SS RZM tags: challenge and response.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

"Needless to say, only in the past five years, if that, has there existed the technical means swiftly to half translate languages."

Those things are awful. At least that is my experience. I have family in Italy and some of them do not speak English well, if at all. I use a computer program to translate our communiques. English has to be written in the long form, as it seems Italian does not have grammatical contractions. It can be somewhat unnatural writing that way. Then when it translates the Italian to English, good Lord, it is like a word game as to how many sentences and different arrangements you can get out of the words included. It seems as if it is incapable of putting the words into an English speakers sentence structure.

Thanks for making my point. Learning German changed my life totally and it was a process for which I am grateful.
I have a child's comprehension of Slovak via my wife, which was a totally different experience than the five or so years
it took me from 1971 until 1976 to learn German to a journeyman level. Maybe I learned it faster, but it still took a while.
I would not trade the experience. It was a very 19th century process, really, and very slow by today's lights.
That so many speak English works against most of this, but your above insights are spot on. I wish I spoke
Italian. I learned Spanish in grammar school and French in graduate school, but it did not stick nearly as much as German, which I learned a decade earlier as an undergraduate and exchange student.
I use German everyday at an advanced level, since I work with Germans and Austrians constantly, so I get practice.

[carpediem]

You are right, and so is Dr. CMH. It is good to discuss these things with you gentlemen, and I don't use the term lightly, especially in the current era. There are many good people here who are helpful and insightful. FB, I don't find your tone or computer persona abrasive nor harsh. Frank and truthful, yes. I am a big boy and even if something isn't quite what I want to hear, I will hear it out without retribution or caterwauling. I should get the audio lessons or something, as I spend 3 hours or more a day in the car.
Learn German while you commute!

[Friedrich-Berthold]

You could learn some German that way, and there is much merit in it. Thanks. My tone here has really deteriorated since 2008. I can see it very plainly.
Adrian sets a fine example, but it is hard to uphold standards in the junkyard.
The other piece, of course, is you can also watch and listen to German on line round the clock. This device was no where in sight in 1971.
Maybe short wave radio, but otherwise, there was no sensible way to immerse in German rather than in a language lab.
And I only got German girl friends once I was fluent in German. They do keep me busy, though.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

For instance,

Am grünen Strand der Spree (1) - Das Tagebuch des Jürgen Wilms Teil 1 von 2 - Dailymotion-Video

[carpediem]

You could learn some German that way, and there is much merit in it. Thanks. My tone here has really deteriorated since 2008. I can see it very plainly.
Adrian sets a fine example, but it is hard to uphold standards in the junkyard.
The other piece, of course, is you can also watch and listen to German on line round the clock. This device was no where in sight in 1971.
Maybe short wave radio, but otherwise, there was no sensible way to immerse in German rather than in a language lab.
And I only got German girl friends once I was fluent in German. They do keep me busy, though.

Correct! I had forgotten you tube! There is undoubtedly some form or another of lesson there. I have picked up more than I knew two years ago just through collecting, but it is as you say, a child's comprehension.
German girls and smiling, black clad chicken farmers. Germany is a land of juxtaposition sometimes!

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Thanks. There is a tendency to use photographs here, more or less, to continue the Nazi story. That is, to portray reality in the Nazi manner.
It is attractive to some. As we have examined here, some of us are old enough to have seen the consequences of the war with our own eyes.
Or, some of us had lives shaped by the consequences of the war. There are those of more tender age for whom the war only unfolds in the digital
idiom, which has given Nazi propaganda a second life. I try to comprise more in the panorama, not the least to make clear the means, goals
and aims of Nazi propaganda. It was a fantasy world, not reality. Part of the fantasy was constructed in the real world, and then it failed utterly.

This fact is too subtle by half, but there you are. You do not want to awaken in a smoke filled bomb shelter and a ruined world, do you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAxARJyaTEA

[DrCMH]

You have been very patient with my ceaseless harping. Most of this hectoring arises from what I endured on the two other sites in terms of knuckle draggers
who found the prospect of actually reading German somehow an deep affront to their manhood. In fact, it was sort of form of castration or genital mutilation by other means. They resided in their gun show bromides
and untruths garnered from less than ethical former officers who wrote books and so on. Since an insulting and hectoring tone has become
the norm in my country, I suffer from damnable bouts of weakness where I find myself emulating public figures without wanting to do so.

Thank you, FB, although I feel it is you that have been patient. You receive no benefit, no compensation, for spending your time sharing your collection and the data you have extracted from primary sources that you have paid dearly for. I suppose you get some satisfaction by sharing your collection and breaking down the gun show myths to better the comprehension of this subject matter by those who are interested. During the past 8 years that I have been collecting and spending time on this forum, I have witnessed some lash out at you simply because you offer something contrary to what they believe- and with evidence to support it, no less! Your writings here, to me, are reminiscent of the very finest educators I have encountered and I greatly appreciate any intervention. Even in your greatest bout of weakness, you are nowhere near emulating public figures in this country, you are too educated and too decent a writer.

Very few worthwhile or rewarding skills are easily obtained, I am glad that I have a child’s understanding of German and a decent ability to speak Spanish, a must in my line of work, as it offers me a deeper understanding of what others are going through as they try to communicate in my primary language and makes my professional life much simpler. Beyond the advantages in the collecting of old racist’s clothing, the ability to speak German, or any number of languages, is quite rewarding and I encourage our college carpediem to give it a try.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Thanks, dear colleague. The lashers out are their own reward. I left for awhile, and will soon likely give up, when this pause in my work life passes.
As the Russian corpses stuffed with poison swiftly hit the floor in the English countryside, to arms, to arms.....

[carpediem]

Thanks, dear colleague. The lashers out are their own reward. I left for awhile, and will soon likely give up, when this pause in my work life passes.
As the Russian corpses stuffed with poison swiftly hit the floor in the English countryside, to arms, to arms.....

I have to say, in this one instance, I am praying for you to be wrong.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I have to say, in this one instance, I am praying for you to be wrong.

Me, too, of course. The thing is pretty far gone, though. Kopf hoch, Johannes!