Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 November 17

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November 17

German to English idiomatic translation

Hi Folks, can somebody please translate the following to English. Thanks.

Und man sollte, ob es uns heute paßt oder nicht, nicht verschweigen, daß es da immerhin auch eine ‚Rote Kapelle‘ gegeben hat: Kommunisten, die faktisch auch in diesem Kampf standen und auch als Opfer des Nationalsozialismus gefallen sind. Welches Geistes Kinder diese alle auch waren und wie man auch von ihren besonderen Absichten und deren Ausführungen heute denken mag: Sie wollten damals nicht dabei sein bei dem, was die Nationalsozialisten wollten, sie wollten ihrem verderbten und verderblichen Regiment eine Grenze setzen, ein Ende machen. […] Hätten sie Erfolg gehabt, so hätte das bedeuten können, daß ein ganz großes Maß weiterer menschlicher und auch materieller Opfer nicht mehr hätte gebracht werden müssen. Sie hatten keinen Erfolg. Und das lag nicht nur an ihnen, sondern doch auch daran, daß in Deutschland so wenige, bevor es etwa ungefährlich wurde, entschlossen und hilfreich neben sie treten wollten und daß ihnen von außen so gar kein Verständnis und keine sinnvolle Unterstützung zuteil wurde.“

scope_creepTalk 11:04, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

"And no matter whether it suits us today or not, we shouldn't hide the fact that there was also such a thing as a 'Red Orchestra': communists who were also involved in this struggle and also fell as victims of nazism. No matter what their ideological background was and what one might think of their particular motivations and actions: these people didn't want to be part of what the nazis wanted; they wanted to set a limit to their depraved and ruinous regime, to put an end to it. […] Had they succeeded, it might have rendered a large amount of suffering and material losses unnecessary. But they didn't succeed. And this was not just their own fault, but was also because so few in Germany were willing to join and help them with determination, before it became safe to do so, and that they received so little understanding or meaningful assistance from outside." Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:20, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

More literally: "suffering and material losses" → "further human as well as material sacrifices".  --Lambiam 15:12, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks @Future Perfect at Sunrise: @Lambiam: I forgot about it. So much on. It is progressing. Thanks. scope_creep^Talk 22:54, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Black Death burial tradition

I see the Wikipedia article says, "It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the death of 75–200 million people in Eurasia and North Africa, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351." I see this is perhaps where the mass grave idea started, to be able to bury so many corpses in such a short time. Did the idea start in Europe, Asia, or North Africa first? To which region did the concept then go to next? Any information on this anywhere about where the concept of mass graves started to be used to bury the casualties of the Black Death pandemic? Thanks for leads.--Christie the puppy lover (talk) 12:02, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Why would you believe that mass graves originated from the Black Death? There were lots of slaughters before it, such as Nishapur and its infamous pile of skulls. The idea was most probably thought up independently in lots of places; it's not rocket science. Clarityfiend (talk) 12:39, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Mass graves have been found that are 10,000 years old and 6,200 years old in different parts of the world. As noted, this is not an invention likely to have been thought of only once. Burying a bunch of dead people in the same place is likely as old as burying people. --Jayron32 13:02, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Our article is at mass grave. It's not exemplary, but does provide some additional context. Matt Deres (talk) 13:39, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

In the 6th century Plague of Justinian, the citizens of the Byzantine Empire resorted to less sanitary arrangements:

...later on those who were making these [mass grave] trenches, no longer able to keep up with the number of the dying, mounted the towers of the fortifications in Sycae, and tearing off the roofs threw the bodies there in complete disorder; and they piled them up just as each one happened to fall, and filled practically all the towers with corpses, and then covered them again with their roofs. As a result of this an evil stench pervaded the city and distressed the inhabitants still more, and especially whenever the wind blew fresh from that quarter.

Procopius on the Plague of Justinian. Alansplodge (talk) 14:36, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Which eminent statesman claimed Lloyd George never read any books?

In David Lloyd George's preface to Murray, Basil (1932). L. G. Sampson Low, Marston & Co Ltd. p. v. LlG writes

It is, in the first place, a common supposition assiduously spread by the pretentious that I never read any books. One day I am going to issue a challenge to the people who are responsible for these reports to submit themselves to a public examination - to which I shall also submit myself - upon general knowledge of books and authors. I mean specifically to include in the challenge one eminent statesman who recently gave public utterance to this silly fable.

The preface is dated 9th February 1932. Who was the "eminent statesman", and when and where did he utter the "silly fable"? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 17:06, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Haldane[1] and Walter H. Page[2] are both quoted, but neither available for a challenge in 1932. fiveby(zero) 15:30, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Is this snippet "an uneducated man, a man who reads not at all" William Tyrrell? fiveby(zero) 15:42, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

@Fiveby: Yes, that's Tyrrell. The timing's wrong again - that would be in the War. I think it was a pretty common dig from some of the more snobbish of LlG's contemporaries. The funny thing about Tyrrell's line "who reads not at all, but obtained his information from others" is that readers, of course, obtain their information from others. It could be Grey, who seems to be the source of Tyrrell's warning to House. I can't think who else it might be - Curzon and Smith were dead by then, as was Asquith, I can't see Churchill saying it of LlG, it wouldn't be MacDonald, and it doesn't really sound like Baldwin (though I wouldn't put it past his wife - or Asquith's, for that matter). I suppose Neville Chamberlain could be a candidate (LlG's tongue would have been firmly in his cheek if he ever called him an "eminent statesman", and he would have enjoyed publicly besting him) - I don't think Austen would have said it. Grey or Chamberlain then would be my prime suspects. DuncanHill (talk) 14:52, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Simon or Samuel in '32? Both Oxford. I can't tell if sliming across the aisle or having their good bits thrown away disqualifies someone as being an eminent statesman in the Commons. fiveby(zero) 13:36, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, silly of me not to have thought of them. I've been ferreting away in BNA, haven't come up with anything yet. DuncanHill (talk) 10:59, 23 November 2021 (UTC)