Re: 'The Legacy'
My feeling of the Legacy is that it is based on the events of the ending days of WW1 and the impact (The Legacy) it had on Germany afterwards.
I also want to thank Wikipedia for the mass copy and paste, it saves me from digging through all my reference books.
Very sorry for this rushed post but am going away for a week and wanted to post this slant before I went away
Hopefully someone will pick up/grasp this very rough argument and carry it on.
When I get back will gladly comment on any replies to this post. (If I can get INET access in the mean time may reply sooner)
Firstly I will deal with the first part of the song
Tell you a thing
That you ought to know
Two minutes of your time
Then on you go
Tell tale of the men
All dressed in black
That most of them
Not coming back
Sent off to war
To play little games
And on their return
Can't name no names
Some strange yellow gas
Has played with their minds
Has reddened their eyes
Removed all the lies
The use of sulphur mustard was immediately decried as inhumane and immoral, not worthy of use in war. Yet, by the war’s end both sides used gas routinely; it was placed as a liquid in artillery shells, which were marked with yellow crosses, and it vaporized when the shells exploded, creating a yellow-green mist. Unlike chorine, sulphur mustard is a persistent gas that contaminated the battlefield, lying dormant and deadly for days or weeks after the attack, making the area almost uninhabitable. Despite the innovative use of gas masks, sulphur mustard penetrated through clothing to the skin. Its effects were clearly psychological as well; post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), known then as shell shock or neurasthenia, was a regular complication for those exposed. The writer Robert Graves a victim of gas exposure, describes the long-term psychological effects: "Since 1916, the fear of gas obsessed me: any unusual smell, even the sudden strong scent of flowers in a garden, was enough to send me trembling."3(p200)
In histories of the First World War, the effects of gas sometimes have been minimized, but in retrospect the use of gas emerges as a critical element in the war. In the war’s last 16 months, sulphur mustard accounted for over 4086 deaths among British troops, with 160 526 nonfatal casualties. Reacting to the catastrophic numbers of chemical-warfare casualties, the 1922 Washington Treaty re-emphasised the Hague Conference’s earlier ban on the use of "noxious gases." In 1925, the Geneva Convention generalized this to a ban on the use of all chemical weapons. Despite these laws against the use of chemical weapons, they continued to be produced and used in various conflicts, such as those between Spain and Morocco (1923-1925) and between Italy and Ethiopia (1935-1936). However, World War II has been described as the "un-fought chemical war."4(p1) Both sides had gas but it was not used and instead it served as a deterrent, with each side believing that the other might have the more deadly chemical weapon.
The experiences of the war led to a sort of collective national trauma afterwards for all the participating countries. The optimism of the 1900s was entirely gone and those who fought in the war became what is known as “the Lost Generation” because they never fully recovered from their experiences. For the next few years, much of Europe began its mourning; memorials were erected in thousands of villages and towns. The soldiers returning home from World War I suffered greatly, since the horrors witnessed in that war had never been seen before in history. Although it was commonly called shell shock, it is now known that many returning soldiers suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
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You lie in your death bed now
But what did you bring to the table
Germany at its knees, Treaty of Versailles
As a result of the Treaty, Germany's territory was reduced by a third, the Rhineland was demilitarised and Allied troops were to occupy many areas. There were also enormous war reparations to be paid for a period of 70 years (until 1988), although they ended in 1931 amid complicated circumstances. Perhaps the most important aspect of the Treaty relating to the Dolchstoßlegende was the War Guilt Clause, which forced Germany to accept complete responsibility for the war. The Treaty was enormously unpopular in Germany, in no small part because it impinged extensively on internal German sovereignty. The Dolchstoßlegende was the accepted antithesis of the War Guilt Clause, as the latter was in stark contrast to what the population found to be factual.
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You had us all strung out with promises of peace
But all along your cover plan was to deceive
Can it put to right now only time will tell
Your prophecies will send us all to hell as well
The outbreak of World War I in 1914 appeared to erase many of the political divisions that had existed in German society initially; Roman Catholics, Jews, Lutherans, socialists, right-wingers and liberals were all admittedly overcome by the phenomenon of the "Spirit of 1914". Jubilant crowds gathered to hear the news of the war and a strong wave of euphoria took hold in the midst of public celebration. National pride had shown its potential as a force of unity and cohesion; many considered the changing conditions to be the start of a new age, based almost entirely on an underestimation of the horrors of war and faith in a quick and relatively bloodless victory.
I can't begin to understand in all the lies
But on your death bed I can see it in your eyes
Just as clear as all the sweat upon your brow
It really makes sense I can see it clearly now
As an infantry corporal in World War I, Adolph Hitler was temporarily blinded by mustard gas(relates to start of song) during the British bombardment at Werwick, Belgium, and was hospitalised at Pasewalk, Pomerania, where he learned of the armistice
The thoughts of betrayal and confusion then become crystal clear, he had like many had the following thoughts:
These theories were given credence by the fact that when Germany surrendered in November 1918, its armies were still in French and Belgian territory. Not only had the German Army been in enemy territory the entire time on the Western Front, but on the Eastern Front, Germany had already won the war against Russia, concluded with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. In the West, Germany had come close to winning the war with the Spring Offensive. Contributing to the Dolchstoßlegende, its failure was blamed on strikes in the arms industry at a critical moment of the offensive, leaving soldiers without an adequate supply of materiel. The strikes were seen to be instigated by treasonous elements, with the Jews taking most of the blame. This overlooked Germany's strategic position and ignored how the efforts of individuals were somewhat marginalized on the front, since the belligerents were engaged in a new kind of war. The industrialization of war had dehumanised the process, and made possible a new kind of defeat, which the Germans suffered as a total war, emerged.
Conservatives, nationalists and ex-military leaders began to speak critically about the peace and Weimar politicians, socialists, communists, and Jews were viewed with suspicion due to their supposed extra-national loyalties. It was rumoured that they had not supported the war and had played a role in selling out Germany to its enemies. These November Criminals, or those who seemed to benefit from the newly formed Weimar Republic, were seen to have "stabbed them in the back" on the home front, by either criticizing German nationalism, instigating unrest and strikes in the critical military industries or profiteering. In essence the accusation was that the accused committed treason against the "benevolent and righteous" common cause.
Nevertheless, this social mythos of domestic betrayal resonated among its audience, and its claims would codify the basis for public support for the emerging Nazi Party, under a racialist-based form of nationalism. The anti-Semitism was intensified by the Bavarian Soviet Republic, a Communist government that ruled the city of Munich for two weeks before being crushed by the Freikorps militia. Most of the Bavarian Soviet Republic's leaders were of course Jewish, a fact that allowed anti-Semitic propagandists to make the connection with "Communist treason
Left to all our golden sons
All to pick up on the peace
You could have given all of them
A little chance... at least
Take the world to a better place
Given them all just a little hope
Just think what a legacy
You now... will leave
The rise of Nazism and fascism included a revival of the nationalistic spirit of the pre-war years and, on principle, a rejection of many post-war changes. Similarly, the popularity of the Dolchstosslegende was a testament to the psychological state of the defeated, as acceptance of the scapegoat mythos signified a rejection of the “lessons” of the war and therefore, a rejection of its popular resulting perspective
Left to the "Aryan (golden sons)" people to pick up the remains of devastation and ruin caused by ww1 and the social and psychological impact leaving a legacy which would eventually lead to the outbreak of ww2
We seem destined to live in fear
And some that would say Armageddon is near
But where there's a life while there's hope
That man won't self-destruct
Why can't we treat our fellow men
With more respect and a shake of their hands
But anger and loathing is rife
The death on all sides is becoming a way of life
We live in an uncertain world
Fear understanding and ignorance is leading to death
Only the corpses are left
For vultures that prey on their bones
But some are just not wanting peace
Their whole life is death and misery
The only thing that they know
Fight fire with fire, life is cheap
Want the territories returned to them which where taken by the treaty of Versailles
But if they do stop to think
That man is teetering right on the brink
(Adolf Hitler on the brink of madness)
But do you think that they care
They benefit from death and pain and despair
Germany as a whole did benefit it the 30's and early 40's from the suffering of Jewry and the conquered countries the 3rd Reich invaded, gathering all the wealth from the occupied countries and sending it back to Germany while countries such as Poland and Russia where invaded and the citizens especially Poles, Slavs and "sub human" (untermensch) where subjugated to unspeakable atrocities.
WW2 was the war to end all wars and heralded the first atomic bomb to be dropped
We seem destined to live in fear
And some that would say Armageddon is near
But where there's a life while there's hope
That man won't self-destruct
In the 60's mankind was on the brink of Armageddon (Cuban missile crisis) but this was averted
Note
I do know the difference between Nazis and Germans not all Germans where Nazis and vice versa
(Edit: Corrected any punctuation and grammatical errors- hopefully the post will flow slightly more easily now (Oct 2006))
