is it better to stay at home or hit the road?
Stephen
suitcases along the verges while tanks rumble past. It got me think -
isn't it more sensible to stay home rather than to hit the road?
Seems to be that provided you're not a 'person of interest' to the new
occupiers, then its almost entirely preferable to stay home and hope
the front passes you by. Does that make sense, or am I missing
something?
Bay Man
news:86fb8573-41ce-4550...@v23g2000pro.googlegroups.com...
Many feared mass air bombings so left towns. This was justified as the Stuka
was the aerial artillery of the Germans.
Also, in France, refugees walked towards French lines, then never thought
the Germans would win. If they did they may have stayed put.
Stephen Graham
Recent experience (World War One) showed that civilians didn't want to
be around the battlefront. In addition, there had been atrocities
against civilians in the 1914 campaign in Belgium, which had been well
publicized. The 1939 invasion of Poland would see more.
Many of the interwar predictions of a future war featured bombing
attacks on civilian targets, adding to the impetus to leave urban areas.
Rich Rostrom
> isn't it more sensible to stay home rather than to hit the road?
>
> Seems to be that provided you're not a 'person of interest' to the new
> occupiers, then its almost entirely preferable to stay home and hope
> the front passes you by. Does that make sense, or am I missing
> something?
Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
If the fighting "passes you by", great.
But if there is fighting where you are,
not so great.
It also depends on the character of the
attackers. The Germans were known for
mass killings of civilians from WW I.
Soviet troops were known for looting
and raping.
As a rule, one doesn't want to fall
under the power of a malevolent
invader. OTOH, there were relatively
few refugees ahead of U.S./UK forces
in Germany or Italy; the locals didn't
particularly fear them. There was also
the feeling that U.S./UK occupation was
permanent - meaning the war was over
for that locale - whereas there was
expectation that the Germans would someday
be driven out in additional fighting.
Or if not, then one would be forever
under the yoke.
Nor a "hungry" invader. Germany was short
of food, and all occupied territories
were subjected to draconian requisitions;
furthermore German occupied Europe was
under blockade and cut off from all food
imports. Starvation sometimes resulted,
as in the Netherlands in 1945.
What constitutes a "person of interest"
can vary greatly, too. The Nazis had a
long list of such people. It included
for instance all enemy aliens, such as
P. G. Wodehouse, who was living in France
in 1940. Wodehouse tried to "hit the road",
but couldn't get clear (IIRC his car broke
down). He was interned in Germany for a
year, until he turned 60, then obliged to
live in Germany till the end of the war.
He lived for a while in the Adlon Hotel
in Berlin, which was relatively comfortable -
aside from the blackouts, food shortages,
and Allied air raids.
Anyone at all might be carried off for
slave labor.
In short, there were lots of reasons
to get clear, instead of hunkering
down.
narrl...@hotmail.com
<xyxbayman...@xyxmailinator.xyxcomnospam> wrote:
> "Stephen" <stephenjhow...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:86fb8573-41ce-4550...@v23g2000pro.googlegroups.com...
>
> > We've all seen footage of refugees pushing prams and dragging
> > suitcases along the verges while tanks rumble past. It got me think -
> > isn't it more sensible to stay home rather than to hit the road?
>
> > Seems to be that provided you're not a 'person of interest' to the new
> > occupiers, then its almost entirely preferable to stay home and hope
> > the front passes you by. Does that make sense, or am I missing
> > something?
>
> Many feared mass air bombings so left towns. This was justified as the Stuka
> was the aerial artillery of the Germans.
Only the Stuka was not a mass-bomber; to the extent the Luftwaffe had
those, they'd be the He111 and Ju88.
Of course, the LW also had a SOP of strafing refugee columns with
whatever aircraft were available.
On the original question, I say, 'stay home.'
Narr
LC
> We've all seen footage of refugees pushing prams and dragging
> suitcases along the verges while tanks rumble past. It got me think -
> isn't it more sensible to stay home rather than to hit the road?
Staying home assumes there will be a home to stay in. Consider what
WWI & WWII battlefields looked like. Should the Caen residents have
remained at home in 1944, for instance?
What about Warsaw?
> Seems to be that provided you're not a 'person of interest' to the new
> occupiers, then its almost entirely preferable to stay home and hope
> the front passes you by. Does that make sense, or am I missing
> something?
You're missing that hoping the front passes you by is no guarantee it
will. Nobody knew how far the invader was going to go, people fleeing
the German advance usually were confident that they'd be stopped
somewhere - after all, such had been the case during WWI.
Mostly, what you're missing is that, as Stephen Graham wrote, WWI was
well within living memory (it was as far from 1940 as the mid- to
late-1980s are to us) and people knew the Germans would be harsh
occupiers. Food requisitions, scorched earth, execution of hostages,
populations being fined for a whole range of offenses, etc. Many
people didn't want any of that. But note that not everyone fled
either.
LC
GFH
One important point to consider was the decision to eliminate ethnic
Germans from the no-longer-to-be-German land in the eastern lands.
That includes Poland, the former East Prussia (became part of the
USSR), the Czech border areas (Sudatenland), etc. Those who did
not go ahead were forced to go. Some 16.7M ethnic Germans were
"moved". About 12M arrived in the "new" Germany -- mostly in the
Soviet occupation zone. Many continued west to the other occupation
zones.
Most people tried to take too much. And most light, portable,
valuable
items were confiscated along the way. Still, the choices were 1) stay
and die, or 2) leave. An interesting side note is that distance to go
was not a determining factor in survival. Most of the ethnic Germans
were within 50 miles of the border, yet their losses were just as
great.
Often the trip took weeks, with imprisonment and forced labor in each
small town they went through.
GFH
Don Phillipson
news:7519db76-ed36-4b2e...@h13g2000yqk.googlegroups.com...
> One important point to consider was the decision to eliminate ethnic
> Germans from the no-longer-to-be-German land in the eastern lands.
> . . .
> Most people tried to take too much. And most light, portable, valuable
> items were confiscated along the way. Still, the choices were 1) stay
> and die, or 2) leave. An interesting side note is that distance to go
> was not a determining factor in survival. Most of the ethnic Germans
> were within 50 miles of the border, yet their losses were just as great.
> Often the trip took weeks, with imprisonment and forced labor in each
> small town they went through.
This is a familiar point, a genuine injustice of 1945 -- and wholly
irrelevant
to the original question, whether civilians facing an invading foreign
army in 1940 were better off staying home or fleeing on foot.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
pbromaghin
> "GFH" wrote
> > One important point to consider was the decision to eliminate ethnic
> > Germans from the no-longer-to-be-German land in the eastern lands.
> > small town they went through.
>
> This is a familiar point, a genuine injustice of 1945 -- and wholly
> irrelevant
> to the original question, whether civilians facing an invading foreign
> army in 1940 were better off staying home or fleeing on foot.
I would add that the "injustice" of 1945 and the bad behavior of the
Russians may have been ever so slightly influenced by the prior
behavior of the Germans when they were the invaders.
GFH
> I would add that the "injustice" of 1945 and the bad behavior of the
> Russians may have been ever so slightly influenced by the prior
> behavior of the Germans when they were the invaders.
Most Germans were surprised that the Russians were not more
cruel and vengeful -- especially in the occupation zone. The
Germans had not doubts whatever that their actions in the USSR
had been harsh and cruel.
OTOH, the Czechs were far worse than the Germans had expected.
And, in large measure, the war missed most of the German/Czech
border areas -- a fact visible on the ground today, in that a large
number of pre-war structures are still standing. A lot like the
former
DDR (DDR is used as a geographic designation). The US Army got
there in late April, 1945 or even not until after the war was over.
GFH
GFH
> This is a familiar point, a genuine injustice of 1945 -- and wholly
> irrelevant
> to the original question, whether civilians facing an invading foreign
> army in 1940 were better off staying home or fleeing on foot.
I am sorry, but my comuter failed to give a reference to 1940.
I took the question to mean all refugees fleeing before invading
armies. I am not aware of any mass evacuation or migration
of the French, Dutch or Belgians in 1940. Some, yes, but nothing
like the mass migrations of 1945 by ethnic Germans.
And one could add the entire Italian campaign -- again without
any "mass migration".
Which "mass migrations" do you suggest the original questioner
was asking about?
GFH
"nightjar" <cpb@
news:86fb8573-41ce-4550...@v23g2000pro.googlegroups.com...
A friend of mine was in Dresden during the air raids. After the bombing, the
city was so changed that she could not find her way back to her Aunt's
house, which BTW survived untouched. That forced her to became a refugee,
riding the buffers of the last train out of the area, heading for relatives
in Bonn.
Colin Bignell
William Black
> A friend of mine was in Dresden during the air raids. After the bombing, the
> city was so changed that she could not find her way back to her Aunt's
> house, which BTW survived untouched. That forced her to became a refugee,
> riding the buffers of the last train out of the area, heading for relatives
> in Bonn.
And after the bombing of Hull in 1940/41 my mother couldn't find her way
home a couple of times.
She didn't take to the roads because there was a system in place that
got her a bed for the night and got her home the next day.
--
William Black
"Any number under six"
The answer given by Englishman Richard Peeke when asked by the Duke of
Medina Sidonia how many Spanish sword and buckler men he could beat
single handed with a quarterstaff.
Don Phillipson
> I am sorry, but my comuter failed to give a reference to 1940.
> I took the question to mean all refugees fleeing before invading
> armies. I am not aware of any mass evacuation or migration
> of the French, Dutch or Belgians in 1940. Some, yes, but nothing
> like the mass migrations of 1945 by ethnic Germans. . . .
> Which "mass migrations" do you suggest the original questioner
> was asking about?
The OP asked not about migrations but about refugees:
"We've all seen footage of refugees pushing prams and dragging
suitcases along the verges while tanks rumble past. It got me think -
isn't it more sensible to stay home rather than to hit the road?"
Except briefly for Belgium in 1914 (when there were no tanks)
"refugees pushing prams and dragging suitcases along the
verges while tanks rumble past" were a major novelty in 1940.
The main difference about the ethnic cleansing of eastern
Europe in 1945-6 is that no hostile armies were then in action
or advancing: each was already in place on the land its masters
had resolved to hold. (By contrast, refugees in eastern Europe
fled various advancing armies 1941-45 in ways Italians,
Frenchmen and Germans did not flee the advancing British or
American armies in 1943-45.)
The OP's question was focussed on the welfare of the
refugees, not the morality of the threatening armies.
"nightjar" <cpb@
news:ha2jg1$tas$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> "nightjar" <cpb@ wrote:
>
>> A friend of mine was in Dresden during the air raids. After the bombing,
>> the city was so changed that she could not find her way back to her
>> Aunt's house, which BTW survived untouched. That forced her to became a
>> refugee, riding the buffers of the last train out of the area, heading
>> for relatives in Bonn.
>
> And after the bombing of Hull in 1940/41 my mother couldn't find her way
> home a couple of times.
>
> She didn't take to the roads because there was a system in place that got
> her a bed for the night and got her home the next day.
I think what authorities remained in Dresden had other priorities,
especially as many of those in the city were already refugees and had
nowhere to be directed home to.
Colin Bignell
William Black
> "William Black" <willia...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:ha2jg1$tas$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>> "nightjar" <cpb@ wrote:
>>
>>> A friend of mine was in Dresden during the air raids. After the bombing,
>>> the city was so changed that she could not find her way back to her
>>> Aunt's house, which BTW survived untouched. That forced her to became a
>>> refugee, riding the buffers of the last train out of the area, heading
>>> for relatives in Bonn.
>> And after the bombing of Hull in 1940/41 my mother couldn't find her way
>> home a couple of times.
>>
>> She didn't take to the roads because there was a system in place that got
>> her a bed for the night and got her home the next day.
>
> I think what authorities remained in Dresden had other priorities,
What?
Don Phillipson
> "nightjar" <cpb@ wrote:
> > I think what authorities remained in Dresden had other priorities,
>
> What?
1. Public health (cf. unburied corpses.)
2. Public services (electricity, drinking water etc.)
3. When the Russian army should be expected.
4. Obedience to orders from Berlin.
(NB: loyal Nazis probably listed these in inverse order.)
William Black
> "William Black" <willia...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:ha362r$6lf$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>
>> "nightjar" <cpb@ wrote:
>>> I think what authorities remained in Dresden had other priorities,
>> What?
>
> 1. Public health (cf. unburied corpses.)
The living come before the dead.
> 2. Public services (electricity, drinking water etc.)
Are gone.
> 3. When the Russian army should be expected.
Some considerable time later, they didn't get to Danzig for another
three weeks...
> 4. Obedience to orders from Berlin.
Which is an interesting one.
Are you saying that Berlin told them to evacuate the city?
Stephen
> Staying home assumes there will be a home to stay in. Consider what
> WWI & WWII battlefields looked like. Should the Caen residents have
> remained at home in 1944, for instance?
>
> What about Warsaw?
Can we assume that none of our candidate refugees have psychic
abilities? Otherwise they wouldn't be candidate refugees in the first
place.
"nightjar" <cpb@
> Don Phillipson wrote:
>> "William Black" <willia...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote in message
>> news:ha362r$6lf$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>>
>>> "nightjar" <cpb@ wrote:
>>>> I think what authorities remained in Dresden had other priorities,
>>> What?
>>
>> 1. Public health (cf. unburied corpses.)
>
> The living come before the dead.
Collecting and disposing of the corpses is protecting the living and
probably comes a lot higher up the list of priorities than directing the few
people who still have somewhere to go..
>> 2. Public services (electricity, drinking water etc.)
>
> Are gone.
Much of the attack involved blast bombs to remove roofs and incendiaries to
set fire to the buildings thus exposed. Underground services survive that
sort of attack renarkably well and there were areas that were hardly touched
by the bombing. As I stated, my friend's Aunt's house survived unscathed,
although she had no way to know that at the time.
>> 3. When the Russian army should be expected.
>
> Some considerable time later, they didn't get to Danzig for another three
> weeks...
We know that now. I rather doubt that anybody in the city knew it or would
have belived official sources had they given out completely accurate
information on the position of the Russian Army. The refugees filling the
city were fleeing the Russians. In many cases, Russians who, according to
official claims, were nowhere near the places the refugees had seen them.
Colin Bignell
Michele
news:ha3glc$tfp$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> Don Phillipson wrote:
>> "William Black" <willia...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote in message
>> news:ha362r$6lf$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>>
>>> "nightjar" <cpb@ wrote:
>>>> I think what authorities remained in Dresden had other priorities,
>>> What?
>>
>> 1. Public health (cf. unburied corpses.)
>
> The living come before the dead.
>
Public health, in fact, is a concern for the living. One buries (or burns,
in this case) corpses not out of concern for the dead, but out of concern
for the living.
>> 2. Public services (electricity, drinking water etc.)
>
> Are gone.
>
So one is concerned with reestablishing what he can of those, maybe?
William Black
Refugees cause immense problems to armies on the move.
It is reasonable to assume that the German authorities want as few
people as possible soaking up scarce transport resources, remembering
that filling some bit of the road is using its capacity.
It is therefore reasonable to assume that the German authorities would
try and minimise any refugees on the road and so make some sort of
effort to get people from the city to stay in the city.
Dresden was a city of about 800,000 (including refugees from the East),
about twenty to fifty thousand were killed.
Obviously only a tiny minority of those not killed or injured could take
to the roads.
If the city was so badly damaged as to make movement across it
impossible (which is almost a given for the first couple of days) the
obvious thing for the authorities to do would be to arrange some form of
temporary housing for the people without shelter.
Remember that this is in February in Central Europe, it's going to be
bloody cold, anyone sleeping outside is going to be dead in pretty
short order.
"nightjar" <cpb@
.....
> If the city was so badly damaged as to make movement across it impossible
> (which is almost a given for the first couple of days) the obvious thing
> for the authorities to do would be to arrange some form of temporary
> housing for the people without shelter.
It might appear obvious to you, but the simple fact is that it didn't
happen.
> Remember that this is in February in Central Europe, it's going to be
> bloody cold, anyone sleeping outside is going to be dead in pretty short
> order.
That was the result for many of those who huddled along the river bank.
Colin Bignell
William Black
> "William Black" <willia...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:ha5fu6$qgu$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> .....
>> If the city was so badly damaged as to make movement across it impossible
>> (which is almost a given for the first couple of days) the obvious thing
>> for the authorities to do would be to arrange some form of temporary
>> housing for the people without shelter.
>
> It might appear obvious to you, but the simple fact is that it didn't
> happen.
Then you have to ask 'Why?'
German cities getting bombed flat wasn't a novelty by early 1945...
The mess in Dresden was bad, but not that bad.
Michele
Fine. All of which means that if you don't want the temporary shelters to
become hotbeds of contagion, you have to burn the corpses (1., above) and
provide at least water (2., above). I see that you agree.
Note that you don't have to take my word for it. We do know as a fact that
the authorities had, among the top priorities, disposing of the corpses.
Stephen
> Fine. All of which means that if you don't want the temporary shelters to
> become hotbeds of contagion, you have to burn the corpses (1., above)
Burning corpses is a very inefficient method of disposal - especially
when factoring 1945-style fuel shortages. Standard practice for bulk
disposal is the mass grave (hopefully in the soft soil of a city
park). When things settle down the bodies can be dug up, hopefully
identified, and reburied separately.
Michele
news:d30b043c-c3d6-43df...@x6g2000prc.googlegroups.com...
Well, fine with me. I only insist that this is a priority, not on the mode.
I mentioned burning the corpses for the simple reason that burying them, in
the case of Dresden, turned out to be too slow. They burned over 6,000
bodies on the Altmarkt. They used petrol, even if it was in scarce supply at
that time, which only underscores the urgency of the operation.
Stephen
> They burned over 6,000
> bodies on the Altmarkt. They used petrol, even if it was in scarce supply at
> that time, which only underscores the urgency of the operation.
That's quite amazing, and it does leave me a bit puzzled. The hasty
disposal of dead bodies just isn't even remotely a medical priority
during an emergency because a corpse doesn't suddenly become a
spreader of disease just because its a corpse. There are a few
exceptions - eg where certain rare diseases actually killed the host,
or animal vectors migrate from a dead host (ie fleas etc) - but those
diseases aren't the causes of death in Dresden. Factor in the low
prevailing temperatures, and the justification becomes even more
remote.
I'm wondering if there was in fact another motive for burning 6000
corpses? Perhaps to hide the fact that so many had died? That said,
a mass grave does that just as well, particularly as burning 6000
corpses is a very messy, smelly and smokey business that's difficult
to hide from the public.
Michele
> On Oct 7, 1:40 am, "Michele" <don'tspammeat...@tln.it> wrote:
>
>> They burned over 6,000
>> bodies on the Altmarkt. They used petrol, even if it was in scarce supply
>> at
>> that time, which only underscores the urgency of the operation.
>
> That's quite amazing, and it does leave me a bit puzzled. The hasty
> disposal of dead bodies just isn't even remotely a medical priority
> during an emergency because a corpse doesn't suddenly become a
> spreader of disease just because its a corpse. There are a few
> exceptions - eg where certain rare diseases actually killed the host,
> or animal vectors migrate from a dead host (ie fleas etc) - but those
> diseases aren't the causes of death in Dresden. Factor in the low
> prevailing temperatures, and the justification becomes even more
> remote.
>
I have no medical background, but
- slaves from labor camps came into contact with ordinary workers in many
Dresden factories,
- typhus was common in labor camps,
- typhus spreads through rats,
- rats tend to be numerous, happy and spreading around when there's lots of
abandoned corpses around.
So even if the causes of death were not infective...
Just my layman's reasoning.
Don Phillipson
Re Dresden
> On Oct 7, 1:40 am, "Michele" <don'tspammeat...@tln.it> wrote:
>
> > They burned over 6,000
> > bodies on the Altmarkt. They used petrol, even if it was in scarce
supply at
> > that time, which only underscores the urgency of the operation.
>
> That's quite amazing, and it does leave me a bit puzzled. The hasty
> disposal of dead bodies just isn't even remotely a medical priority . . .
>
> I'm wondering if there was in fact another motive for burning 6000
> corpses? Perhaps to hide the fact that so many had died?
We need also to consider the logistics: we agree
"a corpse doesn't suddenly become a spreader of disease just
because its a corpse" but hundreds or thousands of corpses
in public streets require immediate attention by local authorities.
It takes labour to collect and transport them, and labour to dig
graves or build pyres for cremation, and organization (so that
police patrolmen who find another one or 100 corpses know
what to do about them.) In Dresden when 20,000 to 50,000
corpses demanded immediate disposition, it may have been
fastest and cheapest to burn many on the spot, e.g. transported
20 or 100 yards to the nearest pyre, rather than transported
5 or 10 miles to suburban graveyards.
"nightjar" <cpb@
> "nightjar" <cpb@ wrote:
>> "William Black" <willia...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote in message
>> news:ha5fu6$qgu$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>> .....
>>> If the city was so badly damaged as to make movement across it
>>> impossible (which is almost a given for the first couple of days) the
>>> obvious thing for the authorities to do would be to arrange some form of
>>> temporary housing for the people without shelter.
>>
>> It might appear obvious to you, but the simple fact is that it didn't
>> happen.
>
> Then you have to ask 'Why?'
I've been away having a new heart valve fitted, so it has taken me a while
to see this
I don't have to ask why? I have a first hand account of what the city was
like during and after the raid and that makes such a question redundant.
.....
> The mess in Dresden was bad, but not that bad.
You obviously have absolutely no idea of what you are talking about
Colin Bignell