goldenassam

goldenassam , 4 months ago to histodon German

I was thinking today about an experience I had about 25 years ago, which some #Histodons might know something about and which might be of interest to others. I grew up in Pforzheim, a town in Southern Germany that was destroyed in an air raid in 1945. (1/🧵)

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goldenassam OP , 4 months ago

Around February 23, the day of the town's destruction in 1945, there are commemorative events, as well as a shameful vigil with torches conducted by neo-Nazis. The local newspaper "Pforzheimer Zeitung", which reports on this, had a display case near my school, and one day I stood in front of it and read the daily edition. (2/🧵)

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goldenassam OP , 4 months ago

An old woman was standing next to me and after a while she engaged me in conversation. She told me that as a teenager she experienced the last months of World War II as a "Luftwaffenhelferin" (basically a child soldier in the Luftwaffe). (3/🧵)

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goldenassam OP , 4 months ago

She told me that in the final months the Luftwaffe still had fighter planes, but no more pilots - and that she and other Luftwaffenhelferinnen were given a crash course and then put into fighter-interceptors. The aim of this was not that they score kills, but to feign strength and still-existing capacities. (4/🧵)

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goldenassam OP , 4 months ago

She described how she (in a very frightened state of mind) took part in several missions in Baden, was then transferred with her unit to the Rhine-Main area and continued to fly missions until there was no more fuel left. She also experienced the end of the war there. (5/🧵)

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goldenassam OP , 4 months ago

At the time, I had no idea that I would one day become a historian, so I listened to the story with interest, but made no effort to secure contact details. In recent years, I have occasionally thought about the story and made a cursory search on the internet - but have not found any mention of female child soldier pilots at the end of the Second World War. (6/🧵)

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goldenassam OP , 4 months ago

My question to you: How plausible is this story? Are you aware of similar cases? Has the old woman been pulling my leg - or have I possibly received a testimony of something that has not yet been particularly researched? (7/7, end of 🧵)

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goldenassam , 5 months ago to histodons German

@histodons Question for the #histodons: I am a contemporary historian with a penchant for ancient history, currently living in Mainz, Germany. I have sometimes wondered what the Romans regarded the old Mogontiacum as: As a kind of "Germano-Roman" city (since it was the capital of the province Germania superior) - or, more generally, as a place in the easternmost part of Gaul populated by Germani cisrhenani, since they saw the Rhine as the dividing line between Gallic and Germanic peoples?

goldenassam OP , 5 months ago

@histodons It seems that the distinctions are much more fluid than later nationalist discourses suggest: Cassius Dio, writing under the Severans, speaks of "some of the Celts, whom we call Germans", which sounds more like the Romans of his time saw much less differences between Gallic and Germanic tribes.