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Remembered Today:

Who is This ? ? ?


Stoppage Drill

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1 hour ago, Fattyowls said:

Clumsy or otherwise a clue is a clue mon oncle; only the conclusion of the WiT? will reveal that. How about Dietrich von Choltitz? After all that we all have Paris is in large part down to him. I'm still not convinced that the slightly paunchy man in the WW2 photos looks anything like him and the regiment doesn't match, but I love Paris and I am eternally grateful that the answer to the question "Is Paris Burning?" was no.

 

Pete

 

My chap and Choltitz were old friends and worked together at this time and on this matter. They were “at home in similar intellectual realms”, apparently.

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12 hours ago, Uncle George said:

 

My chap and Choltitz were old friends and worked together at this time and on this matter. They were “at home in similar intellectual realms”, apparently.

 

Gert Frobe?

Edit....sorry too young.

Edited by sadbrewer
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31 minutes ago, sadbrewer said:

 

Gert Frobe?

Edit....sorry too young.

 

My chap could well have been Goldfinger: he retired as Supreme Commander, NATO Ground Forces, Central Europe a year before the film was made. So he had the time ...

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Howsabout Hans Speidel then? He actually looks like the photo you posted which makes a change for any of my proposals.......

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23 minutes ago, Fattyowls said:

Howsabout Hans Speidel then? He actually looks like the photo you posted which makes a change for any of my proposals.......

 

Yes! Dr Speidel it is. He commanded a company on the Somme during the First war. Alistair Horne writes of  him in his ‘To Lose a Battle’ (1969). He is describing the Fall of France in 1940:

 

“As the Germans approached Paris, a drizzle of rain fell ... an officer on the staff of Kuechler’s Eighteenth Army, Lieutenant-Colonel Dr Hans Speidel, received two French officers who came under flag of truce with instructions to deliver up the capital ... Four years and a few weeks later, Speidel, now a Lieutenant-General, was defending Paris against the Americans and Free French as Chief of Staff, Army Group ‘B’. After ending the war in a Gestapo prison camp, he returned to Paris in 1951 to negotiate the rearmament of Federal Germany. In 1957 he was in Paris again, as the first German Commander of Allied Land Forces in Europe.”

 

The ‘similar intellectual realms’ quote is from here:

 

https://lithub.com/on-hitlers-last-desperate-plan-to-destroy-paris/

 

Kimberley posted the photograph here:

 

https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/251090-fascinating-german-officer-at-gallipoli/

 

and gives the original source as Speidel’s memoir ‘Aus unserer Zeit’ (1977).

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Crikey,  I thought it might be Himmler......

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1 hour ago, Fattyowls said:

Howsabout Hans Speidel then? He actually looks like the photo you posted which makes a change for any of my proposals.......

Well done Pete. I'm still in my starting blocks. 😊

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Alistair Horne wrote an affecting passage to conclude his trilogy on the Franco-German rivalry. I think of Speidel as the embodiment of the spirit to which he refers. (I may be stretching a little off-topic, but as it’s Horne, I hope discretion may be shown.)

 

This from the 1990 edition of ‘To Lose a Battle’:

 

 

174A8EF1-A362-459C-93BF-C13E9D94F920.jpeg

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My first contribution for a while.

You can count on this fellow even nowadays, served from 1914 for the duration.

B622F313-9083-497B-9181-D0A2ED268417.jpeg

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wow… and just as I thought I had not seen a "who's this" for a while, there's some pretty heavy clues …

 

and actually I don't have any…

Clue, I mean…

 

M.

 

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28 minutes ago, Marilyne said:

wow… and just as I thought I had not seen a "who's this" for a while, there's some pretty heavy clues …

 

and actually I don't have any…

Clue, I mean…

 

M.

 

 

Not having a clue is my default setting; it's just a case of learning not to worry about it.

 

2 hours ago, Uncle George said:

Yes! Dr Speidel it is

 

A very good and informative post mon oncle; it searching for it I looked at the von Stulpnagel cousins and it took me back to a little lane down by the Meuse near Bras I think where Horne describes Karl-Heinrich von Stulpnagel attempting to blow his brains out on the way to his trial in the wake of the July plot in 1944; he'd served at Verdun in 1916.

 

2 hours ago, neverforget said:

Well done Pete. I'm still in my starting blocks. 😊

 

You've got an excuse matey, your just getting back to full fitness and to be honest I couldn't miss after UG's last clue.

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Knotty, can we have a hint please???

 

M.

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You can count on this fellow

 

    Well, no further ahead , even with the clue-   Ah-.......wait a mo.....      Lt-Col  Sir Abacus  Slide-Rule.......   Oh,alright,I'll get my coat.

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4 hours ago, Knotty said:

My first contribution for a while.

You can count on this fellow even nowadays, served from 1914 for the duration.

B622F313-9083-497B-9181-D0A2ED268417.jpeg

 

You’re off topic mate. Crippen died in 1910

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Does look very much like him though UG👍

 

Marilyne’s clue (tick)......he was an Artillery Officer for the 5th Bavarian Division to start with.

 

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Fiendishly clever, or perhaps I'm just incredibly dim.

(Answers on a postcard please😊)

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Could it be Max Planck,?     Although a  famous physicist - He has a whole institute of demographic research named after him.   

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You are all in the right area.

(tick) He came out of the line twice through illness, and was then seconded to a Gas Deployment unit..( there is some irony with this ).

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I think it is Hans Geiger, co-inventor of the counter. If it is the clues are again really good......

 

Pete.

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50 minutes ago, Fattyowls said:

I think it is Hans Geiger, co-inventor of the counter. If it is the clues are again really good......

 

Pete.

 

Trop fort!!!!

 

M.

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Well gone Pete, (tick,tick,tick,tick) Hans Geiger it is, a quick potted history of this fellow is as follows:-

 

Despite his working with Rutherford in Manchester in 1912, and developing a prototype counter he returned to Germany in 1912. He was called up at the outbreak as an artillery officer 5th Bavarian Division. Come October ‘14 he was invalided out of the line with bad rheumatism in his legs, and whilst convalescing still corresponded with his mentor, via neutral countries.

During ‘15 he was in the Meuse area and was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class for his actions. In early ‘16 he was transferred to a Pioneer Battalion and was Company commander conducting gas experiments along the Lens-Vimy sector. Sept’16 saw him at Ginchy and under attack from the main British assault there, where his command was severely mauled. Early ‘17 he was sent to the Gas Warfare school in Berlin, in late spring he was moved to the Ypres sector, and was in most of the major actions along the British front till the end of the war.

In 1919 he wrote to Rutherford saying the although he was at war with Britain he had no personal feelings towards him, and just glad he survived, he never returned to Manchester but continued to develop his ideas and in 1928 with Walther Mueller came up with the device we know today.

 

nf ..postcard on its way🤣

Marilyne..”trop fort”, does that mean very hard/strong?

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2 hours ago, Knotty said:

You are all in the right area.

 

 

Not me! I misread ‘tick’ completely. Wikipedia: “Werner is remembered for his description of trench fever during an outbreak of the disease in World War I. The disorder is sometimes referred to as "Werner–His disease", named in conjunction with Swiss anatomist Wilhelm His, Jr. ... The disease is caused by the parasite Rickettsia quintana, and transmitted to humans by the body louse Pediculus humanus corporis.”

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