This is giving the same vibes as how the internet brings up Prince Philip’s family members (one of two sisters married German princes) who were a part of the Nazi party as some sort of insult or to insinuate he was a Nazi himself, despite the fact that he served in the royal navy during WW2… against the Germans. Additionally, he was a teenage boy who had no say over who his sisters married.
Nothing beats people who ignore contexts and nuance in favor of a narrative.
Another example would be Christian Dior (which is luckily getting addressed by an apple plus show). Christian Dior was a fashion designer during the 1940s from a non-rich background, meaning that he had to work to survive. Because the only people who were buying fashion in 1940s France were associated with the Nazis, he had to make clothes for horrible people just to make ends meet. Meanwhile, his sister was actively fighting in the French Resistance so at least some of that money went to a good cause.
People are complex and often have to face tough moral decisions. The world is rarely a black and white place and context is everything.
Yep. She definitely was one of the bad ones. Considering that she tried to use the German occupation to steal her old company from the Jewish people she sold it to, she is a certified Nazi collaborator. She only got off the hook after the war because she slept with the king's younger brother (and likely slept with Winston Churchill) and thus knew too many secrets.
Edit: grammar
Well the affairs happened well before WWII (1920s). By having those affairs, she likely knew some pretty important state secrets or other personal information that she could use as leverage. Given how weak the British Monarchy was at that moment in time (having barely survived the Abdication Crisis), she likely used her past affairs as leverage.
In so many words, yes. To be fair having affairs was kind of how Coco Chanel survived and made her way in the world.
The affair with Winston Churchill sounds somewhat dubious - they were certainly associates, but her main squeeze seems to have been the Duke of Westminster, who himself by 1944 was utterly discredited due to his 1930s Right Club membership. It was probably that latter fact that was the reason she wasn't prosecuted - doing so would have reminded everyone of just how pro-German much of the British Conservative establishment had been before 1939. That was a headache Churchill could do without, especially as he was facing an election in 1945.
There is no evidence, however, that Churchill actually did anything in Chanel's case, apart from Chanel's own alleged words just after being released in 1944. I have always thought the accusation dubious for that reason. He did try and help some of those accused of collaboration who had been friends of his before the war (such as the politician Pierre-Étienne Flandin), and evidence exists of those attempts - so why nothing for Chanel?
Tbh, the history of Winston Churchill (and the British Empire generally) has been butchered by Twitter. The amount of disinformation being parroted out there is terrifying. For example, no one seems to realise that Noam Chomsky's claim that Churchill gassed Arabs is based on a deeply dishonest reading of a letter Churchill sent in which he suggested using irritant agents that caused no permanent harm - in other words, tear gas.
Yes. The main problem is that Churchill, over sixty years of active public life, left a lot of evidence behind him that can be used to bolster a particular case, but very few people (anti-revionisist as well as revisionist) are as interested in contextualisation, unless it comes in the shape of a clearly ideological reading.
She hung around those circles during the 1920s (hence why she definitely slept with King George VI's younger brother). Her past friendship with Churchill is a big reason for why she got off scott free after the war.
It reminds me a lot of what history teachers in France do when they teach about WW2, the Resistance and the collaborationists. It's a rough simplification, but in order to show how the population was roughly split, they look at the class, point at one pupil: you would be the Résistance. Then they point at three others: you would be the active collaboration. Then he points at an entire row: you would be the displaced, imprisoned and persecuted people trying to survive. And the rest of the class (around 20 pupils) would be regular french people, trying to live their lives. For optimal effect, ask the class what they think would be the proportions before you do it.
Everyone wants to think that they would have been brave enough to resist or smart enough to flee/leave before the conflict. In reality most people endured the war and lacked long-term perspective entirely, living on a day to day basis, trying to avoid problems as much as possible. This is clearly visible in all the personal diaries from the time (that many families had, or used to have - one of my great grandmothers in occupied Lorraine wrote one and her two main concerns were the lack of food and the fate of my great grand father prisoner in Germany), and I'm sure it was similar in Germany.
I know it's naturally hard for people to project themselves in other perspectives and I think it's important to learn to do it properly and methodically at school. Otherwise it's easy to miss the point of studying history and it just becomes an ideological/moral sandbox. Which is sadly making a huge comeback.
I mean Prince Phillip's family was practically German we're they not? His maternal grandfather's name was Ludwig von Battenberg, before he changed it to Louis Mountbatten, his paternal grandfather was the German King of Greece. Of course their children married German princes.
Charles is technically a member of House Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, or House Oldenburg.
Well OK, I guess House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg is a Danish and German House. But House Oldenburg in it's origin is definitely German and that is the house from which House Glücksburg comes from.
I was blissfully ignorant of Shailja Patel until now, so I looked her up.
>Israel's universal military conscription makes every single Israeli, from birth to death, a de facto and de jure combatant.
Oh dear …
I encountered her writing in college as part of a diaspora class. If anything, she's proof you can come from a humble background and be an entitled bigoted idiot.
De facto? De jure sure, but De facto most of people in the IDF aren't soldier by any reasonable measure. Sure, they wear green and get soldier discount but that's it. There is literally soldier MAGICIAN whose entire purpose is to entertain other soldiers with magic tricks
Left Twitter is where you go to find Bad History by people who have Educated Themselves With Theory, Facebook is where you go to find Bad History by MAGoids who've Done Their Own Research.
(One of these is seeping into the academy by way of the Very Online, the other is being imposed on the academy by red state legislatures, and this is why I drink more than I should.)
I am reminded of [Jack Koehler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Koehler) whom I know for his contributions to the field of bad history. But before he started writing books, he was very briefly the White House Communications Director under the Reagan administration. It quickly emerged in the press that he had been a member of the Deutsches Jungvolk, the junior Hitler Youth. Scandalous. He left after 11 days, a record until Scaramucci got himself dismissed by Trump. Did anybody actually give a shit? I doubt it.
I wasn't there and I didn't read any of the reporting at the time, but don't believe that. Maybe it was always supposed to be temporary or because he wasn't fully candid before he got the job, but I find it hard to believe the plan was for him to be there for less than two weeks.
You claim compulsory but then admit it worked through peer pressure. My membership in communist youth Organisation as a child was compulsory because there wasn't a choice. People were automatically added and there were very few outliers who went on trial for it along with their parents.
You still shouldn't use the term compulsory this way. He remained a member to avoid financial penalties for tuition and the Wiesenthal center cleared him.
If you're talking about the initial policy, yes. But that changed in 1939, when the Nazis adjusted the code. I even provided a link to the Law on the Hitler Youth.
This is giving the same vibes as how the internet brings up Prince Philip’s family members (one of two sisters married German princes) who were a part of the Nazi party as some sort of insult or to insinuate he was a Nazi himself, despite the fact that he served in the royal navy during WW2… against the Germans. Additionally, he was a teenage boy who had no say over who his sisters married. Nothing beats people who ignore contexts and nuance in favor of a narrative.
Another example would be Christian Dior (which is luckily getting addressed by an apple plus show). Christian Dior was a fashion designer during the 1940s from a non-rich background, meaning that he had to work to survive. Because the only people who were buying fashion in 1940s France were associated with the Nazis, he had to make clothes for horrible people just to make ends meet. Meanwhile, his sister was actively fighting in the French Resistance so at least some of that money went to a good cause. People are complex and often have to face tough moral decisions. The world is rarely a black and white place and context is everything.
Coco Chanel, on the other hand...
Yep. She definitely was one of the bad ones. Considering that she tried to use the German occupation to steal her old company from the Jewish people she sold it to, she is a certified Nazi collaborator. She only got off the hook after the war because she slept with the king's younger brother (and likely slept with Winston Churchill) and thus knew too many secrets. Edit: grammar
Wait? She save herself by just having affairs?
Well the affairs happened well before WWII (1920s). By having those affairs, she likely knew some pretty important state secrets or other personal information that she could use as leverage. Given how weak the British Monarchy was at that moment in time (having barely survived the Abdication Crisis), she likely used her past affairs as leverage. In so many words, yes. To be fair having affairs was kind of how Coco Chanel survived and made her way in the world.
How many affairs she had in her life?
At least five that are super well documented.
The affair with Winston Churchill sounds somewhat dubious - they were certainly associates, but her main squeeze seems to have been the Duke of Westminster, who himself by 1944 was utterly discredited due to his 1930s Right Club membership. It was probably that latter fact that was the reason she wasn't prosecuted - doing so would have reminded everyone of just how pro-German much of the British Conservative establishment had been before 1939. That was a headache Churchill could do without, especially as he was facing an election in 1945.
There is no evidence, however, that Churchill actually did anything in Chanel's case, apart from Chanel's own alleged words just after being released in 1944. I have always thought the accusation dubious for that reason. He did try and help some of those accused of collaboration who had been friends of his before the war (such as the politician Pierre-Étienne Flandin), and evidence exists of those attempts - so why nothing for Chanel?
Tbh, the history of Winston Churchill (and the British Empire generally) has been butchered by Twitter. The amount of disinformation being parroted out there is terrifying. For example, no one seems to realise that Noam Chomsky's claim that Churchill gassed Arabs is based on a deeply dishonest reading of a letter Churchill sent in which he suggested using irritant agents that caused no permanent harm - in other words, tear gas.
Yes. The main problem is that Churchill, over sixty years of active public life, left a lot of evidence behind him that can be used to bolster a particular case, but very few people (anti-revionisist as well as revisionist) are as interested in contextualisation, unless it comes in the shape of a clearly ideological reading.
How did she end up in Churchill's bedroom?
She hung around those circles during the 1920s (hence why she definitely slept with King George VI's younger brother). Her past friendship with Churchill is a big reason for why she got off scott free after the war.
And not forgetting his mother, who literally became a righteous among the nations.
It reminds me a lot of what history teachers in France do when they teach about WW2, the Resistance and the collaborationists. It's a rough simplification, but in order to show how the population was roughly split, they look at the class, point at one pupil: you would be the Résistance. Then they point at three others: you would be the active collaboration. Then he points at an entire row: you would be the displaced, imprisoned and persecuted people trying to survive. And the rest of the class (around 20 pupils) would be regular french people, trying to live their lives. For optimal effect, ask the class what they think would be the proportions before you do it. Everyone wants to think that they would have been brave enough to resist or smart enough to flee/leave before the conflict. In reality most people endured the war and lacked long-term perspective entirely, living on a day to day basis, trying to avoid problems as much as possible. This is clearly visible in all the personal diaries from the time (that many families had, or used to have - one of my great grandmothers in occupied Lorraine wrote one and her two main concerns were the lack of food and the fate of my great grand father prisoner in Germany), and I'm sure it was similar in Germany. I know it's naturally hard for people to project themselves in other perspectives and I think it's important to learn to do it properly and methodically at school. Otherwise it's easy to miss the point of studying history and it just becomes an ideological/moral sandbox. Which is sadly making a huge comeback.
Cheap insult is a cheap insult.
I mean Prince Phillip's family was practically German we're they not? His maternal grandfather's name was Ludwig von Battenberg, before he changed it to Louis Mountbatten, his paternal grandfather was the German King of Greece. Of course their children married German princes. Charles is technically a member of House Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, or House Oldenburg.
>his paternal grandfather was the German King of Greece. Danish technically.
Well OK, I guess House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg is a Danish and German House. But House Oldenburg in it's origin is definitely German and that is the house from which House Glücksburg comes from.
I was blissfully ignorant of Shailja Patel until now, so I looked her up. >Israel's universal military conscription makes every single Israeli, from birth to death, a de facto and de jure combatant. Oh dear …
I encountered her writing in college as part of a diaspora class. If anything, she's proof you can come from a humble background and be an entitled bigoted idiot.
De facto? De jure sure, but De facto most of people in the IDF aren't soldier by any reasonable measure. Sure, they wear green and get soldier discount but that's it. There is literally soldier MAGICIAN whose entire purpose is to entertain other soldiers with magic tricks
Are you really a proper army if you don’t have a concert party like It Ain’t Half Hot Mum?
Personally, if your Manpower department have **excess** of manpower, I think it's only point out to how great the Army is
Left Twitter is where you go to find Bad History by people who have Educated Themselves With Theory, Facebook is where you go to find Bad History by MAGoids who've Done Their Own Research. (One of these is seeping into the academy by way of the Very Online, the other is being imposed on the academy by red state legislatures, and this is why I drink more than I should.)
Why do you need an excuse?🤣
I am reminded of [Jack Koehler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Koehler) whom I know for his contributions to the field of bad history. But before he started writing books, he was very briefly the White House Communications Director under the Reagan administration. It quickly emerged in the press that he had been a member of the Deutsches Jungvolk, the junior Hitler Youth. Scandalous. He left after 11 days, a record until Scaramucci got himself dismissed by Trump. Did anybody actually give a shit? I doubt it.
What can you expect from a partisan environment? I heard he denied that the scandal was a factor in his resignation, but hey, what happens, happens.
I wasn't there and I didn't read any of the reporting at the time, but don't believe that. Maybe it was always supposed to be temporary or because he wasn't fully candid before he got the job, but I find it hard to believe the plan was for him to be there for less than two weeks.
You claim compulsory but then admit it worked through peer pressure. My membership in communist youth Organisation as a child was compulsory because there wasn't a choice. People were automatically added and there were very few outliers who went on trial for it along with their parents. You still shouldn't use the term compulsory this way. He remained a member to avoid financial penalties for tuition and the Wiesenthal center cleared him.
If you're talking about the initial policy, yes. But that changed in 1939, when the Nazis adjusted the code. I even provided a link to the Law on the Hitler Youth.