World War I & II topic

I get that... but these are different things. Wolfschanze is a site of historic significance, and it makes sense to keep it that way. Prora has no history to speak of except being built, and just sat there all these years. There's no value in its authenticity.
 
Woldschanze is pretty much ruins in the middle of nowhere. I enjoyed visiting the Flak Tower in Berlin, but that also serves(served) dual purposes ... a recreation area/nice park and hill, and a place to dump rubble in when they could not blow it up. The one in Vienna is an aquarium and the one in Hamburg is a night club.

The buildings in Prora seem like a nice opportunity to create a tourist attraction ... they should and could put in some kind of exhibit there explaining their history ... which is not really all that notorious. It was designed by the Nazis to be a vacation spot.
 
Err, this is not that tactful:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/24/pieter-schelte-worlds-biggest-ship-ss-officer

Jewish outrage as ship named after SS war criminal arrives in Europe

As Holocaust day nears, anger erupts at arrival in Rotterdam of the Pieter Schelte, the world’s largest vessel

Leaders of Jewish communities and Holocaust memorial groups in Britain and the Netherlands have reacted with rage and despair at the arrival in Rotterdam of the world’s biggest ship, the Pieter Schelte, named after a Dutch officer in the Waffen-SS. ... (more, see link)

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The Pieter Schelte, seen entering the port of Rotterdam, is more than 120 metres wide.


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Pieter Schelte Heerema in his SS uniform. The ship was named in recognition of his ‘great achievements in the offshore oil and gas industry’.
 
I don't get it. Why get outraged now when the ship is already built, named and in service? If this really is the largest ship in the world, its construction and naming can hardly have gone unnoticed. Where was the outcry then? Should the ship now just go adrift on the oceans?
 
There was a fight against the name for about ten years. To no avail.
Voet says: “We’ve fought this for 10 years, tried to persuade everyone involved that this was offensive. But no, we’re left with this fact: the largest ship in the world is named after an officer in the SS, and not enough people are offended to get this changed.”
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"I only hope we keep the moral high ground."

Ugh. Those kinds of fights are always exceptionally ugly.
 
I am still a bit confused as well. Here I read:

It arrived in Holland just three weeks before the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and just days before four Jews were killed in a kosher supermarket during the Paris terror attacks.

But as Holocaust Memorial Day nears, anger has erupted after it was revealed Pieter Schelte Heerema was a Dutch officer in the Waffen SS.
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So, these people (Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel (Cidi)), knew about it for 10 years, and now "suddenly everyone" knows.
Perhaps it wasn't sure til the last moment if the owner would have changed the name in the end or not.


The proportions of this ship!
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The Pieter Schelte vessel, the world's largest ship, which is almost as long as the Empire State Building and wider than the height of Big Ben.
 
That thing is a fucking monster. Appropriate that it should be named after a fucking monster, I suppose.
 
The ship is named after marine engineer Pieter Schelte Heerema, father of Allseas' owner Edward Heerema. This has created a controversy due to Pieter Schelte Heerema's service in the Waffen-SS during World War II, prior to August 1943. Schelte Heerema subsequently disappeared. After the war he was arrested and sentenced to jail for three years, though the court released him after one and a half years on account of his "very important services to the resistance between August 1943 and March 1944."

Allseas spokesmen claim the naming is a fitting tribute to one of the pioneers of the offshore-industry.
 
I feel like there's more to know here before judgement can be issued, is all. Maybe he was as bad as portrayed; perhaps he made amends.
 
I wondered about that. Perhaps he passed on information about much bigger fish after the end of the war, and releasing him was part of that bargain.
 
Brigantium said:
I wondered about that. Perhaps he passed on information about much bigger fish after the end of the war, and releasing him was part of that bargain.
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Maybe, but he turned sides in 1943 .. when in 1943 is important too, but it is not like he switched sides April, 1945 (or even anytime after D-Day)
 
Wasn't he imprisoned after the war, and then released for the stated reasons? Seems an odd time to bring that up rather than as part of mitigation at his trial, unless more evidence came to light. People are usually let out early for 'good behaviour'.
 
Brigantium said:
Wasn't he imprisoned after the war, and then released for the stated reasons? Seems an odd time to bring that up rather than as part of mitigation at his trial, unless more evidence came to light. People are usually let out early for 'good behaviour'.
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Who knows, there was a lot of swift justice going on after the war and many sentences revised downwards
 
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