Günther Rall Interview

[Kurt Braatz]

For those of you able to read German, Saturday April 04's issue uf Süddeutsche Zeitung might be interesting. It will contain a full page interview with Günther Rall, entitled 'Heroes'. Günther Rall not only reflects his life as a war hero, but also drops one or another sentence that might get the participants of next weekend's NATO summit in Strasbourg to thinking.

[yogybär]

Wer die Süddeutsche nicht kaufen konnte, kann das Interview hier nachlesen:

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/436/464040/text/

Speziell die Kommentare zu NATO und "out-of-area" finde ich interessant. Das wäre eine Vertiefung wert gewesen als kleiner Hinweis für unsere friedensliebenden Präsidenten, Kanzler etc von einem, der einen richtig schlimmen Krieg etwas erleben mußte. Aber um Rall zu zitieren:

Aber ob die Menschheit gescheiter wird? Ich weiß es nicht.

But does humanity really become smarter? I don't know.

PS: Ein bischen optimistisch bin ich schon noch

[FalkeEins]

..in what sense was he a 'Regimekritiker'..?

[yogybär]

In what sense ?

From what I remember from Mr. Braatz' biography:

I wouldn't say that he was a real "critic", more a reasonable and thinking man. He or his wife had "jewish" friends, whom they helped. That was the only special thing with a political side, apart from being a used as a "hero". When the war got into a critical stage, he saw that and when losses reached exorbitant levels, he started thinking that something was going wrong.
But there was never any action or open speech against the Regime during the war. Relatively "normal" behaviour for the situation he was in then. Did i.e. anyone ever hear about a high-ranking US-officer critizising the Irak-war (while the USA is still a completely different societey!)?

[FalkeEins]

Originally Posted by yogybär

In what sense ?
But there was never any action or open speech against the Regime during the war. Relatively "normal" behaviour for the situation he was in then.

That's what I thought...

Did i.e. anyone ever hear about a high-ranking US-officer critizising the Irak-war (while the USA is still a completely different societey!)?

...not really a valid comparison of course; there was some sort of consensus that deposing a dictator who may have had WMDs was a good thing (at least initially)... but Obama himself only yesterday reiterated criticisms he'd expressed on a number of occasions during the 'war' - he said he thought that " it wasn't a good idea.."