Bert Bailey wrote:

>Regarding murder and music, Deryk said:
>
>>...apparently deputy fuhrer Reinhard Heydrich (whose assassination in
>>1941 led to particularly bloody reprisals in what was once Yugoslavia)
>>was a very good violinist.
>
>The Czech Republic, actually: Heydrich was Reich Protector of
>Bohemia-Moravia (the "Sudetenland," plus).  It's highly unlikely
>that there will ever exist anything to match the 'Final Solution' that
>Heydrich is said to have announced at the Wannsee conference on the 20th
>of January, 1942.
>
>That said, after having read WG Sebald's "On the Natural History of
>Destruction" I should add that we'd be remiss to overlook that, during
>the 2nd World War, many music lovers very likely manned those planes
>piloted by Brits, Poles, Canadians, Australians and, after '42, USAmericans,
>to pummel more than 130 German towns and cities into rubble.  About half
>of this book collects pieces skirting around this subject, and Sebald
>of that war make it a highly recommendable read of history from our
>own time.  ...of the very kind, I can't help but add, that our
>Hollywood-'educated' leaders would be wise to read, to gain a better
>grasp of the real meaning of being at war.
>
>In any case, from the remoteness of those planes, these Allied fire-bombers
>killed more than 600,000 German civilians -- women, children, and old
>or very young men -- also for no military reason whatever.
>
>Incidentally, the town razed by the Germans in retaliation for Heydrich's
>assasination is the one named in Martinu's 'Memorial to Lidice.'

At the moment a discussion is under way in Germany about the WWII
bombings. As a German I can understand the need of elderly people here
to talk about their pain and their despair in these days. The problem or
rather the danger is that some people use this discussion to sort of
counterbalance the discussion about the German responsibility for the
war. I don't think that Bert is one of these people but I just want to
warn that his post can be misunderstood - and that we drift away from
the very topic Bach.

Robert

 [Yes, let's please stay on the topic of music and leave the
 politics to more appropriate venues.  -Dave]