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Chancellor Schroder to visit Normandy this weekend.

Should he go?

  • Yes, the Krauts lost blokes too, time to forgive

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No way. Too many Allied dead

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0
I can't particularly see why the Krauts would want to go... it strikes me as being a bit like the Chelsea squad turning up at the Arsenal victory party: nobody wants them there and they aren't going to enjoy it anyway.
 
yeah , but the best bit is imagine how much it'll p*ss the frogs off!!!
their 2 least favourite countries in the world trudging all over their country again , priceless :lol:
 
A relative of mine was a TA Officer in the Beds & Herts in North Africa and was severely wounded in the final advance on Tunis (mortar shrapnel blasted through both legs). He was evacuated and told that his legs would be amputated. He raised so much hell that in the end, the quacks packed him off to UK in a hospital ship with the legs still attached. In hospital in UK, another set of quacks decided they should come off, but he somehow managed to get away with it. It took him a year to start walking again.

Fortunately for him he was a lawyer in civil life (if he'd gone into the family building business he'd have been shagged), and went back to practice in 1946. He walked with two sticks and could drive, but the leg wounds never healed and he was still having the dressings changed twice a week when he died in 1999.

The point? (sorry, just typed "pint". Must be thinking of something) When my dad was a lad, this hard old bastard tried all he could to stop him from learning German. It was only when someone gave him the idea that dad might join the green slime in the event of war with Germany that he shut up.
Despite that, years later, the old fella was a director of a certain football club playing in Europe for the first time. As luck would have it they drew boxhead opposition.

Did it bother him? Did it balls. He spent most of the trip drinking whisky and swapping abuse with the old boys on the other side's board. I hope there's a moral there.
 
Why shouldn't he go; do we not commemorate campaigns in which we the British were the aggressor? If it is okay for us to remember our fallen in such campaigns then surely the Germans should be allowed to honour theirs?

Was he not invited by the French Govt anyway?
 
Let him go but

1. Stand behind him and make him sig OUR National Anthem, when he doesn't sing loudly or enthusiastically enough jab him with a bayonet.

2. Make him present each surviving veteran with a new Merc CLK

3. Make him swear to ban the sale of David Hasslehoff CDs on his return to 'Zer Vaterland'

4. He should bring Gyros Pommes Mayo for all

5. He should apologise for invading Poland and for bombing Stan Boardmans Chippy

6. Make him shine the cockpits of the BBMF

That will do for now, other than that it would be a good idea for him to turn up and show his respects.
 
Asked the Father this.

He said "He should go" . However, he wouldn't have been so keen if Schroder had been the son of, or a former SS Officer.
 
I was in Normandy for the 45th anniversary a while back and met up with some of the men who took Pegasus Bridge and Merville Battery, just so happens that as we took a tour round Merville a German who had defended it was leaving. It was interesting to see the mixed reactions on some of the vets faces, some did not seem to mind yet others were very anti.

I suppose it largely depended on the individuals experiance during the war and how they had dealt with it over the years as to whether they can forgive and forget.

On the flip side I spent an excellent night with some German vets who had served on the Russian and French fronts when on my german para course, they had a lot of respect for the Brits and some equally impressive stories as the men who stormed ashore in Normandy.

As for Schroder attending, its a political thing. He can't not be seen to attend when the other heads of power are on show, pure and simple.
 
No politicians should attend, only veterans. The security for Dubya and Bliar is a farce. Someone should DNA-test them and see if they are the illegitimate offspring of Hitler and Mussolini!
 
Veterans are more than entitled to remain bitter. But it is nice to see reconciliation.

According to Major General Michael Reynolds in his books on the role of the 1st and 12th SS Panzer Divisions, the Chief of Staff of the latter, Hubert Meyer conducted a Normandy battlefield tour for the British Staff College in 1974.

I agree with MrPVRd. Politicians should not attend, unless qualified as veterans-unlikely now-family or regiment etc. in which case keep it low key. Representative diplomats should be all that is required.
 
how many medals are going to be on show from our current leadership ,
f**king none thats how many they're all ex lawyers , the veterans deserve better.
 
shortfuse said:
how many medals are going to be on show from our current leadership ,
f**king none thats how many they're all ex lawyers , the veterans deserve better.

I believe (and stand to be corrected) that the last serving minister that was a veteran of WWII was Willie Whitelaw (served in the Thatcher Government). He was a tank troopie, I read of a command of his that took a bit of a battering at one point from a JagdPanther in an Ambush.
 
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