• Destined to Witness: Growing up Black in Nazi Germany by Hans J. Massaquoi
• Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers by Filip Muller
• A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City by Anonymous
• A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans by Alfred-Maurice de Zayas
• A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People by Steven E. Ozment

I received my July reading for my Modern Germany summer course today. I think I’m going to really, really enjoy this class (and will, I hope, have plenty of new won’t-find-that-in-your-textbook material to integrate into my class next school year).

I’ve always been fascinated by this old mill built in 1880 about half an hour south of Erie, as it somehow managed to survive decade after decade of abandonment. It’s beautifully eerie - and there a story there. I know it.

History Mini-Lesson of the Moment Vol. 4

Robert Owen: Social Reformer

There is but one mode by which man can possess in perpetuity all the happiness which his nature is capable of enjoying - that is by the union and co-operation of all for the benefit of each.

And with this words, Robert Owen expressed his vision of utopia, an idea not unfamiliar even in the 18th and 19th centuries in which Owen lived, but made unique by Owen’s ability to personal finance his grand experiments of utopian socialism.

Born in Wales in 1771, Robert Owen worked his way into financial success at a young age. He used his riches as a philanthropist and social reformer - and soon, took to buying up entire communities in Britain with hopes of finding success in his ideas on a small scale, using his money to publicize and promote his ideas to British citizens and politicians. These ideas included ahead-of-their-time reforms of free healthcare, limited work days, prohibiting child labor, mandatory education for children, and continued education for adults - all at the expense of the community as a whole. 

Owen was discouraged by his lack of success in Britain, particularly New Lanark. In 1825, Owen decided to take his experiment across the Atlantic, and purchased a community in northwestern Indiana, USA. He named it New Harmony, a proposed “Heaven on Earth,” and sent much of his family there as he traveled back and forth between the two nations, deciding to put his son in charge of running the new experimental utopia. The same ideas used back in Britain were implemented in the new community, which also offered plenty of activities and events to keep up the community’s morale. Soon though, the community - which was filled with intellectuals (“thinkers, not doers”), vagabonds, and others from the edges of society, began to break into numerous sub-communities, effectively destroying Owen’s vision. By 1829, most deemed the community of New Harmony to be a failure.

Owen would live the rest of his life convinced that despite his failures, he had the solution to society’s woes - and on his deathbed, he left the world with these words: “My life was not useless; I gave important truths to the world, and it was only for want of understanding that they were disregarded. I have been ahead of my time.”

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

• Vol. 1: The Emerald Gem: Bare-Knuckle Boxing in 19th Century England
• Vol. 2: Roosevelt’s List: The Japanese-American Concentration Camps
• Vol. 3: Two if by Sealand

History Mini-Lesson of the Moment Vol. 3

Two if by Sealand

What makes a nation? This was the question raised by the Bates family.

Our lesson today follows the occupation of an old defensive WWII sea fort of the UK’s by the Bates family beginning in the 1960s and continuing to modern day. Led by former English major Paddy Roy Bates, the Bates family “settled” the abandoned fort in 1967. Soon after, the family declared their new home to be the independent sovereign state known as the Principality of Sealand. Roy subsequently pronounced himself the Prince of Sealand. 

The story of Sealand includes heated debates with neighboring countries, drafting a constitution, creating official currency, participation in official national athletic events, tourism and economic development, mercenaries and speedboats and helicopters in an attempted hostage takeover followed by negotiations, shady investors, governments in exile, and catastrophic fires - just to give you a little taste of Sealand’s rich history.

Today, this nation has an estimated population of 27 Sealanders with 0% poverty, 0% unemployment, and $0 in national debt - not to mention a GDP of US$600,000. Perhaps, one might allege, governments throughout the world should take note of Prince Roy’s economic leadership.

Sources: 1, 2, 3

• Vol. 1: The Emerald Gem: Bare-Knuckle Boxing in 19th Century England
• Vol. 2: Roosevelt’s List: The Japanese-American Concentration Camps

One perk of having a quirky brother who spends hours and hours a week in the Goodwill buying junk to resell for minimal profit is his interesting finds that he passes on to me. I’m an anti-hoarder and my distaste of unnecessary clutter leads to a usual rejection of his offers of leg lamps and used spice racks, but he occasionally brings me something I enjoy.

While this issue of LIFE Magazine is certainly not a rarity - I think everybody has a great uncle who hoarded copies of LIFE and held onto the Moon landing edition - but I love reading through old magazines like this, if for nothing else, then for the ads where I can imagine Don Draper’s praise - or cringes - towards the copywriter who came up with each tagline. 

Oh, and if only Fruit of the Loom briefs and t-shirts still cost 69 cents.

My brother called me the other other day from the Goodwill - not so unusual being that weekend perusing for items to buy and resell is one of his many eccentricities.

“Hey, I found a copy of Mein Kampf,” he said. “Fifty cents. You want it?”

As I had my own copy still from college collecting dust on my bookshelf, I declined. My room is already overflowing with books as it is and adding to the collection second copies is the last thing my personal space needs.

“Well, it’s in German. I think it might be a first edition,” he said.

Knowing that this was a near impossibility, I relayed to him the date of the first part’s original printing - 1925, shortly after Hitler was released from prison - and asked him to check for a date on the publication page. He said it was 1943, which was a date that still piqued my interest enough to ask him to pick it up for me.

When I finally received it, I looked over the hardcover - small, red, simple print. I turned it over in my hands, leafed through the dirt-stained pages, noticed the name hand-written on the inside of the cover with the date October 28, 1943 sprawled below it. I noted the separation of segments in the book by small swastikas, certainly unlike any of the English translations that I have read which made it a point to take out any glorification of Nazism. It was obvious that this was a Nazi-printed version.

After doing a little research on the hundreds of editions released throughout the years, I’ve found out that the particular printing of this book is referred to as the Tornister-Ausgabe edition. Google Translate tells me this means “knapsack output” - and my research confirms that it is indeed an unabridged yet extremely compact version of Mein Kampf made specifically for the German soldier to carry during WWII. Every German soldier was issued one.

What more do I know about this copy in my possession? Nothing really. I wonder who this person - likely a German soldier - who illegibly signed this was. What his story was. How his Nazi-issue copy of a German soldier’s Mein Kampf ended up at a Goodwill outside of Pittsburgh. If he lived here. If someone else brought it back. If it was found in an attic after a death and unknowingly donated with a box of other yellowing books.

I hope to someday know.

Making some fake Facebook profiles today with my PowerPoint template. If any teacher followers out there are interested in it, shoot me a message with your email. It sure beats making a poster.

According to the historians, by looking at things that have already happened, Americans can learn a lot about which actions made things better versus which actions made things worse, and can then plan their own actions accordingly. …

While the new strategy, known as “Look Back Before You Act,” has raised concerns among people worried they will have to remember lots of events from long ago, the historians have assured Americans they won’t be required to read all the way through thick books or memorize anything.

Instead, citizens have been told they can just find a large-print, illustrated timeline of historical events, place their finger on an important moment, and then look to the right of that point to see what happened afterward, paying especially close attention to whether things got worse or better. …

“You know how the economy is not doing so well right now?” Professor Elizabeth Schuller of the University of North Carolina said. “Well, in the 1930s, financial markets - no, wait, I’m sorry. Here: A long, long time ago, way far in the past, certain things happened that were a lot like things now, and they made people hungry and sad.”

“How do you feel when you’re hungry? Doesn’t feel good, does it?” Schuller added. “So, maybe we should avoid doing those things that caused people to feel that way, don’t you think?”

Concluding their address, the panel of scholars provided a number of guidelines to help implement the strategy, reminding the nation that the biggest decisions required the most looking back, and stressing the importance of checking the past before one makes a decision, not afterward, when the decision has already been made.

While many citizens have expressed skepticism of the historians’ assertions, the majority of Americans have reportedly grasped the concept of noticing bad things from earlier times and trying not to repeat them.

“I get it. If we do something bad that happened before, then the same bad thing could happen again,” said Barb Ennis, 48, of Pawtucket, RI. “We don’t want history to happen again, unless the thing that happened was good.”

“When you think about it, a lot of things have happened already,” Ennis added. “That’s what history is.”

In Washington, several elected officials praised the looking-back-first strategy as a helpful, practical tool with the potential to revolutionize government.

“The things the historians were saying seemed complicated at first, but now it makes sense to me,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who reversed his opposition to oil-drilling safety regulations after checking past events and finding a number of “very, very sad things [he] didn’t like.” “I just wished they’d told us about this trick before.”

This is too good. My side hurts.