1) THE BEGINNING OF FLIGHT AND SPACE TRAVEL
2) THE STORY OF THE V-WEAPONS
3) THE GREATEST AIRSHOW IN THE WORLD
1) THE BEGINNING OF FLIGHT AND SPACE TRAVEL
A French prison inmate was in the headlines this week with a daring escape from prison by helicopter. France has a tradition of prison escapes by helicopter that goes back a number of years. Prisons actually have netting in place in an effort to prevent helicopter escapes.
Why is it that France, a European nation without a high prison population and with some of the most "civilized" prisons in the world, would have such a tradition of prison escapes by helicopter? The answer is a great illustration of how humans came to fly in the first place, as well as how history repeats itself.
People have always watched birds and wondered if there was some way that they could fly too. But have you ever wondered if there was some event that provided the impetus to actually get people flying? It turns out that there was, and it was the British fortress at Gibraltar.
Gibraltar had been ceded to Britain as a result of internal royal struggles within the Holy Roman Empire. It was a very strategic location and the "Rock of Gibraltar" ( which was forced upward by the tectonic collision between Africa and Europe) was heavily fortified.
The French Bourbon dynasty king and queen, Louis XVI and Marie Antionette who would later be overthrown and executed in the French Revolution, were not pleased at all with a British fortress being in this strategic location and, still resentful over the encouragement and assistance that Britain gave to French Protestants in the destructive religious conflict that engulfed France after the Reformation (and which we saw in "Christmas In Paris"), planned to capture the fortress. But the fortress at Gibraltar proved very difficult to attack by either land or sea.
A French paper manufacturer named Joseph Montgolfier got an idea. Knowing that hot air rises, maybe an especially made "sack" could be constructed that could enable humans to fly by means of heated air flowing into it. That would bring about a new way to attack Gibraltar that would be completely unexpected. The result was the world's first hot air balloon and, for the first time, humans flew through the air.
A balloon was demonstrated on the grounds of Versailles, as we saw in "America And The Modern World Explained By Way Of Paris", and the French king and queen were impressed. Although the aerial attack on Gibraltar never took place, this is what got people flying.
This French tradition of flight is reflected in the Paris Air Show of today, where buyers of military and civilian aircraft come to watch demonstrations of the newest planes, and also in how French-speaking Montreal is Canada's center of aeronautics and aerospace development, and the headquarters of Bombardier. It is also shown in how, when they later became allies, France and Britain built the supersonic airliner the Concorde together. (Ironically, the French king and queen who had got people flying by planning the attack on Gibraltar were executed in Place Concorde).
A later development in flight was the helicopter. As we know, history tends to repeat itself. We tend to reenact history, often without realizing it. A prison is a fortress and a helicopter is a modern incarnation of the first hot air balloon that was originally intended as a means to attack Gibraltar. That is why France, of all countries, has this tradition of prison escapes by helicopter, the latest example of which we saw this week.
Most prisons have some kind of courtyard or bailey. This is Attica Prison, in the general area where I live. The lower right quadrant is D-Block, where the 1971 uprising over prison conditions began.
I also believe that the historical memory of the balloon taking off up into the sky was the psychological basis for the Eiffel Tower which pioneered modern architecture.
Let's remember how Gibraltar inadvertently got humans flying. Gibraltar is on a peninsula. The land that you can see in the near distance, across water, is mainland Spain. The land that you can see in the far distance, 20 km away, is Morocco. The ancestors of anyone in the western hemisphere who came from the Mediterranean came through this Strait of Gibraltar.
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2) THE STORY OF THE V-WEAPONS
Historians have been mystified as to why the Nazis put so much effort, including the research of their top scientists, into developing the V1 and V2 missiles that were launched at London. The V1 was a jet-powered bomb, the V-2 was a rocket.
But while these two weapons made for a spectacular story, and killed nearly as many people as the Blitz of 1940, their military effect on the course of the war was negligible. After being aimed, the weapons had no guidance systems and, as far as I am aware, no significant military target was ever hit. Historians of the Second World War are virtually unanimous that the Nazis would have been far better off putting the research and effort into weapons that could be used on the battlefront.
The V-weapons were terror weapons but could not be aimed with enough accuracy to be decisive on the battlefield. With the technology of the time, they could only be reliably aimed at a city the size of London.
But what we have to remember is Hitler's sense of history, and of his role in it. What the Nazis were doing above all is attempting to finally fulfill the purpose of the Holy Roman Empire, which was to bring the east back into line with Catholicism as directed by the pope. Charlemagne, Charles the Great, was crowned by the pope as the first Holy Roman Emperor. The effort was unsuccessful and the east ultimately split in 1054, but the Holy Roman Empire lasted for a thousand years, until Napoleon, and had a tremendous effect on history, as we saw in "The Far-Reaching Legacy Of The Holy Roman Empire".
The Nazis referred to themselves as the "Third Reich", and Charlemagne's original empire as the "First Reich". Germany ruled by the kaisers, after unification, was the "Second Reich". Hitler was thus the new Charlemagne, and was gathering Europe back together before confronting the east, which was the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.
But later, with the war going badly, the Nazis began a special effort to evoke history. To understand this, we have to realize how important history was to Hitler. If the war was to be won, the Nazis needed the wholehearted support of occupied Europe. The way to get this was to evoke the Holy Roman Empire, and get all of Europe to rally behind the Nazis. This effort was described in detail in the posting on this blog, "The Real Story Of Monte Cassino".
The story of the British fortress at Gibraltar, as described above, took place during the time of the Holy Roman Empire. France was part of the Empire, but Britain was not. It was thus an affront that an outside power held such a strategic position in the Holy Roman Empire, and the idea arose to attack it by way of balloons which was the impetus that got people flying.
We can see what wide-ranging effect this balloon plan had in how it became the foundation of helicopter escapes from French prisons. We can thus be sure that the Nazis were aware of it and this enables us to see the underlying historical basis behind the Nazis' V-weapons that were fired at London.
These weapons were the modern incarnation of the balloons that were developed for the planned aerial assault on Gibraltar, but fired at London itself rather than at Gibraltar. This would evoke history and show that the Nazis were the fulfillment of the Holy Roman Empire, with Hitler as the new Charlemagne, and that all of Europe should rise up and join them.
Hitler is sometimes regarded as inferior to Napoleon as a general, but it must be remembered that Hitler was guided by a sense of the fulfillment of history, and not just by conventional strategy.
Another interesting point is Malta, which was another fortified British possession in the Mediterranean. Although it was not militarily significant at the time of the Second World War, it was relentlessly and heavily bombed, as we saw in the posting on this blog, "Malta And Jerusalem", but yet the Nazis never tried to capture it. It was if they preferred to just keep bombing it.
But this can be explained by Malta being used to evoke history, that the Nazis were the fulfillment of the Holy Roman Empire, and that the aerial attack on British fortresses that never happened as being fulfilled now, as well as the main objective of reconquest of the east.
But it was the V-2 that provided the initial basis for space exploration after the war. There is no set boundary between the earth's atmosphere and outer space but a V-2, at the peak of it's trajectory, could be considered as the first man-made object to enter outer space.
This means that we can consider the fortress at Gibraltar as the impetus for both flight and space exploration.
3) THE GREATEST AIRSHOW IN THE WORLD
3) THE GREATEST AIRSHOW IN THE WORLD
Historians have wondered about the Nazi invasion of Crete in 1941. The attack was done by paratroopers and gliders, which had never been attempted on such a scale before. The small Greek and Commonwealth force on the island inflicted heavy casualties on the invaders, and the Nazis never attempted such an assault again.
This costly attack would not seem to have even really been necessary to the Nazis' plan of conquest. A wise general might simply have ignored Crete, and waited for the Allied garrison there to run out of supplies. At the time of the invasion, the Allies on Crete do not seem to have had any aircraft left, and there was nothing on the island to threaten the Nazis in Europe or the Mediterranean. The recent development of aircraft carriers had diminished the potential importance of Crete as a vase from which to launch air attacks. The strategy of the Allies on Crete was purely defensive in nature, awaiting a Nazi landing.
The invasion was ultimately successful when the Nazis managed to capture the airfield on the island so that reinforcements could be brought in by plane. But this might have been accomplished by the Nazis landing commandos to capture the airfield, without the mishaps and casualties of the paratrooper and glider attack.
But there was a reason that the attack on Crete was done by air. Historians have questioned the tactical wisdom of it, but we have to remember Hitler's sense of history. The aerial invasion of Crete was an important part of Hitler's grand design. It was to be the Greatest Airshow In The World.
Notice the timing of the attack on Crete. It came one month before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. We saw in "The Beginning Of Flight And Space Travel" what a strong sense of history Hitler had. Historians and military strategists have been mystified by some of Hitler's actions. But these actions can be explained by the objective to have the Nazis seen as the fulfillment of the Holy Roman Empire, with Hitler as the new Charlemagne.
The Holy Roman Empire was originally put together by the pope to confront the eastern part of Christendom, which was growing increasing independent and critical of bring ruled by the pope, and would ultimately break away in the Great Schism of 1054, which we saw in "The House Of Holy Wisdom, Where The Modern World Began". So the Holy Roman Empire ultimately failed to prevent the splitting away of the east, which is today the Eastern Orthodox Church, but it lasted for a thousand years until finally brought to an end by the conquests of Napoleon.
We saw the Holy Roman Empire in the posting on this blog, "The Far-Reaching Legacy Of The Holy Roman Empire".
The Nazis referred to themselves as the "Third Reich". The First Reich having been the time of Charlemagne, the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Second Reich having been the time of the German kaisers. The Nazis wanted to demonstrate themselves as the fulfillment of the Holy Roman Empire by gathering Europe together and then finally succeeding in reconquering the east, which was now the Soviet Union. The original Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy had by this time been secularized into a great ideological clash between National Socialism (Nazism) and Communism.
As we saw in "The Beginning Of Flight And Space Travel", a way that the Nazis demonstrated themselves to be the fulfillment of the Holy Roman Empire, which would finally succeed in it's mission, was to evoke a prominent military problem of the Holy Roman Empire. This was the fortress of Gibraltar, which was very difficult to attack by land or sea, and which was held by Britain which had never been in the Holy Roman Empire.
That was what led to the French development of balloons, the first time that humans had ever flown, although the intended aerial conquest of Gibraltar never happened. I am sure that the Nazis focused on this planned, but never fulfilled, aerial attack to demonstrate that they were the fulfillment of the Holy Roman Empire. This explains, as we saw in "The Beginning Of Flight And Space Travel", why the Nazis mystified historians by putting so much effort into development of the V-weapons, to fire at London, and why they continuously bombed the British Mediterranean island of Malta, but never tried to capture it.
This was done primarily to get all of Europe to rally with Hitler because, if they shared his sense of history, they would recognize the Nazis as the fulfillment of the Holy Roman Empire, and Hitler as the new Charlemagne, who would finally accomplish all that the original Holy Roman Empire had set out to do.
The reason that the Nazis never attacked Gibraltar itself, which was still a British fortress, is that they still hoped to have Spain as an ally. We saw in the posting on this blog, "The War That We Really Should Understand", how the Nazis were instrumental in bringing General Francisco Franco to power in Spain.
In the spring of 1941, just before the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nazis saw the chance to impress upon Europe, most of which they now occupied, that they were the fulfillment of the Holy Roman Empire and were about to accomplish what it was set up for in the first place, to bring the eastern regions back into line, and that all of Europe should join the Nazis and give them their full support.
The way that they would do this is to seize upon an unfulfilled military objective of the Holy Roman Empire, attacking Gibraltar from the air and freeing it from the control of Britain, which was not a part of the Holy Roman Empire. The only part of western Europe left to conquer, before beginning the war with the Soviet Union, was the island of Crete, on which there were British and Commonwealth forces supporting the Greeks.
The Nazis would fulfill history by an aerial attack on Crete, by paratroopers and gliders, that Europe would recognize as the modern fulfillment of the intended aerial attack on Gibraltar, which brought about the development of balloons in which the first human flights took place. It would be the Greatest Airshow In The World. Europe would then rally together, with Hitler as the new Charlemagne, and subdue the east, which was the original reason for being of the Holy Roman Empire.
I often write about how it is important to understand history because we tend to repeat it, often without realizing it. What I think is necessary to understand about Hitler, and a few of his strategies that didn't seem to make tactical sense, is that they were reenacting history purposely, done primarily to evoke this fulfillment of the Holy Roman Empire, particularly the unfulfilled plan to launch the first aerial attack in history against the British fortress at Gibraltar, by aerially attacking other British strongholds.
After the D-Day landings the Nazis began firing more V-2 rockets at Antwerp, which the Allies were using as a port, than at London so that it would be more visible to Europe so that they would join with the Nazis, recognizing them as the fulfillment of the Holy Roman Empire. It was all "The Greatest Airshow In The World".
The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union was called "Operation Barbarossa". Barbarossa was Frederick I, one of the greatest of Holy Roman emperors, who was killed leading an army in the Crusades. The name of Barbarossa actually means "Red Beard" in Italian, a name he was given by the Italian-speaking part of the Holy Roman Empire.
The fact that the Nazis named the invasion after this emperor shows how the Nazis saw themselves as the fulfillment of the Holy Roman Empire, and were trying to impress that upon Europe so that they would join them. The original purpose of the Holy Roman Empire was to confront the east. It ended up in the Crusades to free the Holy Land from Moslem control, during which Frederick I had been killed, but had not yet brought back control over Russia, and that is what the Nazis were for.
This is the Kyffhauser Monument, in southern Germany. It includes an image of Frederick Barbarossa. The monument is made of red sandstone because the name of Barbarossa means "Red Beard". There was a legend that he was merely sleeping and would awaken when Germany needed his leadership again. The invasion of the Soviet Union, in 1941, was named for him.
This would bring about the fulfillment of the original purpose of the Holy Roman Empire, which included most of Europe, not just what is now Germany. To get Europe to rally with them, they seized upon another unfulfilled objective of the Holy Roman Empire, an aerial attack against the British fortress at Gibraltar, which was the impetus which first got humans flying.
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