Ludwig, of an obscure German duchy, henceforth known as George I of England, whose family sit on the throne of England to this day.

How do I feel about the Sussexes and Megxit? Well, I am glad for the couple that it is 2020, not 1694 – and I wish them well.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Simone T. Whitlow is a musician, history blogger, and occasionally a squeaky wheel, working for well oiled corporate machines. Simone is based in Auckland, New Zealand and writes most weeks for Tales of History and Imagination.Tales of History and Imagination is a collection of strange and eccentric stories from our collective past. From Victorian Boogeymen to forgotten wars in far flung nations, mysterious super-weapons to people who simply took a path less traveled – Tales of History and Imagination is a compendium of the stories never told in history class.

FOLLOW SIMON T. WHITLOW:

WEBSITE: https://historyandimagination.com/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Talesofhistoryandimagination/

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/TalesofHistory1

PINTEREST: https://www.pinterest.nz/simonewhitlow/tales-of-history-and-imagination

The Deadly Sophxit of Count Konigsmarck and Princess Sophia Dorothea Today's post will be the tale of a royal exit written by guest poster Simone T. Whitlow from the blog…

#biographies #BOOKS #history #ROYAL HISTORY #tales #world history

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canadaimmigrationconsultantss · 3 years ago

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Opportunities for Immigrants with no German Language Experience

Speaking German is a skill that many expats have yet to master. However, don’t fret! Germany is home to a plethora of international companies, and, in recent years, being able to speak German has become less of an essential prerequisite for foreign employees working in Germany. This is reflected in a study from the employment website Indeed, which collected data from 88 cities and found that a significant number of job listings were actually available in English.

According to the study, Germany's capital city of Berlin had, perhaps unsurprisingly, the highest proportion, with over 15 percent of vacancies in the city being advertised in English. Indeed's list of the 10 cities with the highest proportion of English-speaking vacancies is largely dominated by metropolises, but the smaller city of Kaiserslautern in Rhineland-Palatinate also made it to the top, coming fourth behind the capital, Munich and Frankfurt. Ameuro Migration is the best Germany immigration consultants in Delhi, India offering pr skilled visa, job visa, study visa, business and investor visa.

According to Indeed, there are a number of large employers in Kaiserslautern, including the Fraunhofer Institute and the city’s two universities, which specialize in technology and applied sciences and therefore are increasingly dependent on skilled workers. This, coupled with the city’s proximity to the US Ramstein Air Base, has opened Kaiserslautern up to foreign skilled workers, despite not being home to larger international companies like the other metropolises on the list.

Speaking German used to be an almost certain requirement for getting a job in Germany. However, a recent study has shown that the number of vacancies available in English is growing. Here are the top cities in Germany where you don’t need to enroll in a German course to find a job.

Don’t speak German? Then look for a job in these cities

These are the 10 cities in Germany with the highest proportion of English-speaking job advertisements:

Ø Berlin It has nearly 15% English speaking jobs posted every year. It should come as no surprise that Germany’s capital city has it all: from grungy underground discos to champagne-soaked art gallery openings, you’ll never be stuck for something to do. Make the most of all the city has to offer with our guide to Berlin for expats

Ø Munich It has nearly 12% English speaking jobs posted every year. Munich may be world-famous for its traditional beer halls, lederhosen and oompah bands, but it’s also a city that embraces cutting-edge technology, scientific research and innovation. A firm favorites among expats, Munich regularly ranks in the top 10 for quality of life in cities worldwide. Find out why it’s such a popular destination in our expat city guide to Munich.

Ø Frankfurt It has nearly 12% English speaking jobs posted every year. It may be known as the beating heart of finance in Germany, but there’s so much more to Frankfurt than meets the eye. Did you know that the city is home to Germany’s largest expat community and has an annual festival dedicated to apple wine? Our guide to Frankfurt for expats contains even more insider secrets you wouldn’t want to miss out on.

Ø Düsseldorf It has nearly 10% English speaking jobs posted every year. Düsseldorf has successfully revamped itself since the Second World War to become Germany’s home of media, design and high fashion. Discover foodie delights, modern art and the best shopping spots in our Düsseldorf city guide.

Some other towns with a sizeable English-speaking job being posted are as below:

Ø Kaiserslautern (10%)

Ø Göttingen (9%)

Ø Darmstadt (8%)

Ø Bonn (6.5%)

Ø Ludwigshafen am Rhein (6.4%)

Ø Heidelberg (6%)

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visaservicesindelhi · 3 years ago

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youtube

Don’t speak German? Then look for a job in these cities

These are the 10 cities in Germany with the highest proportion of English-speaking job advertisements:

Some other towns with a sizeable English-speaking job being posted are as below:

Ø Kaiserslautern (10%)

Ø Göttingen (9%)

Ø Darmstadt (8%)

Ø Bonn (6.5%)

Ø Ludwigshafen am Rhein (6.4%)

Ø Heidelberg (6%)

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#Germany immigration consultants in Delhi #Best Immigration Consultancy in Delhi #Visa Services in Delhi #Canada immigration consultants in Delhi #Youtube

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autodidact-adventures · 7 years ago

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World War I (Part 39): Verdun

Verdun was originally called Verodunum, meaning “strong fort”, by the Romans. They recognized the location's strategic importance, and made it a military centre. From Verodunum, they could move against unconquered tribes, or retreat to it if necessary.

It had probably been a stronghold even before the Romans, because it was the only place in a long stretch of the River Meuse which Bronze-Age people could cross with relative ease. The Meuse begins in the French Alps (in southern France) and goes northwards into Belgium and the Netherlands, and then west into the North Sea. From early times, it was a “gateway” between the Rhineland and central France. It was the perfect location for a town, and the perfect target for any invading army.

In the 400's, Attila the Hun failed to seize the town, but sacked and burned it.

In 843, Charlemagne's grandsons met at Verdun to divide the Frankish Empire between them. The Treaty of Verdun divided it into three parts. The Kingdom of the West Franks eventually became France. The Kingdom of the East Franks eventually became Germany, and gradually broke into hundreds of fragmented regions.

The third grandson, Lotharingia, got a long strip of land between the East & West kingdoms. It was called Lotharingia (and eventually Lorraine). It ran from modern-day Netherlands, through the old kingdom of Alsatia (Alsace), all the way to Rome in Italy. But it became a battleground between its neighbours, and soon ceased to be a kingdom of its own.

At first, Verdun (which was in Lotharingia) belonged to the West Kingdom. But by 923, France was weak and the Holy Roman Empire was strong, so Germany took it. Verdun, Alsace, Lorraine, and the territories around it would be German for the next 600 years.

By the 1500's, France was centralizing and growing stronger, while the HRE was fragmented and barely strong enough to defend itself. Henri II took Verdun in 1554.

In the 1600's, Cardinal Richelieu (Louis XIV's chief minister) seized Alsace and Lorraine. Now the border between France & Germany had shifted eastwards, towards the Rhine.

Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban (1633-1707) was a Marshal of France, and the greatest military engineer of his time (possibly in history). He ordered the construction of a chain of fortresses west of the Rhine, with Verdun as its northern anchor. Verdun had previously been a single fort; now it was a network of forts spread over the hills, with the town in the middle. It was impregnable until advances in artillery & siege warfare had developed enough.

During the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), Verdun was besieged, but stood its ground. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia gave it to France permanently.

In 1792, when the Eastern European monarchies were fighting Revolutionary France, the Prussians seized it, and abandoned it later that year. But the Napoléonic Wars had set off a wave of German nationalism, and the retaking of Alsace & Lorraine became an important goal for Germany.

In the Franco-Prussian War, Verdun managed to keep the enemy at bay for the longest time, out of all of France's eastern fortresses. The Germans did manage to capture it in 1870, but returned it to France as part of the peace settlement. However, they kept Alsace and Lorraine (about 12,950 km2).

The loss of these provinces was devastating for France (enough to destroy any possibility of reconciliation with Germany), and their recovery became a national dream. Strasbourg was the main city of Alsace & Lorraine, and in the Place de la Concorde (Paris), a statue representing it was permanently draped in black.

Now, because the border had shifted back westwards, France had no major defences between Verdun and Germany. So Verdun became part of their first line of defence. In the late 1800's, a chain of fortress-cities (Verdun, Toul, Épinal & Belfort, going north-south) were expanded and strengthened. Alfred von Schlieffen believed that the only way to get into France was therefore through Belgium.

A few years before WW1 broke out, Forts Douaumont & Vaux (Verdun's largest forts) were covered with protective shells that even the biggest guns couldn't destroy. By the time the war started, Verdun had 12 major fortresses, 8 smaller strongpoints, and 40 even smaller redoubts that were bristling with guns. Verdun was now a 16km-wide military region, bisected by the Meuse.

In 1914, Verdun was extremely important. Vauban had intended it to be an anchor, and it served that purpose as the French armies retreated towards the Marne. It was almost cut off, but not quite; and by October it was the “hard nucleus” of a salient into the German lines.

In early 1915, the Germans tried again to cut it off, but again failed. Afterwards, that section of the front became quiet. Joffre began removing guns & troops from Verdun – eventually, 80% of its artillery was used in other places. Every commander there was worried about the levels of manpower.

By now, France had invaded Alsace & Lorraine, and the Germans had taken them back. Their populations were mostly German in language & culture (today, most of its architecture & place-names are German), but it wasn't so simple. These provinces had been French during the Revolution, and therefore had been French long enough to be sympathetic to republican attitudes, and to miss the German wave of nationalism.

After the Franco-Prussian War, they were directly governed by Berlin, while other German states were given semi-autonomy. The Prussians had entered like an occupying force, and the people didn't much like them.

However, the people also had anti-French attitudes, as they were mostly Catholics, and the French government was extremely anti-Catholic in the decade before WW1.

The Prussians & Germans basically pushed Alsace & Lorraine into being French. In 1913, a Prussian lieutenant insulted the people of the town of Zabern, and injured a protesting civilian with his sword. There was no disciplinary action or apology, which lead to anti-Berlin attitudes; the authorities overreacted and made it even worse.

In August 1914, Germany mobilized. Alsace-Lorraine wasn't particularly enthusiastic about it – only 8,000 volunteered; and out of the 16,000 conscripted overseas, only ¼ actually reported for duty – and the military authorities felt that their disdain was justified. Many of those who did report were seen as having questionable loyalties. Disproportionate numbers were sent to the Eastern Front, which just increased resentment. And 17,000 men went to volunteer in France instead.

During WW1, 380,000 Alsace-Lorrainers served in the German army. Their desertion rate was 0.8% (as opposed to 0.1% for the German army in general). The high command was increasingly distrustful of them, and the provinces & their soldiers were treated even more harshly.

Then the government's post-war plans for the provinces became public knowledge – instead of being given autonomy as a German state, Alsace was to become part of Bavaria, and Lorraine part of Prussia. The rift between Alsace-Lorraine and Germany was now pretty much irreversible.

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architectnews · 4 years ago

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Swimming Pool Buildings: Architecture

Swimming Pool Buildings, Photos, Architects, Aquatic Designs, Projects, Images

Swimming Pool Buildings

Leisure Pools Architecture – Aquatic Design Projects Article

post updated 16 Aug 2020

Swimming Pool Buildings

Swimming Pool building

Contemporary Swimming Pool Architecture – chronological list

July 16, 2020 Leça Swimming Pools listed for Keeping it Modern Grants 2020, Leça da Palmeira, Portugal Design: Alvaro Siza Vieira photo from Alvaro Siza Vieira Leça Swimming Pools, Portugal This contemporary Portuguese building is among 13 significant 20th-century buildings that will receive $2.2m in Keeping it Modern Grants, from the Getty Foundation.

27 Aug 2019 Ost Indoor Swimming Pool, Leipzig, Germany Architects: gmp · Architekten von Gerkan, Marg und Partner image courtesy of architects practice Ost Indoor Swimming Pool The ensemble comprising the indoor sports swimming pool and health center at Otto-Runki-Platz continues the block structure of Neustadt and, at the same time, makes a link to the neighboring parks.

22 Apr 2019 Kennedy Town Swimming Pool, Kennedy Town, Hong Kong, China Architects: Farrells photo courtesy of architects Kennedy Town Swimming Pool in Hong Kong Completed earlier this year, the pool complex includes a 50-metre outdoor pool, an outdoor leisure pool, indoor and outdoor massage baths, a 50-metre indoor pool, and an indoor training pool. It also incorporates an outdoor garden sheltered beneath the tip of the building’s characteristic roof.

4 Oct 2017 Derby Swimming Pool Complex, Derbyshire, England, UK Design: FaulknerBrowns Architects photo courtesy of architects Derby Swimming Pool Complex Derby City Council has unveiled ambitious plans for a state-of-the-art swimming and leisure facility designed by international design practice FaulknerBrowns Architects. The facility, which is being project managed by Mace, is planned as a replacement swimming pool complex alongside the Moorways Athletic Stadium.

3 Jan 2017 Swimming Pool Complex Svetice, East Zagreb, Croatia Design: Plazma, architects photo © Tamas Bujnovszky Swimming Pool Complex Svetice, Croatia The Svetice Pool complex contains 50m and 25m pools, a 8x6m childrens pool, a wellness area, a fitness center and a restaurant. It is the main urban pool complex in the east of Zagreb.

27 May 2016 Swimming Pool, Châteaulin, France Design: Agence Search Architects image : MIR Swimming Pool in Châteaulin The Châteaulin swimming pool will be located on the edge of town, along a curve in the banks of the Aulne river. The project is part of a larger ensemble of public works, which together will constitute a sports and recreation center at the scale of the provincial city and the extended region.

9 May 2016 L’Ulivo Pool in Pian Di Spille, Tyrol, northern Italy Design: Laboratorio di Architettura e Design photo from architects L’Ulivo Pool in Pian Di Spille

7 Jan 2016 Aquazena Pool Issy-les-Moulineaux, South-West Paris, France Architect: Mikou Design Studio photograph : Hélène Binet Piscine Issy-les-Moulineaux: Paris Swimming Pool This new €14.5 million building contains a 25-metre swimming pool and two smaller baths.

19 Sep 2015 Lippe Bad in Lünen, Lünen, Germany Design: nps tchoban voss image courtesy of architects Lippe Swimming Pool in Lunen Within a pool concept for the Westphalian town of Lünen, the “Lippe Bad” was opened on September 09, 2011 after a period of construction of two years which has been built according to passive house standards as the first public indoor swimming pool in Germany.

13 Oct 2014 Piscine de la Kibitzenau, Strasbourg, France Design: Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes photograph : David Boureau Kibitzenau Swimming Pool in Strasbourg The swimming pool of the neighborhood Kibitzenau in Strasbourg, which was first opened in 1965, has an Olympic pool with 8 lanes. Besides its function as a public swimming pool, it is used by the professional swimmers of the Alsace region and the local water polo team.

page updated 11 Nov 2016 with new photos ; 8 Aug 2014 Circular Swimming Pool in the Tuscan Hills, Province of Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy Design: Studio Citera photo courtesy of architects Circular swimming pool in the Tuscan Hills Every project implemented by Vaselli-Spirito Pietra is based on natural stone and on concepts conceived for a wide array of applications including interior furnishing elements, swimming pools, fireplaces, flooring and wall coverings, sculptures or diverse expressions of abstract art.

7 May 2014 Indoor Swimming Pool in Ismaning, Germany Design: prpm Architects + City Planners photograph : Florian Geserer, Foto Sexauer Ismaning Indoor Swimming Pool The new indoor pool in Ismaning has a lot to offer – from fun in the water, to relaxation and wellness. The varied possibilities for swimming and the sauna landscape are not the only things that make it so exciting.

19 May 2013 Swimming pool K, Grimbergen, Flanders, Belgium Design: dmvA photo : Frederik Vercruysse Swimming Pool in Belgium Although the principal dreamt for years of a swimming pool in his small garden, he chose to renovate his 17th century gentleman’s house first.

6 Mar 2013 Piscine Tourcoing, France Design: Mikou Design Studio, architects image courtesy of architects Olympic Swimming Pool in France A diverse landscape of pure forms and large sheets of light that illuminate the city Tourcoing’s new Olympic swimming pool is an emblematic facility in the city.

10 Aug 2012 Pontypridd Lido, Wales Architects: Capita Symonds image from architect Pontypridd Lido – Welsh Swimming Pool Building The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has announced an investment of £2.3 million to restore one of Wales’ largest and only remaining listed lidos in Ynysangharad War Memorial Park, Pontypridd.

14 Jan 2008 Bad Aibling Thermal Spa Design: Behnisch Architekten picture : Adam Mørk / Torben Eskerod Bad Aibling Thermal Spa

Swimming Pool Buildings

More contemporary Swimming Pool Architecture projects online soon

Contemporary Swimming Pool Architecture

Swimming Pool Buildings

Fontanile Pool, Tarquinia, Italy Fontanile Pool in Tarquinia

Jesolo Lido Pool Villa, Veneto, Italy Jesolo Lido Pool Villa

Pool House, Nicosia, Cyprus Pool House in Nicosia

Piscine Tourcoing, north east France Tourcoing Swimming Pool Building

Piscine du Fort, Paris, northern France Issy-les-Moulineaux Swimming Pool

Emser Therme – Thermal Baths in Bad Ems, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany Thermal Baths Buildings

Aqua Leisure Center in Val de Scarpe, Arras, north east France Aqua Leisure Center Arras

Koç Primary School Swimming Pool, Istanbul, Turkey Koç School Swimming Pool

Ametlla de Mar, Catalunya, north east Spain Catalonian Swimming Pool Building

C.N.I. Syrdall Schwemm Recreational Baths, Niederanven, Luxembourg C.N.I. Syrdall Schwemm Recreational Baths

London Olympics Aquatics Centre, UK London Aquatics Centre

The Hurlingham Club, Outdoor Pool, London, England The Hurlingham Club, Outdoor Pool

Beijing Olympics – The Water Cube, China Water Cube Beijing

Annemasse Aquatic Centre, France Annemasse Aquatic Centre Building

Canterbury School Aquatic Center, USA Canterbury School Aquatic Center, Milford

Kalvebod swimming pool, Denmark Copenhagen Swimming Pool Building

Kildeskovshallen, Gentofte, Denmark Gentofte Swimming Pool Building

Lago Segrino building, Italy Lago Segrino bathing establishment

Marinha Grande Swimming Pools, Portugal Marinha Grande Swimming Pools

Oostduinkerke Swimming Pool, Belgium Oostduinkerke Swimming Pool

Swimming Pool het Marnix, Amsterdam Amsterdam Sports building, Holland

Croatian sports building

Investing in a Swimming Pool?

Swimming Pool Architecture Design Ideas

Comments / photos for the Swimming Pool Buildings page welcome

Website: Swimming Pool

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ruminativerabbi · 6 years ago

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The DNA of Shared Experience

The modern science of genetics has made it clear how parents can pass aspects of their own specific heritage along to their offspring. And, indeed, the reason no one finds it at all startling to assert that specific physical traits can be transmitted from generation to generation is precisely because we can see easily enough how a child’s hair color or eye color often matches one or both of his or her parents. From there, it’s not that much of a leap to considering non-physical attributes—say, a predisposition to excel at athletics or as a musician—in that same vein. And, indeed, we also all know instances of children appearing naturally to be good at some skill at which one of their parents excels (or at which both do). But can that notion be extended to include specific experiences parents may have had as well? At least at first blush that sounds like a stretch: the notion that something can happen to me and that that experience can somehow end up encoded in my DNA if it only crosses some theoretic line of genetic responsivity—that feels hard to imagine. But learning about the science of epigenetics has altered my thinking in that regard, and altered it powerfully. What I’ve learned in that regard is what I want to write about this week. And also about its implications for my understanding of the nature of Jewishness itself.

I was prompted to start taking the possibility of the transmissibility of experience seriously by a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences just this fall. Written by Dora L. Costa, a professor of economics at UCLA, and by Noelle Yetter and Heather DeSommer of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass., the study focused on data from Civil War days and concluded that the sons of Union Army soldiers who suffered severe trauma in the course of their time as prisoners-of-war in Confederate prison camps were significantly more likely to die without reaching old age than the sons of Union soldiers who were not captured or incarcerated by Confederate forces. Since all the sons in the study were born after the end of the war, the study suggests that they must have—or at least could have—somehow inherited their fathers’ traumata and suffered from their aftereffects. There were even subtle gradations of experience to consider: the sons of men who were imprisoned in 1863 and 1864, when conditions for prisoners of the Confederacy were especially brutal and inhumane, seem to have been even more likely to die as young people than the sons of Union soldiers taken captive earlier on in the war. (To see the original study, click here. For an excellent analysis of the study published in The Atlantic last October that most readers will find far more accessible, click here.)

The phenomenon has been demonstrated to exist in the animal kingdom as well. A few years ago, for example, scientists were able to demonstrate that when mice who were trained to associate the smell of cherry blossoms with the pain of electric shocks were bred to produce offspring, both the next generation and the generation after that responded anxiously and fearfully to the smell of cherry blossoms in a way wholly unlike mice whose parents or grandparents hadn’t been trained to associate that scent with that level of pain. The study, written by Emory University School of Medicine professors Brian G. Dias and Kerry J. Ressler and published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, concluded that the mice had somehow inherited a response built into their parents’ history of experience. (For a very interesting account of this experiment published in the Washington Post a few years ago, click here.)

And then there came the study of the Dutch famine victims. In the winter of 1944-1945, to punish the Dutch for having attempted to assist the Allied advance into Europe by shutting down the railway links that were being used by the Germans to bring troops to the front line, the Nazis blocked food supplies from coming into Holland so severely that more than 20,000 people died of starvation by the time the war ended the following spring. (For more information, the best source is Henri A. van der Zee’s The Hunger Winter: Occupied Holland 1944-1945, published in 1998 by the University of Nebraska Press.) This would just be one more horrific story of German savagery during the war, but it led to some interesting scientific studies, one of which was published jointly by seven scholars led by Professor L.H. Lumey of Columbia University in the International Journal of Epidemiology in 2007 and which appeared conclusively to prove that the wartime experience of famine impacted not only on the poor souls who had to live through that dreadful winter in the Netherlands, but on the children born to them after the fact: as a group, the children of people who lived through the famine and survived to become parents later on experienced higher rates of obesity, diabetes, and schizophrenia than their co-citizens. They were also noticeably heavier than Dutch people born to parents who did not live through the Hunger Winter. And they died younger than other Dutch people did on the average—the study found that people born to Hunger Winter parents were still experiencing a full 10% higher rate of mortality even sixty-eight years after the famine ended. How exactly this all works, or might work, is beyond me. (Click here for the study itself and here for a far more easily understandable summary of its results published in the New York Times last winter.) But what seems easy to seize is the basic principle that the severe trauma suffered by people living in occupied Holland while the Germans were actively trying to starve the civilian population into submission was so severe that children born to those people ended up with the experience somehow encoded in their own DNA even though they themselves did not experience the famine at all.

This accords well with an essay by Olga Khazan published last summer in The Atlantic in which the author was able very convincingly to demonstrate that victims of intense racial discrimination seem as a class to experience a process called methylation on the specific genes that are connected with bipolar disease, asthma, and schizophrenia, and that this specific genetic change too can be passed along to subsequent generations. What methylation is exactly is also beyond me. The simplest explanation I could find was on the www.news-medical.net website (click here), but was still far too sophisticated for a mere liberal arts major like myself to fathom. The basic principle, though, is clear enough: the experience of intense discrimination can apparently imprint itself on your DNA in a way that makes it possible for children born to you even long after the fact to have to deal with traumatic experiences they didn’t personally experience because those experiences have somehow ended up encoded in their DNA.

And that brings me to the Jewish angle in all of this. ��Just two years ago, Dr. Rachel Yehuda of Mount Sinai Hospital here in New York discovered evidence of this methylation process affecting the gene associated with stress not only in the DNA of Shoah survivors, but in the DNA of their descendants as well. The study, published in Biological Psychiatry in 2016 and not meant for any but specialist readers, was not universally praised—but mostly because only survivors and their children were included in the study, but not the survivors’ grandchildren or great-grandchildren. (For an example of a hostile response published in the U.K. in 2015, click here.) But those scientists are basing themselves, as scientists surely should, on the specific way Dr. Yehuda used the empirical data that was available to her. I, on the other hand, not being encumbered by an actual background in science, find her work wholly convincing and more than easy to believe. Indeed, I have spent my whole life wondering where Jews like myself, who can reasonably say that not a single day has passed since adolescence in the course of which some thought or image related to the Shoah has not surfaced invited or uninvited in my consciousness, from whence this obsessive involvement in the Holocaust derives. Both my parents were born in this country. Therefore, neither was personally a survivor. But both were adults when the war ended and the details regarding the camps and the mass executions became known; the trauma the Jewish community experienced over the months that it took for the true story to become known—and the compounded trauma of slowly coming to terms with the degree to which the Allied forces chose consciously not to interfere with the daily transfer of Jews to the death camps—that trauma, it now seems to me, is at the core of my own worldview, of my own sense of who I am and what the world is about.

Nor is this just about the Shoah in my mind. Ancestry.com recently updated my DNA profile and declared me genetically to be 100% Ashkenazic Jewish. (I had previously been hovering between 96% and 97%). Am I also carrying around the epigenetic markers associated with the First Crusade and the butchery and devastation the Crusaders brought to the defenseless Jews of the Rhineland? I suppose that will only seem an obscure question to readers who don’t know me personally.

#DNA #Epigenetics #Shared Experience #Shoah

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todaynewsstories · 6 years ago

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When church bells were transformed into weapons of war | Europe| News and current affairs from around the continent | DW

The deacon had resigned himself to what was about to happen. For some time he had tried to evade the decree, to keep its consequences to a minimum. But then at the end of July 1917, he had to recognize that his efforts had been in vain: The bells of his parish in the Rhineland-Palatinate town of Kusel would be taken down from the tower. They would then go to an ironworks to be melted down and turned into guns.

“They will speak a different language in the future,” Deacon Karl Munzinger said in his sermon on July 22, 1917 about the loss. “It goes against any feelings, that they, who like no other preach peace and should heal wounded hearts, should tear apart bodies in gruesome murders and open wounds that will never heal.”

With metal essential to the war industry in short supply, the Imperial Government issued a decree in March 1917 to turn bells into weapons of war. The decision distressed many citizens, even those who weren’t Christian.

On September 21, bells will ring across Europe in remembrance of both this event and of the joy and relief attached to the end of the war on November 11, 1918.

Read more – How World War I ended: 100 years later

‘The most painful feelings’

Bells had set the rhythm of the people for ages. “Church bells were and are the clock for daily life. When the death bell tolls, you know that someone is being carried to their grave. On Saturday evening at 10 minutes before 7 p.m. the bells herald the coming of Sunday: One can finally take a rest from work. That is the spiritual dimension of bells. All this ended in the First World War,” said Rüdiger Penczek, a Protestant pastor from outside of Cologne.

Church bells await their fate in Rostock ahead of shipment to an ironworks

Melting down these instruments of the church and turning them into artillery gave the bells the opposite meaning, said Penczek. The decree from March 1917 was disturbing.

“The implementation of the taking down of the bells, caused painful feelings among the clergy and population,” said the Consistory in Speyer.

‘Peace be the first chime she’s ringing’

Even today at the beginning of the 21st century bells are part of daily life in Europe. It was even more so a hundred years ago.

“Still will it last as years are tolling / And many ears will it inspire / And wail with mourners in consoling / And harmonize devotion’s choir.” This is how Friedrich Schiller in 1799 described the role of the bell in public life. The sound brings the people together, joins the individuals to choir. “She doth move, doth wave. / Joy be she this city bringing, / Peace be the first chime she’s ringing,” the poem continued.

“Choir” and “peace” – both were brutally destroyed in the First World War. In place of the choir stood the military corps, peace flowed into fighting, everyday life toppled into a permanent curfew. And the bells remained silent.

Big Bertha was designed to destroy concrete-enforced forts and could launch projectiles as heavy as 800 kg (1760 lbs)

The collapse of the order and the silence of the bells are also known in the liturgical year, said Pastor Penczek. “On Good Friday the bells chime for the church service, but not the Our Father bell. The bells remain silent until Easter Sunday. And the silence of the bells makes clear that something has fallen apart.”

Read more – Aftermath: Art in the wake of World War One’ reveals deep scars

World falling apart

However, not everyone in the church was opposed to the decree. The authors from the Speyer Consistory, for example, welcomed the move and criticized the resistance from church communities, blaming the resentment in large part on the press. The press had spread “false ideas” about the bells.

“It is of great value when in this highly important matter the civilian and military authorities are supported by the clergy, whose sense of Fatherland in the duration of war has so often been proven,” the Consistory wrote.

Around 44 percent of German church bells were melted down in the First World War.

Diversity of remembrance

Remembrance in every country has a specific slant. For the Germans, November 11 was the day of their defeat. The Poles on the other hand, whose country was divided and annexed for over 100 years by the Great Powers, celebrated a national revival. Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, Serbs and Slovenians, also celebrated their liberation from the rule of great empires like the Habsburgs or the Ottoman Empire.

Relief, joy and sorrow. The toll of the bells on November 11, 1918 evoked different emotions across Europe. These diverse perceptions should also be remembered, said Pastor Rüdiger Penczek. “Because everyone carries their own history, every country has its own wounds. That is also an expression of European diversity.”

World War I in color

Record of devastation

During the First World War, photography was mainly seen as a means of spreading propaganda and of serving military interests. Depicted here is the view over the River Maas and the devastated city of Verdun. In fall of 1916, up to 400 members of the German army were involved in aerial photography. Some civilians also took photographs documenting moments of terror – and of joy.

World War I in color

The first sunset after the war

The book “The First World War in Colour,“ edited by Peter Walther, presents more than 320 color photographs which originally came from archives in Europe, the US and Australia. They document events during the war, ranging from the mobilization in 1914 to the victory celebration in London, New York, and at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on July 14, 1919.

World War I in color

The novelty of color

The first color photographs were produced with the so-called autochrome technique which its inventors, the Lumière brothers, had patented in 1904. Tiny particles serve as color filters, bearing a small resemblance both to paintings and to modern digital photography. This photograph depicts the French blimp “Alsace,” which was shot down on October 3, 1915.

World War I in color

At the front

Because the autochrome technique required long exposure times, the photographs taken near the front were often carefully posed. Nevertheless, we gain insight into the daily lives of people and the horrors they had to deal with. Here, a motorized gun-carriage with a cannon used for air defense is pictured in Verdun in 1916.

World War I in color

Appeal for donations

This picture, shot by the American Committee for Devastated France (1917-24) in 1918, depicts an ammunition depot in France. The committee’s aim was to alleviate the enormous suffering of French war refugees. The photographs were taken to help the Americans visualize what was going on in Europe – and to persuade them to make donations.

World War I in color

Private photos for the family

For the first time, not only the government but also private individuals were able to take photographs during World War I. As a result, not only propaganda photos, but also soldiers’ personal impressions of the front and everyday life remain. In the French army, taking photos was officially forbidden, but the rule wasn’t strictly enforced. Here, a French soldier is posing in a concrete dugout.

World War I in color

Aerial warfare

For the first time in history, aerial warfare came into play in the First World War. Pictured here is a French war plane. At the beginning of the war, the French and Britons together possessed as many planes as the Germans. Thanks to the air surveillance carried out by the Royal Flying Corps, the Germans could be stopped at the Battle of the Marne in 1914.

World War I in color

Rolling tanks

The first tanks were used by the Britons in the fall of 1916, in order to break open the gridlocked fronts. This British tank was photographed in Péronne near Amiens. By 1918, the Allies were able to acquire up to 6,000 tanks. At first, Germany underestimated the powerful new weapon. It wasn’t until the spring of 1918 that the Germans developed and implemented a tank of their own, the A7V.

World War I in color

The speed of war

A whole range of new weapons was developed during the First World War, from war planes to tanks and poison gas. The increased use of motorized vehicles made the front more dangerous, but it also meant that injured soldiers could be transported relatively quickly to medical facilities – for example with this British ambulance in 1914.

World War I in color

Art and evidence

The photo pioneers were able to preserve their photo chrome plates over four years of war. Their works are not only evidence of the Great War, but also impressive works of art which deserve to be rediscovered. Peter Walther’s “The First World War in Colour” was published both English and German by TASCHEN.

Author: Sarah Judith Hofmann / ad

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investmart007 · 7 years ago

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BERLIN | Marx hometown unveils huge statue on 200th birth anniversary

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BERLIN | Marx hometown unveils huge statue on 200th birth anniversary

BERLIN — A larger than life statue of Communist philosopher Karl Marx was unveiled Saturday on the 200th anniversary of his birth in the western German town of Trier.

The celebratory uncovering of the 4.4-meter (14-foot) bronze statue of Marx, donated by China, sparked criticism by some who blame Marx for crimes committed by social revolutionaries in Russia, China and elsewhere in the name of Communism.

About 200 guests, including a delegation from China, applauded during the anniversary celebrations, when a bright red cover was lifted from the statue which depicts Marx with a frock and his signature bushy beard.

Marx laid the philosophical foundations for Communism, an ideology that aims for shared ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes. He explained his thoughts in two famous works, the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital.

The ceremony and speeches in Trier were at times disturbed by the shouting and whistling of different groups of nearby protesters.

“The present from China is a pillar and a bridge for our partnership,” said Malu Dreyer, the governor of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, where Trier is located.

A German group representing victims of Communism criticized the Marx anniversary celebrations saying they lacked a debate about the philosopher’s support of violence in the abolishment of social classes.

“We say yes to a debate about Marx, but no to his worship,” the group’s leader, Dieter Dombrowski, said in a statement.

When Germany was divided after the end of World War II, the eastern part was under Communist rule from 1949 until the country’s reunification in 1990. Some East Germans say they still suffer from the long-term effects of the Communist regime’s suppression and violence against its critics.

In China, on the other hand, President Xi Jinping hailed Karl Marx as “the greatest thinker of modern times.”

“Today, we commemorate Marx in order to pay tribute to the greatest thinker in the history of mankind and also to declare our firm belief in the scientific truth of Marxism,” Xi said during an address Friday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Promoting Marx is seen in part as a way for the Chinese president to strengthen ideological control and counter critics within the ruling Communist Party unhappy with his move in March to eliminate presidential term limits. Xi is also general secretary of the ruling Communist Party, an official that is also not term-limited.

China launched market reforms three decades ago, but the party keeps an iron grip on power.

Karl Marx was born in Trier on May 5, 1818 and lived there until he was 17 years old. He died in exile in London in 1883.

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER, By Associated Press – published on STL.News by St. Louis Media, LLC (Z.S)

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#200th birth anniversary #Berlin #Marx hometown #the western German town of Trier #TodayNews #unveils huge statue

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goldeagleprice · 7 years ago

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Will the euro survive?

Despite setbacks by the Theresa May Conservative Party government, Great Britain still plans to exit the European Union. The possibility of France following evaporated with the election of Emmanuel Macron as president. The Netherlands voted to retain the status quo in March. Upcoming elections in several other countries are determining if those nations will continue their EU membership. Iceland is considering pegging its currency to the euro. Outrageous amounts of so-called outdated coins and bank notes from EU currency union member countries have never been exchanged for euros, likely due to fear.

The question has to be asked: Will the EU’s currency union survive? If it doesn’t survive, the EU will go down in history as the largest currency union ever to fail. Regardless, the EU won’t go down in history as being the first such union. Currency unions have existed since ancient times. Greek city-states often shared currency weight standards to ensure coins of one city-state would be accepted at another. The Attic, the Corinthian and the Aeginetan standards were each important to the ancient Greek monetary standards used throughout the Mediterranean Sea region.

Currency unions existed in medieval Europe. In 1385 the four Rhineland imperial electors consisting of the archbishops of Cologne, Mainz, and Trier along with the Coujt Palatine of the Rhine formed a monetary union based on the gulden. The union lasted until 1515. Cleves, Julich, Munster and Onsnabruck occasionally joined this group.

A better known medieval currency union was formed by the Hanseatic League. Gold coins of Lubeck dominated the trade within this group.

In more modern history, the North German Zollverein custom union of 1818 became a factor in the unification of Germany in 1871.

The Latin Monetary Union initially consisted of Belgium, France, Italy and Switzerland. Even the United States considered joining. The U.S. $4 Stella gold coin was minted for that reason. The LMU existed between 1865 and 1927, finally disbanding due to wars and the disparity between the values of gold and silver.

Similar pressures led to the disbanding of the Scandinavian Monetary Union in 1924. The SMU began in the 1870s.

Connecticut, Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire and Rhode Island each honored the paper money of the other three until 1750. Known collectively as the New England colonies, each of these colonies even accepted the money of the other three when collecting taxes. Inflation and devaluation led to the end of this arrangement when Massachusetts began redeeming its money for silver.

We’ve seen the Commonwealth of Independent States attempt to keep the currency “common” within the independent nations that were born from the ashes of the Soviet Union late in the 20th century. Currency unions have been proposed for a group of Arab states, for North America and for the Western Hemisphere.

The French Overseas Issuing Institute, Central Bank of West African States, Bank of Central African States and East Caribbean Currency Union are still functioning.

But, what about the EU and its euro coins and bank notes? A recent Bloomberg news analysis concluded more than 15 billion euro (about $16 billion US) in now obsolete currencies previously used by EU currency union participants is still outstanding. Germany, France and Spain, in that order, are the countries most responsible for this lack of redemption. Germany has yet to set a date at which time redemption of the older mark will expire. France stopped redeeming francs in 2012. Spain allows the peseta to be redeemed until 2020.

Among the 12 national central banks that no longer redeem their former currencies are Finland, Greece and Italy. Greece has its own internal fiscal problems that may yet get the nation expelled from the currency union. Greece is required to implement reforms agreed to by eurozone finance ministers in April. Greece is seeking its third loan since 2010; however, the International Monetary Fund has said the IMF will not participate in the bailout. Greece needs to make a payment on debt in July.

Italy may have a different set of problems. In 2016 the constitutional court ordered the Bank of Italy to redeem 2.5 million euros worth of obsolete lira currency. The public had been complaining the bank moved its exchange date deadline up by three months during 2011.

Euro coins and bank notes are still in high demand. The ECB will be publishing a study in the near future that indicates that more than three-quarters of all point-of-sale transactions within the EU are made in cash. According to the survey, the 50-euro is the most widely used euro bank note denomination. The more than 9 billion 50-euro bank notes in circulation represent 46 percent of all euro bank notes in use.

The ECB is forging ahead, with new 100-euro and 200-euro Europa series bank notes planned to be released at the beginning of 2019.

ECB President Mario Draghi said of the cash study, “Even in this digital age, cash remains essential in our economy.”

Iceland’s acceptance of pegging its krona currency against the euro is a plus. On April 2 Iceland Finance Minister Benedikt Jóhannesson was quoted by The Telegraph newspaper as saying, “The main thing is, if you want to peg against a currency, do it against a currency where you do business. Once you decide on a currency, that will also change the future. You will do more business with that area.”

Germans fear the eurozone debt crisis could be a problem. In 2011 more than half of the Germans surveyed indicated they wanted the German mark to be restored. Alternative for Germany (AFD), a right-wing populist political party, pushed for Germany to leave the EU; however, to date their efforts have led to nil.

Germany is still on edge. In January, Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told Der Spiegel newspaper, “It is no longer unthinkable for the EU to break apart.”

Germany votes in September. AFD is anticipated to win seats in the Bundestag. Chancellor Angela Merkel will be challenged by Martin Schulz, a Social Democrat.

Italy holds elections in early 2018. Two of the leading candidates are calling for a referendum on that nation’s euro membership. Should Italy leave, what about San Marino and Vatican City? The currency of each city-state is legally tied to Italy. Each issues euro coins for that reason.

The Rhineland imperial electors held their currency union together for 130 years. The question now is how long can the European Union hold its currency union together.

This article was originally printed in World Coin News. >> Subscribe today.

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dashalbrundezimmer · 2 months ago

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sechzigstraße // köln nippes

the two neon signs in nippes are both in very good condition and in fragments. there is an appeal to both forms of appearance, but hopefully there is a future for the second.

einmal sehr gut erhalten und einmal in fragmenten präsentieren sich die beiden neonleuchtschriften in nippes. in beiden erscheinungsformen liegt ein reiz, bei der zweiten gibt es hoffentlich aber noch eine zukunft.

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triptogermany2222222222-blog · 7 years ago

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Berlin - landscape architecture in a post war environment

1806-fall of the Holy Roman Empire 1815 - german confederation 1848 - revolution attempts in Rhineland, palatinate, and Bavaria 1871- german unification under Prussian empire 1919- abolishment of monarchy, adoption of democratic parliament under Weimar Republic 1933 - rise of the national socialist party 1945-abolishment of national socialist party, Germany is split up by the Big 3 (Truman, Churchill, and Stalin) in the conference of Potsdam 1949-creation of Federal Republic of Germany (west Germany) and German Democratic Republic (east Germany) 1961- creation of Berlin Wall by east Germany encircling West Berlin 1989- tearing down of wall 1990-reunification of Germany

During the Cold War times after World War II, Germany and Berlin was divided into four sections. To the east in the German Democratic Republic was the Soviet Union sector, and to the west were the American, British, and French sectors which later unified to form the federal republic of Germany.

West Germany was rebuilt with heavy American influence under the Marshall Plan with a social market economy. Architects from around the world collaborated to develop different styles and arrangements for buildings that were are built together with a push towards modernism. The community was built to be walkable and arranged around public transport with mixed used zoning with the idea that people living in their apartments could walk to a small store to buy their groceries. The International Building Exhibition showcased the different styles. The community was knit together with public green spaces that connected public amenities to residential areas.

East Germany was rebuilt under the political control of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany supported by the Stasi or secret service. East German communities were planned as what were thought of as ideal societies at the time, largely based around class structure and order. Stately “people’s palaces” with ceramic detailing were built in the form of apartment complexes organized by occupation. Buildings were highly ornamented on the outside and lined up in blocks. The apartments themselves were small so that people would be encouraged to gather in public community spaces. Mandatory service projects were also held and gardens were maintained this way.

While many enjoyed this form of “ideal society”, many others did not and sought to escape due to the “economic miracle” in west Germany. To do so, East Germans would have to be allowed to pass through the fenced and fortified Inner German Border. In Berlin, the migrations were so heavy that the east german government built a wall surrounding West Berlin to prevent East Germans from leaving. This was because before the wall was erected, East Germans could escape to west Germany by traveling from east Berlin to West Berlin and then they could travel freely from West Berlin to the rest of west Germany. The wall was officially referred to as the anti-fascist protection rampart by the GDR (East German) authorities and was not merely a wall but an entire death strip with East German patrols running along between two barriers on either side to catch escapees. At least 136 people died trying to get past the wall.

The separation of the east and west led to many cultural differences but we’re similar in the sense that both governments sought to build an ideal post war society. Tensions ran high between the two sides due to the Cold War and east Germany had heavy border control restrictions. In 1989, Hungary (an eastern bloc country) reopened its borders, and many East Germans began emigrating to west Germany and Austria via Hungary. In order to help retain east Germany as a state, the East German authority eased border restrictions. After a period of civil unrest and pressure from revolutions in other Eastern Bloc soviet influenced countries, Gorbachov ended the Cold War and the the Berlin Wall was eventually reopened and torn down.

In 1990 the four nations occupying Germany renounced their rights and gave Germany full sovereignty. Germany was reunified and Berlin was made the capital. However, this was not a creation of a new nation but rather an enlargement of the western Federal Republic of Germany. The modernization of funding for integration of east Germany is an on going project scheduled to last until 2019.

After the wall had been mostly torn down, historical preservation acts began to be passed to keep the memory of the wall alive as a part of german culture. Memorials to the wall are set up in the form of parks and educational exhibits. In other parts of Berlin the strip where the wall used to be is highlighted on the ground in the form of paving patterns or decals, sometimes with signs that pay tribute to the lives lost. In parks like Mauer Park, people are allowed to practice graffiti art where the wall stood. These measures to preserve an unhappy memory in german history now add to the culture the country has today.

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delete-alt-right · 8 years ago

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Know Your Scum

It is very slightly inaccurate to call a Trump supporter a Nazi. Though they espouse the same critical views and should indeed be equated, they will often protest the application and insist they are not what you called them, be it Nazi, Fascist, or other such terms. They are technically correct. Here is a guide to the specific terminology so that you can accurately and inarguably apply the correct term for the backwards jerks you may encounter. Though nothing can substitute for the visceral impact of calling someone a Nazi, this list should help you with encounters where the Nazi filth in question insists “No I’m not a Neo-Nazi, Neo-Nazis don’t love me they kind of hate me actually.” Of course other responses to such a statement have also been recorded on video. Anyway, here’s the list:

Nazi

Nazism or “National Socialism” was a German ideology in the early 20th century that promoted racial hierarchy and declared the Aryan German as the master race. It aimed for racial purity and the expansion of a unified Germany. Lead by Adolf Hitler, Nazi controlled Germany murdered several million people in war and the Holocaust before it was defeated.

There are few genuine Nazis left in the world. Chunks of the philosophy remain worldwide, but most of the people one would call a Nazi in America today do not care about the classification of the Austrian border, the specifics of the Treaty of Versailles, or who is occupying the Rhineland.

That said, there is just no substitute for the word when it comes to expressing the problems with someone who believes in racial superiority and other Nazi ideals. It speaks volumes about inhumanity, cruelty, and ignorance while simultaneously reminding listeners of the dangers of their beliefs. Just be warned, many will argue that it is, at the thinnest semantic level, inaccurate.

Neo-Nazi

This is the more appropriate term for a person who supports the critically horrible tenets of Nazism in modern times. Neo-Nazism is a mishmash of groups and individuals who enjoy such pastimes as denying that the Holocaust happened while simultaneously praising Hitler for the Holocaust; beating up anyone who doesn’t look like them; and whining about how persecuted white people are.

Many Neo-Nazis do not self-identify as Neo-Nazi, but the term can be fairly accurately used to describe these people given their devotion to nationalism, racism, antisemitism, and their affection for Hitler and various symbols used in original Nazism. While the most accurate use of the term is specific to those who self-apply the name, if you visit someone’s blog and find it covered in swastika graphics, posts about Nazism, the word “Heil,” and numerous instances of slandering non-white people, you can probably call them a Neo-Nazi without double-checking this list.

Skinhead

Skinheads in England began as an apolitical counter-culture that cared more about brands of shoes than racism. In time, some of them developed into the usual Neo-Nazi trappings and grew violent and just generally awful. Some actually became anti-fascist in response, but in America, skinheads tend to be of former variety, and the aesthetic has spread to Neo-Nazis completely independent of any benevolent aspects.

The word “Skinhead,” for a time, became the universal term for a violent racist. This doesn’t seem to be as popular in the 21st century but the word still has its connotations and in the United States, calling someone a skinhead, especially if they’re bald and support racism, can be an unexpected and effective bash.

Fascist

If “Nazi” is the golden insult, “Fascist” is easily the silver. Because the term is so widespread and variable in exact definition, it can be applied accurately to anyone from a modern jingoistic politician to a particularly heartless police officer to one’s parent who won’t let them go to the Art Garfunkel concert.

Fascism, if you want to get really picky, is an Italian movement that takes its name from a bundle of sticks because bundles of sticks are stronger than single sticks, and Fascists tend to want their country to band together against a unifying opposition, generally immigrants, minorities or dissidents. When dealing with a particularly homophobic Fascist, one might also point out the English term for a bundle of sticks to the Fascist in question.

Though “Fascist” sounds good and holds a decent level of accuracy given its nebulous nature, it is, in the opinion of this author, overused and faulty owing to the escape it grants that Fascist in question. They need only select a definition of Fascism that doesn’t fit them while denying those that apply, and then you look like an exaggerator.

White Supremacist

This term can apply to anyone who thinks or acts like white people are better than non-white people. Many will not self-apply the term because of its negative connotations but when confronted with a mixed-race marriage, they will grow uncomfortable and start making quiet snorting sounds and cursing under their breath.

The term can be dangerous in conversation because the subject need only claim they don’t hate black people to render it apparently inaccurate. Though one could point out that the world isn’t divided into black and white, or that their actions and comments betray their beliefs, the point will be lost and the applier will be accused of name calling. This is even more so with the term “White Nationalist,” which can have even more specific definitions.

Klansman

The KKK is an American movement that’s been around in various forms since the 1860s. They oppose civil rights for minorities, non-Christian religions (in which they include Catholicism), and hold the same general beliefs as everyone else in this post. Their level of activity can spike much higher though. Rather than effecting political change, they tend to just kill black people, terrorize them with burning crosses and threats, blow up their churches with kids inside and so on.

The name is not an effective insult as it applies only to members of the organized group who have their own rituals and costumes and terminology. This specificity renders it almost useless. What can be useful is to note that certain people and programs have been endorsed by this terrorist gang or its retired elders. But even then, this is usually a one way application, and anyone who would be called out on it likely doesn’t care.

Alt-Right

Alt-Right refers to the general movement of all that Nazism stood for, but updated for 21st century America and mostly free of the old terminology, though Nazi salutes aren’t unheard of at their rallies. Instead of a bunch of exceedingly long German words, they use memes and terms they found on 4chan.

The Alt-Right is the whiniest and most pathetic of the movements here, and the most difficult to apply as it has no term for its members yet. It can thus be conveniently applied only to ideas, and given its youth, it has no connotations that will offend the casual listener. Its current use is mostly as a euphemism for the terms above.

Republican

An American political party that in its early days opposed slavery. Republicans who want to appear non-racist often cite this fact, ignoring the party’s subsequent history of advocating and implementing overwhelming racist, sexist, homophobic and economically demented politics.

The Republican party changed again when it endorsed Donald Trump as its presidential nominee. In that moment, the Republican party endorsed his racism, sexism, and authoritarian views and became an instrument of the Alt-Right movement. Many Republicans will dispute this, claiming that they themselves oppose Trump or his ideals, but one will generally notice that they do absolutely nothing to stop their implementation, and still consider themselves Republican despite the party’s recent actions.

“Republican” is sadly not enough of an insult yet to do any good. It’s more useful to recognize as a self-applied classification that distinguishes the person as either an active racist, or a schmuck who doesn’t mind their party being led by an active racist, or at best, an absolute ignoramus who thinks their party has good economic ideas and cares nothing for the fact that these ineffective policies come at the expense of racism, homophobia, sexism and a horrendously dystopian government.

Trumpist

A very new term that’s still in flux. Despite the fact it lacks any objectively negative connotations, it still sounds quite insulting and very efficiently applies all the above terms to the individual, while adding the incredible lack of human quality of its central figure, all his pernicious and disgusting policies, and so on and so forth. Thus it may be the best word to use, pending its demonization.

Therein is the biggest problem, people are not using it. This author recommends that those opposed to Trump, the Alt-Right, Nazism, and so on, make the term synonymous with evil, like “Nazi” and “Fascist before it.” This will not only yield a new term that eloquently summarizes the problem, but insults Donald Trump while doing it.

Consider the effects of this man’s name becoming the new insult for such people. It will hurt anyone who agrees with him. It will damage his standing even further. It will stop us from forgetting or normalizing his actions. And most appealing perhaps is that it gives the next generation a term to use when the meanings of Nazism and Fascist are even further forgotten.

It is new, so if you use it, be sure to preface it with an adjective like “Disgusting,” “Worthless,” or “Pathetic.” Append to it words like “Scumbag,” “Filth” or “Asshole.” That will make some progress against those disgusting Trumpist scumbags in terms of discussion and debate.

#trumpism #trumpist #nazism #alt-right #politics

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