Childress

Patriotic Americans are proud of the uniforms worn by the Marine Corps in their dress blues with their stand collars, red trim, and gold buttons. Very spiffy. But nothing compares to the creations that were brought forth by Hugo Boss and not only on parade. The tailor's product was a smash hit; he succeeded in making his uniforms look not only stylish and elegant but also elite. They were a recruitment asset.“For the first time in my life, I saw their uniforms in all their glory; up until now, I had only seen pictures in newspapers. The uniform included shiny boots, Nazi insignia on the sleeve, a visored hat with a skull embroidered in silver thread, and white gloves.” (1)-Moshe Ziv, a survivor from the campsBoss started his fashion label in Metzingen, Germany in 1931 where he joined the party . Even before then, he was numbered among Germany’s Nazi collaborators, producing early uniforms in a factory he’d bought in 1924. Eventually his company would use slave labor from the camps, many were worked to death. But there is no evidence that he really adhered to Nazi doctrine, it seemed he was more of an opportunist.In 1946, Boss was fined and stripped of his right to own a company, he died two years later. But his company lives on under his son-in-law, Hugo Boss Inc,, that is now a major luxury fashion house, selling high-end clothing and accessories around the world. Who said life is fair?Several years ago, Russell Brand, the British comedian, was thrown out of the GQMen of the Year Awards after making comments linking Hugo Boss (the event's sponsor) to the Nazis during World War II. He said:"If anyone knows a bit about history and fashion, you know it was Hugo Boss who made uniforms for the Nazis.... But they looked (expletive) fantastic, let's face it, while they were killing people on the basis of their religion and sexuality".-Mail OnlineA genius, he's not.1- The OP might give the impression that Boss designed the SS uniforms.. These were designed by the artist Karl Diebitsch and graphic designer Walter Heck in collaboration with Boss. His company produced them.

It's mine. I wrote it. It's a personal story.

A true story. In the mid-sixties I was hospitalized with persistent flu in a small town in upstate New York, these days such a relatively minor sickness is generally handled at home unless the patient is elderly. I was 13 or 14 and shared the room with a strikingly handsome fellow, fortyish and blond turning to grey. The days passed but he never spoke a word to me despite our forced intimacy- our beds were separated by less than six feet. Apart from the bustle of the nurses, silence reigned. Finally, my father came to visit bringing one of my hobbies, a war game equipped with a board and tiny military figures. As we rolled the dice we saw that my co-patient was observing us with utter contempt, as if such childish frivolity was beneath him. Dad noticed his attitude and asked him his name. "Werner", he had a pronounced German accent. "Were you in the war?" "Yes". That's all he needed, he was off to the races. He related his experiences in the war under Patton, notably in North Africa and Sicily. A sergeant, he recalled in the Battle of the Kasserine Pass a mate had his head clean off by a shell. He had been standing next to him. He expatiated on the chaos of the US Army bureaucracy, for example, inoculating both his arms with the same vaccination on multiple occasions and standing in line for grub only to run out and join another queue. Werner brightened: "The Wehrmacht was just like that!". The two began trading war stories (Werner's were vague) until Dad made a fatal faux-pas: "It's terrible about with happened to the Jews." Uncomfortable silence. Finally, Werner erupted "who cares about the Jews!" From his bed, he turned his back and never spoke to either of us again. Several months later my mother found an entry in the local newspaper that Werner had been arrested for sexual assault on a minor, whether a boy or girl was unknown. Dad knew that was him from his surname that was displayed on his bedside plaque. And in our small town German nationals- or any foreigners- were exceedingly rare. The 55-year-old encounter lay dormant in my consciousness until Dad passed away in the late 1990s. Werner, if alive, is well into his 90s; aside from the apparent child abuse, he was clearly a victim of a rabid ideology. But forgiveness has its limits. (From Substack)

One might also fault Alexander's grand strategy; young and vigorous, he never thought of providing a successor. His death was unexpected but his style of warfare was risky to the nth, leading cavalry charges himself he was frequently wounded. Improvident? Ultimately, the vacancy at the top allowed his empire to disintegrate into a 40-year period of war and chaos. The power vacuum saw the murders of his mother, wives, and children, and the empire was eventually divided among his generals. Alexander's dynasty, if that was his goal, never materialized.

Back in the early 1980s, the Guinness Book of World Records made a study of the most written-about persons in history. The most popular were Napoleon, Christ, and Lincoln. However, Guinness awarded Muhammed Ali number one. Really? Well, he was big back then.

Even if Napoleon had won the battle of Waterloo, he would've lost in the end;. Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, and Austria were gathering to crush him. It was a matter of numbers. Nevertheless, aside from grand strategy, he was supreme as a general on the field of battle. A clever fellow named Ethan Arsht had the interesting idea of applying baseball sabermetrics to the ranking of prominent generals. His system calculated the total wins added (or subtracted) by the player compared to a replacement-level player. He weighted a general’s numerical advantage or disadvantage compared to their adversary to better isolate the general’s ability as a tactician. "Napoleon is so far ahead of the normal distribution curve created by the data for these 6,000-plus generals, it’s not even close. After 43 battles, he has a WAR score of more than 16, which blows the competition away. There can be no question: Napoleon is the greatest tactical general of all time, and the math proves it." https://towardsdatascience.com/napoleon-was-the-best-general-ever-and-the-math-proves-it-86efed303eeb Ever seen "Moneyball"? This historian determined the 10 best generals in history. Guess who's number 1? https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/best-generals-ranked-by-statistics/ Caesar was #2.

We know a great deal about Alexander. Contemporaries wrote accounts of his life. At his height, Napoleon was a worldwide celebrity; he exuded charisma. I submit that if the little emperor was reanimated more than a few of us fall at his feet, kill for him, and throw ourselves into battle at his nod. His mojo was that powerful.

In some ways there's an inherent unfairness in demoting Napoleon to a not-quite-great commander; as the head of state, he faced enormous challenges and decisions that would spare mere generals like Wellington, Blucher, or Kutuzov. Unlike them, he operated at every level. Was he stretched to thin? However, Alexander and Genghis seemed to manage.

Debate: Napoleon's military career presents a paradox. As a tactician, he was superb, perhaps unequaled, but in the field of strategy, he was prone to making incredibly gross blunders, such as the invasions of Spain and Russia. Doesn't a great commander strive above all to avoid disastrous errors? It's hard to second-guess such generals as Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, or Tamerlane who were never defeated. In the end, Napoleon's conquests proved ephemeral, he would leave the territory of France smaller than it was in 1789. Grand strategy just wasn't his strong suit.

Not only did the Nuremberg commission administer IQ tests to the prisoners but also Rorschach tests, ten in all. They were asked to elaborate on what they saw. Frank (senior nazi): Those are my darling bears. They’re holding a bottle. Beautiful prima ballerina dancing in white dresses with red light shining from below.Rudolf Hess (Deputy Führer): Two men talking about a crime. Blood is on their mind.Hermann Göring (Hitler’s #2): [laughs] Those are two dancing figures, very clear, shoulder her and face there, clapping hands. [cuts off the bottom part with hand] Top red is head and hat; the face is partially white.https://historyofyesterday.com/the-resu ... a5e442f37cOne of the psychologists that diagnosed Goering's Rorschach test remarked on his "emptiness of his being" and that when he reported the hat as red, it "indicates an emotional preoccupation with status." Quite a leap. It seems a better take on Goering's personality was offered in the 1970s by Joel Dimsdale (1), an American psychiatrist and Holocaust researcher: "[Goering] was a chameleon in terms of shaping his behavior based on audience. He could be warm and charming, or brutal," Were the tests worth it? The Rorschach assessments were never presented as evidence at Nuremberg. The tests of Nazi leaders were commingled with contemporary tests for mental patients and members of the clergy, and the experts could not distinguish the results for the Nazis from those of the clergy. Rorschach tests were en vogue at the time but are now little used, essentially a passing fad.1- Survivors, Victims, and Perpetrators: Essays on the Nazi Holocaust. 1980

At Nuremberg, the International Military Tribunal was tasked to try the 24 most important players (1) in the 3rd Reich. As the weeks passed, the Tribunal sought convictions, but their members began to speculate on the prisoners' motivations. What drove them? Were the commandants of the death camps psychopaths or simply mentally ill? Or were they just ordinary men who made appalling decisions? Clearly, there was something fundamental that separated them from the rest of humanity.The defendants may have been morally twisted but it appears they were exceptionally intelligent.Hjalmar SchachtWith the aid of psychologists, the Tribunal submitted the prisoners to the Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Test, one of the premier IQ tests (2). A score above 128 was considered "superior", only 2% of the population scored in that range. The average score of the Germans was 128. The winner was Hjalmar Schacht at 141, Goering scored 138. The dummy on the list was Julius Streicher at 106, still above average according to the test.The psychologists gave the scores to the Nazis; they were delighted, it was a diversion from the constant boredom of solitary confinement. The men compared their results with their co-prisoners and argued good-naturedly over bragging rights. Franz von Papen (Score: 134) said that IQ testing was one of the most enjoyable moments of their captivity.Is there a lesson in there? One assumes that most great enterprises are- ipso facto- composed of smart and ambitious men (or women) in their higher echelons. But the cleavage between morality and intelligence was rarely so strikingly apparent as in the Nazi state.The list:http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/f ... dants.html(1) It turned out to be 22. Martin Bormann was tried in absentia and Robert Ley committed suicide within a week of the trial’s commencement.(2) The Nazis were very familiar with intelligence testing; the government authorized the murder of children with various mental deficiencies.

Grant was 5'8, 2 inches above the average height of the time, and during the war, his weight was a svelte 130lbs. However, he was physically powerful; while working for his father-in-law in Galena neighbors were stunned to watch him toss 100lb burlap bags onto a wagon. Some other interesting factoids: *He was not especially studious at West Point and read a lot of novels available to him in the library. It was said of him that he never read a lesson over more than twice and did not actually "study" it. He excelled in mathematics. *In the heat of battle, when his staff officers were full of anxiety, Grant calmly smoked his cigar and never lost his composure. His nerves of steel were a wonder to all around him. He could write dispatches while shells burst around him and never flinch. *Grant was very thin during the war, weighing only one hundred and thirty-five pounds. He was a very sparse eater. He abhorred red meat of any kind, and the sight of blood made him ill. *He had a superstition of retracing his steps. *Grant did not believe in holding formal councils of war. He felt that they "divided a responsibility that would at times prevent a unity of action." He listened to the advice of his staff, and then, upon reflection, made the final decision himself. No one knew of his decision until it was put into effect. *Grant was tone deaf and could not recognize any of the light airs of the time; military music was especially annoying to him. *During his lifetime General Grant suffered intense migraine headaches which were sometimes reported as bouts of drunkenness. *Reticence has long been associated with Ulysses Grant. Although he was an avid listener, in the relaxed company of friends, he could actually be a raconteur. https://libguides.css.edu/usgrant/home/upclose Quote Share

Grant joined the Sons of Temperance, a precursor of Alcoholic Anonymous.It seems that back then it was assumed that drunkenness was a male thing. Re: The Civil War. Can we agree that the Confederacy was doomed from the start and the only factors that kept it alive for four years were enthusiasm and (at first) superior commanders? And despite Lee's (or Jubal Early's) invasion of the North, interior lines.

I saw Lieut. Grant. He has altered very much: he is a short thick man with a beard reaching halfway down his waist and I fear he drinks too much but don't you say a word on that subject. -John Lowe, Grant's West Point classmate during the Mexico campaign. The genetic component of alcoholism these days is now considered settled science. Ulysses S. Grant's father was a teetotaler but his grandfather, Noah, was not. His drinking caused him to squander a comfortable estate and leave the youngest children to be adopted by neighbors. Grant's son was arrested by George Custer for chronic drunkenness during the Black Hills expedition in 1874. It was during Grant's outstanding service in the Mexican War, a conflict punctuated by many long periods of inactivity and boredom, that Grant realized that he might have "a problem". After his marriage to Julia, in 1848, he was assigned as an officer at a post near Ontario. At that cold and isolated outpost he resorted to booze, but always self-aware he decided to quit altogether in 1851. He wrote Julia: "I have become convinced that there is no safety from ruin by liquor except by abstaining from it altogether." Grant joined the Sons of Temperance, a precursor of Alcoholic Anonymous. It didn't last; his next military assignment to the Pacific Coast would break his solemn vow. His roommate: "I would hear him once or twice, sometimes more, open the door quietly and walk softly over the floor, so as not to disturb him; then I would hear the clink of the glass and a gurgle." Grant was forced to resign. After his separation from the army, Grant returned to Missouri with Julia and their four children; they led a hardscrabble life. He sold firewood door-to-door and he was often compelled to borrow money from her slave-owning father, a humiliation, and he began again to resort to the bottle. But Grant's father came to his rescue; he proposed that he join his brothers' leather shop in Illinois. There he was able to pay off his debts to Julia's father and during that time it appears he was sober. Nevertheless, Grant felt unfulfilled and following Fort Sumter, he jumped at the chance to become a colonel in the 21st Illinois Volunteers. The rest is history. Many historians assert that Grant’s penchant for binge drinking was kept in check by his teetotaler adjutant, Colonel John Rawlins, but rumors that he was intoxicated during and after battles swirled around him for most of the war. These rumors may be exaggerated, however, Grant did suffer occasional relapses although he would go cold turkey during very long periods. But a reporter from the Herald Tribune was stunned to find the General in a state of intoxication during the bloody battle of Shiloh in 1862. Also, there's strong evidence that during the siege of Vicksburg- a tedious, long drawn out affair- he occasionally fell off the wagon. (1) Grant was never a mean or obnoxious drunk but, in the words of the historian, Ron Chernow, liquor reduced him to a “babbling, childlike state", something that unnerved his lieutenants during his rare lapses while prosecuting the war. They also observed that after one glass of liquor, Grant's speech would become slurred and two or three would make him stupid. Their strong reservations about the General reached the unperturbed Lincoln who remarked “Tell them you’re going to find out what brand he drinks, and then send a case to all your other generals." (2) SUMMARY The preponderance of evidence tells us that Grant was an alcoholic, albeit a functioning one. In the 19th century, most people drank far more than today; Americans over the age of 15 consumed on average seven gallons of alcohol — generally whiskey or hard cider — each year. (3) However, at headquarters, officers were expected to hold their liquor. Grant couldn't and he knew it, when the craving came upon him he would imbibe alone, Today we understand that alcoholism is a disease. One of the most frustrating factors in dealing with alcoholism is it is almost always accompanied by a phenomenon known as denial—a refusal to admit the truth or reality of the condition. Grant was an exception to that rule, he was fully aware of his devil within thus his successful career may be attributed to pure will. 1- But Grant had a critical asset, his wife, Julia, who with his oldest son were often present at headquarters. With her, he stayed sober. 2- Another version: “for if it made fighting generals like Grant, I should like to get some of it for distribution.” 3- (lost link)