Andrew reminds me that today is a very special day. Yes, indeed, it's the day that everyone who detests fascism should celebrate:
Fuehrerstodestag! (Otherwise known as "Dead Hitler Day.")
Yes, 62 years ago this hour, Adolf Hitler, Fuhrer of the Reich, finally cornered, his nation in ruins, offed himself in his bunker in Berlin as the Red Army was relentlessly advancing on him. After over 12 years in power, he had plunged the world into the largest war ever fought, resulting in the deaths of millions upon millions of people, and his exterminationist anti-Semitism had resulted in the deaths of approximately 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.
I wouldn't necessarily celebrate in the ways that Andrew suggests, but I would suggest mocking a neo-Nazi or two, as I did the other day. Too bad I didn't remember what today is until early this morning; otherwise I would have done a post about a particularly obnoxious Holocaust denier whose site I've had in my list of topics for a while.
Oh, well, I could still do it later this week, or maybe on May 8, the anniversary of the Third Reich's capitulation. In the meantime, happy Fuehrerstodestag!
67 years ago would make it 1940?! Some mistake surely?
Brain fart or typo...you decide.
In any case, it's fixed.
Ja! Das is zer Goot! Any word on how Pope Sturbanfuhrer Benedict plans to celebrate it?
How could I forget! I'm going out and break a conformist convention right away.
Is this also the birthday of the Hitler Zombie?
If so, do you know where I can find a brain cake with 62 candles?
I feel a kind of frustration (which is a bit silly, for an event that occurred 12 years before I was born) that Hitler wasn't taken alive, and made to stand trial. Of course, it would most likely have ended in execution anyway, and possibly made him into (more of) a martyr to his ideological children, so perhaps it's just as well he saved the Allies the trouble.
The other advantage of him killing himself is that it showed Hitler for what he was - a coward. Rather than facing up to what he did he died like a dog in a concrete box.
This is the man the neo-nazis look up to?
Two days ago, a right-winged anti-immigrant racist politician resigned from his party, and became an independent, because the newspapers brought a story about how he had sung Nazi songs and heiled at a private birthday party. This is considered to be an end to his political career.
This is a development that I, personally, am quite satisfied with. We don't need racists or people with neo-Nazi tendencies in the Danish parliament.
Gluckwunsche fuer Fuhrerstodstag! Here in Heidelberg, the young and left wing types celebrated it with a parade calling for open immigration and free Deutsche citizenship for anyone who wanted it. I'm with them on that, even if I am the wrong sort of Auslander.
Herzliche Glückwünsche auch von mir, an diesem denkwürdigen Tag.
I've never heard "Führerstodestag" before, though. Sounds kinda wrong to me.
J-Dog: "Ja! Das is zer Goot! Any word on how Pope Sturbanfuhrer Benedict plans to celebrate it?"
How silly.
"Here in Heidelberg, the young and left wing types celebrated it with a parade calling for open immigration and free Deutsche citizenship for anyone who wanted it."
Funny, given that it is the German left wing which opposes giving new UE member countries' citizens the right to work in Germany before 2011.
Funny, given that it is the German left wing which opposes giving new UE member countries' citizens the right to work in Germany before 2011.
Care to back that up with a source or something? Or shall I take you word for it?
I forgot. Will have a glass of wine when I get home.
When I lived in Russia, we celebrated "Victory Day" on May 9th".
When Poland (and others) was negotiating its EU accession, Schroeder's leftist government was very much against giving Poland and other countries immediate access to Germany's job market. They pushed for the ban to last as long as possible.
Schroeder is no more a leftist than Clinton or Blair are.
Leftist is a terribly impercise term, its meaning varies wildly from country to country and time to time.
If Schroeder's SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) is not leftist, then what is in Germany?
"If Schroeder's SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) is not leftist, then what is in Germany?"
... ummm die Linkspartei (the Left Party)? It actually has Left in its name.