The assassination of Franz Ferdinand

edited July 2014 in General Discussion Posts: 14,799
I am not sure how it will pick up, but today is the 100th anniversary.
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Comments

  • Posts: 1,405
    It could pick up if only you would spell the name properly.
  • KerimKerim Istanbul Not Constantinople
    edited June 2014 Posts: 2,629
    Also the 10th anniversary of Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out". Great song.


    Seriously though, the assassination is worth remembering. It was the beginning of a 31 year period horrific period that would change the world forever.

    Using gas as weapons
    Rise of communism
    Rise of Hitler and Mussolini
    Atomic weapons
    Millions and millions of lives lost.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited June 2014 Posts: 17,727
    Yes, a date worth remembering for all the calamities that followed up to and including World War I, World War II, the Cold War, the War on Terror and beyond.
  • Posts: 5,767
    I had to think twice how a band can be assassinated, or who would do such a thing.

    As for the double murder, it was one little cog in a huge machine leading to the sad World Wars of the 20th century.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,448
    I believe war was inevitable. Too much tension had been building up. The assassination acted as a catalyst but pretty much anything could have. The sad part is the cascade of war spawning more war of which, indeed, we are still seeing results today. The 20th century was colourful. Alas, there was a lot of red in the mix.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,727
    DarthDimi wrote:
    I believe war was inevitable. Too much tension had been building up. The assassination acted as a catalyst but pretty much anything could have. The sad part is the cascade of war spawning more war of which, indeed, we are still seeing results today. The 20th century was colourful. Alas, there was a lot of red in the mix.

    With all of the various alliances (Allied Powers and Central Powers) I think you are right - it was a tinderbox someone only had to throw a match into. From the late C19th there was Anglo-German rivalry so it had to come to a head at some point sadly. And the line about the red in the mix is a very good way of putting things there, @DarthDimi.
  • Posts: 14,799
    It could pick up if only you would spell the name properly.

    Sorry, stupid typo.
  • Posts: 14,799
    DarthDimi wrote:
    I believe war was inevitable. Too much tension had been building up. The assassination acted as a catalyst but pretty much anything could have. The sad part is the cascade of war spawning more war of which, indeed, we are still seeing results today. The 20th century was colourful. Alas, there was a lot of red in the mix.

    I agree the war was waiting to happen. People were expecting it, many were even hoping for it.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,727
    Ludovico wrote:
    DarthDimi wrote:
    I believe war was inevitable. Too much tension had been building up. The assassination acted as a catalyst but pretty much anything could have. The sad part is the cascade of war spawning more war of which, indeed, we are still seeing results today. The 20th century was colourful. Alas, there was a lot of red in the mix.

    I agree the war was waiting to happen. People were expecting it, many were even hoping for it.

    Indeed, though they would soon learn the horrors of the trenches and "total war".

  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,448
    One part that confuses me concerns the development of modern science. Both world wars prevented several young physicists to contribute to science. The young genius Henry Moseley, who in his early 20s had already done some amazing work in the field of physics, was shot during the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915. He was only 27 at the time. Some believe that had he lived a long life, he might have developed physics even beyond the scope of Einstein or Newton. Either way, atomic physics wouldn't have made all its advances were it not for his work on X-rays and such.
    That said, the climate of unrest in Germany in the 1930s forced several talented scientists to leave the country, or even the continent, and eventually allowed them to achieve some amazing things far away from the battlefield. Just think about some of the most talented Europeans in the physics community doing wonderful things in the USA during the war. Then still, however, one wonders about the development of the first nuclear bomb, and how the impending doom of WWII triggered some of the work in that particular field, how in fact it may have sped things up.

    On the one hand, I am fascinated by the amazing achievements of 20th century physicists and their advances in the field of quantum physics, genetic engineering, cosmology and so forth. On the other hand, I wonder if it was the proper century to make such advances; or worse still, if said advances may or may not in fact have assisted in the bloodshed, willingly or unwillingly. Reading about the great triumphs of 20th century physics, I always find the joy somewhat ambiguous. Yes, without these developments, you and I wouldn't be sitting in front of a computer screen now and our life expectancies may have been 20 to 30 years lower. But, without these developments, the world would probably be a cleaner place for the most part and warfare, though probably still among us, would at least be handled without dirty WMD's.

    But is war inevitable? I tend to think that with less, much less people populating Earth, it may at least be less likely. I'm not sure though. We have been fighting wars since the dawn of Man. My only estimate is that if we have learned anything at all by now, and if there would be no more than one billion people on the planet, we might be a little safer. I'm not a trained historian or sociologist though so I'm really not sure. Also, I believe that if we could remove religion from the equation, if people were to commit to religion only when they are alone, not bothering other folks, warmongers would at the very least lose one of the most abused tools in warfare.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited June 2014 Posts: 17,727
    Yes, I studied the history of medicine and the same thing happened there as you note happened in the field of physics - it took a new war for Britain to further develop new ways of responding to terrible injuries in the mud of the trenches in World War I which infect6ed wounds with bacteria and was therefore so different from the clean conditions of the Boer War before it. One also thinks of all the appalling experiments carried out on "sub-humans" like Jews and Slavs by Nazi scientists and doctors through burning out parts of the brain to see what happened for just one example. Like Dr Julius No said in the eponymous 1958 novel much was learned from the Nazis cruel experiments on innocent human beings damned merely because of their ethnicity. One should not forget the terrible sacrifices made on human life by the Nazis and their ilk so that you and I can complain about the inadequacies of health services in the here and now. Also, one wonders what human knowledge was lost as a result of the senseless murder of the Jews and other races and creeds during the Holocaust.

    As for religion causing wars, consider this fact - Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union of Stalin killed more human beings combined than were ever killed in the name of religion and they were two of the most authoritarian, inhuman, evil, heathen and atheistical regimes in the history of the world. Yes, there was the Crusades, but those people were not true Christians, rather it was a bastardisation of that religion misinterpreted by men who had their own free will after all is said and done to act as they wished, whether for good or ill, but certainly not for the glory of God.
  • edited June 2014 Posts: 14,799
    But Nazi Germany was not atheistic: Hitler never renounced Catholicism, neither was he ever excommunicated, he was blessed in the pulpit every Sunday, Goëring was even a practicing Catholic. Of the fascists leaders of the time, only Mussolini was an atheist. And Japan, who was allied with Nazi Germany, had of course at its head an emperor considered god on earth. The Soviet Union was atheistic, but never killed anyone out of atheistic disbelief, and the cult of personality of Stalin was crypto-theocratic.

    And sorry but the Crusaders were devout Christians. You can say they didn't worship properly, or did not understand properly the God they worshipped, but they were Christians.
  • edited June 2014 Posts: 1,405
    If you are interested in the subject, may I suggest you pick up "The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914" by Margaret MacMillan. IMO the absolute required reading about the many causes of The Great War.

    This is the review I wrote for Amazon.com:

    "The causes of the first WW always were unclear to me. How did it started? What were the events that lead to it? Who were the foremost leaders and how did they think? What about the alliances? How did that work?

    Well, “The road to 1914, the War that ended Peace” will unfold the drama from 1871 forward, will clearly explain the building tension between the European Powers and set the table for what was to follow.

    Margaret MacMillan work will make you an expert on the causes of WW1, and more importantly, will urge you to learn more about the war the Western World wants to forget. Highly recommended, high praise all around."
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    edited June 2014 Posts: 23,448
    Well, I certainly don't mean to imply that the people who start a war are always doing so out of religious enthusiasm. I do however believe that these people often use religious dogma's and arguments to get the masses ready to pick up the guns or blow themselves up.

    By the way, didn't the Nazis have this saying "Gott mit uns" (God with us), engraved on their belt buckles and such? I believe the Russians had a similar saying even.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,727
    Ludovico wrote:
    But Nazi Germany was not atheistic: Hitler never renounced Catholicism, neither was he ever excommunicated, he was blessed in the pulpit every Sunday, Goëring was even a practicing Catholic. Of the fascists leaders of the time, only Mussolini was an atheist. And Japan, who was allied with Nazi Germany, had of course at its head an emperor considered god on earth. The Soviet Union was atheistic, but never killed anyone out of atheistic disbelief, and the cult of personality of Stalin was crypto-theocratic.

    And sorry but the Crusaders were devout Christians. You can say they didn't worship properly, or did not understand properly the God they worshipped, but they were Christians.

    Well yes, but Nazi Germany was more than Hitler or Goering as important as they were. Hitler also subscribed to the views of Alfred Rosenberg and agreed to remove "root and branch" the influence of the (Jew tainted) Christian churches from German society and in its place put neo-paganism.

    It could be said that Hitler, Goering and Himmler all acted out of their beliefs in God and Christianity to do the horrendous things they did - they may even have thought that they were great Christians doing God's will but it would be a brave soul indeed that would merit it.
  • Posts: 14,799
    Anticlericalism does not equal Godless, and besides if Hitler was sometimes anticlerical, he never even implied rejecting the Christian faith. To say Nazi Germany was atheistic is simply inaccurate. They may have wanted to create their own brand of Christianity, or neo-paganism or what have you, they were certainly not atheistic.
    DarthDimi wrote:

    By the way, didn't the Nazis have this saying "Gott mit uns" (God with us), engraved on their belt buckles and such? I believe the Russians had a similar saying even.

    Yes, they did.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,727
    Ludovico wrote:
    Anticlericalism does not equal Godless, and besides if Hitler was sometimes anticlerical, he never even implied rejecting the Christian faith. To say Nazi Germany was atheistic is simply inaccurate. They may have wanted to create their own brand of Christianity, or neo-paganism or what have you, they were certainly not atheistic.
    DarthDimi wrote:

    By the way, didn't the Nazis have this saying "Gott mit uns" (God with us), engraved on their belt buckles and such? I believe the Russians had a similar saying even.

    Yes, they did.

    OK, there was anticlericalism as part of fascism more generally and Nazism more specifically but were they really acting in a Christian manner? I very much doubt it, only a label and had the Third Reich lasted beyond its twelve years I doubt Germany would have remained a Christian country. There was the leadership cult of Adolf Hitler "as Lord". In fact, children at school sang a song to that effect; the same was true of Mussolini in Fascist Italy whom Hitler modelled himself and his regime on.
  • Posts: 14,799
    Whether they acted in a Christian fashion or not is irrelevant. My point is they were not atheists. Even the cult of the leader is theistic in essence. But anyway we are getting off topic.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,727
    Ludovico wrote:
    Whether they acted in a Christian fashion or not is irrelevant. My point is they were not atheists. Even the cult of the leader is theistic in essence. But anyway we are getting off topic.

    Yes, well certainly Nazism was based on the structure of the Roman Catholic church with a leader at the top right down to the bottom level.

    But I'll not derail this thread any further.
  • KerimKerim Istanbul Not Constantinople
    edited June 2014 Posts: 2,629
    Ludovico wrote:
    DarthDimi wrote:
    I believe war was inevitable. Too much tension had been building up. The assassination acted as a catalyst but pretty much anything could have. The sad part is the cascade of war spawning more war of which, indeed, we are still seeing results today. The 20th century was colourful. Alas, there was a lot of red in the mix.

    I agree the war was waiting to happen. People were expecting it, many were even hoping for it.

    I agree with both of you, it was bound to happen. It just happened to be Ferdinand's assassination that pulled the trigger. Otherwise, scenarios including Turkish genocide of Armenians, disruption in the Yugoslav and Balkan republics, or the Army and Navy among the European nations would have likely ignited WWI.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    edited June 2014 Posts: 23,448
    The only thing I like about Nazism are the costumes. Those awful guys had a pretty good taste about how to get dressed up. Other than that, the scum of the Earth, the worst people that ever lived, the darkest pages of human history, ... I don't know what else to call them. I'm not naive, genocidal creeps have always been around and still are by the way. I believe that Stalin executed even more Russians than Hitler Jews. And how about Chinese Communism?

    Still, Nazism came closest to where I live and though I'm two generations removed from the War, fear for a return of Nazism is in my blood. When I hear the talk that some of my pupils bring to school, in fact the talk that some of their parents bring to parent-teacher meetings, I'm creeped out. Man is his own worst student. 70 years have passed, and Nazi sympathies can be found in certain political movements across the world. Kids who hardly know what they're talking about consider Nazism 'cool'. Some people who are fed up with immigration issues openly express their desire for a Nazi solution to the problem. This is the kind of stuff that makes my stomach turn. Yes, there are problems - a total of 8 billion people being the biggest one - but gas chambers, racism and WMD aren't the solution.

    Only James Bond is. ;-)
    (Or at least condoms, emancipation and decent social and economical structures.)
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited June 2014 Posts: 12,459
    Very well put, DarthDimi.

    As for the religious affiliations of the Nazis, I don't want a big religious discussion here either. But I will say they certainly were false Christians in the sense of what it means to be Christian. Other Germans at the time came together (along with Karl Barth, a Swiss theologian) and wrote one of the most moving, brief, and powerful declarations of being Christian during this horrendous time - and it was written in response to the "Christian" claims made by Nazis before and during the war. It is called the Barmen Declaration, if anyone would care to look it up. Again, I do not mean to have a big debate on Christianity, true or deluded, involved in wars, or any religious aspect of wars throughout history ... yet I feel compelled to mention Barmen because it was so strong and important and helpful to Christians, and because it was a response to Nazism.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,727
    Very well put, DarthDimi.

    As for the religious affiliations of the Nazis, I don't want a big religious discussion here either. But I will say they certainly were false Christians in the sense of what it means to be Christian. Other Germans at the time came together (along with Karl Barth, a Swiss theologian) and wrote one of the most moving, brief, and powerful declarations of being Christian during this horrendous time - and it was written in response to the "Christian" claims made by Nazis before and during the war. It is called the Barmen Declaration, if anyone would care to look it up. Again, I do not mean to have a big debate on Christianity, true or deluded, involved in wars, or any religious aspect of wars throughout history ... yet I feel compelled to mention Barmen because it was so strong and important and helpful to Christians, and because it was a response to Nazism.

    Thank you for this post, @4EverBonded. This is exactly what I was getting at less eloquently above. The Nazis' "Christianity" was void, just like a void contract in English law, it never existed.
  • In private, Hitler repeatedly admitted to not being a Christian at all and only using it for political gain. While it's horrific that he was able to use Christianity successfully to support the Nazi party, there is the example of Christians of all stripes opposing him, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Maximillian Kolbe, and Popes Pius XI and XII.

    In any event, I find it fascinating that all things associated with the Nazi Party have become socially unacceptable (his name, his moustache, the Swastika, and so on), but not so with other dictators, like Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot.
  • Posts: 14,799
    In private, Hitler repeatedly admitted to not being a Christian at all and only using it for political gain. While it's horrific that he was able to use Christianity successfully to support the Nazi party, there is the example of Christians of all stripes opposing him, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Maximillian Kolbe, and Popes Pius XI and XII.

    In any event, I find it fascinating that all things associated with the Nazi Party have become socially unacceptable (his name, his moustache, the Swastika, and so on), but not so with other dictators, like Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot.

    Did he admit he was not? I don't think there is evidence of this. Anticlerical, yes, sometimes, but he never outright rejected his Catholicism. I am not saying some Christians did not oppose him of course (and said Christian did oppose him because of their faith) but Nazi Germany was not a Godless country. Neither was Mussolini's fascist Italy, even though Mussolini was an atheist.

    As for pope Pïus XII's attitude towards Germany and the whole World War II, his legacy is, to say the least, highly controversial.

    But again, this is an entirely different debate. I guess one has to speak of World War 2 when both war are interrelated in many ways.
  • Posts: 2,341
    100 Years since the summer of 1914 when the First World War broke out. It is amazing how many diplomatic blunders were made by all concerned leading up to the "War to end all wars."

    At the end everyone wanted to point the finger at Germany but France, Austria, Russia and to a lesser degree Britain were all responsible.

  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,448
    I think you're right about that, @OHMSS69. Had France lost the war and been economically depressed, who is to say fascism couldn't have reigned there? Or anywhere else for that matter. It's a scary thought but in the end, you'd be surprised how many people, even today, lean towards fascist ideas when trying to cope with this world.
  • Posts: 14,799
    And back in the early XXth century, France was traditionally as antisemitic, if not more, than Germany.
  • Posts: 2,341
    Ludovico wrote:
    And back in the early XXth century, France was traditionally as antisemitic, if not more, than Germany.

    Jews suffered throughout Europe since the dark ages. Spain, France, Russia, Poland were as antisemitic as Germany.

    WWI was the first of the bloody and war torn 20th Century. Some of the weapons of modern war were first used in this one. Also some of the tactics and words...anyway in WWI during the German invasion of Belgium, the Germans had to contend with " irriegulars, who they called "Franc Tireau" which terrorized their troops and led to brutal reprisals against civil populations that the Germans resorted to so they could combat the problem. They did not feel that these individuals were soldiors and did not deserve any "rules of war" assigned to POW's. They carried this attitude into WW2 as well.

    In WWI they were called Franc Tireau...WW2 the term was "Partisans". We called them "insurgents" during the Vietnam War...and today we use the term "terrorists."

    I was actually shocked when President Bush announced that captured terrorists would not be treated as POW's and there would be no reason to treat them "civilized"....right out of the German playbook.
  • edited July 2014 Posts: 19,339
    Hitler thought he was put on Earth as devine providence from God himself,especially after the numerous failed assassination attempts.

    Not surprising as he was one lucky individual,leaving early from his speech when the pillar bomb went off,the non exploding bomb in the brandy box on his aircraft,the fact that many Nazi salutes blocked off an assassins view as Hitler walked during the Pusch anniversary,the exploding bomb moved to behind a table leg in Hitlers 'Wolf's Lair' (Operation Valkyrie) etc.

    Even Speer's admission (dubious though in my opinion) that he was going to gas the Fuhrerbunker,only to find the air vent chimney was extended heightwise when he was checking the area.

    Having studied Hitler and the Third Reich for apporaching 2 years now,his luck is a BIG factor.



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