CANADA MILITARY NEWS- how can UN-NATO USA justify Iran agreement whilst supplying Saudi with weapons in Muslim wars ie Yeman- WE MUST DO BETTER 4 OUR TROOPS - they are our saving grace between our freedom and chaos- ie Nazi/Vietnam/WW1-II-Korea-Vietnam-ColdWar-etc. etc. etc.

NAZI WAR POSTER - KILL THE JEWS

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X-COMPANY- COVERED THE JEWISH HORROR- Canada’s story of WWII on CBC- brilliant

http://www.cbc.ca/xcompany/

1x08 Into the Fire

As Paris is torn by a massive roundup of Jews, the team must help an early Holocaust witness bring his story to Allied leaders.

Go beyond the episode:

Debriefing: Episode 8 | Into the Fire

Venture into a secret meeting location, take a closer look at the drawings of a man who escaped a concentration camp and more.

CBC X-COMPANY Show last night had me in such tears and heartache.... this show X company...IS SOOOOOO CANADIAN... BLOGGED this actual blog 2da

BLOGGED:
CANADA MILITARY NEWS- War is NOT 20th or this century's biggest killer of humanity- Silence, Indifference and Political $$$ is with their man made wars- IRAN AND SAUDI ARABIA HAVE DESTROYED ISLAM AND USA'S NATO OWNED UN feeds the war machine killing innocents- O Canada /WARS
http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2015/04/canada-military-news-how-can-un-nato.html

-----------------

-------------------

Another
Thank u for the Canadian share.... so beautiful ...so brave.... I weep 2da because of the horror of President Obama ruler of the world and UN made a nuclear agreement with Iran and then turned around and supplied warship support 2 Saudi Arabia next day in Yemen whilst Iran is back Yemen hardliners- and the total indifference of Islam peoples of the vicious hatred and butchering of Muslim on Muslim innocents and culture that is thousands of years old.
We won Afghanistan as evidenced by election April 5, 2014 when millions of Afghan women, sisters, mothers, grannies brought their kids along with youngbloods voted in Afghanistan first actual free election 8 million strong in the face of the baby killing Taliban machine and sleeting ice rain.... they walked miles and miles and came from the mountains... and voted. And the world watched humbled and in awe....
2day AM SO ASHAMED OF OBAMA USA KING OF THE WORLD AND NATO AND EVEN CANADA'S INTERFERENCE IN UKRAINE and a hijacked democratic elected President
.... am sick 2 death of Obama and his wars using our nations our men and women of Nato.... who come home wounded and souls stolen 2 their home countries 2 b belittled and ignored by the very politicians of all stripes and parties who care more about their political asses than the people.
Our troops define our nations as evidenced in this hard and raw and real picture of the horrific conditions - my uncle said the food (if any had maggots)...often the Germans poisoned the water.... boots with no socks... often very little or not enough equipment... and on and on and on... whilst political hacks of all stripes sat in rich comfort rooms pontificating.... bless us Lord.... because way 2 many of us are tired.... - OLD MOMMA NOVA nova000scotia on the different boards since September 11, 2001.
And am so proud that Canadians, British and Russia refused 2 use chlorine and mustard gas whilst Germany relished in it.... Vimy Ridge made Canada..... the War of 1812 made Canada... the Great War defined Canada.... Peacekeepers made Canada proud until political indifference in Rwanda... Gulf War... Afghanistan's April 5, 2014 election was one of the proudest moments in Canadian and global history..... and VIMY RIDGE.... THE GREAT AND BRAVE VIMY RIDGE....

Canadian Army added 2 new photos.

1 hr ·

‪#‎ThrowbackThursday‬ Canadian machine gunners dig themselves into shell holes on Vimy Ridge and Canadian soldiers returning victorious from battle. The Battle of Vimy Ridge began at 5:30 a.m. on April 9, 1917.
‪#‎StrongProudReady‬ ‪#‎RememberThem‬ ‪#‎Vimy‬ ‪#‎VimyRidge‬ ‪#‎VimyDay‬ Canada Remembers Historica Canada Canadian War Museum The Vimy Foundation
Library and Archives Canada online MIKAN no. 3241489 and no. 3520900.

https://www.facebook.com/CANArmy/photos/pcb.795729350519045/795728357185811/?type=1&theater

https://www.facebook.com/CANArmy/photos/pcb.795729350519045/795728353852478/?type=1&theater

Proud Canadian Soldier- 2007- written by Canadian College in honour of 4 Canadians killed and 3 wounded in a single day in Afghanistan- reminding them of Canada's incredible courage on the battleflied 4 freedom

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German Soldiers round up Jews german-occupation

Jehova's Witness 180px-Purple_Triangle

On May 10, 1933, Nazis in Berlin burned works of Jewish authors, the library of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, and other works considered un-German.1933

Memorial 2 Gay and lesbian victims of Hitler's Nazis in cologne

British Canadian French Chlorine and Mustard Gas Casualties -by Germans WWI

NAZI CAMP MARKINGS:

Table of camp inmate markings[edit]

	Politisch Political prisoners	Berufsverbrecher Professional criminals	Emigrant ("Emigrants") Foreign forced laborers	Bibelforscher ("Bible Students") Jehovah's Witnesses	Homosexuell Homosexuals	Arbeitsscheu/ ("Work-Shy") Asozial /("Asocials")	Zigeuner ("Gypsies") Roma and Sinti males
Basic colours	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badges

Applicable marks were worn in descending order as follows: inmate number, repeater bar, triangle or star, member of penal battalion, escape suspect. In this case, the inmate is a Jewish convict with multiple convictions, serving in a Strafkompanie(penal unit) and who is suspected of trying to escape.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badges

------------------------

JAPAN IS SHOWING HONOUR.... GERMANY STILL REFUSES 2.... thank u Japan....

Museum Exhibits Evidence of Japanese Vivisection of U.S. POWs During WWII

2015-04-05 17:41:45 Xinhua Web Editor: Xie Cheng

http://english.cri.cn/12394/2015/04/05/3801s872942.htm
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????- OUR CANADIAN TROOPS ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS SHEEEEEET....??? - our troops are trying 2 save innocents- when the vicious hatred of persians and arabs will never give a sheeet about the innocents....

Iran Enters Hornets Nest: Parks Two Warships Off Yemen Coast Immediately Next To Two US Aircraft Carriers | Zero ...

Zero Hedge‎ - 14 hours ago

And now the punchline: the two Iran warships will now be located in the immediate vicinity of not only two US aircraft carriers, ... Yemenibabies thrown from incubators in 3... 2.... 1.

Iran's leader says Saudi air strikes causing genocide

Reuters‎ - 58 mins ago

... Saudi Arabia in Yemen, sharply escalating Tehran's rhetoric against the two-week-old.

Iran's Khamenei accuses Saudi Arabia of genocide over Yemen

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X COMPANY OF CBC TELEVISION SERIES... WWII- and we are seeing the Canadian perspective and the vicious indifference by Germany and Britain and the world 2ward God's Chosen People- the Israelites......

-----------------

APRIL 5, 2014- AFGHANISTAN AND AFGHAN TROOPS AND NATO TROOPS WON THE BIGGEST VICTORY OF ALL...... AND AFGHAN PEOPLE SHOWED THE WORLD REMARKABLE COURAGE AND BASIC FREEDOM... BY VOTING.... Women of Afghanistan inspired the world of #1BRising

Afghanistan- u raise us up Nato Nation and Afghan Comrade troops- Afghanistan on April 5, 2014 last year inspired the whole world when millions and millions of women brought their children, sisters, moms and grannies grandpas, elders and youngblood marched in the horrific sleeting rain past the vicious Islamic Talbian baby killing machine and voted.... voted 4 freedom.... the world stood in awe.... and u honoured every mother's son and daughter of Nato Nations who died and wounded 4 u 2 make that march along with Afghan troops - the peace makers of your nation and the Afghan cops- the peace keepers of your nation. Canadians love u Afghanistan... and always our troops. old momma nova

-------------------

BEST QUOTE EV-A: don't come to OUR COUNTRY,where our family members have offered their lives, and try to destroy our support systems for our Veterans. WE WILL NEVER BACK DOWN FROM BULLIES

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At least Russia remembers the evil cruelty of Nazis and the extermination of 6 million yellow star jews, gays, gypsies, catholics, unfashionable christian religions, disabled - NOT white, blue eyed and blonde!- still creepy.... and Germany is back in the saddle in EU and World Stage again?....

KYIV, Ukraine — Toy soldiers are all fun and games — but not when Nazis are involved, according to the Russian authorities.

Moscow’s most famous toy store has become the subject of a criminal investigation after a retailer there was found to be selling figurines and busts of World War II-era German soldiers, in full regalia. The charge: inciting hatred and offending the dignity of veterans.

The story broke last Friday, when a state television report titled “Fascists in downtown Moscow” revealed a hobby shop based in the Central Children’s Store, a sprawling Soviet-era landmark, was selling disturbingly realistic busts of Nazi soldiers, including SS officers.

Is it so wrong to sell Nazi toys?

Dan Peleschuk Apr 7, 2015 @ 11:29 AM

http://www.globalpost.com/article/6508076/2015/04/07/russia-nazi-german-figurines

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WAR ISN’T 20th and THIS CENTURY’S BIGGEST KILLER- SILENCE, INDIFFERENCE IS...IMHO

WAR ISN'T
THIS CENTURY'S
BIGGEST KILLER

By R.J. Rummel

Published in The Wall Street Journal (July 7, 1986). This was based on a pilot survey of possible sources of democide data. As a result of this study I applied for a grant from the United States Institute of Peace to do a much more methodical survey of democide, which eventuated in my Death by Government and Statistics of Democide. This pilot study underestimated these final totals by about 42 percent.

Our century is noted for its absolute and bloody wars. World War I saw nine-million people killed in battle, an incredi ble record that was far surpassed within a few decades by the 15 million battle deaths of World War II. Even the number killed in twentieth century revolutions and civil wars have set historical records. In total, this century's battle killed in all its international and domestic wars, revolutions, and violent conflicts is so far about 35,654,000.

Yet, even more unbelievable than these vast numbers killed in war during the lifetime of some still living, and largely unknown, is this shocking fact. This century's total killed by absolutist governments already far exceeds that for all wars, domestic and international. Indeed, this number already approximates the number that might be killed in a nuclear war.

Table 1 provides the relevant totals and classifies these by type of government (following Freedom House's definitions) and war. By government killed is meant any direct or indirect killing by government officials, or government acquiescence in the killing by others, of more than 1,000 people, except execution for what are conventionally considered criminal acts (murder, rape, spying, treason, and the like). This killing is apart from the pursuit of any ongoing military action or campaign, or as part of any conflict event. For example, the Jews that Hitler slaughtered during World War II would be counted, since their merciless and systematic killing was unrelated to and actually conflicted with Hitler's pursuit of the war.

The totals in the Table are based on a nation-by-nation assessment and are absolute minimal figures that may under estimate the true total by ten percent or more. Moreover, these figures do not even include the 1921-1922 and 1958-1961 famines in the Soviet Union and China causing about 4 million and 27 million dead, respectably. The former famine was mainly due to the imposition of a command agricultural economy, forced requisitions of food by the Soviets, and the liquidation campaigns of the Cheka; the latter was wholly caused by Mao's agriculturally destructive Great Leap Forward and collectivization.

However, Table 1 does include the Soviet government's planned and administered starvation of the Ukraine begun in 1932 as a way of breaking peasant opposition to collectivization and destroying Ukrainian nationalism. As many as ten million may have been starved to death or succumbed to famine related diseases; I estimate eight million died. Had these people all been shot, the Soviet government's moral responsibility could be no greater.

The Table lists 831 thousand people killed by free -- democratic -- governments, which should startle most readers. This figure involves the French massacres in Algeria before and during the Algerian war (36,000 killed, at a minimum), and those killed by the Soviets after being forcibly repatriated to them by the Allied Democracies during and after World War II.

It is outrageous that in line with and even often surpassing in zeal the letter of the Yalta Agreement signed by Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt, the Allied Democracies, particularly Great Britain and the United States, turned over to Soviet authorities more than 2,250,000 Soviet citizens, prisoners of war, and Russian exiles (who were not Soviet citizens) found in the Allied zones of occupation in Europe. Most of these people were terrified of the consequences of repatriation and refused to cooperate in their repatriation; often whole families preferred suicide. Of those the Allied Democracies repatriation, an estimated 795,000 were executed, or died in slave-labor camps or in transit to them.

If a government is to be held responsible for those prisoners who die in freight cars or in their camps from privation, surely those democratic governments that turned helpless people over to totalitarian rulers with foreknowledge of their peril, also should be held responsible.

Concerning now the overall mortality statistics shown in the table, it is sad that hundreds of thousands of people can be killed by governments with hardly an international murmur, while a war killing several thousand people can cause an immediate world outcry and global reaction. Simply contrast the international focus on the relatively minor Falkland Islands War of Britain and Argentina with the widescale lack of interest in Burundi's killing or acquiescence in such killing of about 100,000 Hutu in 1972, of Indonesia slaughtering a likely 600,000 "communists" in 1965, and of Pakistan, in an initially well planned massacre, eventually killing from one to three million Bengalis in 1971.

A most noteworthy and still sensitive example of this double standard is the Vietnam War. The international community was outraged at the American attempt to militarily prevent North Vietnam from taking over South Vietnam and ultimately Laos and Cambodia. "Stop the killing" was the cry, and eventually, the pressure of foreign and domestic opposition forced an American withdrawal. The overall number killed in the Vietnam War on all sides was about 1,216,000 people.

With the United States subsequently refusing them even modest military aid, South Vietnam was militarily defeated by the North and completely swallowed; and Cambodia was taken over by the communist Khmer Rouge, who in trying to recreate a primitive communist agricultural society slaughtered from one to three million Cambodians. If we take a middle two-million as the best estimate, then in four years the government of this small nation of seven million alone killed 64 percent more people than died in the ten-year Vietnam War.

Overall, the best estimate of those killed after the Vietnam War by the victorious communists in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia is 2,270,000. Now totaling almost twice as many as died in the Vietnam War, this communist killing still continues.

To view this double standard from another perspective, both World Wars cost twenty-four million battle deaths. But from 1918 to 1953, the Soviet government executed, slaughtered, starved, beat or tortured to death, or otherwise killed 39,500,000 of its own people (my best estimate among figures ranging from a minimum of twenty million killed by Stalin to a total over the whole communist period of eighty-three million). For China under Mao Tse-tung, the communist government eliminated, as an average figure between estimates, 45,000,000 Chinese. The number killed for just these two nations is about 84,500,000 human beings, or a lethality of 252 percent more than both World Wars together. Yet, have the world community and intellectuals generally shown anything like the same horror, the same outrage, the same out pouring of anti-killing literature, over these Soviet and Chinese megakillings as has been directed at the much less deadly World Wars?

As can be seen from Table 1, communist governments are overall almost four times more lethal to their citizens than non-communist ones, and in per capita terms nearly twice as lethal (even considering the huge populations of the USSR and China).

However, as large as the per capita killed is for communist governments, it is nearly the same as for other non-free governments. This is due to the massacres and widescale killing in the very small country of East Timor, where since 1975 Indonesia has eliminated (aside from the guerrilla war and associated violence) an estimated 100 thousand Timorese out of a population of 600 thousand. Omitting this country alone would reduce the average killed by noncommunist, nonfree governments to 397 per 10,000, or significantly less than the 477 per 10,000 for communist countries.

In any case, we can still see from the table that the more freedom in a nation, the fewer people killed by government. Freedom acts to brake the use of a governing elite's power over life and death to pursue their policies and ensure their rule.

This principle appeared to be violated in two aforementioned special cases. One was the French government carrying out mass killing in the colony of Algeria, where compared to Frenchmen the Algerians were second class citizens, without the right to vote in French elections. In the other case the Allied Democracies acted during and just after wartime, under strict secrecy, to turn over foreigners to a communist government. These foreigners, of course, had no rights as citizens that would protect them in the democracies. In no case have I found a democratic government carrying out massacres, genocide, and mass executions of its own citizens; nor have I found a case where such a government's policies have knowingly and directly resulted in the large scale deaths of its people though privation, torture, beatings, and the like.

Absolutism is not only many times deadlier than war, but itself is the major factor causing war and other forms of violent conflict. It is a major cause of militarism. Indeed, absolutism, not war, is mankind's deadliest scourge of all.

In light of all this, the peaceful, nonviolent, pursuit and fostering of civil liberties and political rights must be made mankind's highest humanitarian goal. Not simply to give the greatest number the greatest happiness, not simply to obey the moral imperative of individual rights, not simply to further the efficiency and productivity of a free society, but also and mainly because freedom preserves peace and life.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WSJ.ART.HTM

-----

Europe under the Nazis

German soldiers round up Jews in occupied Holland.

By the summer of 1940, the Nazis controlled much of western Europe – including eastern France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, the Baltic states, Norway, Austria, Czechoslovakia and the western half of Poland. This occupation would not change significantly until the D-Day landings and Soviet invasion of 1944. Europe under the Nazis was governed firmly, brutally and for benefit of the German war effort. It was under this cloak of war and military occupation that the SS began to carry out the Final Solution to the ‘Jewish problem’.

Control of occupied territories was of course critical. The Nazis often left local governments in place, provided they were either sympathetic or could be easily manipulated. Each occupied nation was appointed a Gauleiter – a senior NSDAP official who ruled in the manner of a governor. The level of control and force wielded in each occupied country was often based on Hitler’s personal perception of it. Nations with large populations of Aryans, like Norway and Austria, were treated comparatively better than countries with sizeable Jewish and Slavic populations. Anyone in an occupied territory who resisted or criticised the Nazis was removed from power, detained in concentration camps or forced labour. In December 1941 Hitler signed the notorious ‘Night and Fog Decree’ that authorised summary executions for anyone caught campaigning against or resisting Nazi rule. This was usually done in secret: those executed were said to have “disappeared into the night and fog of Germany”.

The main function of Nazi occupation was to supply the German war effort with resources and labour. Berlin sent economics experts into each occupied territory, to decide how its domestic economy could be harnessed and put to work for Germany. Owners of mining companies, factories and manufacturers were forced to sign contracts to supply the Nazi war machine with resources or goods, usually at very low rates. Wages were fixed at low levels (around 20 per cent less than before the war) and prices were sometimes controlled. The Nazis also imposed restrictions on labour. As in Germany itself, there was very little free movement of labour; each person was given a workbook and an identity card then allocated a job. As the war progressed, the authorities in some Nazi occupied countries introduced labour conscription. Locals could even be forced to relocate to Germany for work. Non-workers had to carry identity papers and there were restrictions on movement, such as checkpoints and curfews. Most local newspapers continued to operate but were placed under the control of local Nazis or sympathisers. There was a ban on publishing ‘bad news': information about German defeats or articles about the resettlement or deportation of Jews. Locals were even forced to salute SS officers or high-ranking Nazi Party members.

Not knowing what was in store for them, the Jews in some towns in central Poland sent delegations to welcome the German invaders. On September 8th 1939, for example, Jewish community leaders and rabbis met the German troops on the flower-strewn Mikolaj Rej Street in Radom and offered them the keys to the town, as well as bread and salt.

Tadeusz Piotrwski, historian

The most brutal Nazi occupation was in Poland. In September 1939 the Polish state was divided in two, with the invading Germans occupying the western half and the Soviet Red Army occupying the east. Hitler’s policy view towards Poland was not one of occupation but of ‘Germanisation’. He appointed Hans Frank, the party’s fanatical lawyer, as Gauleiter of the Generalgouvernement (‘General Government’, the Nazi term for occupied Poland). One of Frank’s first priorities was Operation Intelligenzaktion, or the liquidation of Poland’s intelligentsia. For six months, squads of einsatzgruppen marched Polish aristocrats, academics, teachers, judges, lawyers, priests, politicians and writers into remote forests and shot them in cold blood. Though Intelligenzaktion was not specifically anti-Jewish, many of the 60,000 people killed were Jews. The Catholic Church in Poland was also targeted: four-fifths of Catholic priests and nuns were either killed or deported to concentration camps.

But for the Hitler regime, the most significant target in Poland was its two million Jews: the largest Jewish population in western Europe. By early 1941 most Polish Jews had been forced out of their homes and herded into ghettos. As the SS stepped up its campaign against Polish Jews, other Poles were warned not to hide or assist Jews in any way. In November 1941 Hans Frank posted a decree warning that any Pole who concealed or aided Jews would be summarily shot. In some cases entire Polish families were executed for harbouring Jews. For a while, Polish Jews became a source of slave labour. Tens of thousands were employed by local factories at very cheap rates, their ‘wages’ paid to Nazi officials rather than the workers themselves. By late 1941, however, Nazi priorities had changed. The demand for Jewish slave labour had been overtaken by plans for their ‘resettlement’ and extermination. In November, Hans Frank wrote to his fellow SS officers:

As far as the Jews are concerned, I tell you quite frankly that they must be done away with, one way or another. I know that many of the measures carried out against the Jews at present are being criticised. Before I continue, I want to beg you to agree with me on the following formula: We will in principle have pity on the German people only, and nobody else in the whole world. The others had no pity on us. As an old National Socialist I must say this: This war would be only a partial success if the Jews of Europe survive it, while we shed our best blood to save Europe. My attitude towards the Jews is therefore based only on the expectation that they must disappear. They must be done away with. Gentlemen, I must ask you to rid yourselves of all feeling of pity. We must annihilate the Jews wherever we find them, and wherever it is possible, to maintain the structure and the integrity of the Reich.

1. The Nazis had occupied most of western Europe by mid-1940, including Poland, France, Holland and Norway.

2. These countries were placed under the governorship of Nazi officials, often with sympathetic or puppet regimes.

3. Economies in occupied countries were forced to assist the Nazi war effort, with cheap supplies and labour.

4. There were also social restrictions, such as control of the press, obligatory identity cards, checkpoints and curfews.

5. Poland was worst treated, its intelligentsia murdered, its large Jewish population forced into ghettos and slave labour.

- See more at: http://alphahistory.com/holocaust/europe-under-the-nazis/#sthash.qObZ76Z0.dpuf

http://alphahistory.com/holocaust/europe-under-the-nazis/

---------------

· Video: Toy shop in Poland sells smiling NAZI soldiers...

www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message2710410/pg1

They sell toy guns in ever country toy stores. Doesn't that teach shooting is fun? ... Toy shop in Poland sells smiling NAZI soldiers for fun and education.

· nazi toys | eBay

www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=nazi toys Cached

Find great deals on eBay for nazi toys chucky doll. ... Sell; Help & Contact; ... King & Country WWII Berlin 38 LAH134 Nazi Billboard new in box. $32.99;

· Sweden: 'Tis the season not to sell Nazi toy soldiers...

www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/europe/53188-141203... Cached

Sweden: 'Tis the season not to sell Nazi toy soldiers. Toy store removes line of products, ... Relations with Europe will improve once Israel exports natural gas.

---

The pink triangle, rendered in hot pink as a gay pride and gay rights symbol, was originally rendered in pink and used pointed downward on a Nazi concentration camp badge to denote homosexual men.

Memorial "to the gay and lesbian victims of National Socialism" in Cologne: The inscription on the left side of the monument (to the viewer's right from the angle depicted) reads "Totgeschlagen – Totgeschwiegen" ("Struck Dead – Hushed Up").

Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The pink triangle, rendered in hot pink as a gay pride and gay rights symbol, was originally rendered in pink and used pointed downward on a Nazi concentration camp badge to denote homosexual men.

Upon the rise of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party (the Nazi Party) in Germany, gay men and, to a lesser extent, lesbians, were two of the numerous groups targeted by the Nazis and were ultimately among Holocaust victims. Beginning in 1933, gay organizations were banned, scholarly books about homosexuality, and sexuality in general, were burned, (such as those from the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, run by Jewish gay rights campaigner Magnus Hirschfeld) and homosexuals within the Nazi Party itself were murdered. The Gestapo compiled lists of homosexuals, who were compelled to sexually conform to the "German norm."

Between 1933 and 1945, an estimated 100,000 men were arrested as homosexuals, of whom some 50,000 were officially sentenced.^[1] Most of these men served time in regular prisons, and an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 of those sentenced were incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps.^[1] It is unclear how many of the 5,000 to 15,000 eventually perished in the camps, but leading scholar Rüdiger Lautmann believes that the death rate of homosexuals in concentration camps may have been as high as 60%. Homosexuals in the camps were treated in an unusually cruel manner by their captors.

After the war, the treatment of homosexuals in concentration camps went unacknowledged by most countries, and some men were even re-arrested and imprisoned based on evidence found during the Nazi years. It was not until the 1980s that governments began to acknowledge this episode, and not until 2002 that the German government apologized to the gay community.^[2] This period still provokes controversy, however. In 2005, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the Holocaust which included the persecution of homosexuals.^[3]

· 1 Purge

· 2 Definition of homosexuality

· 3 Homosexuality and the SS

· 4 Concentration camps

· 5 Post-War

o 5.1 Early Holocaust and genocide discourse

· 6 Changes with the civil rights movement

· 7 Post-revisionist framing of the "Gay Holocaust"

· 8 See also

· 9 References

· 10 Further reading

· 11 External links

Purge

On May 10, 1933, Nazis in Berlin burned works of Jewish authors, the library of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, and other works considered "un-German".

In late February 1933, as the moderating influence of Ernst Röhm weakened, the Nazi Party launched its purge of homosexual (gay, lesbian, and bisexual; then known as homophile) clubs in Berlin, outlawed sex publications, and banned organized gay groups. As a consequence, many fled Germany (e.g., Erika Mann, Richard Plant). In March 1933, Kurt Hiller, the main organizer of Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute of Sex Research, was sent to a concentration camp.

On May 6, 1933, Nazi Youth of the Deutsche Studentenschaft made an organized attack on the Institute of Sex Research. A few days later the Institute's library and archives were publicly hauled out and burned in the streets of the Opernplatz. Around 20,000 books and journals, and 5,000 images, were destroyed. Also seized were the Institute's extensive lists of names and addresses of homosexuals. In the midst of the burning, Joseph Goebbels gave a political speech to a crowd of around 40,000 people. Hitler initially protected Röhm from other elements of the Nazi Party which held his homosexuality to be a violation of the party's strong anti-gay policy. However, Hitler later changed course when he perceived Röhm to be a potential threat to his power. During the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, a purge of those whom Hitler deemed threats to his power took place, he had Röhm murdered and used Röhm's homosexuality as a justification to suppress outrage within the ranks of the SA. After solidifying his power, Hitler would include gay men among those sent to concentration camps during the Holocaust.

Heinrich Himmler had initially been a supporter of Röhm, arguing that the charges of homosexuality against him were manufactured by Jews. But after the purge, Hitler elevated Himmler's status and he became very active in the suppression of homosexuality. He exclaimed, "We must exterminate these people root and branch... the homosexual must be eliminated." ^[4]

Shortly after the purge in 1934, a special division of the Gestapo was instituted to compile lists of gay individuals. In 1936, Himmler created the Reichszentrale zur Bekämpfung der Homosexualität und Abtreibung (Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion).

Nazi Germany thought of German gay men as against the plan of creating a "master race" and sought to force them into sexual and social conformity. Gay men who would not change or feign a change in their sexual orientation were sent to concentration camps under the "Extermination Through Work" campaign.^[5]

More than one million gay Germans were targeted, of whom at least 100,000 were arrested and 50,000 were serving prison terms as "convicted homosexuals".^[1] Hundreds of European gay men living under Nazi occupation were castrated under court order.^[6]

Some persecuted under these laws would not have identified themselves as gay. Such "anti-homosexual" laws were widespread throughout the western world until the 1960s and 1970s, so many gay men did not feel safe to come forward with their stories until the 1970s when many so-called "sodomy laws" were repealed.

Lesbians were not widely persecuted under Nazi anti-gay laws, as it was considered easier to persuade or force them to comply with accepted heterosexual behavior. However, they were viewed as a threat to state values.

Definition of homosexuality

The first event that led towards the fight against homosexuality in Nazi Germany was the unification of the German state in 1871 known as the Second Reich. The new state brought forth a new penal code which included paragraph 175. It read, "An unnatural sex act committed between persons of male sex or by humans with animals is punishable by imprisonment; the loss of civil rights might also be imposed." The law was interpreted differently across the nation until the ruling of a court case on April 23, 1880. The Reichsgericht’s (Imperial Court of Justice) ruled that a criminal homosexual act had to involve either anal, oral, or intracrural sex between two men. Anything less of that was deemed harmless play.^[7] The German police force found this new interpretation of paragraph 175 extremely difficult to prove in court since it was hard to find witness to these acts. This left the attitude towards homosexuality very relaxed during World War I and early in the rise of the National Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP).

After the Purge of homosexual officers in the SA, the NSDAP amended paragraph 175 due to what they saw as loopholes in the law. The most significant change to the law was the change from "An unnatural sex act committed between persons of male sex" to "A male who commits a sex offense with another male." This expanded the reach of the law to persecute gay men. Kissing, mutual masturbation and love-letters between men served as a legitimate reason for the police to make an arrest. Unfortunately for homosexuals, the law never states what a sex offence actually is, leaving it open to subjective interpretation. Men who practiced what was known to be harmless amusement with other men were now being arrested under the law.^[8]

Homosexuality and the SS

According to Geoffrey J. Giles (mentioned earlier) the SS, and its leader Heinrich Himmler, were particularly concerned about homosexuality. More than any other Nazi leader, Himmler's writing and speeches denounced homosexuality. On February 18, 1937 Himmler gave his most detailed speech on the topic in Bad Tölz.^[9] However, despite consistently condemning homosexuals and homosexual activity, Himmler was less consistent in his punishment of homosexuals. In Geoffrey Giles' article "The Denial of Homosexuality: Same-Sex Incidents in Himmler's SS", several cases are put forward where members of the Nazi SS are tried for homosexual offences. On a case by case basis, the outcomes vary widely, and Giles gives documented evidence where the judges could be swayed by evidence demonstrating the accused's "aryan-ness" or "manliness", that is, by describing him as coming from true Germanic stock and perhaps fathering children. Reasons for Himmler's leniency in some cases may derive from the difficulty in defining homosexuality, particularly in a society that glorifies the masculine ideal and brotherhood.^[10]

Not only was Himmler's persecution of homosexuals based on this masculine ideal, but it was also driven by societal issues. In his speech to the SS on February 18, 1937, Himmler starts his speech off covering the social aspect of the problem.^[11] He begins by reminding people of the number of registered members in homosexual associations. He was not convinced that every homosexual was registered in these clubs, but he was also not convinced everyone registered was a homosexual.^[11] Himmler estimated the number of homosexuals from one to two million people, or 7 to 10% of men in Germany.^[11] He explained "If this remains the case, it means that our nation (Volk) will be destroyed (lit. ‘go kaput’) by this plague." Adding the number of homosexuals to the number of men that died in the previous war, Himmler estimated that this would equal four million men. If these four million men are no longer capable of having sex with a female, then this 'upsets the balance of the sexes in Germany and is leading to catastrophe.' Apparently, Germany was having population issues with the number of killed men during the First World War.^[11] Himmler believed "A people of good race which has too few children has a sure ticket for the grave, for insignificance in fifty to one hundred years, for burial in two hundred and fifty years." ^[11]

Concentration camps

Memorial plaque at Sachsenhausen concentration camp

Estimates vary widely as to the number of gay men imprisoned in concentration camps during the Holocaust, ranging from 5,000 to 15,000, many of whom died.^[1] In addition, records as to the specific reasons for internment are non-existent in many areas, making it hard to put an exact number on exactly how many gay men perished in death camps. See pink triangle.

Gay men suffered unusually cruel treatment in the concentration camps. They faced persecution not only from German soldiers but also from other prisoners, and many gay men were beaten to death. Additionally, gay men in forced labor camps routinely received more grueling and dangerous work assignments than other non-Jewish inmates, under the policy of "Extermination Through Work". SS soldiers also were known to use gay men for target practice, aiming their weapons at the pink triangles their human targets were forced to wear^{[citation needed]}.

The harsh treatment can be attributed to the view of the SS guards toward gay men, as well as to the homophobic attitudes present in German society at large. The marginalization of gay men in Germany was reflected in the camps. Many died from beatings, some of them inflicted by other prisoners. Nazi doctors often used gay men for scientific experiments in an attempt to locate a "gay gene" to "cure" any future Aryan children who were gay.^{[citation needed]}

Experiences such as these can account for the high death rate of gay men in the camps as compared to the other "asocial" groups. A study by Rüdiger Lautmann found that 60% of gay men in concentration camps died, as compared to 41% for political prisoners and 35% for Jehovah's Witnesses. The study also shows that survival rates for gay men were slightly higher for internees from the middle and upper classes and for married bisexual men and those with children.^[12]

Post-War

One point of the Homomonument, in Amsterdam, to gay and lesbian victims of persecution, which is formed of three large pink triangles made of granite.

Homosexual concentration camp prisoners were not acknowledged as victims of Nazi persecution.^[13] Reparations and state pensions available to other groups were refused to gay men, who were still classified as criminals — the 1935 version of Paragraph 175 remained in force in West Germany until 1969 when the Bundestag voted to return to the pre-1935 version.^[13] Paragraph 175 was not repealed until 1994, although both East and West Germany liberalized their criminal laws against adult homosexuality in the late 1960s.

Holocaust survivors who were homosexual could be re-imprisoned for "repeat offences", and were kept on the modern lists of "sex offenders". Under the Allied Military Government of Germany, some homosexuals were forced to serve out their terms of imprisonment, regardless of the time spent in concentration camps.^[14]

The Nazis' anti-gay policies and their destruction of the early gay rights movement were generally not considered suitable subject matter for Holocaust historians and educators. It was not until the 1970s and 1980s that there was some mainstream exploration of the theme, with Holocaust survivors writing their memoirs, plays such as Bent, and more historical research and documentaries being published about the Nazis' homophobia and their destruction of the German gay-rights movement.

Since the 1980s, some European and international cities have erected memorials to remember the thousands of homosexual people who were murdered and persecuted during the Holocaust. Major memorials can be found in Berlin, Amsterdam (Netherlands), Montevideo (Uruguay), San Francisco (United States of America), Tel Aviv (Israel) and Sydney (Australia).^[15] In 2002, the German government issued an official apology to the gay community.

In 2005, the European Parliament marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp with a minute's silence and the passage of a resolution which included the following text:

“

...27 January 2005, the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Nazi Germany's death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where a combined total of up to 1.5 million Jews, Roma, Poles, Russians and prisoners of various other nationalities, and homosexuals, were murdered, is not only a major occasion for European citizens to remember and condemn the enormous horror and tragedy of the Holocaust, but also for addressing the disturbing rise in anti-Semitism, and especially anti-Semitic incidents, in Europe, and for learning anew the wider lessons about the dangers of victimising people on the basis of race, ethnic origin, religion, social classification, politics or sexual orientation...

”

An account of a gay Holocaust survivor, Pierre Seel, details life for gay men during Nazi control. In his account he states that he participated in his local gay community in the town of Mulhouse. When the Nazis gained power over the town his name was on a list of local gay men ordered to the police station. He obeyed the directive to protect his family from any retaliation. Upon arriving at the police station he notes that he and other gay men were beaten. Some gay men who resisted the SS had their fingernails pulled out. Others had their bowels punctured, causing them to bleed profusely. After his arrest he was sent to the concentration camp at Schirmeck. There, Seel stated that during a morning roll-call, the Nazi commander announced a public execution. A man was brought out, and Seel recognized his face. It was the face of his eighteen-year-old lover from Mulhouse. Seel states that the Nazi guards then stripped the clothes of his lover, placed a metal bucket over his head, and released trained German Shepherd dogs on him, which mauled him to death.

Rudolf Brazda, believed to be the last surviving person who was sent to a Nazi concentration camp because of his homosexuality, died in France in August 2011, aged 98. Brazda was sent to Buchenwald in August 1942 and held there until its liberation by U.S. forces in 1945. Brazda, who settled in France after the war, was later awarded the Legion of Honour.^[16]

Early Holocaust and genocide discourse

Arising from the dominant discourse of the Jewish suffering during the years of Nazi domination, and building on the divergence of differential victimhoods brought to light by studies of the Roma and the mentally ill, who suffered massively under the eugenics programs of the Third Reich, the idea of a Gay Holocaust was first explored in the early 1970s. However, extensive research on the topic was impeded by a continuation of Nazi policies on homosexuals in post-war East and West Germany and continued western notions of homophobia.^[17]

The word genocide was generated from a need for new terminology in order to understand the gravity of the crimes committed by the Nazis.^[18] First coined by Raphael Limkin in 1944, the word became politically charged when The Genocide Act was enacted by the United Nations on December 9, 1948, which created an obligation for governments to respond to such atrocities in the future. The debate on the Gay Holocaust is therefore a highly loaded debate which would result in an international acknowledgement of state sponsored homophobia as a precursor to genocide should the proponents of the Gay Holocaust succeed. However the United Nations definition does not include sexual orientation (or even social and political groups) within its qualifications for the crime. Genocide by the U.N. definition is limited to national, ethnical, racial or religious groups and as this is the only accord to which nations have pledged allegiance, it stands as the dominant understanding of the term.^[19] It is, however, what Michel-Rolph Trouillot terms "an age when collective apologies are becoming increasingly common"^[20] as well as a time when the established Holocaust discourse has settled and legitimized claims of the Jewish, Roma and mentally ill victims of Nazi persecution so it would seem an appropriate time to at least bring attention to the debate of the Gay Holocaust, even if the issue is not to be settled.

A lack of research means that there is relatively little data on the dispersion of gay men throughout the camps however Heinz Heger suggests in his book The Men with the Pink Triangle that they were subjected to harsher labor than smaller targeted groups, such as the political prisoners, and furthermore suffered a much higher mortality rate.^[21] They also lacked a support network within the camps and were ostracized in the prison community.^[21] Homosexuals, like the mentally ill and many Jews and Roma, were also subjected to medical experimentation in the hopes of finding a cure to homosexuality at the camp in Buchenwald.^[22]

The conception of Jewish exclusivity in the Holocaust went unchallenged in the early years of study on the subject.^{[citation needed]} It is undeniable that the Jews suffered the greatest death toll, and entire communities were obliterated in Eastern Europe and to a great extent in western countries. The notion of exclusivity however is challenged by the existence of similar forces working against different social and ethnic groups such as homosexuals and the Roma, which resulted in the victimization and systematic destruction of homosexual lives and lifestyles, as well as those of the Roma. An inclusion of social groups in a definition of genocide would further challenge the notion of the Jewish genocide as unique within the context of the Holocaust. This sentiment has been further articulated by Elie Weisel, who argued that "a focus on other victims may detract from the Judaic [sic] specificity of the Holocaust".^[23] Other scholars such as William J. Spurlin have suggested that such positions foster a misrepresentation of history and devalue the suffering of other victims of Nazi atrocities. Simon Wiesenthal argues, for example, that "the Holocaust transcended the confines of Jewish community and that there were other victims."^[23] In the mid-1970s new discourses emerged that challenged the exclusivity of the Jewish genocide within the Holocaust, though not without great resistance.

Changes with the civil rights movement

The civil rights movements of North America in the 1970s saw an emergence of victim claims through revision and appropriation of historical narratives. The shift from the traditionally conservative notion of history as the story of power and those who held it, social historians emerged with narratives of those who suffered and resisted these powers. African Americans created their own narrative, as firmly based on evidence as the discourses already in existence, as part of a social movement towards civil rights based on a history of victimization and racism.^[24] Along similar lines, the gay and lesbian movement in the United States also utilized revisionism to write the narrative that had only just garnered an audience willing to validate it.^[24]

There were two processes at work in this new discourse, revisionism and appropriation, which Arlene Stein teases out in her article Whose Memory, Whose Victimhood?, both of which were used at different points in the movement for civil rights. The revisionist project was taken on in a variety of mediums, historical literature being only one of many. The play Bent and a limited number of memoirs, which recall The Diary of Anne Frank coincided with the appropriation of the pink triangle as a symbol of the new movement and a reminder to "never forget."^[24] While the focus of these early revisions was not necessarily to determine the Nazi policy on homosexuals as genocidal, they began a current towards legitimizing the victimization of homosexuals under the regime, a topic that had not been addressed until the 1970s.

Historical works eventually focused on the nature and intent of Nazi policy. Heinz Heger, Gunter Grau and Richard Plant all contributed greatly to the early Holocaust discourse which emerged throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.^[24] Central to these studies was the notion that statistically speaking, homosexuals suffered greater losses than many of the smaller minorities under Nazi persecution such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and within the camps experienced harsher treatments and ostracization as well as execution at the hands of firing squads and the gas chambers.^[25]

These early revisionist discourses were joined by a popular movement of appropriation, which invoked the global memory of the Holocaust to shed light on social disparities for homosexuals within the United States. Larry Kramer who was one of the founders of ACT UP, an HIV/AIDS activist group that used shock tactics to bring awareness to the disease and attention to the need for funding popularized the AIDS-as-Holocaust discourse. "The slowness of government response at federal and local levels of government, the paucity of funds for research and treatment, particularly in the early days of the epidemic stems, Kramer argued, from deep-seated homophobic impulses and constituted 'intentional genocide'."^[26]

While the appropriation of the Holocaust discourse helped to grab the attention needed for an appropriate response to the pandemic it is highly problematic and perhaps counterproductive to the historical discourse of the time. The notion of AIDS-as-Holocaust and the accompanying notion of AIDS-as-genocide greatly oversimplify the meaning and the intention of genocide as a crime. While parallels can be drawn such as specific group experiencing disproportionate mortality resulting from a seeming neglect by the institutions designed to protect them, the central factors of intention and systematic planning are absent and the use of the word dilutes the severity of the act.

The Holocaust frame was used again in the early 1990s this time in relation to right-wing homophobic campaigns throughout the United States.^[26] The conservative response yielded a new discourse working against the Gay Holocaust academia which emphasized the gay and lesbian revisionism as a victimist discourse which sought sympathy and recognition as a pragmatic means of garnering special status and civil rights outside those of the moral majority.^[26] Arlene Stein identifies four central elements to the conservative reaction to the Gay Holocaust discourse, she argues that the right is attempt to dispel the notion that gays are victims, pit two traditionally liberal constituencies against one another (gays and Jews) thereby draw parallels between Jews and Christians and thereby legitimate its own status as an oppressed and morally upright group.

The victimist argument raises a central tenet as to the reasons for which the discourse of a Gay Holocaust has experienced so much resistance politically and popularly (in the conscious of the public). Alyson M. Cole addresses the anti-victim discourse that has emerged in western politics since the end of the 1980s. She asserts "anti-victimists transformed discussions of social obligation, compensations and remedial or restorative procedures into criticisms of the alleged propensity of self-anointed victims to engage in objectionable conduct."^[27] Though she is clear that the anti-victimist discourse is not limited to right-wing politics, the case of the Gay Holocaust situates itself along these political boundaries and the anti-victim discourse is highly relevant to the debate on homosexual claims to genocide under the Third Reich. Cole also identifies a central conflict within the anti-victim discourse, which sheds light on the weakness in the conservative argument against the Gay Holocaust. While anti-victimists shun the victim and target it for ridicule as a pity-seeking subject-person while simultaneously extolling the virtues of what Cole identifies as the true victim.^[27] The true victim holds certain personal qualities, which allow for it to be beyond the ridicule given to the victimist.^[27] Propriety, responsibility, individuality and innocence are the central attributes of the true victim^[27] and in the case of the Gay Holocaust discourse, the claims made for the recognition of genocide or genocidal processes under Nazi Germany allow the claimants to be relegated to the victimist status, making their 'anti-victim' claims bogus.

Post-revisionist framing of the "Gay Holocaust"

Memorial "Stolperstein" for Arnold Bastian, a homosexual victim of the Nazis. It is located at Große Straße 54 in Flensburg. The text reads: "Here lived Arnold Bastian, born 1908. Arrested 15 January 1944. Penitentiary at Celle. Dead on 17 February 1945 at the penitentiary in Hameln."

In recent years new work has been done on the Gay Holocaust and rather than emphasizing the severity of destruction to communities or the exclusivity of the genocidal process of the Nazi regime, it focuses on the intersections of social constructions such as gender and sexuality within the context of social organization and political domination. Spurlin claims that these all functioned with one another in forming Germany’s social order and final solution to these social problems. Rather than being autonomous policies, "They were part of a much larger strategy of social disenfranchisement and the marking of enemies..."^[28] This discourse incorporates numerous disciplines including gender studies, queer studies, Holocaust studies and genocide studies to tease out the axis at which they meet in social control specifically under National Socialism in Germany.

References

· United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

· · Melissa Eddy (May 18, 2002). "Germany Offers Nazi-Era Pardons". Associated Press.

· · Mathis Winkler (January 18, 2006). "European Parliamentarians Stand Up Against Homophobia". Deutsche Welle.

· · Plant, 1986, p. 99

· · Neander, Biedron. "Homosexuals. A Separate Category of Prisoners". Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. Retrieved August 10, 2013.

· · Giles, Geoffrey J. "'The Most Unkindest Cut of All': Castration, Homosexuality and Nazi Justice," Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 27 (1992): pp. 41–61.

· · Giles, Geoffrey J (2001). Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 240.

· · Giles, Geoffrey J. (2001). Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 240–242.

· · Longerich, Peter (2012). Heinrich Himmler. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 232.

· · Giles, Geoffrey J., "The Denial of Homosexuality: Same-Sex Incidents in Himmler's SS", Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 11, No. 1/2, Special Issue: Sexuality and German Fascism (Jan. – Apr., 2002), pp. 256–290

· · Himmler, Heinrich. "Heinrich Himmler – Speech about Homosexuality to the SS Group Leaders". Retrieved 2014-03-15.

· · Lautmann, Rüdiger. "Gay Prisoners in Concentration Camps as Compared with Jehovah's Witnesses and Political Prisoners".

· · Burleigh, Michael and Wolfgang Wipperman. The Racial State: Germany, 1933–1945. New York: Cambridge, 1991. p.183

· · Angela Chu (October 18, 2002). "Prosecution of Homosexuals in the Holocaust: Aftermath". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. USHMM.

· · Memorials of the Gay Holocaust, Matt & Andrej Koymasky

· · News in brief (5 August 2011). "Last homosexual Holocaust survivor dies at 98". Ha'aretz. The Associated Press.

· · Heinz Heger, The Men With the Pink Triangle (Hamburg: Melin-Verlag, 1980) pp. 14

· · David Scheffer, Genocide and Atrocity Crimes, Genocide Studies and Prevention 1, no. 3 (2006) pp. 230

· · David Scheffer, Genocide and Atrocity Crimes, Genocide Studies and Prevention 1, no. 3 (2006)

· · Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Abortive Rituals: Historical Apologies in the Global Era, Interventions 2, (2000) pp. 172

· · Heinz Heger, The Men With the Pink Triangle (Hamburg: Melin-Verlag, 1980) pp. 13

· · Heinz Heger, The Men With the Pink Triangle (Hamburg: Melin-Verlag, 1980) pp. 12

· · William J. Spurlin, Lost Intimacies: Rethinking Homosexuality under National Socialism (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2009) pp. 4

· · Arlene Stein, "Whose Memories? Whose Victimhood? Contests for the Holocaust Frame in Recent Social Movement Discourse", Sociological Perspectives; 41, no. 3 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998)

· · Heinz Heger, The Men With the Pink Triangle (Hamburg: Melin-Verlag, 1980)

· · Arlene Stein, Whose Memories? Whose Victimhood? Contests for the Holocaust Frame in Recent Social Movement Discourse, Sociological Perspectives 41, no. 3 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998) p. 527

· · Alyson Cole, “Situating Anti-Victim Discourse,” The Cult of True Victimhood: From The War on Welfare to the War on Terror (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007)

28. · William J. Spurlin, Lost Intimacies: Rethinking Homosexuality under National Socialism (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2009) pp. 17

External links

· Non-Jewish Victims of Persecution in Nazi Germany on the Yad Vashem website

· Becker le marqué, Quasimodo

· "Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933–1945". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

· "Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

· Official Site Of German Government's Memorial For Gay Victims of the Holocaust in Berlin

· Pierre Seel – An Account of a Gay Holocaust Survivor

Categories:

· 1930s in Germany

· Gay history

· Law in Nazi Germany

· Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust

· 1930s in LGBT history

· 1940s in LGBT history

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_homosexuals_in_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Holocaust#Purge

-------------

DEMOCIDE:

NAZI GENOCIDE

AND MASS MURDER

Chapter 1

20,946,000 Victims:

Nazi Germany

1933 To 1945*

By R.J. Rummel

Hitler told Himmler that it was not enough for the Jews simply to die; they must die in agony. What was the best way to prolong their agony? Himmler turned the problem over to his advisers, who concluded that a slow, agonizing death could be brought about by placing Jewish prisoners in freight cars in which the floors were coated with...quicklime...which produced excruciating burns. The advisers estimated that it would take four days for the prisoners to die, and for that whole time the freight cars could be left standing on some forgotten siding.... Finally it was decided that the freight cars should be used in addition to the extermination camps.

----Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NAZIS.CHAP1.HTM

By genocide, the murder of hostages, reprisal raids, forced labor, "euthanasia," starvation, exposure, medical experiments, and terror bombing, and in the concentration and death camps, the Nazis murdered from 15,003,000 to 31,595,000 people, most likely 20,946,000 men, women, handicapped, aged, sick, prisoners of war, forced laborers, camp inmates, critics, homosexuals, Jews, Slavs, Serbs, Germans, Czechs, Italians, Poles, French, Ukrainians, and many others. Among them 1,000,000 were children under eighteen years of age.¹ And none of these monstrous figures even include civilian and military combat or war-deaths.

Figure 1.1 presents the range in this democide--genocide and mass murder--and the most probable figure; table 1.1 subdivides the democide in various ways, sorts them, and compares this democide to the war-dead for

Germany and other European nations. The table first lists the various major genocides carried out by the Nazis and the numbers likely murdered: 16,315,000 victims overall. Then is shown the 11,283,000 people the Nazis killed through institutional practices, such as forced "euthanasia," forced labor, and the processing of prisoners of war; or in Nazi institutions, particularly prisoner of war and concentration or death camps. Much of this institutionalized killing was pursuant to one Nazi democide program or another, and the totals therefore overlap with those for genocide. Finally, the table lists those occupied nations that suffered democide. Clearly the Soviet Union and then Poland endured the most.

Shown at the bottom of the table is the number of civilians and military killed in the war, presumably exclusive of democide.² In total, the war killed 28,736,000 Europeans, a fantastic number. But the democide of Hitler alone adds 20,946,000 more. Were Stalin's democide during the war of 13,053,000 people³ to be included, the number of people murdered by just the Nazis and Soviets alone would exceed the total European war-dead.

When we think of Nazi killing, genocide immediately comes to mind, particularly that of "6,000,00 Jews." But they also murdered for reasons other than race or religion. For one, the Nazis slew those who opposed or hindered them, whether actually or potentially. This was why Hitler assassinated hundreds of top Nazi SA's (Sturmabteilung)⁴ in June and July 1934, who under Ernst Rohm were becoming a strong competitor to the SS (Schutzstaffel); or executed perhaps 5,000 Germans after the 1944 plot on his life and attempted coup d'etat. Indeed, it is why critics, pacifists, conscientious objectors, campus rebels, dissidents, and others throughout the twelve-year history of the regime in Germany, were executed, disappeared, or slowly died in concentration camps. The Nazis thus killed some 288,000 Germans, not counting Jews, homosexuals, and those forcibly "euthanized." If these are included, then the Nazis murdered at least 498,000 Germans, probably 762,000. As shown in table 1.2, this was one out of every hundred Germans.

If one includes the 5,200,000 German civilian and military war-dead, the average German's likelihood of dying from the regime was slightly better than one out of eleven--extremely low odds for a life.

As high as this human cost of the Nazis was for the Germans, it was higher for the countries they invaded and occupied, particularly in the East. Not only did the Nazis eliminate actual critics and opponents as a matter of course, but they also prevented any serious potential opposition by simply exterminating the top leadership, intellectuals, and professionals. Besides Jews, the Germans murdered near 2,400,000 Poles, 3,000,000 Ukrainians, 1,593,000 Russians, and 1,400,000 Byelorussians, many of these among the best and the brightest men and women. The Nazis killed in cold blood nearly one out of every six Polish or Soviet citizens, including Jews, under their rule.

Moreover, the Nazis murdered as an administrative device. They used terror and mass reprisals to maintain their control, prevent sabotage, and safeguard their soldiers. For the partisans or underground to kill a German soldier could mean that the Nazis would round up and execute all the men in a nearby village, burn the village to the ground, and send all the women and children off to concentration camps. In retaliation for sabotage, they would shoot dozens and even hundreds of hostages.

In some occupied areas in which the Nazis had to contend with well organized and active guerrilla units, they applied a simple rule: they would massacre one hundred nearby civilians for every German soldier killed; fifty for every one wounded. Often this was a minimum that might be doubled or tripled. They thus killed vast numbers of innocent peasants and townsfolk, possibly as many as 8,000 in Kraguyevats,⁵ 1,755 in Kraljevo,⁶ and overall 80,000 in Jajinci,⁷ to name just in a few places in Yugoslavia alone. Most executions were small in number, but day by day they added up. From an official German war diary: 16 December 1942, "In Belgrade, 8 arrests, 60 Mihailovich [the guerrilla Chetnik leader] supporters shot;" 27 December, "In Belgrade, 11 arrests, 250 Mihailovich supporters shot as retaliation."⁸ A German placard from Belgrade announced that the Nazis shot fifty hostages in retaliation for the dynamiting of a bridge. On 25 May 1943 the Nazis shot 150 hostages in Kraljevo; in October they shot 150 hostages in Belgrade;⁹ fifty hostages in Belgrade in August 1943;¹⁰ 150 Serbs at Cacak in October;¹¹ and so on. In Greece, as another example, the Nazis may have burned and destroyed as many as 1,600 villages each with populations of 500 to 1,000 people,¹² no doubt massacring many of the inhabitants beforehand. Overall, the Nazis thus slaughtered hundreds of thousands in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Greece, and France; and millions overall in Poland and the Soviet Union.

But many other regimes have also killed opponents and critics, or used reprisals to maintain power. What distinguished the Nazis above virtually all others was their staggering genocide: people were machine gunned in batches, shot in the head at the edge of trenches, burned alive while crowded into churches, gassed in vans or fake shower rooms, starved or frozen to death, worked to death in camps, or beaten or tortured to death simply because of their race, religion, handicap, or sexual preference.

Most Nazis were absolute racists, especially among the top echelon; they believed utterly in the superiority of the "Aryan" race. They had no doubt that they were the pinnacle of racial evolution, that eugenically they were the best. So science proved, as many German and non-German scientists told them. And therefore they could not allow inferior groups to pollute their racial strain. Inferior races were like diseased appendixes that had to be surgically removed for the health of the body. Therefore they must exterminate the Jew and Gypsy. So also must they liquidate the homosexual and handicapped. So eventually they must also eliminate the Slavs, after exploiting their slave labor. Slavs were not only biologically inferior, but also inhabited territory that Germany needed for the superior race to expand and grow.

But then the Nazi program ran into the problem of numbers. Exterminating millions of Jews would be hard enough. But the Slavs numbered in the tens of millions. Therefore they envisioned a two-part approach: reduce their number through execution, starvation, and disease. And then after the war that the Nazis would of course win, deport the remaining 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 Slavs to Siberia.

These genocides cost the lives of probably 16,315,000 people. Most likely the Nazis wiped out 5,291,000 Jews, 258,000 Gypsies, 10,547,000 Slavs, and 220,000 homosexuals. They also "euthanized" 173,500 handicapped Germans. Then in repression, terrorism, reprisals, and other cold-blooded killings done to impose and maintain their rule throughout Europe, the Nazis murdered more millions including French, Dutch, Serbs, Slovenes, Czechs, and others. In total, they likely annihilated 20,946,000 human beings.

Annually, as shown in table 1.2, the Nazis killed six to seven people out of every hundred in occupied Europe. The odds of a European dying under Nazi occupation were about one in fifteen.¹³ As table 1.2 points out, this is twice the odds of an American dying from one of the nine worst diseases, specifically stroke, heart disease, diabetes, chronic obstructive lung disease, lung cancer, breast cancer, cervical cancer, colorectal cancer, and liver disease.¹⁴

Moreover, even though the Nazis hardly matched the democide of the Soviets and Communist Chinese as shown in table 1.3 , they proportionally killed more. Figure 1.2 illustrates this. The annual odds of being killed by the Nazis during their occupation were almost two-and-a-half times that of Soviet citizens being slain by their government since1917; over nine times that for Chinese living in Communist China after 1949. In competition for who can murder proportionally the most human beings, the Japanese militarists come closest. The annual odds of being killed by the Japanese during their occupation of China, Korea, Indonesia, Burma, Indochina, and elsewhere in Asia was one in 101. Given the years and population available to this gang of megamurderers, the Nazis have been the most lethal murderers; and Japanese militarists next deadliest. _

NOTES

* From Chapter 1 in R.J. Rummel, Democide: Nazi Genocide and Mass Murder, 1993. For full reference this book, the list of its contents, and the text of its preface, click book.

1. Feig (1990, p. 174).

2. According to the source, the civilian component of World War II deaths given in table 1.1 resulted "directly from the war . . . and war-borne epidemics" (Wright, 1965, p. 1543).

3. Rummel (1990, Chapter 7).

4. This was a private, quasi-military organization of storm troopers that Hitler began to organize as his private army in 1921, long before he came to power.

5. Seton-Watson (1961, pp. 120-21).

6. Browning (1990, p. 70).

7. Martin (1978, p. 48).

8. Quoted in ibid., p. 47.

9. Ibid., pp. 47-48.

10. Ibid., p. 70.

11. Ibid., p. 78.

12. Macksey (1975, p. 158).

13. I am trying to express these odds in the most understandable way. Technically, since the probability of a European dying from Nazi occupation is .065 and that of surviving is .935, then the odds of dying are 65 to 935, or 1 to 14.38; the odds of surviving are 14.38 to 1. The 1 in 15 shown in the table is simply determined from the finding that 6.5 people died out of every 100, or 1 in 15.38.

14. As reported in a study by the national Centers for Disease Control, 427 Americans out of every 100,000 died from these nine diseases in 1986 (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 28 November 1990, p. 1).

For citations see the Democide: Nazi Genocide and Mass Murder REFERENCES

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NAZIS.CHAP1.HTM

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QUOTE: It is outrageous that in line with and even often surpassing in zeal the letter of the Yalta Agreement signed by Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt, the Allied Democracies, particularly Great Britain and the United States, turned over to Soviet authorities more than 2,250,000 Soviet citizens, prisoners of war, and Russian exiles (who were not Soviet citizens) found in the Allied zones of occupation in Europe. Most of these people were terrified of the consequences of repatriation and refused to cooperate in their repatriation; often whole families preferred suicide. Of those the Allied Democracies repatriation, an estimated 795,000 were executed, or died in slave-labor camps or in transit to them.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WSJ.ART.HTM

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VIETNAM WAR- AND JANE FONDA AND JOHN KERRY’S REVOLUTION- CREATED THIS DISASTEROUS CONCLUSION.... SHAME ON JANE- WE WILL 4GIVE JANE FONDA WHEN THE JEWS 4GIVE HITLER...

QUOTE: A most noteworthy and still sensitive example of this double standard is the Vietnam War. The international community was outraged at the American attempt to militarily prevent North Vietnam from taking over South Vietnam and ultimately Laos and Cambodia. "Stop the killing" was the cry, and eventually, the pressure of foreign and domestic opposition forced an American withdrawal. The overall number killed in the Vietnam War on all sides was about 1,216,000 people.

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DEATH
BY GOVERNMENT

By R.J. Rummel

New Brunswick, N.J.:
Transaction Publishers, 1994.

Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long
----Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice

Figures and Tables
Forward (by Irving Louis Horowitz)
Preface
Acknowledgments

1. 169,202,000 Murdered: Summary and Conclusions [20th Century Democide]

I BACKGROUND

2. The New Concept of Democide [Definition of Democide]
3. Over 133,147,000 Murdered: Pre-Twentieth Century Democide

II 128,168,000 VICTIMS: THE DEKA-MEGAMURDERERS

4. 61,911,000 Murdered: The Soviet Gulag State
5. 35,236,000 Murdered: The Communist Chinese Ant Hill
6. 20,946,000 Murdered: The Nazi Genocide State
7. 10,214,000 Murdered: The Depraved Nationalist Regime

III 19,178,000 VICTIMS: THE LESSER MEGA-MURDERERS

8. 5,964,000 Murdered: Japan's Savage Military
9. 2,035,000 Murdered: The Khmer Rouge Hell State
10. 1,883,000 Murdered: Turkey's Genocidal Purges
11. 1,670,000 Murdered: The Vietnamese War State
12. 1,585,000 Murdered: Poland's Ethnic Cleansing
13. 1,503,000 Murdered: The Pakistani Cutthroat State
14. 1,072,000 Murdered: Tito's Slaughterhouse

IV 4,145,000 VICTIMS: SUSPECTED MEGAMURDERERS

15. 1,663,000 Murdered? Orwellian North Korea
16. 1,417,000 Murdered? Barbarous Mexico
17. 1,066,000 Murdered? Feudal Russia

References Index

IMPORTANT NOTE: Among all the democide estimates appearing in this book, some have been revised upward. I have changed that for Mao's famine, 1958-1962, from zero to 38,000,000. And thus I have had to change the overall democide for the PRC (1928-1987) from 38,702,000 to 76,702,000. Details here.

I have changed my estimate for colonial democide from 870,000 to an additional 50,000,000. Details here.

Thus, the new world total: old total 1900-1999 = 174,000,000. New World total = 174,000,000 + 38,000,000 (new for China) + 50,000,000 (new for Colonies) = 262,000,000.

Just to give perspective on this incredible murder by government, if all these bodies were laid head to toe, with the average height being 5', then they would circle the earth ten times. Also, this democide murdered 6 times more people than died in combat in all the foreign and internal wars of the century. Finally, given popular estimates of the dead in a major nuclear war, this total democide is as though such a war did occur, but with its dead spread over a century.

FIGURES AND TABLES

FIGURES

Figure 1.1. Megamurderers and Their Annual Rates
Figure 1.2. Democide Lethality
Figure 1.3. Golgotha Among the Largest States
Figure 1.4. Golgotha's Racial/Ethnic Composition
Figure 1.5. Regional Origin of Golgothians
Figure 1.6. Democide Compared to War Battle-Dead
Figure 1.7a. Power Curve of Total Democide
Figure 1.7b. Power Curve of War Battle-Dead
Figure 1.7c. Power Curve of Democide Intensity
Figure 1.7d. Power Curve of War Intensity (Killed)
Figure 1.8. Democide Versus War Battle-Dead; Democracies Versus Nondemocracies
Figure 1.9. Range of Democide Estimates for Regimes
Figure 4.1 Soviet Democide Components and War/Rebellion Killed 1917-1987
Figure 4.2. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by Period.
Figure 5.1. PRC Democide and Annual Rate by Period
Figure 5.2. PRC Democide by Source
Figure 5.3. PRC Democide, Famine, and War/Revolution Deaths by Period
Figure 6.1. Nazi Democide Compared to That of Others
Figure 7.1. Nationalist Versus Communist Democide
Figure 8.1. Components of Japanese Democide in World War II
Figure 9.1. Estimated Cambodian Population Versus Predicted
Figure 9.2.. Estimated Regime Effects on the Cambodian Population
Figure 9.3. Sources of Unnatural Cambodian Deaths
Figure 9.4. Perpetrators of Cambodian Democide
Figure 9.5. Cambodian Democide Rates Compared to Others
Figure 10.1. Deaths From Turkey's Genocide, War, and Famine 1900-1923
Figure 11.1. Comparison of Vietnam War and Post-War Deaths in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia 1954-1987
Figure 14.1. Democide Annual Rates: Yugoslavia Compared to Others

TABLES

Table 1.1. Democratic Versus Nondemocratic Wars 1816-1991
Table 1.2. 20th Century Democide
Table 1.3. Fifteen Most Lethal Regimes
Table 1.4. This Century's Bloodiest Dictators
Table 1.5. Some Major Episodes and Cases of Democide
Table 1.6. Democide and Power
Table 2.1. Sources of Mass Death
Table 3.1. Selected pre-20th Century Democide and Totals
Table 4.1. Overview of Soviet Democide
Table 5.1.. PRC Democide 1949-1987
Table 6.1. Selected Nazi Democide and European War Dead
Table 6.2. Nazi Democide Rates
Table 6.3.. Comparison of Nazi Democide to That of Other Regimes
Table 7.1. China's Democide, Famine, War and Rebellion Dead, 1928-1949
Table 7.2. Period and Annual Democide Rates %
Table 8.1. Japanese Democide in WWII
Table 9.1. Cambodian Dead 1967-1978
Table 9.2. Conditions of Life Under the Khmer Rouge
Table 9.3. Cambodian Democide Rates Compared to Others
Table 10.1. Turkey's Dead 1900-1923
Table 10.2. Turkey's Armenian and Greek Genocide
Table 11.1. Vietnam's War-Dead and Democide 1945-1987
Table 11.2. Vietnam War and Post-War Dead 1954-1987
Table 11.3. Vietnam: Comparative Democide Rates
Table 12.1. German Expulsion Democide
Table 12.2. German Expulsion Democide Rates
Table 13.1. Pakistan Dead March to December 1971
Table 14.1. Democide in Yugoslavia
Table 14.2. Comparison of Yugoslavian Democide and Democide Rates
Table 15.1. North Korean Democide 1948-1987
Table 16.1. Mexican Democide 1900-1920
Table 17.1. Russian Democide 1900-1917

PREFACE^*

This is my fourth book in a series on genocide and government mass murder, what I call democide. The previous works concentrated on the four regimes that have committed the most democide, specifically the Soviet Union, Nationalist China under Chiang Kai-shek, communist China, and Nazi Germany.¹ This study includes the core results of those works in addition to all other cases of democide in this century up to 1987.²

Given the extent and detail of these books, the reader may be surprised that the primary purpose was not to describe democide itself, but to determine its nature and amount in order to test the theory that democracies are inherently nonviolent. They should have no wars between them, the least foreign violence and government related or directed domestic violence (revolutions, coups, guerrilla war, and the like), and relatively little domestic democide. I have substantiated the war, foreign, and domestic violence parts of this theory in previous works³ and took up the research associated with this book and its three predecessors in order to test the democide component. As will be seen, the results here clearly and decisively show that democracies commit less democide than other regimes. These results also well illustrate the principle underlying all my findings on war, collective violence, and democide, which is that the less freedom people have the more violence, the more freedom the less violence. I put this here as the Power Principle: power kills, absolute power kills absolutely.

In developing the statistics for this and the previous three volumes, almost 8,200 estimates of war, domestic violence, genocide, mass murder, and other relevant data, were recorded from over a thousand sources. I then did over 4,200 consolidations and calculations on these estimates and organized everything into tables of estimates, calculations, and sources totaling more than 18,100 rows. My intent is to be as explicit and public as possible so that others can evaluate, correct, and build on this work. I give the appendices for the Soviet, Chinese, and Nazi democide in my books on them. The appendices for this book were too massive to include here (one appendix table alone amounts to over 50 pages) and are given in a supplementary volume titled Statistics of Democide. I also include therein the details and results of various kinds of multivariate analysis of this democide and related data.

Then what is covered here? This book presents the primary results, tables, and figures, and most important, an historical sketch of the major cases of democide--those in which 1,000,000 or more people were killed by a regime. The first chapter is the summary and conclusion of this work on democide, and underlines the roles of democracy and power. Following this, chapter 2 in Part 1 introduces the new concept of democide. It defines and elaborates it, shows that democide subsumes genocidal killing, as well as the concepts of politicide and mass murder, and then tries to anticipate questions that the concept may arouse. It argues that democide is for the killing by government definitionally similar to the domestic crime of murder by individuals, and that murderer is an appropriate label for those regimes that commit democide. Readers that are satisfied with the thumbnail definition of democide as murder by government, including genocidal killing,⁴ can ignore this chapter. It is essential, however, for those with a professional interest in the results or wish to question the conclusions.

Following this chapter is a rough sketch of democide before the 20th century. Although hardly any historical accounting has been done for genocide and mass murder, as for the Amerindians slaughtered by European colonists or Europeans massacred during the Thirty Years War, a number of specific democidal events and episodes can be described with some historical accuracy and a description of these provides perspective on 20th century democide. I have in mind particularly the human devastation wrought by the Mongols, the journey of death by slaves from capture through transportation to the Old and New Worlds, the incredible bloodletting of the Taiping Rebellion, and the infamous Paris executions and relatively unknown genocide of the French Revolution. The upshot of this chapter is to show that democide has been very much a part of human history and that in some cases, even without the benefit of modern killing technology and implementing bureaucracy, people were beheaded, stabbed, or sliced to death by the hundreds of thousands within a short duration. In some cities captured by the Mongols, for example, they allegedly massacred over 1,000,000 men, women, and children.

Parts 2 to 4 present all the regimes murdering 1,000,000 or more people in this century, a chapter on each. These are written so as to show which regime committed what democide, how and why. The emphasis is on the connection between a regime, its intentions, and its democide. Although each of the case studies drives toward some final accounting of the democide, the specifics of such figures and the nature and problems in the statistics are ignored. These are rather dealt with in each appendix to a case study (given in Statistics of Democide), where each table of estimates, sources, and calculations is preceded by a detailed discussion of the estimates and the manner in which the totals were determined. The historical description of a case given here is only meant to provide an understanding of the democide. For this reason many specific examples will be given of the kind and nature of a regime's killing. I have generally avoided, however, tales of brutal torture and savage killing unless such were useful to illustrate an aspect of the democide.

These chapters are ordered from the greatest of these killers to the lesser ones, as one can see from the table of contents. Part 2 presents the four deka-megamurderers, beginning with a chapter on the Soviet Union's near 61,000,000 murdered, then including chapters on Communist China and Nazi Germany, and ending with a chapter on the now virtually unremembered killing of the Chinese Nationalist regime. Since these four regimes were the subjects of the previous three volumes,⁵ the four chapters simply summarize the democide and conclusions. I hope I will be excused for using Greek prefixes for labeling these regimes (deka- means ten or tens; mega- means million), but we need concepts for the various levels of government murder and there is no comparable English term ("murderer of tens of millions" is clumsy).

Part 3 presents in order the lesser-megamurders, those that have killed 1,000,000 to less than 10,000,000 citizens and foreigners. A chapter also is devoted to each. In some cases, as for Poland's murder of ethnic Germans and Reichdeutsch, a whole series of events spanning several countries was covered. In this case Poland's treatment of these Germans was part of a pattern of expulsion from Eastern Europe after World War II. In some cases also, several successive regimes for the same country had committed democide and these were therefore treated together, as for the Sihanouk, Lon Nol, Pol Pot, and Samrim regimes of Cambodia.

There were three regimes--those of the Czar in Russia, North Korea's, and Mexico's from 1900 to 1920--for which the estimates were not sufficient in number or quality to make a final determination of their democide. What estimates there were total over 1,000,000 murdered, but I treat this total as only an indictment for murder. These three are described in Part 4 as suspected megamurders.

In summary chapter 1 and in each of the case studies I present democide totals of one sort or another. With the exception of those that are directly cited from other works, how have I determined these figures, such as that Khmer Rouge regime likely murdered 2,000,000 Cambodians? The prior question is: how should these democide figures I give, totals or otherwise, by looked at? As, with little doubt, wrong! I would be amazed if future archival, historical research, and confessions of the perpetrators came up with this figure or one within 10 percent of it. Regimes and their agents often do not record all their murders and what they do record will be secret. Even, however, when such archives are available, such as after defeat in war, and they are kept by the most technologically advanced of regimes with a cultural propensity for record keeping and obedience to authority, and a bureaucratic apparatus doing the murders systematically, the total number of victims cannot be agreed upon. Consider that even after all the effort over forty-five years by the best scholars of the Holocaust to count how many Jews were killed by the Nazis, even with total access to surviving documents in the Nazi archives and the first hand reports of survivors and participants, the difference between the lowest and highest of the best estimates is still 41 percent.⁶

All the totals and figures in this book should therefore be viewed as rough approximations, as suggestive of an order of magnitude. This gross uncertainty then creates a rhetorical problem. How does one assert consistently and throughout a book such as this that each democide figure, as of the Khmer Rough having killed 2,000,000 Cambodians, is really a numerical haze--that we do not know the true total and that it may be instead 600,000 or even 3,000,000 that they killed? Except in cases where it is difficult to assert without qualification a specific figure (as in the chapter titles), or space and form do not allow a constant repetition of ranges, as in the summary chapter, I will give the probable range of democide and then assert a "most likely" (or "probable" or "conservative") mid-estimate. Thus, I will conclude in chapter 9 that the Khmer Rouge likely killed from 600,000 to 3,000,000 of their people, probably 2,000,000 (this mid-value is simply a subjective probability and will be discussed shortly). All the appendices will develop and discuss such a range. For sub-totals in the historical description of a case I usually simply mention the mid-value, qualified as mentioned.

The how and why of an alleged democide range then is critical and it is not determined casually. Now, I have elsewhere published the methods that I use⁷ to assess the democide of a regime, and should point out here summarily that this is an attempt to bracket the unknown and precisely unknowable democide by seeking a variety of published estimates, and most important, the highest and lowest ones from pro and anti-government sources.⁸ I then consolidated these for different aspects of a regime's democide, such as for summary executions, prison deaths, or disappearances, into low to high ranges. To get an overall range for a regime, as of that for the Khmer Rouge, I then sum all the consolidated lows to get an overall low democide, the consolidated highs to get an overall high.

The value of this approach lies in the great improbability that the sum of all the lowest estimates for a regime would be above the true total; or that the sum of all the highs would be below it. The fundamental methodological hypothesis here is then that the low and high sums (or the lowest low and highest high where such sums cannot be calculated) bracket the actual democide. This of course may be wrong for some events (like a massacre), an episode (like land reform), or an institution (like re-education camps), but across the years and the many different kinds of democide committed by a regime, the actual democide should be bracketed.

Within this range of possible democide, I always seek a mid-range prudent or conservative estimate. This is based on my reading of the events involved, the nature of the different estimates, and the estimates of professionals who have long studied the country or government involved. I have sought in each case the best works in English on the relevant events so that I would not only have their estimates along with the others, but that their work would guide my choice of a prudent overall estimate. The details of this effort for each case is given in the relevant appendix in the related volume, Statistics of Democide.

Given my admission that I can only come within some range of an actual democide, a range that may vary from low to high by thousands of percent, why then will I so precisely specify a democide? For example, in the chapter for communist China I will give the range of its democide as 5,999,000 to 102, 671,000, most likely 35, 236,000 people killed. Why such apparent and misleading accuracy? Why not simply make the range 5,000,000 to 105,000,000, with a mid-value of 35,000,000? This I would like to do (and have been urged by colleagues to do), but for many cases the democide figures result from calculations on or consolidations of a variety of estimates for different kinds of democide (such as for "land reform," labor camps, and the "Cultural Revolution"). When all calculations or consolidations are added together the sum comes out with such apparent precision. That is, the low and high and 35,236,000 mid-democide for communist China's democide are sums. To then give other than these sums can create confusion between the discussion of the cases and the appendices in which the estimates and calculations are given in detail.

I handle this presentation problem in this way. Where specification of the final democide figures calculated in an appendix is necessary, as in a table, I give them with all their seeming exactitude. Where, however, such is unnecessary, I will then round off to the first or second digit and use some adjective such as "near" or "around" or "about." Thus, communist China's democide was about 35,000,000.

After eight-years and almost daily reading and recording of men, women, and children by the tens of millions being tortured or beaten to death, hung, shot, and buried alive, burned or starved to death, stabbed or chopped into pieces, and murdered in all the other ways creative and imaginative human beings can devise, I have never been so happy to conclude a project. I have not found it easy to read time and time again about the horrors innocent people have been forced to suffer. What has kept me at this was the belief, as preliminary research seemed to suggest, that there was a positive solution to all this killing and a clear course of political action and policy to end it. And the results verify this. The problem is Power. The solution is democracy. The course of action is to foster freedom.

NOTES

*This is a pre-publisher edited version of the "Preface" in R.J. Rummel's Death By Government, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1994

1. Rummel (1990, 1991, 1992).

2. I started this research in 1986 and the cutoff year for the collection of data was made 1987. For consistency in comparing different cases and to avoid constantly having to change total figures as new democides occurred, I have stuck to the 1987 cutoff. This means that post-1987 democides by Iraq, Iran, Burundi, Serbia and Bosnian Serbs, Bosnia, Croatia, Sudan, Somalia, the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and others have not been included.

I start the 20th century with year 1900. I realize that by our calendar the 20th century really begins with year 1901. However, I was uncomfortable with including 1900 in the previous century.

3. See Rummel (Understanding Conflict and War, 1975-81; "Libertarianism and International Violence," 1983; "Libertarianism, Violence Within States, and the Polarity Principle," 1984; "Libertarian Propositions on Violence Within and Between Nations: A Test Against Published Research Results," 1985). While that democracies don't make war on each other has been verified by others and well excepted by students of international relations, that democracies have the least foreign violence has been controversial and a number of studies allege they find no difference between regimes on this. But this has been due to different and in my view inappropriate methods. I argue that the more democratic (libertarian) a regime, the more the inhibition to war or foreign violence. This therefore should be tested in terms of war's severity-by the number of people killed either in total or as a proportion of the population. However, other's have tested this by correlating type of regime with the number of wars it has fought. One should not be surprised, therefore, that they find hardly any correlation between regime and war, since they are treating all wars as alike, where even the tiny democratic wars such as the American invasion of Grenada and Panama or the British Falkland Islands War are given the same weight as World War I or II for Germany or the Soviet Union. In any case, one of the side results of this study is to further substantiate that democracies have the least foreign violence, i.e., that even in war democracies suffer far fewer deaths than other regimes (see Table 1.6 and Figures 1.6, 1.7b, 1.7d, and 1.8).

4. By the Genocide Convention, genocide can refer to other than killing, such as trying to destroy a group in whole or in part by taking away its children.

5. See Note 1.

6. Rummel (1992, p. 5).

7. See Rummel (1990, Appendix A; 1991, pp 309-316).

8. This has caused some misunderstanding among readers. That I use biased or ideological sources, as of communist publications on American atrocities in Vietnam or official Iraq statistics for the death toll among Kurds during the civil war, is part of my attempt to get at the lowest or highest democide or war-dead estimates. There are therefore many items in my references that no self-respecting scholar would list normally. I include them because I use their estimates and not because I believe them objective or of high quality. Moreover, the omission of a particular work from the references does not mean that I have not used it. I have consulted, read, or studied for this work many times more publications than the references list here. I have only included those I have cited in writing a chapter or those from which I have taken the estimates listed in the appendix tables. Those references listed in the Soviet, China, and Nazi democide books are not repeated here unless they also have been cited in this book.

For citations see the Death By Government REFERENCES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many colleagues, students, and readers of previous drafts contributed to this effort through their ideas, comments and suggestions, recommendation of sources, estimates, or material they passed on to me. In particular I want to thank Rouben Adalian, Belinda Aquino, Dean Babst, Yehuda Bauer, Douglas Bond, Israel Charny, William Eckhardt, Wayne Elliott, Helen Fein, Irving Louis Horowitz, Hua Shiping, B. R. Immerzeel, Benedict Kerkvliet, Milton Leitenberg, Guenter Lewy, Heath Lowry, John Norton Moore, J. C. Ramaer, Rhee Sang-Woo, Max Singer, Spencer Weart, Christine White, and J. A. Willinge. I am especially indebted to my colleagues Manfred Henningsen and George Kent for their help and support throughout this work. I hasten to add that I alone am responsible for any errors or misconceptions that appear here.

I also am indebted to the United States Institute of Peace for a grant to my project on comparative genocide, of which this book is a part. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute or its officers.

Finally and not least, my ability to complete this work and the form it took owes much to my wife Grace, much more than she knows. Thanks sweetheart.

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he Northern Irish Conflict: A Chronology

A history of the conflict and the slow progress towards peace

by Ann Marie Imbornoni, Borgna Brunner, and Beth Rowen

Click here for recent news on the Irish peace process.

HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM: BRITAIN AND IRELAND

Full size map: Ireland

· Ireland

· Northern Ireland

· Home Rule

· IRA

· Sinn Fein

· Map of Ireland

· St. Patrick's Day

A Centuries-old Conflict

The history of Northern Ireland can be traced back to the 17th century, when the English finally succeeded in subduing the island after successfully putting down a number of rebellions. (See Oliver Cromwell; Battle of the Boyne.) Much land, especially in the north, was subsequently colonized by Scottish and English Protestants, setting Ulster somewhat apart from the rest of Ireland, which was predominantly Catholic.

The Nineteenth Century

During the 1800s the north and south grew further apart due to economic differences. In the north the standard of living rose as industry and manufacturing flourished, while in the south the unequal distribution of land and resources—Anglican Protestants owned most of the land—resulted in a low standard of living for the large Catholic population.

The Twentieth Century

Political separation of Northern Ireland from the rest of Ireland did not come until the early 20th century, when Protestants and Catholics divided into two warring camps over the issue of Irish home rule. Most Irish Catholics desired complete independence from Britain, but Irish Protestants feared living in a country ruled by a Catholic majority.

Government of Ireland Act

In an attempt to pacify both factions, the British passed in 1920 the Government of Ireland Act, which divided Ireland into two separate political entities, each with some powers of self-government. The Act was accepted by Ulster Protestants and rejected by southern Catholics, who continued to demand total independence for a unified Ireland.

The Irish Free State and Northern Ireland

Following a period of guerrilla warfare between the nationalist Irish Republican Army (IRA) and British forces, a treaty was signed in 1921 creating the Irish Free State from 23 southern counties and 3 counties in Ulster. The other 6 counties of Ulster made up Northern Ireland, which remained part of the United Kingdom. In 1949 the Irish Free State became an independent republic.

"The Troubles"

Although armed hostilities between Catholics and Protestants largely subsided after the 1921 agreement, violence erupted again in the late 1960s; bloody riots broke out in Londonderry in 1968 and in Londonderry and Belfast in 1969. British troops were brought in to restore order, but the conflict intensified as the IRA and Protestant paramilitary groups carried out bombings and other acts of terrorism. This continuing conflict, which lingered into the 1990s, became known as "the Troubles."

Despite efforts to bring about a resolution to the conflict during the 1970s and 80s, terrorist violence was still a problem in the early 90s and British troops remained in full force. More than 3,000 people have died as a result of the strife in Northern Ireland.

THE PEACE PROCESS

An Early Attempt

A serious attempt to bring about a resolution to the conflict was made in 1985 when British and Irish prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and Garrett Fitzgerald signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which recognized for the first time the Republic of Ireland's right to have a consultative role in the affairs of Northern Ireland. However, Protestant politicians who opposed the Agreement were able to block its implementation.

The IRA Declares a Cease-fire

Further talks between rival Catholic and Protestant officials and the British and Irish governments occurred during the early 1990s. Then, in late Aug. 1994 the peace process received a big boost when the pro-Catholic IRA announced a cease-fire. This made it possible for Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA, to participate in multiparty peace talks; hitherto Sinn Fein had been barred from such talks because of its association with the IRA and its terrorist tactics.

Sinn Fein Participates in Official Talks

On Dec. 9, 1994, the first officially sanctioned, publicly announced talks took place between Sinn Fein and British officials. Negotiators for Sinn Fein pushed for a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland; Great Britain countered that the IRA must give up its weapons before Sinn Fein would be allowed to negotiate on the same basis as other parties. The issue of IRA disarmament would continue to be a sticking point throughout the negotiations.

An Anglo-Irish Proposal for Peace

In late Feb. 1995, the British and Irish governments released their joint proposal for talks on the future of Northern Ireland. The talks were to be held in three phases involving the political parties of Northern Ireland, the Irish government, and the British government. The talks would focus on the establishment of a form of self-government for Northern Ireland and the formation of Irish-Northern Irish "cross-border" bodies that would be set up to oversee such domestic concerns as agriculture, tourism, and health. Results of the talks would be put to referendums in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

The U.S. Gets Involved

In Dec. 1995, former US senator George Mitchell was brought in to serve as mediator for the peace talks. His report issued in Jan. 1996 recommended the gradual disarmament of the IRA during the course of the talks, thus breaking the deadlock caused by the IRA's refusal to disarm.

Multiparty Talks Open in Belfast

On June 10, 1996, multiparty peace talks opened in Belfast. However, because of the breakdown of the IRA cease-fire the preceding Feb., Sinn Fein was turned away. Following the resumption of the cease-fire in July 1997, full-scale peace negotiations began in Belfast on Oct. 7, 1997. Great Britain attended as well as most of Northern Ireland's feuding political parties, including Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), the largest Protestant political party in Northern Ireland. The more extreme Democratic Unionist Party and the tiny United Kingdom Unionist Party refused to join.

Click here for who's who in the Good Friday Agreement.

Good Friday Agreement

The historic talks finally resulted in the landmark Good Friday Agreement, which was signed by the main political parties on both sides on Apr. 10, 1998. The accord called for an elected assembly for Northern Ireland, a cross-party cabinet with devolved powers, and cross-border bodies to handle issues common to both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Thus minority Catholics gained a share of the political power in Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland a voice in Northern Irish affairs. In return Catholics were to relinquish the goal of a united Ireland unless the largely Protestant North voted in favor of it.

Real Hope for Peace

With the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, hope ran high that lasting peace was about to become a reality in Northern Ireland. In a dual referendum held on May 22, 1998, Northern Ireland approved the accord by a vote of 71% to 29%, and the Irish Republic by a vote of 94%. In June 1998, voters chose the 108 members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the locally elected government.

International recognition and support for peace in Northern Ireland came on Oct. 16, 1998, when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to John Hume and David Trimble, the leaders of the largest Catholic and Protestant political parties, respectively, in Northern Ireland.

Hope Proves False

In June 1999, the peace process stalled when the IRA refused to disarm prior to the formation of Northern Ireland's new provincial cabinet. Sinn Fein insisted that the IRA would only give up weapons after the new government assembled; the Ulster Unionists, Northern Ireland's largest Protestant party, demanded disarmament first. Consequently the new government failed to form on schedule in July 1999, bring the entire process to a complete halt.

Sinn Fein, Over to You

At the end of Nov. 1999, David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionists, relented on the "no guns, no government" position and agreed to form a government before the IRA's disarmament. If the IRA did not begin to disarm by Jan. 31, 2000, however, the Ulster Unionists would withdraw from the parliament of Northern Ireland, shutting down the new government.

New Parliament Is Suspended

With this compromise in place, the new government was quickly formed, and on Dec. 2 the British government formally transferred governing powers over to the Northern Irish parliament. But by the deadline Sinn Fein had made little progress toward disarmament, and so on Feb. 12, 2000, the British government suspended the Northern Irish parliament and once again imposed direct rule.

A New Beginning

Throughout the spring, Irish, British, and American leaders continued to hold discussions to try to end the impasse. Then on May 6 the IRA announced that it would agree to put its arms "beyond use" under the supervision of international inspectors. Britain returned home rule powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly on May 30, just three days after the Ulster Unionist Party, Northern Ireland's largest Protestant Party, again voted in favor of a power-sharing arrangement with Sinn Fein.

On June 26, 2000, international monitors Martti Ahtisaari of Finland and Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa announced that they were satisfied that a substantial amount of IRA arms was safely stored and could not be used without detection.

However, while the IRA did allow for the inspection of some of its arms dumps, the months limped by without any real progress on disarmament. Caught in the middle was David Trimble, who was accused by his fellow Protestants of making too many concessions to the Republicans. On Oct. 28, 2000, he was nearly ousted by his own party, a move that surely would have spelled the end for the Good Friday Agreement. But Trimble survived, pledging to get tough by imposing sanctions on Sinn Fein.

STALEMATE

Into 2001, Still No Major Progress

Through the first months of 2001, Catholics and Protestants remained at odds, especially over the establishment of a neutral police force in Northern Ireland and IRA disarmament. In early March 2001, the IRA unexpectedly initiated a new round of talks with Northern Ireland's disarmament commission, but no real progress was made.

Trimble Resigns

Shortly before Britain's general election on June 7, Northern Ireland's first minister David Trimble announced that he would resign on July 1 if the IRA did not start disarming. The announcement helped bolster his position among his constituents, and Trimble managed to hold on to his seat in the British Parliament. However, his pro-British Ulster Unionist Party fared badly overall. In the weeks that followed, the IRA took no steps to dismantle its arsenal, and Trimble resigned as planned.

Violence Renewed as Marching Season Begins

The fragile peace process faced another crisis in mid-June when sectarian violence broke out again in Belfast. The clashes began after a group of schoolgirls and their parents were stoned by Protestant youths as they left a Catholic primary school. In what was deemed the worst rioting in several years, rival mobs hurled gasoline bombs, stones, and bottles and set fire to cars. The violence coincided with the start of the annual "marching season" when Protestant groups commemorate past victories on the battlefield against the Catholics.

IRA's Offer to Disarm Rejected

On Aug. 6, 2001, the commission responsible for the disarming of paramilitary forces in Northern Ireland announced that the IRA had agreed to a method of permanently placing its weapons arsenal beyond use. Although the commission did not disclose any details or indicate when disarmament might begin, Britain and the Republic of Ireland hailed the plan as a historic breakthrough. Protestant leaders in Northern Ireland were less enthusiastic and rejected the proposal as falling too short of action.

On Aug. 11, Britain's secretary of state for Northern Ireland, John Reid, suspended the power-sharing government for one day, a move that allowed Protestant and Catholic politicians six more weeks to negotiate before British authorities would be required to call for new elections to the assembly. (In the event of new elections, moderate David Trimble stood little chance of being reelected, since Protestants as well as Catholics have become increasingly opposed to the Good Friday Agreement.)

The IRA withdrew its offer to disarm on Aug. 14, but veterans of the process were confident that the matter remained on the negotiating table.

Northern Ireland Government Suspended Again

With some small progress having been made on policing and arms decommissioning, Britain suspended the devolved government again on Sept. 22, creating another six-week window for the parties to resolve their differences. The move was criticized by UUP leader David Trimble, and on Oct. 18, the three remaining Ulster Unionist cabinet ministers resigned, in an attempt to force Britain to impose direct rule again indefinitely.

However, on Oct. 23, the IRA announced that it had begun to disarm, and it appeared that the peace process had once again been rescued from the point of collapse. Guns and explosives at two arms dumps were put beyond use.

Trimble regained his position as first minister in the power-sharing government in a vote rerun on Nov. 6, after narrowly losing his reelection bid in the initial vote a few days earlier. Mark Durkan, who succeeded John Hume as leader of the largely Catholic SDLP (Nov. 10), was elected deputy first minister.

IRA Scraps More Weapons

On April 8, 2002, international weapons inspectors announced that the IRA had put more stockpiled munitions beyond use. The move was welcomed by British and Irish leaders alike, who expressed the hope that Protestant guerilla groups would also begin to surrender their weapons.

However, in mid-June British and Irish political leaders called for emergency talks to try to stem the rising tide of violence that had been ongoing in Belfast for several weeks. Police believed that the nightly outbreaks of firebombing and rioting were being organized by Protestant and Catholic paramilitary groups in direct violation of standing cease-fire agreements. The street disturbances continued into July, and a 19-year-old Catholic man was shot—the first death caused by sectarian violence since January.

IRA Members Arrested in Colombia

The call for talks also came hard on the heels of a BBC report concerning three IRA members who had been arrested in Aug. 2001, in Bogota, Colombia. According to the BBC, one of the men involved in the weapons activity was Brian Keenan, the IRA representative charged with disarming the guerilla group in Ireland. The three Irish guerillas were accused of testing new weaponry and teaching bomb-making techniques to Colombian rebels. They were scheduled to go on trial in Colombia in July.

Also in July, during the annual Orange Order parade through Portadown, Northern Ireland, Protestant supporters of the Orangemen hurled stones and bricks to protest the ban on marching down Garvaghy Road, past a Catholic enclave in the town. Throughout Northern Ireland, members of the Orange Order march to celebrate the military victory of Protestant King William of Orange over the Catholics in 1690. Two dozen police officers were injured and several people were arrested.

IRA Apologizes for Deaths

On July 16, 2002, the IRA issued its first apology to the families of the 650 civilians killed by the IRA since the late 1960s. The apology was released several days before the 30th anniversary of the IRA's Bloody Friday attack on July 21, 1972, which left 9 people dead and some 130 injured. During the attack in Belfast, 22 bombs exploded during a period of only 75 minutes.

Trimble Threatens to Resign Again

In late Sept. 2002, First Minister David Trimble announced that he and other Unionist leaders would force the collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly by resigning unless the IRA disbanded by Jan. 18, 2003. The ultimatum came under pressure from hard-line constituents within the Unionist Party, following a number of incidents (including the trial of IRA guerillas in Colombia on weapons-related charges) that pointed to continued IRA military activity.

Britain Suspends Home-Rule Government Again

By early October, the situation had deteriorated, with Trimble threatening immediate mass resignation unless the British threw Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing, out of the Assembly. The discovery of an alleged I.R.A. spy operation within the Northern Ireland Assembly was the last straw. Britain's Northern Ireland secretary, John Reid, suspended the power-sharing government on Oct. 14, 2002. It was the fourth time the British government had had to take back political control of Northern Ireland since the Northern Ireland Assembly came into being in Dec. 1999.

On Oct. 30, in response to the British move to impose direct rule again, the IRA suspended contact with the arms inspectors who were overseeing the disarmament of Northern Ireland's guerilla and paramilitary groups. The Council on Foreign relations has estimated that Protestant paramilitary groups have been responsible for 30% of the civilian deaths in the Northern Irish conflict. The two main Protestant vigilante groups are the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). Strongest during the 1970s, their ranks have diminished since then. While Protestant paramilitaries have observed a cease-fire since the IRA declared one, none of these groups has made any moves toward surrendering their weapons as stipulated by the Good Friday Accord.

Showdown in 2003

In March and April 2003, negotiations were again underway to reinstate the Northern Ireland assembly. But Sinn Fein's vague language, weakly pledging that its "strategies and disciplines will not be inconsistent with the Good Friday Agreement caused Tony Blair to challenge Sinn Fein to once and for all make a clear, unambiguous pledge to renounce paramilitary for political means." According to the New York Times (April 24, 2003), "virtually every newspaper in Britain and Ireland has editorialized in favor of full disarmament, and the Irish government, traditionally sympathetic to Sinn Fein, is almost as adamant about the matter as London is."

In Nov. 2003 legislative elections, the Ulster Unionists and other moderates lost out to Northern Ireland's extremist parties: Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein. The prospect of power-sharing between these antithetical parties looked dim.

Deadlocked in 2004

An effort to revive the deadlocked powersharing negotiations was broached in March 2004 by Tony Blair and Ireland's Bertie Ahern, who announced, "The elections were in November, this is March, we must move on." In Sept. 2004, another round of talks, aimed at ending the impasse, broke up with no significant progress. A $50 million bank robbery in Dec. 2004 was linked to the IRA, although Sinn Fein has denied the connection. Sinn Fein's growing acceptance as a political organization suffered a severe setback as a result, putting power-sharing negotiations on hold indefinitely. Evidence of the IRA's criminality as well as its continual refusal to give up its weapons has strained its relations not only in Northern Ireland and Britain but in the Republic of Ireland as well.

Violence and Vigilantism in 2005

The brutal murder on Jan. 31, 2005, of Belfast Catholic Robert McCartney by the IRA, and the campaign by his five sisters to hold the IRA accountable, further diminished the IRA's standing, even in Catholic communities that had once been IRA strongholds. The IRA's subsequent offer to kill the men responsible generated further outrage. Instead of inviting Northern Irish political parties to the White House—the custom for the past several years—the U.S. invited the McCartney sisters instead.

Real Hope in July 2005

On July 28, the IRA stated that it was entering a new era in which it would unequivocally renounce violence: The statement said that IRA members have been "instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programs through exclusively political means," and that "all I.R.A. units have been ordered to dump arms" and "to complete the process to verifiably put its arms beyond use."

Delays in 2006

In Feb. 2006, the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC), a watchdog agency monitoring Northern Irish paramilitary groups, reported that although the IRA "seems to be moving in the right direction," dissident republican paramilitaries are still engaged in violence and crime.

On May 15th, Northern Ireland's political parties were given six months (to Nov. 24) to come up with a power-sharing government or else sovereignty will be revert indefinitely to the British government.

In October, a report by the Independent Monitoring Commission in Northern Ireland indicated that the IRA had definitively ceased all paramilitary activity and declared that "the IRA's campaign is over."

Milestone Meeting in 2007

Shortly after parliamentary elections in March 2007, Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, and Rev. Ian Paisley, the head of the Democratic Unionist Party, met face to face for the first time and hashed out an agreement for a power-sharing government.

Former Enemies Resume Power-Sharing Government

Local government was restored to Northern Ireland in May 2007 as Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionists, and Martin McGuinness, of Sinn Fein, were sworn in as leader and deputy leader, respectively, of the Northern Ireland executive government, thus ending direct rule from London. "I believe we are starting on a road to bring us back to peace and prosperity," said Paisley. British prime minister Tony Blair praised the historic deal. "Look back, and we see centuries marked by conflict, hardship, even hatred among the people of these islands," he said. "Look forward, and we see the chance to shake off those heavy chains of history.”

On Feb. 5, 2010, with the signing of the Hillsborough Castle Agreement, Gordon Brown of Britain and Brian Cowen, prime ministers of England and Ireland, respectively, created a breakthrough in the Northern Ireland peace process. According to the terms of the accord, Britain will hand over control of the six counties' police and justice system to Northern Ireland. The shift to local control of the courts, prosecution system, and police has been the most important and contentious of the issues plaguing the tenuous power-sharing government. The agreement passed its first test on March 9, when the Northern Ireland Assembly voted its support 88–17, setting the stage for the April 12 power transfer deadline. "For the first time, we can look forward to policing and justice powers being exercised by democratic institutions on a cross-community basis in Northern Ireland," Cowen said.

Did you know?

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Proclamation of the Irish Republic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the 1916 proclamation. For the 1948 statute, see Republic of Ireland Act 1948.

A printed copy of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_the_Irish_Republic

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The Proclamation of the Republic (Irish: Forógra na Poblachta), also known as the 1916 Proclamation or Easter Proclamation, was a document issued by the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army during the Easter Rising in Ireland, which began on 24 April 1916. In it, the Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, styling itself the "Provisional Government of the Irish Republic", proclaimed Ireland's independence from the United Kingdom. The reading of the proclamation by Patrick Pearse outside the General Post Office (GPO) on Sackville Street (now called O'Connell Street), Dublin's main thoroughfare, marked the beginning of the Rising. The proclamation was modelled on a similar independence proclamation issued during the 1803 rebellion by Robert Emmet.

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Northern Ireland and the Troubles

A map of Northern Ireland, which sits on the north-east tip of the Irish landmass

Northern Ireland is a place of natural beauty, mystery and Celtic charm. The recent history of Northern Ireland, however, has been marred by political tension, sectarian feuding and paramilitary thuggery. In the last three decades of the 20th century, the world watched in despair as Northern Ireland collapsed into unrest and violence. The Troubles, as this period is euphemistically known, began in 1968. But trouble had in fact been brewing in Northern Ireland for generations. Created by the partition of Ireland in 1920, Northern Ireland was a state plagued by division. On one side of this divide were Unionists: staunchly Protestant, loyal to their British heritage and determined to remain part of the United Kingdom. On the other side were Northern Ireland’s Catholics, a minority which for decades had endured political and economic marginalisation. Caught between them was the British government, desperate to achieve reconciliation and peace in Northern Ireland but unsure how to facilitate it. Outside the law, paramilitary groups like the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) used violence and terrorism to impose their political will. For three decades these groups struggled against each other for ascendancy in Northern Ireland. Their actions ended more than 3,500 lives, including many civilians and innocent children caught in the crossfire.

To really understand the Troubles, one must first understand Ireland’s deeper history and its political and religious divisions. While most Irish were and are Catholic, English invasions, victories and land claims in the 16th and 17th centuries left Ireland with a sizeable Protestant population. By the late 1600s the majority of land was owned by the Protestant Anglo-Irish, who became Ireland’s ruling class. Most of the nation’s Catholics remained as poor tenant-farmers. Repressive and discriminatory Penal Laws kept Catholics out of education, prestigious professions and government. In the late 1700s rising Irish nationalism called for greater autonomy for the Irish parliament. It also triggered uprisings like the Wolfe Tone rebellion, an unsuccessful attempt to drive the English from Ireland. London responded by crushing these rebellions and passing the 1800 Act of Union, which formed the United Kingdom and placed Ireland under British control. In the 19th century Irish Catholics fought to regain their rights, demanding emancipation and participation in their own government, a goal they achieved in 1829. Impoverished Irish Catholics suffered tremendously during the Great Famine of the 1840s; around one million starved to death and an even greater number fled the country in search of a better life.

Impoverished Irish Catholic farmers during the 1800s

Ireland’s political divisions hardened in the late 19th and early 20th century. The Irish Republican Brotherhood, the country’s first significant independence movement, was formed in 1858. Other more moderate Irish political parties also embraced nationalism. By the 1880s many Irish parliamentarians were lobbying for Home Rule, or Irish self government. But Home Rule was bitterly opposed by Anglo-Irish Protestants, most of whom were clustered in the north-east in what they called Ulster. Through trade and connections with Britain, Ulster’s Protestants had built up large and successful industries around Belfast. Home Rule, they argued, would place them under the heel of a Catholic parliament in Dublin and jeopardise their economic livelihood and political and religious freedom. But the push for Home Rule continued, regardless of Unionist opposition. Two late 19th century attempts to legislate Home Rule were defeated in the British parliament. A third Home Rule bill was introduced in 1912, this time with the support of the government. It triggered a crisis in the north-east, where Unionists formed a paramilitary group (the Ulster Volunteers) and threatened to take up arms to resist Home Rule. In early 1914 the Ulster Volunteers took delivery of a large cache of arms, purchased illegally from Germany. The implementation of Home Rule, it seemed, would trigger a civil war in Ireland.

A cartoon of British prime minister David Lloyd George and the partition of Ireland

The Home Rule legislation was passed in September 1914 but was immediately deferred, due to the outbreak of World War I. Most of Ireland’s Unionists and Nationalists set aside their domestic concerns to concentrate on the war against Germany. But radical Republicans, impatient with the lack of political reform in Ireland, decided to act. In April 1916 they launched the famous Easter Rising, capturing the post office in Dublin and proclaiming an independent Irish republic. British troops quickly crushed the uprising but it proved a turning point in Irish republicanism. The years following saw an surge in support for Sinn Fein, a fringe Republican party, and the newly formed IRA. In 1919 they formed an alternative government, declared an independent Irish republic and vowed to fight until the British were driven from Ireland. Meanwhile, in late 1920, the British government attempted to implement Home Rule by partitioning Ireland, separating six Protestant counties in Ulster from the rest of the country. Both Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland were given their own parliament, executive government and judiciary. Partition was intended to be a temporary measure but became permanent in 1922, when Northern Ireland severed all political ties with Dublin. Thus began the development of Northern Ireland and its southern neighbour as separate states. By 1948 the Free State had evolved into an independent republic, free of any obligations to London, while Northern Ireland remained an autonomous but loyal dominion of the United Kingdom.

Separation from Dublin did not end Northern Ireland’s sectarian problems. The lack of connection and common ground between Protestant and Catholic populations in Northern Ireland continued to cause problems. Decades of discriminatory and segregationist policies produced a society where Protestants and Catholics lived in separate areas, were educated in different schools, employed in different workplaces and drank in different pubs. Even in crowded cities like Belfast and Derry, most Protestants and Catholics lived their lives without significant interaction. This segregation, however, only deferred contact and sectarian conflict. The flashpoint for confrontation between Northern Ireland’s Protestants and Catholics came in the mid to late 1960s. In Western countries like the United States, South Africa and Australia, racial and religious minorities were mobilising and crying out for rights and equality. Inspired by these movements, Northern Ireland’s Catholics initiated their own struggle for civil rights, protesting against discriminatory housing allocations, unfair employment conditions, voting restrictions and electoral gerrymandering. The formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) in 1967 gave this movement organisation and leadership. On the other side of the line, Unionists interpreted the civil rights movement as a threat to their heritage, privileged position and political dominance.

The first significant violence of the Troubles erupted in Bogside, Derry in 1969. In August rioting in Derry exploded into a fully fledged street war – the ‘Battle of the Bogside’ – between Nationalists, Loyalists and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). This fighting left eight dead and almost 800 injured. Violence continued across Northern Ireland for the next two years, leading to the rise of paramilitary groups and the deployment of British soldiers. On January 30th 1972 British paratroopers opened fire on civilian protesters in Derry, killing 14 civilians. Bloody Sunday, as it became known, caused outrage across Ireland and indeed the world. With Northern Ireland descending into anarchy, London dissolved the government in Belfast and introduced Direct Rule. Meanwhile the IRA, now split into two, continued to grow, equip and mobilise. Loyalists too formed paramilitary groups to protect their communities and suppress Catholic and Nationalist discontent. In 1971 the secretive and well drilled Provisional IRA declared war on British soldiers and RUC officers, doing its best to drive out the British and make Northern Ireland ungovernable. In the mid 1970s the IRA exported its fight against the British to Britain itself, where volunteers bombed military facilities, infrastructure, financial areas and even shopping districts.

“The Northern Ireland conflict, more familiarly called the Troubles, is one of the longest and most entangled confrontations in recent history. For nearly four decades now it has embittered relations between and within the communities living there and spoiled relations between the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain, while also causing severe strains within the latter. For three decades it escalated, punctuated by periodic bloody clashes followed by somewhat calmer periods of tension, during which violence of all sorts, robberies, kidnappings, serious injuries and deaths were all too common.
Gordon Gillespie, historian

For outsiders, the Troubles in Northern Ireland was a horrific media parade of bombings, civilian casualties, bloodthirsty assassinations and destructive riots. But the story of the Troubles is also the story of how to find peace in what seemed an endless and irresolvable conflict. While thugs and radicals wanted to shape Ireland’s future at the point of a gun, others strived to find resolution and peace, an infinitely more difficult battle. There were many failed attempts at peace: temporary ceasefires, disastrous peace talks, broken promises and shattered agreements. In the end it took the involvement of Sinn Fein, the IRA and moderate Unionists, as well as several world leaders, to craft a productive and optimistic peace process. The culmination of this process was the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, a commitment to a more collaborative, more inclusive and more democratic Northern Ireland. But there were too many compromises in the Good Friday Agreement for it to please everyone. Even as the ink was drying on this historic document, some vowed to destroy it.

A Belfast mural highlighting the fragile peace that exists in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland today seems to have travelled well down the road to peace. Derry, once an anarchic place wracked by violent riots, is now a UK City of Culture. Belfast, where once only the bravest traveller might have ventured, now hums and bustles with tourists. Yet reminders of the Troubles still scar the majestic landscape and busy urban areas of Northern Ireland. Visitors walking the small streets of Belfast and Derry encounter memorial gardens to the victims of paramilitary violence. Buildings and walls are bedecked with colourful murals painted by talented local artists. Some of these murals recall significant events of the Troubles, like the civil rights marches and Bloody Sunday. Some are markers of political allegiance; some are tributes to dead paramilitary fighters; some are heartbreaking memorials to murdered children. Just a few feet from where British soldiers gunned down civilians in 1972, the Museum of Free Derry houses images and artefacts of the early years of the Troubles. In English cities too, plaques and memorials remember IRA bombings and their victims, many of them children. All of these symbols contribute to the peace process by serving as a constant reminder of the real cost of war. They also remind the people of Northern Ireland that peace is not an achievement of the past, but an ongoing struggle for the future.

Learning about Northern Ireland and the Troubles requires understanding of many important historical and political concepts. Study of this important 20th century conflict also provides a solid foundation for understanding other conflicts around the world. This Alpha History section provides detailed overviews of significant topics, primary sources such as images and documents, and useful reference material like timelines, glossary, who’s who and online activities. We welcome constructive feedback, suggestions and contributions about this site; please contact Alpha History for more information. With regard to terminology, this website refers to Catholics and Protestants, Nationalists and Unionists, Republicans and Loyalists using uppercase throughout. We have also chosen to use Derry rather than Londonderry, a reflection of the Catholic majority in that city, while Ulster is used in its modern rather than traditional context. Non-English terms such as taoiseach are italicised.

© Alpha History. Content on this page may not be republished or distributed without permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use.
This page was written by Rebekah Poole and Jennifer Llewellyn. To reference this page, use the following citation:
R. Poole & J. Llewellyn, “Northern Ireland and the Troubles”, Alpha History, accessed [today’s date], http://alphahistory.com/northernireland/.

http://alphahistory.com/northernireland/

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History of Northern Ireland

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This topic is discussed in the following articles:

· major treatment

Northern Ireland: History

Out of the 19th- and early 20th-century ferment that produced a sovereign state of Ireland to its south, Northern Ireland emerged in 1920–22 as a constituent part of the United Kingdom with its own devolved parliament. Northern Ireland’s early history is the history of the traditional Irish province of Ulster, six of whose nine counties Northern Ireland now embraces.

· Anglo-Irish Agreement

Anglo-Irish Agreement

...FitzGerald, the Irish taoiseach (prime minister), on Nov. 15, 1985, at Hillsborough Castle in County Down, N.Ire., that gave the government of Ireland an official consultative role in the affairs of Northern Ireland. Considered one of the most significant developments in British-Irish relations since the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, the agreement provided for regular meetings...

· Bloody Sunday

Bloody Sunday (Northern Ireland [1972])

demonstration in Londonderry (Derry), Northern Ireland, on Sunday, January 30, 1972, by Roman Catholic civil rights supporters that turned violent when British paratroopers opened fire, killing 13 and injuring 14 others (one of the injured later died). Bloody Sunday precipitated an upsurge in support for the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which advocated violence against the United Kingdom to...

· civil rights

civil rights: Civil rights movements across the globe

In the 1960s the Roman Catholic-led civil rights movement in Northern Ireland was inspired by events in the United States. Its initial focus was fighting discriminatory gerrymandering that had been securing elections for Protestant unionists. Later, internment of Catholic activists by the British government sparked both a civil disobedience campaign and the more radical strategies of the Irish...

· Good Friday Agreement

Good Friday Agreement

accord reached on April 10, 1998, and ratified in both Ireland and Northern Ireland by popular vote on May 22 that called for devolved government in Northern Ireland.

· Mitchell

George Mitchell

In late 1995 Mitchell accepted a position as special adviser to Pres. Bill Clinton on the conflict in Northern Ireland. Over the next five years, Mitchell crossed the Atlantic more than 100 times, mediating a conclusion to the hostilities that had plagued the region for generations. His work culminated in the Good Friday Agreement (Belfast Agreement) of 1998 and, ultimately, the decommissioning...

· Peace People

Peace People

peace organization with headquarters in Belfast, N.Ire. Founded by Máiread Maguire, Betty Williams, and Ciaran McKeown, it began in 1976 as a grassroots movement to protest the ongoing violence in Northern Ireland. Hundreds of thousands of people, not only in Northern Ireland but also in the republic of Ireland and farther abroad, subsequently participated in protest marches and other...

· Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin

political wing of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Sinn Féin, organized in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, is a nationalist party in Northern Ireland, representing Roman Catholics who want to achieve a united Ireland through whatever means are necessary, including violence. The party was led by Gerry Adams from 1983.

· Social Democratic and Labour Party

Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP)

nationalist political party in Northern Ireland, distinguished from the province’s other leftist and Republican groups by its commitment to political and nonviolent means of uniting Northern Ireland with the Irish republic. The party’s leader from 1979 to 2001 was John Hume, the corecipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace with Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader David Trimble in 1998.

· Ulster Unionist Party

Ulster Unionist Party (UUP)

oldest and traditionally most successful unionist party in Northern Ireland, though its influence waned dramatically after the Good Friday Agreement (1985), and the party of government in the province from 1921 to 1972. The UUP was a branch of the British Conservative Party until 1986. Its leader from 1995 to 2005 was David Trimble, who in 1998 was corecipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace with...

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/419756/history-of-Northern-Ireland

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Irish Republican Army

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The term Irish Republican Army was first used during the Fenian raids in Canada during the 1860s. Today the term is used in concert with the outbreaks of violence throughout Ireland, and especially in Northern Ireland, called the Troubles. The Irish Republican Army has a much longer history than that begun in the late 1960s and early 1970s, having been instrumental in the Easter Uprising in 1916. The Troubles refers to the sectarian conflict in Ireland (especially Northern Ireland) that began in the late 1960s.

The immediate postfamine years in Ireland were a period of escalating unrest between the Irish and their English occupiers. In 1916 the conflicts came to a head when a group of charismatic Irish began a revolt in Dublin. The focal point of the revolt was the General Post Office, now a shrine to their efforts, but the entire city, especially the area in and around O’Connell Street and Parnell Square, was involved in the violent armed conflict. In the end, the leaders of the revolt were arrested, put in Kilmainham Gaol, and many were executed. In the aftermath of the uprising and their executions, Michael Collins (1890–1922) and others organized guerrilla forces against the English Black and Tans. These forces became known as the Irish Volunteers.

In 1919 the Dáil Éireann or First Dáil (the government of Ireland) recognized the Irish Volunteers as the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and they in turn fought the Irish War of Independence from 1919 to 1921 against the English. At the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, the IRA split into protreaty forces (which became known as the Old IRA, government forces, or regulars) and antitreaty forces (Republicans or irregulars). The antitreaty forces continued to use the name Irish Republican Army. In 1922 the two sides entered into the Irish Civil War, with the regulars led by Michael Collins on the side of the new Irish Free State, which still recognized England, and the Republicans led by Liam Lynch (1893–1923) refusing to recognize the new state or the partitioning of Northern Ireland. Collins was later assassinated by IRA members for his participation in the Civil War and support of the Free State government.

Éamon de Valera (1882–1975), a member of the antitreaty group Sinn Féin, eventually came to power as leader of the Fianna Fáil Party, currently the largest political party in Ireland. The IRA remained active in the Republic until the 1960s, when it split again to become the Official IRA (OIRA) and the Provisional IRA (PIRA). The Provisionals were most active in Northern Ireland and split with the Official IRA due to what they recognized as the OIRA’s lack of protection for nationalist communities in the North. This split came in 1969 as violence between sectarian communities and Republican and Unionist groups began to escalate. This is often recognized as a conflict between Catholics and Protestants in the North, but the underlying reasons remain tension between Unionists (those who support English rule) and Republicans (those who support unity with the Republic of Ireland and devolution from England).

Bloody Sunday, a violent clash between protesters and British and Northern Irish troops in Derry in 1972, was a flashpoint in the sectarian conflicts. Troops opened fire upon the crowd of protesters killing thirteen, all of whom were unarmed. There are conflicting reports from those present that suggest either a gun was fired from the protesters’ side toward the troops or that the troops were commanded to fire on the agitated crowd. In the days and months that followed, extreme violence in the form of shootings, bombings, murders, and arson engulfed the North. The PIRA carried out many of the killings and are suspected to be the perpetrators of specific acts of violence carried out against the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and the British army, among them the bombings of police stations and barracks and the targeting of pubs frequented by the RUC and the army. They are also accused of a number of attacks in Dublin and throughout the United Kingdom. In over thirty years of violence in Northern Ireland, more than three thousand people have died as a result of the conflict.

Since the mid-1990s, a process of political devolution has been under way in Northern Ireland. The peace process, as it is known, has been opposed by many, including the Real IRA, a splinter group of the PIRA that broke ranks in 1997. The Real IRA, considered to be a paramilitary group, has held out against the decommissioning of weapons as proposed in the Hume-Adams report. In 1993 the Hume-Adams initiative agreed to by John Hume, leader of the SDLP (the North’s nationalist party) and Gerry Adams was a directive to begin an IRA cease-fire and to include Sinn Féin in the peace talks. This in turn led to a series of cease-fires and began the peace process. Sinn Féin, led by Gerry Adams, entered the Dáil Éireann and now participates in the political decision-making process.

SEE ALSO Peace Process; Revolution

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Behan, Brendan. 1965. Confessions of an Irish Rebel. London: Hutchinson.

Coogan, Tim Pat. 2002. The IRA. Rev. ed. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Coogan, Tim Pat. 2002. The Troubles: Ireland’s Ordeal and the Search for Peace. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

English, Richard. 2003. Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Moloney, Ed. 2002. A Secret History of the IRA. New York: Norton.

Toolis, Kevin. 1995. Rebel Hearts: Journeys within the IRA’s Soul. London: Picador.

Kelli Ann Costa

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Irish_Republican_Army.aspx

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Ireland

· Article

· Web sites

· Bibliography

· Year in Review

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Written by: Frederick Henry Boland

· Last Updated 2-2-2015

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Alternate titles: Éire; Irish Free State

Table of Contents

· Introduction

· Land

o Relief

o Drainage

o Soils

o Climate

o Plant and animal life

· People

o Ethnic groups, language, and religion

o Settlement patterns

o Demographic trends

· Economy

o Agriculture, forestry, and fishing

o Resources and power

o Manufacturing

o Finance

o Trade

o Services

o Labour and taxation

o Transportation and telecommunications

· Government and society

o Constitutional framework

o Local government

o Justice

o Political process

o Security

o Health and welfare

o Housing

o Education

· Cultural life

o Daily life and social customs

o The arts

o Cultural institutions

o Sports and recreation

o Media and publishing

· History

o Early Ireland

o First centuries of English rule (c. 1166–c. 1600)

o Modern Ireland under British rule

o Independent Ireland to 1959

o Developments since 1959

· Leaders of Ireland since 1922

Ireland, Irish Éire, country of western Europe occupying five-sixths of the westernmost island of the British Isles.

The magnificent scenery of Ireland’s Atlantic coastline faces a 2,000-mile- (3,200-km-) wide expanse of ocean, and its geographic isolation has helped it to develop a rich heritage of culture and tradition that was linked initially to the Gaelic language. Washed by abundant rain, the country’s pervasive grasslands create a green-hued landscape that is responsible for the popular sobriquet Emerald Isle. Ireland is also renowned for its wealth of folklore, from tales of tiny leprechauns with hidden pots of gold to that of the patron saint, Patrick, with his legendary ridding the island of snakes and his reputed use of the three-leaved shamrock as a symbol for the Christian Trinity. But while many may think of Ireland as an enchanted land, the republic has been beset with perennial concerns—emigration, cultural and political identity, and relations with Northern Ireland (comprising the 6 of Ireland’s 32 counties within the province of Ulster that remain part of the United Kingdom). At the beginning of the 21st century, however, Ireland’s long-standing economic problems were abating, owing to its diverse export-driven economy; however, calamity struck again in 2008 when a new financial and economic crisis befell the country, culminating in a very costly bailout of the Irish economy by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

The emergence of Ireland as an independent country is a fairly recent phenomenon. Until the 17th century, political power was widely shared among a rather loosely constructed network of small earldoms in often-shifting alliances. Following the so-called “Flight of the Earls” after an unsuccessful uprising in the early 17th century, Ireland effectively became an English colony. The island was an integral part of the United Kingdom from 1800 to 1922, when, by virtue of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 6, 1921, the Irish Free State was established as a self-governing dominion of the British Empire. Independence came in 1937, but Ireland remained a member of the British Commonwealth until 1948. Since then, Ireland has become integrated with the rest of western Europe, joining the European Union in 1987, though the country generally retained a neutral role in international affairs. In 2008 Ireland became an impediment to the enactment of the Lisbon Treaty—an agreement aimed at streamlining the EU’s processes and giving it a higher international profile—when the Irish voted against the passage of the treaty in a national referendum. The treaty, however, was approved by Irish voters in a second referendum, held the following year.

Dependent on agriculture and subject to extremes of climate, Ireland was long among Europe’s poorest regions, a principal cause of mass migration from Ireland, especially during the cycle of famine in the 19th century. Some 40 million Americans trace their ancestry to Ireland as a result of that traumatic exodus, as do millions of others throughout the world. Every year members of this diaspora visit their ancestral homeland and forge connections with long-lost family.

Ireland’s capital is Dublin, a populous and affluent city whose metropolitan area is home to more than one-fourth of the country’s total population. The city’s old dockside neighbourhoods have given way to new residential and commercial development. Cork, Ireland’s second largest city, is a handsome cathedral city and port in the southwest. Other principal centres include Waterford, Wexford, and Drogheda on the east coast, Sligo in the northwest, and Limerick and Galway in the west.

Although Ireland is now both urbanized and Europeanized, its culture retains many unique characteristics, and its people prize folkloric and social traditions that largely derive from and celebrate the country’s rural past. In “Meditations in Time of Civil War” William Butler Yeats, perhaps Ireland’s best-known poet, evokes the idyllic and idealized countryside, a place central to the memories of the country’s millions of expatriates and their descendants:

An acre of stony ground,

Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,

Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable,

The sound of the rain or sound

Of every wind that blows;

The stilted water-hen

Crossing stream again

Scared by the splashing of a dozen cows.

Land

The republic of Ireland occupies the greater part of an island lying to the west of Great Britain, from which it is separated—at distances ranging from 11 to 120 miles (18 to 193 km)—by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St. George’s Channel. Located in the temperate zone between latitudes 51°30′ and 55°30′ N and longitudes 6°00′ and 10°30′ W—as far north as Labrador or British Columbia in Canada and as far west as the West African state of Liberia—it constitutes the westernmost outpost of the Atlantic fringe of the Eurasian landmass. Ireland, which, like Great Britain, once formed part of this landmass, lies on the European continental shelf, surrounded by seas that are generally less than 650 feet (200 metres) deep. The greatest distance from north to south in the island is 302 miles (486 km), and from east to west it is 171 miles (275 km).

Relief

The territory of the republic consists of a broad and undulating central plain underlain by limestone. This plain is ringed almost completely by coastal highlands, which vary considerably in geologic structure. The flatness of the central lowland—which lies for the most part between 200 and 400 feet (60 and 120 metres) above sea level—is relieved in many places by low hills between 600 and 1,000 feet (180 to 300 metres) in elevation. With many lakes, large bog areas, and low ridges, the lowland is very scenic. The principal mountain ranges are the Blue Stack Mountains in the north, the Wicklow Mountains in the east (topped by Lugnaquillia, at 3,039 feet [926 metres]), the Knockmealdown and Comeragh mountains in the south, the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks in the southwest, and the Twelve Pins in the west. Carrantuohill, at 3,414 feet (1,041 metres) in the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks, is the highest point in the republic. In the west and southwest the wild and beautiful coast is heavily indented where the mountains of Donegal, Mayo, Galway, and Kerry thrust out into the Atlantic, separated by deep wide-mouthed bays, some of which—Bantry Bay and Dingle Bay, for example—are, in fact, drowned river valleys. By contrast, the east coast is little indented, but most of the country’s trade passes through its ports because of their proximity to British and Continental markets.

The coastal mountain fringe illustrates the country’s complex geologic history. In the west and northwest as well as in the east, the mountains are composed mainly of granite. Old Red Sandstone predominates in the south, where the parallel folded mountain ridges trend east-west, separated by limestone river valleys. Ireland experienced at least two general glaciations—one covering most of the country and the other extending as far south as a line linking Limerick, Cashel, and Dublin—and the characteristic diversity of Irish scenery owes much to this glacial influence. The large areas of peat bog to be found throughout the country are a notable feature of the landscape.

Drainage

The rivers that rise on the seaward side of the coastal mountain fringe are naturally short and rapid. The inland streams, however, flow slowly, often through marshes and lakes, and enter the sea—usually by way of waterfalls and rapids—long distances from their sources. The famed River Shannon, for example, rises in the plateau country near Sligo Bay and flows sluggishly south-southwestward for some 160 miles (260 km), reaching tidewater level at Limerick and draining a wide area of the central lowland on its way. Other major inland rivers—some of them renowned for their salmon fisheries—are the Slaney, Liffey, and Boyne in the east; the Nore, Barrow, and Suir in the southeast; the Blackwater, Lee, and Bandon in the south; and the Clare and the Moy in the west. Because of the porosity of the underlying Carboniferous limestones, an underground drainage system has developed, feeding the interlacing surface network of rivers and lakes. The government has implemented major arterial drainage projects, preventing flooding—and making more land available for cultivation—by improving the flow of water in the rivers and thereby lowering the levels of lakes. There are also state-aided farm-drainage schemes designed to bring wasteland and marginal land into production.

Soils

Most Irish soils originate from drift, the ice-scoured waste formerly frozen to the base of the advancing glaciers. Some older rocks in the country’s geologic formation—quartzites, certain granites, and shales—weather into infertile and unproductive soils. In many places, however, these have been overlaid by patches of the ice-borne drift, mostly limestone-bearing, which are farmed with considerable success. The bare limestone regions remaining in western areas show how much glacial drift cover has meant to the Irish agricultural economy.

Climate

Ireland’s climate is classified as western maritime. The predominant influence is the Atlantic Ocean, which is no more than 70 miles (113 km) from any inland location. The mild southwesterly winds and warm waters of the North Atlantic Current contribute to the moderate quality of the climate. Temperature is almost uniform over the entire island. Average air temperatures lie mainly between limits of 39 and 45 °F (4 and 7 °C) in January and February, the coldest months of the year. In July and August, the warmest months, temperatures usually range between 57 and 61 °F (14 and 16 °C), although occasionally considerably higher readings are recorded. The sunniest months are May and June, when there is sunshine for an average duration of 5.5 and 6.5 hours a day, respectively, over most of the country, and the ancient patchwork of fields and settlements making up the landscape glows under a clear, vital light. Average annual precipitation varies from about 30 inches (760 mm) in the east to more than 100 inches (2,533 mm) in the western areas exposed to the darkening clouds that often come sweeping in from the Atlantic. The precipitation, combined with the equable climate, is particularly beneficial to the grasslands, which are the mainstay of the country’s large livestock population. Snow is infrequent except in the mountains, and prolonged or severe snowstorms are rare.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/293754/Ireland

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Thursday, April 9, 2015

1x08 Into the Fire

Go beyond the episode:

Debriefing: Episode 8 | Into the Fire

Table of camp inmate markings[edit]

WAR ISN'T THIS CENTURY'S BIGGEST KILLER

By R.J. Rummel

Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust

Contents

Purge

Definition of homosexuality

Homosexuality and the SS

Concentration camps

Post-War

Early Holocaust and genocide discourse

Changes with the civil rights movement

Post-revisionist framing of the "Gay Holocaust"

See also

References

Further reading

External links

NOTES

DEATH BY GOVERNMENT

By R.J. Rummel

New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994.

CONTENTS

I BACKGROUND

II 128,168,000 VICTIMS: THE DEKA-MEGAMURDERERS

III 19,178,000 VICTIMS: THE LESSER MEGA-MURDERERS

IV 4,145,000 VICTIMS: SUSPECTED MEGAMURDERERS

FIGURES AND TABLES

FIGURES

TABLES

NOTES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Proclamation of the Irish Republic

Resources

Other histories

· major treatment

· Anglo-Irish Agreement

· Bloody Sunday

· civil rights

· Good Friday Agreement

· Mitchell

· Peace People

· Sinn Féin

· Social Democratic and Labour Party

· Ulster Unionist Party

Land

Relief

Drainage

Soils

Climate

America Immobilized as Iran-Saudi Arabia Proxy War Turns ...

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WAR ISN'T
THIS CENTURY'S
BIGGEST KILLER

DEATH
BY GOVERNMENT

New Brunswick, N.J.:
Transaction Publishers, 1994.