I expect the guy on the receiving end was pretty grim, not to say humorless…
I’ll call my wife in to pick up that challenge.
Oerlikon you in a pun-fest will be delightful.
Seriously, though, this is now just verbal battery.
If the guy on the receiving end was a higher-up in the North Korean government, then he was almost certainly not someone whose death should be a cause for mourning.
I’ve read a lot of Alistair MacLean and Douglas Reeman, and I cannot pronounce “Oerlikon”.
I’m not sure that’s a safe assumption. I suppose it’s possible that he is genuinely being executed because he nodded off in some meetings, but it seems more likely that it’s because he opposed Dear Leader on some issue.
err-lick-on , I think
You don’t rise to a position of power in such a government by being a good guy and doing nice things. See: Any other totalitarian government, anywhere, ever.
Thanks. ![]()
So I’ve believed for many years, and I’ve a vague idea my father (who was a trainee WW2 airman) pronounces it that way or did the last time the subject came up. Since it’s Swiss, I would guess the “oer” is the same as in “Goering”.
Nonsense. He may very well have risen through the ranks because he’s a competent administrator or soldier. Erwin Rommel was by all accounts a very nice man.
Yep. Nice. He loved and admired Hitler right up to the end.
Yes. Oer (like in Goering) li (like in Bruce Lee) kon (like conman)
You know he was part of a plot to depose Hitler, right (which ultimately became a plot to assassinate him)? That’s why he was arrested.
He opposed assassinating Hitler.
Right… but he was actively working to overthrow him.
I know this is meant to be intimidating but I don’t see it that way. What is intimidating is the idea of your family being sent to a concentration camp to be abused, starved and terrorized for the rest of their lives. Being shot with an anti aircraft guns would kill you almost instantly with little time to sense pain.
This is the fifth defense minister executed, purged or reshuffled since 2012.i wonder how the elites in nk feel about this.
They’re looking for someone of a higher caliber.
Kim has really got them over a barrel.
Yes, all of his family even his extended family, will now be disappeared. Killed outright or worked to death in a camp. It is a major tool that NK uses to keep everyone in line.
Escape the country? You leave with the knowledge that you have killed all of your family or left them to work and rot. There are no individual actions. Your crime is the crime of all your family, and they will pay for your failure too.
I’ve heard from defectors that the prison camp system and the fact that they punish family members is the trump card that holds the regime together. If that fell then the entire system could fail.