Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/04/11
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hitler was gassed, shot and awarded the Iron Cross which was, in itself, a very unusual event for an enlisted man. In 1945, when it became obvious there was no longer a 3rd Reich, he put a 7.65 Mauser to his head and pulled the trigger. When our leaders screw the pooch, as they so often do, they retire with a big pension. Now I'm sure we could go on, ad infinitum, with rhetoric about whose daddy was toughest but relating to Stalin and Hitler my guess is they both had brass balls. Ho Chi Minh was another. These boys knew what it was to be on the short end of the stick. No silver spoons or ivory towers for them. Probably not a Yalie among them.Whether or not Hitler pulled a trigger on anyone is not the issue (although I'd bet he did). Spending 4 years in the trenches would seem to put him a cut or two above what we have to choose from every few years. Walt Marc James Small wrote: >At 09:05 PM 4/11/06 -0400, Walt Johnson wrote: > > >>Some where in your history class you might have done a bit of napping? >>Stalin was quite familiar with pulling a trigger and his German >>counterpoint ( I trust you mean Adolph and not Marlene Dietrich) had >>his heinie shot off more than once. Again, it seems as if you are >>confusing them with our own hero/leaders. Most of whom were hiding under >>the bed when everyone else was busy "defending democracy". >> >> > >Hmm. > >I'm relatively familiar with the histories of both and cannot recall a >documented instance when either ever killed anyone themselves. Stalin's >pre-Revolution activities were as a seminary student and then as a bank >robber but, when he was captured by the Okhrana (the predecessor to the >NKVD which Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinzki, for whom the FED camera is named, >the NKVD in turn leading to the KGB and the present agency whose initialism >I cannot recall at the nonce), Stalin was not charged with any death but >only as a bank-robber of revolutionary bent and then went to Siberia, where >he was exiled to a remote village and didn't even try to escape unlike most >of the other Old Revolutionaries. Once the Revolution occurred, Stalin was >released, went to Petrograd, and fell in with the Social Democrat Party >leadership. After that, he certainly never shot anyone. So, no, I doubt >if Stalin ever personally killed anyone but, then, the same can be said of >Luciano and the Teflon Don. > >Hitler joined the Bavarian Army on the outbreak of the First War and went >through basic and unit training. Before his unit reached the Front, he was >assigned as a runner, a position he held through the War. Runner did not >carry firearms save for a pistol and there is no record that Hitler ever >fired a shot in combat, though he was a brave, daring, and efficient >transporter of missives, a sort of Hermes of the West-Front, to draw in a >Leica allusion to an otherwise OT discussion. From that point onwards, his >life is too well documented to say that he ever killed anyone, though he >did order than this Alsatian bitch, Blondi, be put down a day or so before >his own death to ensure that the cyanide capsules which Eva Braun intended >on using in her suicide would work. That is probably as close to death as >Hitler came after 1918. > >Of the Nazi and Soviet leadership, none save for Goering and Hess were >combat veterans to my memory. Khruschev might have personally shot Beria >or that might just be one of the myths the Fat Man tried to cast upon his >legacy but he certainly ordered him killed. > >We have to reach back a far piece in US history to find a President who >actually killed someone. Jackson and William Henry Harrison might well be >the only ones to have done so, though Teddy Roosevelt is another >possibility. McKinley spent the most of hte Civil War as a Mess Sergeant, >which gave him little opportunity for physical combat. Oh! Truman! >Perhaps Truman did -- he was the Commander of a Field Artillery Battery in >the AEF in 1918 and might well have pulled a lanyard or two, turning some >Landsers into primordial ooze at a range of a klick or two, so he never got >to see the efficacy of his action. But I have no proof of this. >Certainly, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush >I, Clinton (hovering under the bed, as you note), and Bush II never killed >anyone. > >Marc > > >Marc > >msmall@aya.yale.edu >Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir! > >NEW FAX NUMBER: +540-343-8505 > > > > > >_______________________________________________ >Leica Users Group. >See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > > >