Didn't Reagan lay a wreath at Nazi tombs or something like that?

[fujiyama]

I'm not too familiar with it, but didn't he lay a wreath at some Nazi tombs?

What's with all this hoopla over his speech over the 40th anniversary of D-Day? How can this be mentioned, while neglecting the other act?

I give my condolences to Reagan's family, but I'm not going to act like RR's death makes me feel sad. I'm also not going act as though he was a great man or a great president -- because he wasn't.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

1. Nor will I. Reagan ranks at the bottom of the list.

[Nevernose]

2. "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg"

Hang on and I'll find a picture...

[Cheneys_former_heart]

13. God Bless Joey Ramone

He wrote that song for Reagan's "classy" move.

[charlie]

14. And it chapped Johnny's ass

every time he had to play it. Hee!

[VolcanoJen]

24. Photo.... "Bonzo Goes To Bitburg" was the first thing that came to mind...

... when I saw the title of this thread. :D

Gabba gabba hey!

[brainshrub]

3. Were all German soldiers Nazis?

Did you have to be a member of the party to be in the German military back in the 40s?

Just curious.

[orthogonal]

9. Not as far as I know

In 1941 it was made mandatory that children 10 or older join the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) (or for girls, the Bund Deutscher Mädel), but adult membership in the NSDAP (Nazi Party) was not, as far as I know universally mandatory, although party membership was required to hold certain jobs or positions.

In the military, officers had to swear a personal oath to Hitler, but I don't think party membership was strictly required, but I could be wrong.

[Kellanved]

12. No

In fact, prior to WW2 Party Membership was forbidden to officers (but most were conservatives/Pro-Empire).
The Nazi entanglement of the Wehrmacht is not a simple affair; fact is that the Wehrmacht marched on Hitler's orders, under Hitler's flag.

In the beginning the Wehrmacht had a choice - they decided to follow Hitler, holding the Prussian tradition of obedience over the Prussian traditions of law, Freedom of Religion and Freedom of career.

After the draft was introduced, soldiers came from all political directions - most followed orders, few did not.

It is telling that it was left to the current German Government to pardon and rehabilitate deserters. Even more telling that the conservatives sent a former Nazi military judge as delegate to this year's Federal Assembly, which elected the German President.

The WaffenSS is another story: It started as a Party paramilitary force, the members were Nazis - period. The Reagan visit was made awkward, as there are SS men buried at Bitburg.

Schröder decided not to visit a German war cemetery in Normandy for exactly this reason - he'll visit a tomb of the unknown German Soldier instead.

[JohnKleeb]

18. it was an SS grave

If youre curious and they generally speaking were hardcore nazis.

[charlie]

4. Yes

Bonzo went to Bitburg. In spite of the critical firestorm that preceded his visit, he went through with it anyway.

[orthogonal]

5. sort of

Reagan was widely criticized in 1985 for an incident related to an official visit to West Germany. On April 11, the White House announced that Reagan would be visiting the Bitburg military cemetery together with Chancellor Helmut Kohl, to lay a wreath in honor of German soldiers who died in both World Wars. This became controversial when it came to public attention that a small number (variously reported as 49 or 56) of gravesites contained remains of soldiers who had served in Waffen-SS units. Despite protests from various quarters, most notably Elie Wiesel, Reagan carried out the visit on May 5 on the grounds that it would promote reconciliation between the former adversaries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan">--from Wikipedia

[Nevernose]

6. Pic from Barrtcop

BTW, not all German soldiers were Nazis, but members of the SS sure as hell were.

[fujiyama]

8. Thanks for the pic

Once again shows the incredible lack of sensitivity he was famous for.

Fuck him, and fuck the media for giving him the free ride during his time in office and giving Bush that same ride now (no, it's even worse today).

Clinton was crucified over oral sex, but Reagan can lay wreaths at Nazi's tombs, Bush starts wars that have 700+ Americans and thousands of Iraqis.

And today, the media will let us know that Reagan was the greatest president this country ever hah, next to Bush of course.

[LeahMira]

11. He also...

... broke the air traffic controllers' strike... a move that IMO weakened the clout of all the unions since then.

[fujiyama]

17. Of course

by no means did I mean that this was his one true crime or even the worst.

Reagan had a career spanning several decades of being a complete SOB...

[mountainvue]

20. He knew how to do it

because once upon a time, he was a union man himself. Y'all know that before they flipped him, Ronnie was a Dem.

[Yupster]

23. Air-traffic controllers strike is an example

of why history matters.

Each president traditionally puts a picture of his favorite president in the Oval Office.

When the air-traffic controllers threatened to strike, Reagan warned that he would fire them all. They thought he was bluffing. They struck. He fired them.

So who did Reagan put up in portrait as his favorite president? Calvin Coolidge, the last president to keep horses at the White House.

What was it that made Coolidge a national name that could vault him into the vice-presidency and later the presidency? Well, when he was Governor of Massachusetts, the police in Boston threatened to strike. He declared "there is no right to strike against the public safety." He said he'd fire them all. They struck. He fired them, and called in the National Guard, won public approval and became a national big name politician.

You'd think someone in the air-traffic controllers union would have read their history.

[Yupster]

21. Sensitivity to German Chancellor

When the firestorm broke over going to Bitburg it became a huge inter-German political fight. Reagan's team talked of going to a different cemetary without Waffen SS graves, but the decision was made to take the heat and carry on as it would be a political disaster for the Conservative leader of West Germany Helmut Kohl who was backing Reagan on his missile programs despite overwhelming German public opposition should Reagan back out.

PS - The Waffen SS was a mixed bag. The first three divisions; 1-Leibstandarte, 2-Das Reich, and 3-Totenkopf were made up of first rate German soldiers who were also idealogical Nazis. These divisions were wonderfully armed, and used in the most important points of battle.

The next three divisions, Polizei, Wiking and Nord were also first rate, but were already showing some of the cracks in the efficiency of the SS. Polizei was formed from drafted policemen, often older and less idealogically driven than the first three "pure" SS divisions. Wiking was not a German division at all. It had a large contingent of Western Europeans who sympathized with the Nazi cause within it.

After those first six divisions, things went downhill.

The "12th SS Hitlerjugend division" was made up of the youngest.

The "13th SS Handschar Division" was made up of Muslims from Yugoslavia. It was disbanded in 1944 because it was uncontrollable. It just wanted to kill Serbs.

The "33rd SS Division Charlemagne" was made up of French soldiers who joined Hitler. Ironically, it was this division that defended Hitler's bunker area as the Russians stormed Berlin.

Overall there were 37 SS divisions, some made up of the Nazis best and brightest. Many made up of foreign legions from Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, France, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Albania and Croatia.

It's a pretty mixed bag.

[lefador]

7. Yup, he went to Bitburg to pay homage to Nazi victims

That is why everyone should celebrate Rayguns dead by rejoycing while listening to the Ramones' "Bonzo goes to Bitburg."

I am also sure that all this "memorial" week rimjob programs will do a nice job at ignoring Iran-Contra, or the hundreds of marines killed in Lebannon, or the deficits, the Starwars, the fact that Gorbachev offered a full disarming treaty in Helsinki and this scumbag rejected it. Etc, etc, etc.

[lebkuchen]

10. Yes, he said the SS were "victims"

RR on 4/25/85, defending his plan to visit Bitburg military cemetery in West Germany, says German soldiers were "victims" of the Nazis "just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps." (Nearly 50 SS troops are among the 2000 dead buried there.)

[Kellanved]

15. That came directly from Kohl

Worst thing IMHO is that Kohl re-dedicated the "Neue Wache" Memorial to include German (Soldiers) with the above reason (" German soldiers were "victims" ").

It is simply wrong; it completely disregards what the "Neue Wache" was all about.

[Supply Side Jesus]

16. kick for self-righteous Reagan lovers.

[T Bone]

19. yep, and he couldn't figure out why it would upset anyone?

:shrug:

[Mattforclark]

22. Distinguish the Waffen SS from the Toetenkopf (concentration camp units)

The Waffen SS was basically an elite military formation, better trained and equipped than the regular German army. They were not involved in running the concentration camps. (Though there were certainly other atrocities). Anyway, the Waffen SS came under a different organizational structure than the concentration camp "deaths heads" units, so it can be misleading to group all "SS" togehter. A somewhat similar situation might be Military Police units in Iraq - certainly the MP units that were at Abu Ghraib Prison deserve a bad name, but that doesn't mean that all MPs are involved in atrocities, or that all are stationed at prisons, etc - it's actually a bit more of a seperation than that though, because I don't think you get transferred from the Waffen SS to the Deaths Head units.

It's also not true that if you were in the SS, you were necessarily a Nazi. In many cases selection to the SS had much more to do with whether you were "Aryan" or not, rather than whether you were a Nazi. My grand-uncle (German) had blonde hair and blue eyes, so he found himself being recruited by the SS. He requested that he be allowed to join the regular army instead. Be careful what you wish for... Being in the SS was supposed to be an "honor." He rejected that "honor." So he was put in a "politically unreliable" unit, which disappeared without a trace somewhere in Russia in the winter of 1942. I am sure there were plenty of "Aryan" looking people who were not Nazis but did not have the courage to say no to the SS.

[Yupster]

25. III SS Division Totenkopt

should not be confused with the same named Totenkopf branc of the SS which was to guard prisons and such.

The III SS Division Totenkopf was the Third SS Division formed in 1940. It was made up of the most elite German and idealogically Nazi fighters. SS Division Totenkopf had nothing to do with concentration camps though some of its first recruits came from the ranks of prison guards, hence the name. The III SS Division was a front-line fighting unit which was sent to the most dangerous fronts in the war, either to lead an offensive or try to seal a breach. It can be seen at its best as part of the Third taking of Kharkov in 1943. It also led the Kursk offensives and kept leading German offensives right to the Lake Balaaton debacle in spring 1945.

The III SS Division Totenkopf would never be wasted with such a task as guarding a prison or camp. It was, with I SS Division Leibstandarte and II SS Division Das Reich among the best equipped units in the German Armed forces.

[Hubert Flottz]

26. Looks like Rummy and Bush learned how to treat POWs from

one of Reagan's SS pals, Lt. Col. Jochen Peiper!

The Malmédy Massacre Trial

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/ww2/malmedy2.html