It may possibly be based on fact, but Drew Pearsonwasn’t exactly known for fact-checking; muckraker describes him better:
It’s not much of a may possibly have been true to go on as the only cite.
Drew Pearson and his acolyte Jack Anderson did some valuable muckraking, but in the process they also spewed a remarkable amount of unsupported, seat of the pants, erroneous bullshit to fill up newspaper column inches. Pearson is not the gold standard for accurate reporting in any way, shape or form.
Exactly. As I mentioned above, my grandfather was Untersturmbannführer (equivalent of a major) in the Waffen SS (after having worked at the “Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt” in Berlin). He never had a puppy and he was never given a puppy.
I’m pretty sure he was at least a witness to (and most likely a participant in) a lot of atrocities during his time on the Eastern Front. Judging from his last letters, we are pretty sure he was actually executed for refusing an order to work at a “Vernichtungslager” near the end of 1944. So the easiest way to test if someone was willing to kill Jews was indeed to order them to kill Jews.
Why is this abstract UL/question discussed, and why not rather the very real dog-decapitation experiments commies have done ?
Because that would be a different topic?
Kitten-killer, was he?
Too right. When my housemates told me I couldn’t keep the dog, I turned it out on the street, like any decent human being.
This. Cynically enough, animal welfare was an important part of Nazi ideology and the political agenda they pursued; much of Germany’s still extant animal rights legislation was introduced under their rule, and a number of high-ranking party officials repeatedly made statements to that effect. And the SS considered itself the vanguard of the party; it was a party, not a state, organisation.
My maternal grandfather was an SS member, and when I was a child he would often tell me stories from his days during the war. Without much political zeal either pro or anti-Nazi (he didn’t seem to show much regret), he was simply telling stories like so many grandfathers tell their grandchildren about their youth. He never mentioned anything like that, even though he did tell stories about his SS training. Anecdotal evidence, yes, but I think he would have mentioned something like this.
How the heck did you unearth this thread, Bryan Ekers?
[sub]Yeah yeah, “by posting in it!” :p[/sub]
The bigger question is “why?”
I admit I hadn’t known the dog-whacking ritual was ever attributed to Nazis or U.S. Marines. The pop-culture examples I was reminded of were Granny Goodness and a made-for-TV movie called J.O.E. and the Colonel.
Ha, silly me reviving a zombie because I thought it was related to a now-current Cafe thread about which I’ll say nothing as it might seem spoilerish.
I can’t offhand recall why I noticed this thread at all. Possibly it was revived by a now-deleted spammer.
This just sounds too urban-legendish.
I sure hope this is a joke (if a bad one).
I believe I read about this in Leon Uris’s “Armageddon”. It was historical fiction, so as to whether I believe this sort of thing happened or not, I’ll go as far as to say “I read about this sort of thing happening in a novel. The novel was pretty good.”
As I recall, Uris mentions this also in passing in The Haj as rituals that young Palestinians (in the years just after 1948 when the mass exiles were in fresh memory) undergo to prove their bravery to eventually battle the Israelis, jumping over campfires and breaking the necks of small animals and such. He does not describe these in a tone suggesting respect.
And I realize belatedly that I unknowingly bumped this thread because it was referenced in the Cafe thread.
Now I’m curious! Which thread? (Can you spoiler it?)
Never mind, found it.
Funny enough, the USAF does have people kill small animals in training. No really. Or at least they did when I attended back in the 80s.
All USAF aircrew go through survival school. http://www.fairchild.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=3771
Part of that process is a week spent out in the wild equipped with a hunk of parachute and the standard contents of a survival kit & vest, minus the firearm & ammo. The usual group is 5-8 crew trainees and one instructor mostly tagging along and doing some teaching. The main intent is to practice what was taught back in civilization in the previous weeks, so this is NOT like a skilled Scout leader leading the kids through the bush. The group fumbles its way along & the instructor is there mostly to prevent dumb mistakes from costing the USAF too much money in injured or killed crewmembers.
At the start the group is issued one live full grown fuzzy bunny. The white ones with the adorable pink wiggly noses. And they get to carry it & let it forage for the next few days. About day six it becomes dinner. And a welcome dinner it is, since the last 5 days have been spent foraging in the forest for both food and water while hiking & evading all day trying to reach a pickup point.
Most crew are suburbanites with college degrees in clean-hands subjects. So killing the cute fuzzy bunny is a new experience for most of them. As is cleaning & roasting over an open fire using all field-expedient tools.
I had the good fortune to attend in the summer when it was warm days and cool nights and berries and such were relatively plentiful. The folks who attended in February had a worse time of it.
Royal Marines kill rabbits as part of their survival training:
Commando: On the Front Line: Episode 3 - The Lost Patrol
Fast forward to 15:53, it’s rather instructive (and graphic).
And don’t miss the proper way to kill a chicken in the field (at 17:00).