The Battle of Berlin: An Essay

[This was part of a History assignment that, apparently, didn't have to be done...... Oh well, waste not, want not].

The Second World War – The Battle of Berlin

The last hoorah for the Wermacht and the Großdeutsches Reich.

Soviet forces from the east. American and British forces from the west. This was the reality for millions of Berliners and top Nazis assembled in the Führerbunker.
Their fate had already been decided at the Yalta Conference two months earlier - in which Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt dissected the Greater German Reich according to their various whims. Churchill, at odds with the Communist practice of Stalin tacitly supported by Roosevelt, sought free elections in Eastern and Central Europe and contrasted magnificently with “Uncle Joe”, who sought a Soviet sphere of influence. Importantly, the Yalta Conference was the genesis for the idea of splitting up Germany into four zones that would prove to be so contentious during the Cold War.
The battle was one-sided from the very beginning. Soviet forces simply overwhelmed the remnants of the Germany Army. Master tactician and strategist Gotthard Heinrici made do with what he had to keep the Russians at bay – in the end, that was all he could do.
Allied forces penetrated Berlin and the surrounding areas from above dropping more tonnage of bombs than raids in Britain. These raids continued for 36 successive nights ending on the 21st of April, neatly allowing the Soviets to enter the next day.
The 20th of April was the Führer’s birthday. On this glorious day placards amongst the fire-bombed city proclaimed: “Die Kriegsstadt Berlin grüsst den Führer!” (Berlin, the city of war, welcomes the Führer!)
Of course, many leading Nazis had to determine their loyalties. Himmler spoke to the Western Powers to come to some sort of an agreement with them, Göring’s attempt to take charge was immediately dismissed by Hitler. Bormann, the private secretary, and Goebbels remained fiercely loyal right until the very end; marked by the disappearance of the former and the suicide of the latter. Hitler chose Grand Admiral Dönitz as his successor and he got to work creating the so-called Flensburg government – the name represented the locality of the administration. Positioned on the border with Denmark, Dönitz acted as President – a post not held since the demise of von Hindenburg in 1933.
The Germans were outnumbered in every imaginable way possible: men, – although the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) were used as well - artillery and aircraft to just name a few.
The only possible advantage that the Germans had was their intricate knowledge of inner-city Berlin. The Berlin Zoo was set up to provide flak support while the very last battle – if one can define it as a battle – was fought inside the Reichstag. Here, Meliton Kantaria played his part in the iconic photograph of the Soviet flag being raised over the building. Kantaria was part of the division chosen to storm the Reichstag and record a place in the annals of Soviet hagiography.
The aftermath was similarly horrific. Over a million Berliners were homeless and many more were living in substandard shelters. The Red Army pillaged and raped its way through the capital, with city dwellers unable to cope with actions best seen as primitive. Suicide was prevalent among German residents, who only three years earlier were celebrating the glory of the 1000-year Greater German Reich. The Battle of Berlin, then, was suitable in ending the war in Europe.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
• Beevor, Antony, Berlin: The Downfall 1945
• Slowe, Peter and Richard Woods, Battlefield Berlin: Siege, Surrender and Occupation, 1945

Review: Animal Kingdom

As I settled down in Highpoint's cinema 16 at 4:40 with dear mother, I didn't know what to expect with this movie. Sure, Crikey's movie buff Luke Buckmaster gave it a middling review but for me Animal Kingdom was mind-blowing.

The opening scene shows James or "J" (James Frecheville) robotically watching Deal or No Deal; fair enough, I mean, his mum has just OD'd on heroin.


To the rescue is J's grandmother (Jackie Weaver)...



This is no fairytale, however. We see, instead, the confronting reality that J is introduced to: the dodgy uncles, the no-hope future.


Luke Ford is Uncle Darren or, perhaps surprisingly, "Dazza" and is portrayed as the weakest of the set of brothers. This is shown in a dramatic scene invovling him, uncle no. 2 Andrew (Ben Mendelsohn) and J's girlfriend Nicky (Laura Wheelwright) and is emphasised in a later scene with Mendelsohn and Weaver.


Mendelsohn is truly haunting in his role of Andrew Cody. An allusion to medication-taking is made once, but this is lost in his calculating yet terrifyingly sponataneous role as the cool-as-a-cucumber gangster returned from some sort of exile; any thoughts of religious metaphor are soon lost, however, upon viewing the aforementioned scene with Wheelwright and Ford.

Uncle number 3 is Craig Cody, played by Sullivan Stapleton. His character, though one-dimensional, epitomises the sheer waste of a drug addiction. His paranoia is sad to the point of pathetic. This is no blight on Michôd - it merely highlights the realism of this film. It was interesting to say the least when watching a scene involving Frecheville and Stapleton around the first third of the film when Frecheville is forced to initiate himself into the subculture of the Codys through Craig's express desire to prove himself as a worthy member of the clan. Of course, as articulate and pithy Craig shows himself to be, this "initiation" is tangible yet implicit.

However, hats must be taken off Joel Edgerton's role as Barry Brown. One scene that sticks to mind is, early on, when Brown gives J a hygiene lesson in a dodgy toilet in a dodgy restaurant somewhere out in Footscray, where mere mortals fear to tread....

Okay okay, I'm going overboard but the point is for all the (many) faults of the Codys and co. that Michod shows us, perhaps the director is trying to suggest that families of crime get caught up when they try and live the high life and that is their downfall; maybe if there were more focus on inherent and intrinsic relationships, there would be less crime.

On the other hand, it's not a morality tale, but instead it's a gripping insight into suburbia and all its defects.

What really gripped me in this movie was the raw honesty of the lives it depicted. All the characters - bar Craig Cody - show humanity in all its beautiful, flawed form one way or the other.

Obviously, it's a bit late to watch at the movies but when it comes out on DVD and Blu-ray, I would highly suggest you spend an evening viewing this intense drama that will surely go down as a classic in Aussie cinema

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5BsYRmMfus

Review: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Alright.

I've had a few weeks to mull over this fascinating novel and come up with some sort of position on it.

It starts with the protagonist, Yossarian, in a hospital with some sort mysterious disease "that fell just short of being jaundice." The ambiguity that we see here pervades the whole text.

Cach-22 is, of course, the delineation between perception and reality, between sanity and insanity.

But, this novel provides much deeper insight.

Summarily, Heller citiques the role of identity in a large and faceless organisation, i.e. the army, and he suggests perhaps that a person in an organisation is bigger than the organisation itself.

Contradictory I know, but this is the joy of reading Heller's work, which is an absolute ripper.

I could easily quote one of the characters of the novel, Doc Daneeka, explaining to Yossarian the logic behind Catch-22. But, to do that would be to miss the point.

The point of this novel is to highlight the transience of perception and the ultimate futility of the past, and also of war.

You see, Yossarian is a fighter pilot taking time off from the war in hospital, where, later in the novel, he develops a relationship with the plain Nurse Sue Ann Duckett.

The interesting thing about this novel is that it presents a single event through the eyes of different characters and through different chapters. This means that the book is not chronological at all.

I don't mind it. For some reason it reminds me of catching up with a group of mates when one recalls an anecdote - then the others offer backstory, different interpretation etc. It's strangely pleasing and it emphasises the informality of Heller's writing.

Only the last chapter offers any real drama/emotion, yet there are still loose ends as the final page is turned.

Again, the familiarity of Heller's prose kept me turning the pages.

I could rant on about the horrors of war, the pedantry of the bueracracy and the military-industrial complex. But that would be a waste of my time.

Instead, what Heller gives us an incredibly moving and even humanist - I'll get to that in a sec - account of life in a regimented structure.

You can easily parallelise the army to organised religion in this novel.
Indeed, the resident chaplain, Robert Shipman, is castigated and shunned throughout the piece. Clearly, what Heller lampoons is the extreme and religious-like effort that people put into anything - especially the army.

Heller lampoons Milo Minderbinder, the almost-fascist mess officer for turning upon his own army to enhance and give profit to "the syndicate".
Heller lampoons the chaplain for religion's supposed mildness.
Heller lampoons the Doc for his inability to find a disease.

Indeed, Catch-22 reminds me of Hamlet and The Wizard of Oz in that the protganist is surrounded by characters who only seem to have a fraction of the humanity of the main character.

Plot and themes are inextricably linked in this novel, which means that it will be pretty hard to give details away; suffice it to say that there is some sort of happy ending but what is more important is the journey.

And perhaps there isn't any. After all, this book is only really full of ranbling anecdotes.
Why then complain?

In altre parole don't read this book expecting to be morally enlightened. No. It's fun, funny, a little bit dirty but most of all a somewhat funny but mostly sad endictment on the army as an organisation in general.

Sure, be cynical if you want to about its lack of structure (like this review itself, but did not Oscar Wilde himself contend that the critic is just as important as the artist?), but instead enjoy the ride that is Joseph Heller's Catch-22.

Name change

Hello readers!!!

If you have noticed the name change - and being avid readers, you will have - it reflects a more general approach to the topics that I will write about.

(In case you didn't know, the previous title of this blog was Western Suburbs Wog - it explains the first post).

Topics hitherto uncovered by me will include book, music, movie etc. reviews along with a broad look at what it means to be a bohemian in the western suburbs of Melbourne.

So yeah, I'm also going to incorporate a lot of the bigfella's work/quotes in as well just to get into the spirit of things.

Enjoy