Merry Christmas Everybody!

The German Media and "Heroism"

Taking an absence from my absence as well as an absence from concentrating on issues revolving around the Second World War. This post was brought about by an article in my local newspaper (print version) dealing with local troops standing before Paris in the War of 1870/71, which I will quote in full (translation follows):

Auch "Heldenmut" (sic!) wurde vor 140 Jahren in den höchsten Tönen gelobt und in überschwänglichen Zeilen gefeiert: "Wiedrum ist unser Städtchen um einen Ritter reicher geworden", vermeldete die Hunsrücker Zeitung am 20. Januar 1871. Gemeint war der Kastellauner Albert Feiber, Leutnant und Kompanieführer im 8. Brandenburgischen Infanterieregiment Nr. 64. "Demselben wurde zum Christgeschenk für seine ausgezeichnete Tapferkeit in dem Reconoscirungsgefecht am 30. November, wo er mit seiner Compangnie zwei feindlichen Battalionen siegreich gegenüberstand, das Eiserne Kreuz verliehen", heisst es weiter im Text.

And here's my translation and my gripe with the piece.

"Heroism" was lauded and spoken extremely highly of 140 years ago, and celebrated in exuberant lines: "Again our town has gained one more knight," the local paper Hunsrücker Zeitung noted on January 20, 1871. The piece was dedicated to a native of the town of Kastellaun, one Albert Feiber, Lieutenant and commanding officer with the 8. Brandenburgischen Infanterieregiment Nr. 64. "As a Christmas present for his distinguished heroism in a battle during a reconnaissance-in-force, where his company faced and beat two enemy battalions, he received the Iron Cross."

Now, what pissed me off? It's that little measure of putting "heroism" into quotation marks. Honestly, I do have a pretty lousy impression of the local paper and its obvious - even for German standards - leftwing bent, so I would be lying if what they did there had surprised me. Whatever leftwing narrative apparent in public discourse, they will follow it hook, line and sinker. 

Still, I'm pissed. A local, a man of a family that still exists today and lives in the town he once hailed from, distinguished himself in a war where Germany was not the aggressor! He beat, using a company of, at best, 200 soldiers, an enemy force of two battalions, at worst a force 13 times as strong as his own! Even if we go by the best - for him - estimate his light infantry faced off against a force at least three times as strong as his own (and that still assumes he commanded a company at the high end of the quantitative spectrum!). In my eyes, such an example of leadership against massive odds cannot be called anything but actual heroism. 

But to a leftwing rag such as my local paper, apparently that's only "heroism". You know, not real heroism, just heroism in quotation marks. I'd really like to know what, in their eyes, qualified as heroism. Whatever the answer might be, I doubt it'd contain the words "German" and "soldier" in any positive connotation... wankers.