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Tuesday, December 27, 2022

The Measure of a Nation, by Larry Romanoff - The Unz Review

 

One of the major American propaganda initiatives pretends to measure and judge nations, a stage performance in which Americans, with the invaluable assistance of the Jewish-owned media, hog the only microphone while exercising their presumed right to set the norms of evaluation of the inherent moral validity of other nations and forms of government, and even of national cultures themselves. But most of the standards applied in these exercises of ‘Feeling good to be an American’ are vacuous, measures undefined and largely undefinable, virtually all unmeasurable, and mostly utopian nonsense. We are constantly patronised with foolish claims of ‘freedom’, of ‘democratic values’, ‘rule of law’, the ‘rules-based international order’, or things like being ‘a genuinely free and open society’. The phrases, while appealing, are so general as to be meaningless.

Moral superiority doesn’t come from mouthing platitudes or pretending to utopian values, but from actions. It’s what you are, not what you say you are. I don’t much care what you claim to stand for or to believe in; I’m interested in your actions, which is where the proof resides. These juvenile PR performances consist mostly of Americans wasting everyone’s time in claiming foolish mythical ideals and providing long lists of things they ‘believe’ but never practice, their religious convictions proof of nothing except mass hysteria, especially the parts about democratic values. Americans believe they are ‘good’, but in what way are they, as individuals or as a nation, better or morally superior to a Canadian, a German, a Chinese or a Brazilian? The simple truth, obvious to everyone but Americans themselves, is that they are not superior, and there is compelling evidence they are worse.

When we are discussing the nature of nations, the intrinsic value of their governments and structures, and even of social morality itself, these norms set by the Americans are themselves wrong. The most important distinction for a nation, as with an individual, is its character, demonstrated by deeds rather than platitudes, the major determining feature of which is its attitude toward humanity, primarily reflected in its level of aggression or belligerence – the desire for peace or for war. Most everything else that is important about a nation or a person flows from this distinction, from a character of either respect and concern for people, or contempt and aggression. Though we often define these characteristics in political terms, their basic nature is not political but human, and reflects the character, the human nature, of the people living in these nations. The real measure of a nation exists in the same characteristics we employ in measuring people. We don’t primarily evaluate people based on their politics or religion, or their health, the extent of their assets or their physical strength. All these are mostly irrelevant when we ask, “What kind of person are you?”

Nations have personalities and personality characteristics which serve to define them. Germans are renowned for their precision and respect for quality. Only Germany could build a Mercedes or a BMW. Only the Italians could design and produce a Ferrari or Lamborghini. Only the French could make a 2CV. It isn’t an accident that Italy and to some extent France are the fashion centers of the world. Some nations and their people are imbued with a culture that values group cohesiveness rather than individuality, or naturally focuses on the richness of quality of life rather than obtaining possessions. Some nations of people are interested primarily in money, others in power. Virtue is as important in judging a nation as it is with people. We may be naturally envious and perhaps attracted to people who are rich and handsome or beautiful, perhaps powerful as well. But when evaluating others, most of us are able to look past the external and superficial and pry a little deeper, with our examination focusing first on the essentials of a person’s character.

Whom do we admire in our lives? People who are strong, but good. Superior men and women of great proportion and strong character, those who are not arrogant, mean-spirited or petty, but who are patient and tolerant with those less endowed or gifted. We admire generosity and a kind heart. We despise meanness and boastfulness, as we do jealousy and envy. We abhor violence and violent people, and avoid those easily aroused to anger. Nobody respects a man who throws his weight around, depending on his physical strength or powerful connections to protect him. Nobody admires a woman who lacks modesty, nor have we any respect for men who are predators of women or who enjoy preying on the weak. Nobody likes a bully or a hypocrite, a liar or a thief. None of us will choose to be in the company of someone who always wants to be in control, who refuses to recognise the needs or wishes of others, and we all know the dangers of a man who revels in power when he obtains it. Instead, we admire those who exhibit patience and tolerance toward those who are less fortunate than themselves. We respect honesty and personal integrity, an adherence to truth, a high level of maturity. We admire courage and we despise cowards. We admire those with a sense of justice for others as well as themselves, who treat others as they would like to be treated. We dislike and avoid those who are habitual liars, and most of us have a natural and well-deserved contempt for those who lie about others.

So, if we were to assess and evaluate Captain America, how would he rate in terms of moral or any other kind of superiority? To begin with the superficialities, we would admit he is physically strong, wealthier than many, perhaps handsome and well-dressed, and seems to live in a nice house. But then what? He claims to believe in a god, but freely breaks all of that god’s laws. He is nothing if not a violent person, violence toward almost all others being a defining adjective of his character, and he has been this way since childhood. There is no question he uses his strength to bully and intimidate everyone around him, and he is certainly a predator. Preying on the weak is one of his defining adjectives. He is also a coward, avoiding confrontation until he can sufficiently weaken an opponent from a distance before attacking, having never demonstrated any interest in what we might call ‘a fair fight’. Like his bullying, his meanness is legendary, and he is nothing if not a Social Darwinist, with his law of the jungle disposition directing virtually all his social encounters. He is not only mean and violent, but he enjoys making and watching other (weaker) people suffer, and has also been this way since childhood. He is generally determined to win at all costs, freely shedding whatever values he pretends to hold. He not only tells volumes of breathless lies, but he uses those lies to first denigrate the characters of those he intends to bully and physically attack, hoping the ignorant will not realise this is his tactic to justify his violence against them. And he is a whiner. He takes by force everything he can, and whines when he can’t.

Certainly, he is a hypocrite, his hypocrisy being so outstanding as to qualify as a defining characteristic of his nature. We see no evidence of a kind heart or a forgiving disposition, and the only product he appears to distribute with generosity is his inherent violence. It is obvious to everyone that he revels in power as does every inferior man. We see overwhelming evidence of his pettiness and immaturity, as we do of his lack of simple honesty and sincerity, insincerity again being a defining adjective of his character. He is often jealous and envious, to the extent he will do all possible to bring down those whose virtues stand out and who appear to attract admiration or respect of others. He is so deluded that in his mind, only he is entitled to respect and admiration, to say nothing of obedience. Justice (for others) does not appear to be in his vocabulary.

He is arrogant and boastful almost beyond description, modesty also being absent from his vocabulary. He boasts often of his high level of education, but he appears to be more ignorant than anyone anywhere. Greed is a most unpleasant characteristic, but this man is greedy in an especially unpleasant way, not only wanting to be rich to the extent that he will beat others and steal from them, but also determined that all others should be poor and should remain poor. He not only wants to be richer than everyone else, but wants no other person to have any riches at all. Superficially, he appears to make exceptions for a few of his friends, but surreptitiously he steals from them as he steals from anyone and, if push came to shove, he would freely use his violence against even them. He is also essentially lawless, violating any domestic or international laws that he finds inconvenient, depending on his physical strength and bullying power to protect him. Plato said it best, more than 2,000 years ago: “The measure of a man is what he does with power.”

Perhaps the most startling characteristic of this man is his capacity for self-delusion. He travels not only his own country but around the world, boasting sanctimoniously of his sterling character, telling all and sundry of his high values, his faith in his god, of his belief in freedom and equality, in what he calls ‘human rights’, and so much more, all characteristics that are patently and evidently non-existent in his actions. He then asks the world to ignore his multitude of criminal actions and judge him solely on these imaginary values he professes. Is the man crazy? Yes, of course he is. A psychotic, and a very dangerous one. But it’s even much worse than this. Captain America is first and foremost a killer. That is what he does best, and what he has always done, and he treats with utter contempt those whom he kills, especially the small children who are merely ‘bug splats’ to him. To say the man is pathological is to severely understate his mental illness. There are few anywhere in history who has killed as many people as this man, and who has done so as savagely and without remorse, or who glorifies killing as much as he does, writing and singing of ‘glorious battles’ he has had against weak opponents. He exhibits a thoroughly vicious level of criminality.

In early 2014, American writer John Kaminski published an article titled ‘America Minus the Mask: First and Foremost, a Nation of Killers’. He began by stating, “America is a nation of killers. It always has been, from the first Pilgrims who set foot in Massachusetts and later murdered the very people who had saved them from starvation. The entire American population is trapped in a self-delusion that they are heroes, fighting an endless string of evil enemies. But in fact, their targeted enemies have always been innocent people, usually minding their own business, put in harm’s way by their own valuable possessions, which Americans inevitably covet, and will kill anyone to get. The most prosperous and forward-looking countries have always been the best killers, and America, whose budget for wars and weapons exceeds the combined total of all the other countries of the world, is the most prodigious killer country of all time.”

He noted, as I have tried to detail extensively, the intense propaganda campaign begun by Lippman and Bernays, that had Germans eating babies in World War I, and Libya’s Khaddaffi killing his own people, and so many more lies so the Jewish bankers in the City of London could remove an irritant and control the oil and gold. He wrote, “Though the lie is revealed, the outcome may not be changed. This is a portrait of American justice around the world, the legacy that this obnoxious nation of killers continues to unleash upon the world. All the fine words of theologians and philosophers are only meant to cover up the unspeakable realities of Hiroshima (and others) that aim to pare down the population to a manageable level on a plantation run by fellows with whips in their hands.” He ended with this paragraph:

”How proud must Americans be that the US continues to be the war-making giant of the world. All it takes nowadays is a fistful of practically worthless dollars, and the US sucks another prostituted nation into the corrupt orbit of the New World Order. A few of us try to stand up and point out that this is all wrong, but our voices are lost in a tidal wave of irrelevant trivia that is more important to most people than their own lives, than their own well-being. And as new planes are launched and new bombs dropped, our voices are drowned out by the ugly sounds of people gasping for breath and dying, because of our refusal to acknowledge that we ourselves have failed to protest the lies that are killing them. Because of our profound ignorance, our families will soon suffer the same fate of those innocent people who have died because we did not have the courage to confront the lies we were told, and are still being told. America is a nation of killers. If you call yourself an American, you must accept that as the truth, and act accordingly in some way to try to redeem yourself from the thoughtless scumbag that history will judge you as having been. Or at least you will have to do that if you care about anything at all.”

I briefly discussed elsewhere the recent Hollywood movie “American sniper“, based on the true story of a Chris Kyle, an American described as “the most lethal sniper in American history, whose fame spread in all directions, a hero …” This man wrote a book about himself, describing in part how he so much enjoyed killing Iraqis, even young children, watching their mothers in anguish and weeping over the dead bodies of their children. The book became hugely popular, spending almost a year on the New York Times best-seller list. Hollywood made a movie about him that was also wildly popular, being nominated for six Oscar categories at the Academy Awards, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott officially declared February 2 as “Chris Kyle Day” in the state, “in honor of an American hero”. Bronze statues were cast in his honor. One newspaper said the film received “widespread praise among conservatives for depicting an American soldier at his best”. Chris Hedges wrote a powerful article titled “Killing Ragheads for Jesus”, in which he stated this movie “lionizes the most despicable aspects of U.S. society – the gun culture, the blind adoration of the military, the belief that we have an innate right as a “Christian” nation to exterminate the “lesser breeds” of the earth.” He wrote that the movie opens in a church where the congregation is listening to a sermon about “God’s plan for American Christians”, where our hero sniper, Chris Kyle, will be called upon by God to use his “gift” to kill. Kyle is quoted as saying, “I only wish I had killed more. I loved killing … I loved what I did. I still do … it was fun. I had the time of my life”. Hedges noted that Kyle even got a tattoo of a cross on his arm because “I wanted everyone to know I was a Christian.” The righteousness of killing in god’s name has stalked America since its birth and is as virulent today as it has ever been. If this doesn’t frighten the hell out of you, I don’t know what would. How can you avoid concluding that Americans are totally, criminally insane?

In all of this, I think we could ask Americans a few questions. Doesn’t it turn your stomach to know what your government has done in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Libya, and the CIA death squads in Haiti, Nicaragua and El Salvador? How do you feel about Madeline Albright deliberately killing half a million small children to teach Saddam a lesson? If you’re proud of that, what exactly are you proud of? The dead babies? The fact that you could kill them without punishment or retribution? How can you, as a human being, not respond with wrenching disgust at such a person and the people who appointed and supported her? Have you seen the photos of the horribly genetically deformed fetuses emerging in Iraq, Libya, the former Yugoslavia and Vietnam? How can you live with that? How do you feel about your country so freely killing so many millions of women and children in other countries, then lamenting a few children killed in a school in your country? How is your President different from any psychopathic dictator or mafia boss? How can you not be revolted by your own President, government, and country? How can you, as an American, simply turn away and not look at the centuries of evil and misery your country has inflicted on so many innocent nations?

You have always taken great pride in your Presidents and other national leaders, often citing them as evidential justification of your nation’s moral superiority, but most of your favorites like Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Kennedy are non-starters, with a long enough list of slime, sleaze, racism, pettiness, cruelty, immorality, criminality, and genocidal instincts to make Attila the Hun believe he was born before his time. A great many of your Presidents, Secretaries of State and Defense Secretaries were certifiably criminally insane. How do you feel about your leaders opening a university dedicated to teaching torture and repression of civilian populations? You take such pride in your democratic institutions, but how do you answer the charge that your Congress is the greatest single body of traitors in history?

Where in all of this do you find a foundation for your claim to moral superiority? How are you as an individual superior to anyone, anywhere? How is your government superior? How are your Presidents and leaders morally superior to the genocidal thugs they instruct at your School of the Americas? Your entire country, from its “democratic” government, to its institutions, CIA, military and corporations, is just one large criminal enterprise. I don’t see how it is possible today to be an American and not be deeply ashamed of my country and everything it stands for – not things it says, but the things it does. It is long past time for the world to stop pampering you, and instead to challenge your mindless claims of goodness and superiority by presenting you with all the dirty truths of your nation, and demand from you an accounting of your actions and crimes.

You pride yourself in being a democracy, government by the people, and claim you are in charge, that you dictate the actions of your Congressmen and Senators, and have the power to replace them at any time. Whether or not these claims are true, you as an individual are responsible for the enormous crimes of your government. You either knew or should have known what your President, CIA and military were doing, and your willful ignorance cannot excuse you. And when you learned of these crimes, you did nothing. You didn’t object, you didn’t speak out. There were no street protests, no millions of letters to the editor that expressed your horror or even disapproval. In fact, most of you appeared to approve of these acts, priding yourself in being American as you appear to define that term. And in all of this, you are so proud to be an American that you sing yourself to sleep each night with lullabyes about your democratic values. But how dare you boast to me about your democratic values when your hands are dripping in human blood?

Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 32 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chapt. 2 — Dealing with Demons)

His full archive can be seen at

https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/ + https://www.moonofshanghai.com/

He can be contacted at:

2186604556@qq.com

https://www.unz.com/lromanoff/the-measure-of-a-nation/

Sunday, December 25, 2022

Merry Christmas To All! But Remember - We Are Still At War!

No, I do NOT mean in Ukraine – that is just part of a much larger war – the resurgence of Russian traditionalism and its historic Orthodox faith. It is the revival in Russia since the collapse of Communism of a militantly conservative Christian Russian Orthodoxy and the fact, evident in successive and broadly popular legislation enacted by the Russian Duma and public statements and proclamations by the nation’s leaders, that currently fashionable perversions and inverted moral and religious conditions now regnant in America and Western Europe, are not acceptable in Russia.

Ukraine's War on Christianity - Vox Popoli - Clown World’s puppet in Ukraine has proposed a law to ban the Christian church in Ukraine.

That is bad enough, but I mean the other war………….closer to home…..

The other war? The war on Christmas!

Why the War on Christmas? Connecting some dots!

C.S. Lewis wrote…….You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse…. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Question to every Christian (including myself): Why do we proclaim Him to be the Son of God, but act as if He was a lunatic?

Is He DaCuddlyComforter that we have transformed into our Divine Butler? Or is He Lord – of the whole universe?  (Matt. 28:18-20) – Choose!

While you and I enjoy the festivities around the Birth of Christ not as a political event – “I can assure you that Herod the Great thought of it that way as well as Rome.” - The Birth of Jesus Was the Greatest Political Event in History • by Gary DeMar •The American Vision

Satanic wars against the servants of God are as old as mankind –

And I will make enemies

Of you and the woman,

And of your offspring and her Descendant;

He shall bruise you on the head,

And you shall bruise Him on the heel.”  - Gen 3:15

So…who are DaServants of Satan? And how do they operate?

In essence…it always was…and still is…a War on Christ!

Because, at the end of the day, you must either bend the knee to Jesus Christ or to the Prince of this World. You will be forced to choose a side and there will be a price. Standing proudly on your own is an illusion and it was never an option.

And that is THE GOOD NEWS – So Merry Christmas to you and yours!

A Christmas miracle during WWII that proves some things can still be sacred in war

 Most everyone knows the story about “The Christmas Truce” of World War I, when British and German soldiers set aside their differences for a brief moment of one of humanity’s most brutal conflicts.

However, a smaller and lesser known “truce” took place during World War II, between American GIs and German Wehrmacht troops, in a lonely shack in the Ardennes Forest.

Interestingly enough, the incident would have been lost to history had it not been for a little German boy who refused to forget.

In April of 1944, 12-year-old Fritz Vincken was living in the German city of Aachen when a bomb destroyed his home.

“My mother and I were sitting in the basement when the bomb went off and our home collapsed,” he said in a 1997 interview. “Suddenly we were homeless. I was twelve years old when the heavy bombing raid on the city of Aachen left my family homeless. My parent’s bakery had burned like a torch and together we were all evacuated out of the smoldering ruins to a village near the river Rhine, where we found shelter.”

Not long after, his father -a baker for the German Army- acquired a military transport truck and drove through the night to move his wife and son to lonely hut atop a wooded mountain in the Belgian Ardennes Forest.

“A Belgian friend had shown father the way to get there,” he recalled. “We intended to stay only a few weeks but were there from October through December.”

On a bitterly cold Christmas Eve, Fritz and his mother, Elisabeth, were eating a makeshift Christmas meal of rooster and potatoes when they heard a loud knock at the door.

Answering the door, Fritz’s mother suddenly stood face to face with three American GIs of the 8th Infantry Division, one badly injured.

“My mother knew the penalty for harboring the enemy, but when she looked into the young Americans eyes and saw that one was badly hurt, she opened the door and let them in,” Fritz recounted. “We did not speak English, but one of the Americans spoke French to my mother and she could converse with him in French. We learned that the stocky, dark haired fellow was Jim; his comrade, tall and slender, was Ralph. Herby was the wounded one. We added more potatoes to our dinner and made extra places at the table.”

Suddenly, a tense situation became potentially deadly as the family heard a second knock at the door.

Fritz held his breath, fearing that the second wave of guests were his own countrymen. Upon answering the door, his fears were confirmed- there were four German soldiers at the door.

“I was almost paralyzed with fear, for though I was a child, I knew that harsh law of war: Anyone giving aid and comfort to the enemy would be shot.”

Taking the initiative, Elisabeth stood firm and spoke to the German soldiers. As it turned out, they were lost and were seeking shelter from the sub-zero temperatures after days of wandering. She agreed to let them in, but under two conditions: accept her American guests and leave their weapons outside.

Agreeing to her terms, both the American and German soldiers were temporarily disarmed and permitted to stay in the shack.

“When they came in, the feelings were awkward,” Fritz said, noting that the situation may have been different had his mother not had such a strong personality.

However, the icy demeanors inside the cabin began to thaw when one Wehrmacht soldier -a medical student before the war- began to patch up Herby’s wounds.

Sitting down for dinner, Elisabeth said a prayer, asking God for one night of peace and that all those seated at the table would survive the war. By the end of the prayer, all the soldiers were quite emotional.

From then on out, things were different. For one night, there was no war. Only seven men and a family in a cabin, trying to stay warm, eat a hot meal and get some sleep.

By the time morning rolled around, the soldiers were re-issued their weapons, but not a shot was fired. The Germans helped created a makeshift stretcher for Herby, handed a compass to the Americans and gave them directions to get back to their lines.

Knowing they couldn’t stay, Elisabeth and Fritz went back to the German lines with their fellow Germans, eventually reuniting with Fritz’s father.

When asked what kept him alive, Fritz gave full credit to his mother.

“The inner strength of a single woman, who, by her wits and intuition, prevented potential bloodshed, taught me the practical meaning of the words: ‘Good will Toward Mankind,’” he said.

“Now and then, on a clear tropical winter night, I look at the skies for bright Sirius and we always seem to greet each other like old friends. Then, unfailingly, I remember mother and those seven young soldiers, who met as enemies and parted as friends, right in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge.”

After the war, Fritz immigrated to the United States, getting married in 1958 and settling down in Hawaii. Following in his father’s footsteps, he became a baker. During his time in America, he never stopped looking for the men who shared the cabin with him on Christmas Eve.

Fritz eventually took his story to Unsolved Mysteries, a syndicated show that ran from 1987-2008. Thanks to assistance from the show, Fritz was eventually reunited with Ralph Blank, who was a Sergeant at the time of their first encounter. In 1996, the two were reunited at Blank’s retirement home in Maryland, one day after Blank’s 50th wedding anniversary.

“When he told me, ‘Your mother saved my life,’ it was the high point of [my] life,” Vincken said at the time. “Now, I can die in peace. My mother’s courage won’t be forgotten and it shows what goodwill will do.”

To commemorate the event, Blank’s daughter-in-law cooked the duo the same meal Fritz’s mother had made in 1944- chicken and potato soup.

Ralph Blank passed away in 1999. Vincken managed to meet another one of the soldier and move to Oregon before passing away at the age of 69 in 2001.

Christmas does weird things to people. Some fall in love, others simply set aside hostilities to bring about a sliver of goodwill in an otherwise bleak world. Some figure out what being human is really all about.

No matter where you come from or what you believe, one thing is for certain- a little peace and quiet -even if for one night- is always a welcome gift.

https://popularmilitary.com/christmas-miracle-wwii-proves-things-can-still-sacred-war/

Even in War, Good Will toward Men - By J.B. Shurk

 With so much darkness around us today, it is easy to lose hope and faith.  To be sure, those who wish us ill take pleasure from our pain.  However, it is often when we are nearly broken that God lifts us up and provides us peace.  This time of year is filled with those moments.  Call them Christmas miracles or answered prayers, but they are real and worth remembering.

One such story that has always stuck with me is that of Fritz Vincken, who was twelve years old and living with his mother, Elisabeth, in a small hunting cabin in the Ardennes Forest during the worst fighting of the Battle of the Bulge.  His father had hidden them in the secluded mountain hut across the Belgian border after the family's bakery and home were destroyed during allied bombing in Aachen, Germany.  While Fritz's dad baked bread for German soldiers at the front line, Fritz and his mother had little food, except for what they could forage.

On a freezing Christmas Eve night, as they struggled to ignore distant gunfire and prepared a meager meal made from a scrawny rooster and some potatoes, there was a loud knock on the door.  Fritz's heart leapt, believing that it was his father finally returning.  Instead, it was three Americans from the 121st Infantry, 8th Division — all suffering from frostbite and one seriously injured.  "My mother knew the penalty for harboring the enemy," Fritz recalled, "but when she looked into the young Americans' eyes and saw that one was badly hurt, she opened the door and let them in."  They added some potatoes to the stew for their tired, hungry guests and attended to the American's gunshot wound the best they could, and because the soldiers spoke no German and the Vinckens spoke no English, they relied on hand signals and broken French for communication.

Then came more pounding from outside.  When Elisabeth cautiously opened the hut's door, she found four freezing Wehrmacht soldiers looking for shelter.  "I was almost paralyzed with fear," Fritz recounted, "for though I was a child, I knew that harsh law of war: Anyone giving aid and comfort to the enemy would be shot."  Had any other person opened the door on that frigid Christmas Eve night in 1944, the killing fields of the Ardennes would almost certainly have claimed more victims.  Instead, Elisabeth took control of the situation, wishing the young Germans a "Fröhliche Weihnachten" and inviting them in for food and rest upon two conditions: (1) that they leave their weapons outside and (2) respect her Christmas guests.  "She reminded them that it was Christmas Eve and told them sternly there would be no shooting around here."  While Fritz "stood and stared in disbelief," the Wehrmacht soldiers complied.  She then ran back to the Americans; who had grown nervous, spoke gently in a language they could not understand; and grabbed their weapons, too.

At first the tiny cabin was uncomfortably tense.  Then one of the Germans, who had been a medical student, offered to assist the wounded American, noticeably weak from blood loss.  The Americans pulled out some coffee grounds and cigarettes from a tattered pack, and one of the other Germans offered some scraps of bread.  Fritz added what few ingredients they had to the stew, and his "mother read from the Bible and declared that there would be at least one night of peace in this war."

"Komm, Herr Jesus," she prayed, "and be our guest."  "There were tears in her eyes," Fritz remembered, "and as I looked around the table, I saw that the battle-weary soldiers were filled with emotion."  After dinner the seven soldiers, who had been bitter enemies just hours before, fell into a deep sleep, side by side.  When they woke the next morning, they exchanged Christmas greetings and set to work building a makeshift stretcher from tree branches for the wounded American.  The Germans advised the Americans to avoid a town that had been taken over by Nazi forces and gave them a map and compass that would get them back to their friends.  Elisabeth returned their weapons and prayed, "May God bless and watch over you."  Then the soldiers shook hands and went their separate ways.

For Fritz, his mother had been nothing short of a hero.  "The inner strength of a single woman, who, by her wits and intuition, prevented potential bloodshed, taught me the practical meaning of the words: 'Good Will Toward Mankind.'"

Fritz and his parents survived the war, and because the young boy saw those Americans in his shack as "liberators," he eventually immigrated to the United States, became an American citizen, and opened up a German bakery of his own in Honolulu, Hawaii.  After telling his story to his new countrymen for years, he eventually submitted details of the miraculous Christmas Eve during the Battle of the Bulge to Readers Digest, and a much larger audience learned of the rare peace shared for a few hours amid the cold, bloody landscape of the Ardennes.  In retelling Fritz's experience during a trip to Germany in 1985, President Reagan urged others to do the same, "because none of us can ever hear too much about building peace and reconciliation."

Amazingly, after Unsolved Mysteries produced an episode in the mid-'90s seeking more details about the little known tale, Fritz eventually reunited with two of the American soldiers before they all passed away.  They, too, had always told others of their miraculous Christmas Eve in the middle of battle and wondered what had happened to the boy alone with his mother in the woods.  Sergeant Ralph Blank told Fritz, "Your mother saved my life," and with that comfort, the young boy turned old man said, "Now I can die in peace.  My mother's courage won't be forgotten, and it shows what good will will do."

His mother, Elisabeth, often said over the years until her own passing that "God was at our table" during that freezing night in the forest.  And Fritz said that the event so altered his understanding of life that he never stopped thinking of "those seven young soldiers, who met as enemies and parted as friends, right in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge."

Whenever I think of Fritz's story, I am struck by a remarkable truth: it is always the smallest of acts that end up creating ripples large enough to produce meaningful change.  At any point on that Christmas Eve in '44 during some of the worst atrocities of the war, any one of those seven soldiers could have acted belligerently out of exhaustion, pain, or haste.  A mother and her young son speaking unfamiliar words to foreign soldiers could have inadvertently provoked tragedy.  A trio of Wehrmacht soldiers, irate at the sight of their enemies taking refuge far from home, could have chosen the same violence and bloodshed that soaked the earth beyond the cabin's door.  Instead, an unarmed woman brought God into her house and invited those who might have done her harm to share the blessings of Jesus's birth.  Through her resolve and faith, she secured peace.  That heroic act not only convinced combatant soldiers to lay down their weapons, but also inspired her son for the rest of his life.  He then told of his mother's courage to countless others who visited his bakery over the next half-century of his life, who, in turn, retold the story and its lesson to countless more.  Even the president of the United States in the middle of the Cold War seized upon its importance and shared it with millions of strangers in a quest to transform former enemies into friends.

Faith and small acts of courage do change the world.  That is what Christmas reminds us all.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/12/even_in_war_good_will_toward_men.html

Christmas Originally Was a Celebration of the Conversion of Pagan Germans to Christianity - Christians for Truth

[CFT Note: updated and republished from previous version.]

(Catholic.com) Many fundamentalist Christians refuse to celebrate Christmas because they believe it is merely a “pagan” celebration of the winter solstice dressed up with Christian trappings, but the actual origins of Christmas were based on the conversion of Germanic pagans to Christianity — not necessarily a celebration of the literal day of Christ’s birth on the winter solstice:

The story of the Christmas tree begins in England — where the very young Winfrid decided to enter a Benedictine monastery over the objections of his parents. Winfrid grew in holiness and piety but yearned to leave the monastery and bring the light of Christ to the pagan Germans just as the monks had brought the Faith to England a century earlier.

Winfrid heard reports that Pope Gregory II (r. 715-731) had sent missionaries to Bavaria in 716 and decided to travel to Rome to become a missionary to the Germans. Pope Gregory was delighted at the arrival of the eager Winfrid and after a period of time commissioned him to preach the Gospel in the regions of Thuringia, Bavaria, Franconia, and Hesse. In recognition of his special missionary commission the pope also changed Winfrid’s name to Boniface.

The newly named monk traveled to Hesse (central Germany) in 721 and “with his tireless activity, his gift for organization, and his adaptable, friendly, yet firm character” achieved great success, including the conversion of the twin chieftains Dettic and Deorulf.[2] Boniface also established Benedictine monasteries throughout his area of evangelization, including the great monastery of Fulda in 744.[3]

News of his great achievements reached Rome, where he was recalled by Pope Gregory to provide a status report. Impressed and pleased with Boniface’s efforts, Gregory consecrated him archbishop for all Germany east of the Rhine (without a specific episcopal seat) and placed his territory under the pope’s jurisdiction. Imbued with this new authority and pontifical mandate, Boniface returned to Germany in 723.

Boniface spent the rest of his life evangelizing the areas of modern Germany and parts of the Netherlands. He also became a friend of the Frankish court and helped reform and reorganized the Church in that area. From his missionary travels, Boniface knew that in winter the inhabitants of the village of Geismar gathered around a huge old oak tree (known as the “Thunder Oak”) dedicated to the god Thor. This annual event of worship centered on sacrificing a human, usually a small child, to the pagan god.

Boniface desired to convert the village by destroying the Thunder Oak, which the pagans had previously boasted the God of Boniface could not destroy, so he gathered a few companions and journeyed to Geismar.

His fellow missionaries were scared and fearful that the Germans might kill them, so they balked when they reached the outskirts of the village on Christmas Eve. Boniface steadied the nerves of his friends and as they approached the pagan gathering he said, “Here is the Thunder Oak; and here the cross of Christ shall break the hammer of the false god Thor.”[4]

Boniface and his friends arrived at the time of the sacrifice, which was interrupted by their presence. In a show of great trust in God and born from a desire to enkindle the fire of Christ in the German pagans, Boniface grabbed an axe and chopped down the Thunder Oak of mighty Thor.

The Germans were astounded. The holy bishop preached the Gospel to the people and used a little fir tree that was behind the now felled oak tree as a tool of evangelization. Pointing to it he said,

“This little tree, a young child of the forest, shall be your holy tree tonight. It is the wood of peace… It is the sign of an endless life, for its leaves are ever green. See how it points upward to heaven. Let this be called the tree of the Christ-child; gather about it, not in the wild wood, but in your own homes; there it will shelter no deeds of blood, but loving gifts and rites of kindness.”[5]

Awed by the destruction of the oak tree and Boniface’s preaching, the Germans were baptized.

Boniface continued his missionary efforts into old age when in 754, he left for a trip to Frisia with fifty monks. Their work was successful and many pagans agreed to receive baptism. When the appointed time came to celebrate the sacrament, a large armed crowd of pagans approached the missionaries.

Knowing his time to die was at hand, Boniface discouraged his followers from fighting and said, “Cease my sons, from fighting, give up warfare for the witness of Scripture recommends that we do not give an eye for an eye but rather good for evil. Here is the long awaited day; the time of our end has now come; courage in the Lord!”[6] The ferocious pagan attack left Boniface and his fellow companions dead and celebrated as martyrs for the Faith.

Whatever one may think of the Catholic religion — or at least what it has become — the fact of the matter is that it was the only version of Christianity in Europe for almost 1,500 years until the Reformation — and virtually all the original Christians were at one time pagans who converted to Christianity with the Catholic Church as the vehicle.

And notice that it was the pagans who were violent toward the Christians, not the other way around — nor were the vast majority of pagans converted by force —  which has become a standard, unshakable belief among neo-pagans today.

Of course, the Catholic Church became compromised and subverted from within, but that doesn’t negate the fact that it was an essential part of the creation of — and protection of —  Christian Europe — otherwise known as Christendom.

And the conversion of the Germanic people to Christianity was an immensely important event in European history — and it is truly an event worth celebrating, as all Europeans owe much to the German contributions to civilization as we know it — including its self-sacrificing, life-and death defense against anti-Christ Judeo-Bolshevism.

Regardless of whether Christmas has some pagan remnants in its pageantry, it is still an essential part of our shared Christian heritage — and its also a reminder how dark and backward Europe was prior to its conversion to Christ as its only King — as attested to by their engaging in child sacrifice — an occult ritual handed down among pagans and Jews from ancient times in the Near East.

Christmas was originally a negation of paganism — just as Christianity was originally a negation of occult Judaism —  regardless of what it has become today.

https://christiansfortruth.com/christmas-originally-was-a-celebration-of-the-conversion-of-pagan-germans-to-christianity/