#we were reading a book about what if there was a war in germany (where i live)

[wikagirl]

okay fellas, I'm sorry but I feel the need to get onto my little soapbox here for a bit.

Rant below the cut.

Warnings: discussion the genocide of american natives, WW2 discussions, mentiones of death (repeatedly), mentions of eugenics, gas chambers, hanging, starvation, jim crow laws and general rage at people who downplay horrible events that happened in history because they are "not as bad" as WW2

For context: I'm following a bunch of native american creators on insta because somebody unintentionally sent me down a rabbit hole and one of them made a post mourning the lives lost to the strategic erasure of their culture since the Europeans first stepped foot on the american continent. They described it as the native holocaust.

Some guy seemed genuinely confused about the use of the word holocaust so I thought I'd be nice and clear up some confusion about it and left it at that HOWEVER when I brought it up later with friends in discord because I thought it was kinda silly how mad the dude got over it in later comments I came to realize that a lot of people don't actually know what the word means and, especially white americans, seem to get really pissed off when the word is "misused" and now here we are.

So, just to be clear: It does NOT mean death by fire in german. I have no idea where everyone gets that from because it's not even a German word. Death by fire is Feuertod in german and, considering that a lot more people in ww2 died through gas chambers, hanging, starvation, sickness and gunfire using a word meaning "death by fire" would be completely and utterly wrong.

It's true that the greek word it stems from, holókauston, is put together out of holos (whole) and kaustós (burnt) but even then it still does not mean death by fire, it means a sacrifice that was wholly burnt which is why we use the term for events such as the ones of WW2 in a metaphorical sense. It was a great (as in big) intentionally made "sacrifice" that (almost) wholly "burnt" away a whole group of people and I'm putting sacrifice in "-" so nobody gets the wrong idea here. It wasn't a sacrifice, a sacrifice is something you make in honor of something like a god or a cause, it was government funded massmurder.

For reference, here is the wikipedia on the term.

What holocaust the modern word DOES mean is destruction or slaughter of human life on a mass scale through various means which include fire depending on what dictionary you look at.

For reference, here is what is says in the Duden in German and for the English folks the definition from the Cambridge dictionary just to make 100% sure everyone is on the same page here.

The reason for why we call the events of WW2 THE holocaust is because, thus far, it was the most extreme case in human history in meticulously planned execution and a (considering the death toll) extremely short time span. For that it is THE holocaust as in the biggest most extreme but that does not mean that there can't be other instances of one happening and that events that had been labeled as one previously before ww2 suddenly aren't one anymore and as much as we all like to believe that humanity has learned its lesson deep down we all know that is not the case and it's only a matter of time before something worse happens.

"Oh but Wiika, events change the meanings of words” Yes, but I honestly believe that this one word, the one word we have to describe man made horror beyond the comprehension of the average mind, should not be gatekept and exclusive to one event.

Claiming what is happening to native american folks is not a holocaust and "just a massacre that happened x amount of years ago" to me is denial of history and denial of the more than 13 million lives lost on the side of the natives alone as estimated by this paper on page 7 that I have seen cited as a source repeatedly while looking up the topic on the webpages of several reservations and articles on the topic so I'll trust that they check their sources more thoroughly than I do.

For reference, if we sum up the numbers given in the chart under "Number of deaths" from the United Stated Holocaust Memorial Museum (and yes I picked an english source just for you, also to be clear we are only looking at the victims that were civilians/not soldiers and people that were imprisoned/qualified to be send to a KZ which is literally everyone else on that list) and pick the higher number for the Roma we get a number that looks a little something like 18.933.900 and taking into account the two shadows numbers we can pump that up to 19 million and still probably miss a few thousand.

Again, side by side. WW2 19 million in total. The natives of america 13 million. That is a difference of 6 million and at this point I would like to remind you that the killing and erasure of natives is still ongoing meaning that the number keeps going up and we also have a huge shadow number that is probably also in the thousands of kids that had been taken to be "cultured" and never were heard of again and kidnappings and killings that are being skillfully ignored by law enforcement and also just murders that happened in the past that we probably never heard of and also probably never will.

I know that the number of 19 million came to be within six years and the 13 million over the span from 1492 until this paper was first published in 2018 and I know that the timespan and how quickly things happened in WW2 are part of what makes it so disturbing to many people but it should not overshadow the fact that these are human lives lost to a system designed to erase them in both cases.

We should not be standing here and saying one of these things is less bad than the other because it took longer to achieve such a high number of deaths or because the total of deaths is lower. Millions are still millions. Most people can't even imagine what a few thousand people would look like in one open space. Now try and fathom literally millions of people as an image in your head, all dead.

Also, as a little side tangent: I know americans have a bit of a hard on for WW2 media and such because it makes them feel like the hero because they came and swooped in and killed the evil nazis BUT what a lot of folk like to ignore in the favour of the illusion of being a hero is that a lot of hitlers ideas and systems were inspired by what was going on in northern america. The KZs were inspired by the US Indian reservation system. The whole "blood purity" law that forced people to proof that they are "only to a certain percent jewish" or else they be sent to work and extermination camps was inspired by Margaret Higgins Sanger and her eugenics theories and don't even get me started on the Jim Crow laws that directly inspired a lot of anti-jewish laws that were going on back then.

To sum up my whole point with this long ass rant:

Please for fucks sake stop telling people that a massacre, especially against their own people, does not count as a holocaust because there has been "a bigger one".

Don't take away the one word we have to accurately describe the man made horrors and crimes committed against human life because you think a different event in time is more deserving of it. To do so is to deny what happened in its true extent and that is nothing but disrespectful to the lives that have been lost.

You can't just say that one of the two is less horrible than the other, both have aspects that are terrifying to them, some more and some less, but the second you say "I think that x event is less bad than y event" that implies that one of the two is more....excusable?

The two events mentioned above are clearly not the same, they never will be and they never should be treated as such and they never ever EVER should be treated as if they are in competition about which one of them is worse or is deserving of a title.

I merely brought them both up to put into perspective what some people are willing to excuse and even completely disregard because they feel like something else is more deserving of the label of "destruction or slaughter of human life on a mass scale" and thus completely disregard literally 531 and still counting years worth of bloodshed and abuse as nothing more than a minor hiccup in the history of the glorious land of the free the way that they always do with anything that throws a shadow on that not USA exclusive american dream considering that Canada is literally just maple syrup flavoured USA when it comes to this topic specifically.

Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.

#tw ww2 #tw death #tw violence #tw murder #tw eugenics #tw holocaust #mention of death #mention of eugenics #if we counted ALL the victims of ww2 including soldiers. rebels and people who died after the end of the war to things caused by the war #such as disability. infected wounds and the countless healthissues the freed KZ inmates had as a result of their time in the camps #we would have more than 70 million dead bodies summed up from all sides of the war #also please for fucks sake stop telling me as a german how I'm supposed to feel about ww2 or that I'm uneducated about it #ww2 is literally the only topic we do in history class from year 7 and onward #so sometimes up to 6 years of only ww2 and we are thorough with it too and considering how a lot of americans talk about the horrors #that happened in that time period I honestly think that they are the ones who don't know what they are talking about #a lot of folks outside of germany never even heard about the blood purity laws or the arian breeding programms #literally all of the shit I listed in here are things that were drilled into my brain in history class #I only looked things up to fact check so I don't misremember. This is basic history knowledge that is expected of german kids. #I've been told that i was a liar before because of what I mentioned earlier about where hitler got his inspo from #and to those people I say fuck you because since then I have actually bought and read his book and it's literally all in there #yes that book #and yes it's back on store shelves with editors notes and context markers and all that good stuff #and I honestly think it should be read in schools or at least snippets of it should be what all this insanity is built upon #actually our history teacher in 9th grade made us read bits of it even when it wasn't part of the curriculum #that woman trained us to sniff out nazi propaganda methods like blood hounds #and it's disturbing to see how much of these methods are currently being used in US government campaigns #shout out to mrs curtis for being the best history and english teacher I've ever had #can't wait to once again have the good old “white saviour syndrome” be tossed at me #but honestly I'm just so fed up with people downplaying events because ww2 was worse #they do it with the russia-ukranie situation rn and even bfore that they did it with gulags which are often used a joke

[inklingm8]

@elenajones23 first of all, who are you, a non Jew to lecture me about what my religion does or doesn’t allow? Who are you to tell me, as someone who doesn't practice the same religion, that I can or cannot do things?

The Torah isn’t a simple set of guidelines and commands, it’s far more complex than that. It has different interpritations, so saying the torah doesn't allow it is blatantly false. The name "Zion" (Promised land) is mentioned 154 times.

“It isn’t your land and it never was your land” bullshit.

We absolutely do have a land, if we don't, then why do we have holy sights in Jerusalem? Why are names like "Jaffa" and "Haifa" Hebrew?

The land of Israel is where my ancestors came from, it is where they lived, it is where they had a connection to, and it is where they suffered under the romans and were exiled.

We were never welcomed in Europe, we were never welcomed in the rest of the middle east.

These are ancient scrolls called the "Dead sea scrolls" which are a set of ancient Jewish writings dating from the 3rd century BCE.

This is all of what remains of our ancient temple, this is what it once was:

The first temple is Solomon's temple, the second one is Herod's temple, which was destroyed in 70CE by the romans. centuries later, the Muslim caliphates built the Al Aqsa mosque which was built on top of our temple mount. Today, the west wall is all we have left of this historic holy place.

The name "Palestine" was given to the land of Israel by roman colonisers who exiled most of us from the land of Israel, took many of us slaves, and scattered everyone else through western Europe (Some moved further east).

Now about the Nazis = Zionist argument. The Nazis originally made a deal with German Zionist Jews (The Haavara agreement) to bring about a mass migration from Germany to Israel, it should be mentioned that this was because Hitler and the Nazis wanted a Jew-Free Europe, not because the Nazis supported Zionism.

This deal was criticized by both Nazis and Zionists. Zionist criticised it because it made a deal with the devil, and the Nazis criticised it because it went against their philosophy.

The Nazis were extremely antizionist, the belief that they were Zionists is soviet cold war propaganda to demonise the state of Israel and the broader Jewish community. They believed that Jews were biologically incapable of running their own state and were too inferior. Hitler had a "Palestinian" friend (Amin al-Husseini) who campaigned in Berlin, fought for a Palestinian state, and even CONTRIBUTED TO THE HOLOCAUST. They also lead a boycott of Jewish businesses in "Palestine".

So, you're wrong. So very very wrong. You can try to lecture me about the history of my own people and religion all you want, but you're wrong.

Please, kindly fuck off and read a history book. Please attend a Synagogue service and learn more about our religion before you come spewing false bullshit about it.

#goyim shut up challenge #jumblr #israel #i stand with israel #goyim #palestinian hypocrisy #antisemitism

[thatlittleegyptologist]

what other weird/niche ways of committing treason in the uk do you know of?

Depends on whether it's petty treason (common law) or high treason (against the reigning monarch). But you can't really get 'niche' ways of committing treason because the law is pretty clear on it. I mostly know ways in which it's now defunct to do so, i.e. they've been overwritten with newer laws so they're not really applicable anymore, but they're still technically a law. This has been argued in both 2008, when the Law Commission deemed treason an 'Ancient Crime' and thus not really applicable anymore to modern society, and then again in 2019 when it was put forth that the archaic law should be reformed. Nothing on that front has happened yet, what with the Pandemic and subsequent implosion of the Tory Party, but it's being worked on.

The Treason Act of 1351 had the act of a wife killing her husband (but not the other way around) or a servant killing their master, listed as 'petty treason.' Basically, anything that would be considered 'an act against those to whom they swore faith and obedience' would fall under this. Thankfully, it's no longer considered treason. It is still considered murder. So...y'know...don't try this at home.

The Treason Act gets updated every so often: 1531-1534 (Henry VIII fuckery), 1702, 1790, 1795 (clearly big on treason in the 1700s), 1814, 1842 (this one adds the crime of 'weapon in the monarch's presence'), 1848, 1998. Technically the 1351 set of laws are still on the books as they were updated in 2013 with the Succession of the Crown Act (to allow women to directly inherit regardless of birth order). This is why I said we update things rather than remove them because oh boy undoing everything from 1351? No thanks.

High Treason was death by being hanged, drawn, and quartered but only until 1814 when it was removed. It didn't mean, however, that there wasn't a death penalty for it, which there was until 1998 when it was changed to life imprisonment. The last High Treason trial in the UK was in 1945 when William Joyce (or 'Lord Haw-Haw') an American born Nazi and BUF member was arrested in Germany after effectively 'defecting' to the Nazi's and thus it became a crime against sovereign and country. He was hanged in 1946.

Oh and a funny thing: they created the Treachery Act 1940, because they realised they couldn't prosecute Nazi's under the Treason Act 1695 (there's a weird reason they had to use this one and not the 1848 one and it's to do with technicalities) due to the Act of Treason having it's own special rules and thus generally inapplicable despite being An Act against Country and Sovereign. This was an emergency act that only lasted the length of the war, became inactive and was repealed in 1968 (or 1973 in Scotland and N.I.) where it reverted back to the 1351 Treason Law. This is why 'Lord Haw-Haw' was tried with the 1351 Law and not the 1940 Act.

You can read the 1351 Treason Act online here in its original Old French or Middle English (there is a modern English too, I just like seeing old ass language). This is, of course, very short because it's from 1351, but subsequent updates (which you can find if you futz about on the site) are longer.

#I'm well aware my country is built upon centuries of fuckery and it's very compelling

[ohsalome]

Ivan and Phoebe by Oksana Lutsyshyna

Ivan and Phoebe is a novel about a revolution of consciousness triggered by very different events, both global and personal. This is a book about the choices we make, even if we decide to just go with the flow of life. It is about cruelty, guilt, love, passion – about many things, and most importantly, about Ukraine of the recent past, despite or because of which it has become what it is today.

The story told in Oksana Lutsyshyna’s novel Ivan and Phoebe is set during a critical period – the 1990s. In the three decades that have passed since gaining independence, Ukraine has experienced many socio-political, economic, and cultural changes that have yet to be fully expressed. The Revolution of Dignity in 2014 marked a pivotal moment in the country’s history, as it signaled a shift towards European integration and a strong desire to distance itself from Moscow. Prior to this, Ukrainian culture had remained overshadowed by Russian influence, struggled to compete for an audience and was consequently constrained in exploring vital issues.

77 days of February. Living and dying in Ukraine

"77 Days," is a compelling anthology by contributors to Reporters, a Ukrainian platform for longform journalism. The book, published in English as both an e-book and an audiobook by Scribe Originals.

"77 Days'' offers a tapestry of styles and experiences from over a dozen contributors, making it a complex work to define. It includes narratives about those who stayed put as the Russians advanced, and the horror they encountered, like Zoya Kramchenko’s defiant "Kherson is Ukraine," Vira Kuryko’s somber "Ten Days in Chernihiv," and Inna Adruh’s wry "I Can’t Leave – I’ve Got Twenty Cats." The collection also explores the ordeal of fleeing, as in Kateryna Babkina’s stark "Surviving Teleportation '' and "There Were Four People There. Only the Mother Survived." 

It also highlights tales of Ukrainians who created safe havens amidst the turmoil, such as Olga Omelyanchuk’s "Hippo and the Team," about zookeepers safeguarding animals in an occupied private zoo near Kyiv, and one of Paplauskaite’s three pieces, "Les Kurbas Theater Military Hostel," depicting an historic Lviv theater turned shelter for the displaced, including the writer/editor herself.

In the Eye of the Storm. Modernism in Ukraine 1900’s – 1930’s

This book was inspired by the exhibition of the same name that took place in Madrid, at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, and is currently at the Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany. 

Rather than being a traditional catalogue, the publishers and authors took a more ambitious approach. Rather than merely publishing several texts and works from the exhibition, they choose to showcase the history of the Ukrainian avant-garde in its entirety – from the first avant-garde exhibition in Kyiv to the eventual destruction of works and their relegation to the "special funds" of museums, where they were hidden from public view.

These texts explain Ukrainian context to those who may have just learned about the distinction between Ukrainian and Russian art. Those "similarities" are also a product of colonization. It was achieved not only through the physical elimination of artists or Russification – artists were also often forced to emigrate abroad for political or personal reasons. Under the totalitarian regime, discussing or remembering these artists was forbidden. Archives and cultural property were also destroyed or taken to Russia.

"The Yellow Butterfly" by Oleksandr Shatokhin 

"The Yellow Butterfly" is poised to become another prominent Ukrainian book on the themes of war and hope. It has been listed among the top 100 best picture books of 2023, according to the international art platform dPICTUS.

The book was crafted amidst the ongoing invasion. Oleksandr and his family witnessed columns of occupiers, destroyed buildings, and charred civilian cars. Shatokhin describes the book’s creation as a form of therapy, a way to cope with the horrors. "During this time my vision became clearer about what I wanted to create – a silent book about hope, victory, the transition from darkness to light, something symbolic," he explains.

Although "The Yellow Butterfly" is a wordless book, today its message resonates with readers across the globe.

A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails by Halyna Kruk

A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails is a bilingual poetry book (Ukrainian and English) about war, written between 2013 and 2022, based on Halyna’s experience as an author, volunteer, wife of a military man and witness to conflict. 

The Ukrainian-speaking audience is well-acquainted with Halyna Kruk – a poet, prose author and literature historian. Kruk is increasingly active on the international stage, with her poetry featured in numerous anthologies across various languages, including Italian, French, Swedish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, English, German, Lithuanian, Georgian and Vietnamese. 

For an English-speaking audience, her poetry unveils a realm of intense and delicate experiences, both in the midst of disaster and in the anticipation of it. The poems are succinct, direct, and highly specific, often depicting real-life events and individuals engaged in combat, mourning, and upholding their right to freedom.

#ukraine #ukrainian stuff #ukrainian literature #books #book recommendation #ukrainian culture

[mads-nixon]

100th Bomber Boys: Major Robert 'Rosie' Rosenthal: Pt. 1

Ahead of the show's release, I bought Donald Miller's book and am reading it! Here is a little bit about Major Robert 'Rosie' Rosenthal (played by Nate Mann) from the prologue of Masters of the Air (pg. 13-14)!

Lt. Robert "Rosie" Rosenthal had not trained with the Hundredth's original crews. He and his crew had been assigned to the group that August from a replacement pool in England, to fill in for men lost on the Regens-burg raid. "When I arrived, the group was not well organized," Rosenthal recalled. "They were a rowdy outfit, filled with characters. Chick Harding was a wonderful guy, but he didn't enforce tight discipline on the ground orin the air." Rosenthal didn't fly a mission for thirty days. "No one came around to check me out and approve me for combat duty. Finally, my squadron commander, John Egan, had me fly a practice formation. I flew to the right of his plane. I had done a lot of formation flying in training and I was frustrated; I desperately wanted to get into the war. I put the wing of my plane right up against Egan's, and wherever he went, I went. When we landed, Egan told me he wanted me to be his wing man." Rosenthal had gone to Brooklyn College, not far from his Flatbush home. An outstanding athlete, he had been captain of the football and baseball teams, and later was inducted into the college's athletic hall of fame. After graduating summa cum laude from Brooklyn Law School, he went to work for a leading Manhattan law firm. He was just getting started in his new job when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The next morning he joined the Army Air Corps. He was twenty-six years old, with broad shoulders, sharply cut features, and dark curly hair. A big-city boy who loved hot jazz, he walked, incongruously, with the shambling gait of a farmer, his toes turned inward and there wasn't an ounce of New York cynicism in him. He was shy and easily embarrassed, but he burned with determination. "I had read Mein Kampf in college and had seen the newsreels of the big Nazi rallies in Nuremberg, with Hitler riding in an open car and the crowds cheering wildly. It was the faces in the crowd that struck me, the looks of adoration. It wasn't just Hitler. The entire nation had gone mad; it had to be stopped. "I'm a Jew, but it wasn't just that. Hitler was a menace to decent people everywhere. I was also tremendously proud of the English. They stood alone against the Nazis during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. I read the papers avidly for war news and listened to Edward R. Murrow's live radio broadcasts of the bombing of London. I couldn't wait to get over there. "When I finally arrived, I thought I was at the center of the world, the place where the democracies were gathering to defeat the Nazis. I was right where I wanted to be." Rosie Rosenthal didn't share these thoughts with his crewmates, simple guys who distrusted what they called deep thinking. They never learned what was inside him, what made him fly and fight with blazing resolve. Later in the war, when he became one of the most decorated and famous fliers in the Eighth, word spread around Thorpe Abbotts that his family was in a German concentration camp. But when someone asked him directly, he said "that was a lot of hooey." His family-mother, sister, brother-in-law, and niece (his father had recently died) were all back in Brooklyn. "I have no personal reasons. Everything I've done or hope to do is strictly because I hate persecution... A human being has to look out for other human beings or else there's no civilization."

Rosie was part of the 'Bloody 100th' Bombardment Group of the 13th Combat Wing, of the 'Mighty Eighth' Air Force with John 'Bucky' Egan and Gale 'Buck' Cleven (played by Callum Turner and Austin Butler) His plane was called Rosie's Riveters, and him and his crew were an integral part of the bombardment group.

On October 8th, 1943, the 100th went on a bombing run to Bremen, Germany, and Buck Cleven was shot down. Two days later, Egan and the rest of the 100th went on a supposedly "easy" mission to Münster, accompanied by P-47 Thunderbolts almost all the way to the target. Rosenthal and his crew were not flying their beloved Rosie's Riveters due to damage from their two previous missions in Bremen and Marienburg. Instead, they flew Royal Flush.

Rosie's crew was worried about flying a brand new plane, and became incredibly nervous. Bringing them together under one of the wings, he calmed the boys down and lifted their spirits. This mission proved disastrous, and Royal Flush was the only one in the 100th to make it back to Thorpe Abbotts (the 100th's air-base in East Anglia).

Needless to say, I love Rosie already!! I've read up to chapter 6, and I feel like my brain is going to explode with all the information I've taken in :3

lmk if y'all want more posts like this one or would like to be tagged in them!!

#thank you for coming to my TED Talk #this is for everyone who doesn't have access to the book but wants more info on the guys!!! #can you tell i'm a history major?? #masters of the air book excerpts #hbo war #bloody hundredth #100 bombardment group #major john egan #donald miller #major robert rosie rosenthal #masters of the air #major gale cleven

[cinemastyles-blog]

Talk About Awkward

Summary: anon request from Wattpad - “hi! can u do one where they are bf and gf during highscool (so fbh), and they've been teasing each other throughout the day (like sexting), and as soon as school finishes, they go to her house where they start to like yk fool around (maybe she gives him🧠), and her parents (mom/ dad, doesn't matter) walk in on them doing that, and then they give them the sex talk yk like how what they were doing works and stuff.”

Warnings: SMUT18+, strong language, slight praise kink, sexting, oral (m), sex talk, mildly filthy

FRAT BOY HARRY

You bit your lip as you read over Harry's text.

Harry: Can't wait to lift that dress of yours up after school.

You're in the middle of history learning about a certain war, but you're far too focused on other things to really care about some war that happened way before you were even born.

You glanced up, making sure the teacher was still facing the board,

You: I've been thinking about doing some things to you as well, baby.

You rest your phone in your lap, trying to take notes, but the thought of Harry doing things to you makes your brain feel dizzy.

You feel the vibration and bite your lip,

Harry: I want to be in between those legs so fucking bad and that dress you're wearing only makes me ache for you more

You loved being worshiped by Harry. It's one of your favorite things about him. He truly only has eyes for you.

"Miss y/l/n. Why don't you tell the class the answer."

Your head shoots up and you gulp, "Um, sorry. What was that?"

The class laughs and you feel your face turning red. He sighs and repeats the question, "Which two countries were the first to declare war on Germany?"

You sit up and lean forward, "Britain and France."

He raises his eyebrows, slightly surprised that you knew the answer, "very good." He turns around and the bell rings, causing you to jump slightly.

"Alright so your homework tonight is.."

You tune out your teacher as you go back to finishing your message to your boyfriend,

You: You have no idea how bad I want you in my throat, choking me.

You lock your phone and drop it into your bag before standing up. You go to walk out of the room and your teacher calls your name, "Y/N. A word please."

You sigh and slowly walk over to his desk, knowing you're going to get warned about texting during class.

"I hope whoever you were texting was worth missing out on learning what's going to be on Thursdays test." He leans back in his chair and you freeze.

You need to pass this test or you won't graduate, according to the guidance counselor, "I'm sorry, Mr. Keys. I promise I'll pass that test with flying colors."

He nods, "I believe it when I see it." He motions for you to leave the room and you can't help but laugh it off quietly as you leave.

——

You smile as you see Harry sitting at the table, "Hey." You lean down and kiss him before sitting next to him, "So I got yelled at for texting in class."

He raises his eyebrows, "Y/n. I told you not to get in trouble."

You lean in, taking one of his fries off his tray, "Worth it if you ask me."

He sighs, "Baby you need to pa-"

You lean in, whispering, "Maybe I need a good punishing."

He shifts around in his seat, "Baby.." he tilts his head as he fixes his beanie, "Don't say stuff like that." You smile and roll your eyes playfully, "Is that better than me sending you a picture of my boobs in the bathroom?"

He tilts his head side to side and sighs, "You got me there."

You laugh and glance at your history book, "I do need to study for Thursdays test." You look back at Harry and he has a smirk on his face, "I'll come over to help you study."

"Help me study.. alright." You smile and shake your head, "Don't think we'll be studying but you know, whatever works."

He wraps and arm around your waist as he slides his tray away, "Open it. We can get the studying out of the way now."

——

Last class of the day and you can tell that Harry is desperate for you at this point.

Harry: I can't even blink without seeing you on my dick. School needs to just end already

Thankfully, your last class of the day was a study hall and Mrs. Baker didn't really give a fuck what you did as long as you were quiet.

You: Soon baby then your thoughts will come true

Harry: Yours too. I'm shoving my dick down that beautiful little throat of yours

His words make you press your thighs together and you walk up to Mrs. Baker, "I'm running to the restroom real quick."

She glances up and motions for you to go without saying a word. You quickly make your way to the bathroom.

You go into the stall, locking it behind you before unbuttoning the top part of your dress and taking a picture to send to Harry.

You wait a few moments before seeing his chat bubbles pop up,

Harry: Such a dirty girl, sending me pictures like this while we're in school. Maybe I will have to punish you.

His words excite you,

You: you can do whatever you want, just wait until after I choke on your dick for a little bit

You button up your dress and walk out, fixing yourself before making your way back to class.

Harry absolutely loves when you talk about sucking him off, and you love doing it.

——

You can't help but smile as you make your way to Harry who is standing right by your locker.

"There she is." He holds his arm out and leans down to kiss you, "my dirty girl."

His words make you blush as you unlock the lock to put your books in, "Here I am." You look over at him and smile as you notice he's just staring at you.

"What?" You ask as you get ready to close your locker, but Harry holds it open and nods towards your books, "Aren't you forgetting something?"

You sigh as you grab your History book and give it to him, "I'm sick of seeing this thing." He shuts your locker and slings his arm around your shoulder as you walk towards the parking lot, "I know. I know."

——

When you pull up to your house, no one is home so you look at Harry with a huge smirk, "You know what that means."

He chuckles as he shuts his car off and gets out to come open your door. You step out and he reaches in the back to grab your guy's school items.

"Yeah, we get a quiet house to study in." He winks as he shuts the door and you laugh, "Yeah, okay."

You walk in the door, yelling out a slightly loud, "Mom? Frankie?" You look around, waiting for someone to answer but no one does so you and Harry make your way up stairs to your room.

You shut the door and make your way over to him, straddling him, "I'll take that punishment now."

He smirks up at you as his hands slip under your dress, "Will ya now?" He hums as you lean down to kiss his neck. You leave little nips and bites as you kiss down to his collar bone.

He gasps slightly as you suck a small mark onto it, "Baby." He moans lowly and slides a hand to your hair, pulling as he tilts your head back.

Your lips part as he looks at you, "I want that mouth on my dick."

You smile and nod, "Okay." You move down onto the floor in front of him, undoing his belt and jeans as he watches your every move intently.

You rub your hand over the bulge in his boxers before he lifts hip to shrug them down to his thighs. You rise up slightly as you take his dick in your hand, pumping it in a slow fashion.

"C'mon now, baby." He rests a hand on the back of your head and pushes down slightly, "Please?" He pushes his bottom lip forward in an attempt to fake pout but you just laugh, "Alright. Alright."

You build up as much spit as you can within a few seconds and lower your head. You take the tip of his dick into your mouth and suck as you move your tongue over it.

"Oh fuck, baby." Harry moans out as he tilts his head back, sighing at finally getting what he's thought about all day long.

What you teased him about all day long.

"Yeah, baby. That's it." He groans as you work your way down his dick, "C'mon baby. Take it all."

He pushes your head down as you dig your nails into his thighs. You gag on him slightly as he slips into your throat, "F-fuck." He gasps and holds your head there for a few more seconds.

"Shit." He breathes as you lean back. You smile while breathing heavy and go back in for more.

Harry laughs breathless as you take him back into your throat, with more ease than before, "Just like that. Shit."

He looks down, lips parted as he watches your head bob up and down, "So good at taking my dick deep in your throat, fuck."

He strokes your hair as you're busy working on trying to get him off before your parents get home, but it's too late for that.

"S-shit. Baby, I-" The door to your bedroom opening cuts Harry off, "Hey sweetie.." Your moms voice causes your to scramble to your feet, "I saw ha- oh, shit. Oh my god."

She slams the door and you look at Harry who has his lap covered with a pillow, "Fuck." You lay a hand on your forehead and Harry starts to laugh after a few moments of absolute silence.

"This isn't.. it's not.. Harry." You whine as you sit next to him, "My mom just walked in on me giving you a blow job."

After you said it, you had to laugh, "Oh.. my god.. my mom just walked in.. on me.. giving you a blow job.." you cover your face and Harry stands up and quickly pulls his jeans back up.

"I'm sure it happens to everyone." He sits back down next to you and rubs your back, "But I'm going to just climb out the window and I'll see you tomorrow."

He stands up, but your mom is calling both of your names.

"Fuck." You both say in unison.

"What do we do?" Harry asks in a panicky tone. You shrug, "I don't fucking know. I didn't think she-"

"Y/n. Harry." Your mom calls again and you sigh, "Maybe she'll just tell us to lock the door." You shrug, trying to stay as positive as you could.

But you were shitting your pants, let's be honest.

"Okay. Let's just go see what she wants and then.." you trail off and look at the window, "Actually, your plan is better let's g-"

Harry grabs your waist and pulls you to him, "It'll be fine. Let's not jump to any conclusions." He laughs at his own pun and you push his shoulder as you try not to laugh.

"Come on. It'll be fine." He kisses your head and you slowly make your way down the steps, Harry following close behind.

"Mom?" You call out and she steps out from the kitchen, "Sit on the couch. I'll be out in a minute."

You and Harry make your way over to the couch and sit on opposite ends, just to please your mom. You look over at Harry and fight back laughter.

"Okay." Your mom comes out, shutting you both up instantly and you watch as she walks around to sit on the table in front of you both.

"So.." she pauses and stares at the ground for a few seconds before looking at you, "I was your age when I started.. doing those things.. so I can't really yell at you, but what I can do is give you the talk."

You groan, "Mom."

She sighs, "Look I know you probably already know about all that stuff, but this is for my own reasoning. Condoms. Please. Use. Condoms."

"Mom.. we haven't done that."

She sighs and lays a hand on her chest, "Oh thank god." She looks up at Harry, "I love you, Harry. But I don't love you enough to see you stuff so just.."

Harry holds his hand up, "Got it."

You look over at Harry and back to your mom, "Mom. We're being safe. I promise. And when the time comes, we'll still be safe."

She takes a deep breath and exhales, "For the love of god just please, please please please.."

"Use condoms." You and Harry say at the same time and she nods, "Thank you. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go have some wine and try to forget what I saw."

She gets up and walks back into the kitchen. You look at Harry and lean in, "She probably has that bottle gone by now."

He laughs and shakes his head, "I would too if I was her and just walked in on that."

You and Harry get up and start making your way up ye steps when your mom yells from the kitchen, "Door open, please!"

You bite your lip and look over at the door then Harry. He purses his lips together and shakes his head, "Too risky." He says quietly and you smirk, "Sounds like a challenge to me."

——

Im sorry for not getting these requests out right away, but I'm going to get them out asap.

Thank you for the request.

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles smut oneshots #harry styles smut #smut #harry styles dirty one shot #harry styles dirty fanfiction #harry styles smutty fanfic #dirty oneshots #cinemastyles-blog #frat boy harry one shot #frat boy harry styles smut #frat boy harry smut #frat boy harry styles #frat boy harry x y/n #frat boy harry x reader #frat boy harry oneshot #dirty frat boy harry #frat boy harry #dirty smut #oneshot smut #smutty fanfics #smut one shot #frat boy smut #harry styles dirty #harry styles one shot #harry styles fanfic #harry styles oneshot #harry styles one shots #smut reading

[todaviia]

also yesterday me and bf went to the sarona flea market and it's such a crazy experience as a German speaker

because there are people selling binders full of documents in German that are connected to the Holocaust - a letter by a woman who just arrived in the country from the Bukovina and has no friends or family and is asking an acquaintance for money to survive. A witness testimony page from someone's restitution file where another person confirms that the applicant was imprisoned at a certain forced labor camp. Postcards from towns that haven't had a Jewish community since the war. Most of these are only sold at the fleamarket because there are stamps on them that collectors might be interested in (in fact me and bf were the only people actually reading the letters).

There was one little item that really, really hit me - the vendor only fished it out of a cardboard box after he saw us reading, probably because there was no stamp on it - a 1938 pocket calendar book issued by a German company, but it was not used as a calendar, instead there are a few hand-written recipes and addresses (all of them out of the country: New York, Tel Aviv, Sofia, Poland), and then on the last pages are two lists of belongings. One lists different suitcases with their contents ("Mama's suitcase: 8 towels, wool blankets, the green lace blanket, Papa's wool pants" etc...), the other one is called "Zurücklassen" - to leave behind ("electrical waffle iron, red scarf, briefcase, letters" etc. etc. etc.) It's pretty clearly a list compiled by someone as they were fleeing Germany.

There are first names of the family members in the book but no last names, but this + the limited geographical area in which the company operated + the fact that someone from that family probably worked at that company who issued this calendar makes the book frustratingly elusive and simultaneously incredibly personally distinct. About 30 pages are ripped out from it, including late February/early March.

My bf bought it (mostly because he noticed how strongly I reacted to it) and I saw on the internet that the company still exists and even has a little history section on their website. A part of me wants to write to them and ask them if they still have records of Jewish employees from 1938. I want to know who this book belonged to. For now, we're just going to bake cookies according to one of the recipes.

And that's what's so crazy about the fleamarket. It's pieces of history which have not yet been thrown away but are just about to be discarded. It's the historical record equivalent of holding a gun to their head - pay a ransom and you can take it, otherwise who knows what will happen.

And because bf is a romantic, he paid the 40 shekels and now I own a 1938 pocket calendar in which certain pages are ripped out. The company's aforementioned history section mentions the war years exactly once ("we used slave labor") and then devotes a paragraph to the economic postwar miracle.

Also, semi-unrelatedly, I woke up three times this night because I hope there will be a ceasefire before Ramadan. All of Tel Aviv is full of signs with pictures of Bibi that have the caption אתה הראש אתה אשם. I'm not sure if there is a protest at HaBima Square tonight because of the March, but I'm gonna walk over anyway, it's not far from here. Nothing ever is.

#idk how to tag this tumblr?? #personal but only somewhat mine

[deadmensproduction]

Reverse the Madness

This is a fanfic ide I've had in my head, and less of a proper fic, more of the big plot points written out. Some of the bigger scenes may be done in more details.

Prolog 1.0 We open on a familiar team of Vertin, Sonetto, and Regulus trekking through the Wilderness of Germany, in the year of 1939.* St. Pablo’s foundation had been receiving strange reports from field agents stationed out in Germany, specifically a well known location famous for a multitude of stories, the setting of the famous Brother Grimm’s Fairy tales, The Black Forest.

Details are limited as an unknown Arcane signature had begun to emanate from within the forest. No signs of Manus Vindictae had been found, however there had been unusual movement and growth in the forest as of late. Large amounts of critters, and strange almost fantastical plants had begun to sprout in the forest, and seemed to be spreading outwards into nearby areas. No humans had been noted to show any form of alteration or Storm Syndrome, however many of the readings were pointing towards the possibility of a new Storm appearing.

Having been dispatched, Vertin and her team are making their way through the Forest having noted a large number of Critters, but mostly ignored them, and unusual plant growth, many of the affected areas looking like something from a child's picture book.

Sonettoand Regulus are regularly making comments about the strange sites, and both are taken aback when they witness a unicorn casually walk by them as it had been thought that such critters had long since been hunted to extinction.**

As the trio is approaching the center of the first and where the strange happenings seem to be radiating from the watch that the Timekeeper has begins to go haywire, Falling from the starting time of seven days, to Two Hours, and then ten minutes. The Team begin to panic and freak out as they had never seen something like this and Sonetto and Regulus are quickly stuffed into the suitcase with only a few seconds to spare. At this point Vertin closes, and seals the case, just as the timer finally hits zero but instead of the usual reversal of time, the emerges a sudden sound of hooves running on the ground, and before they are able to full react, Certain is struck by a carriage being pulled by two pitch-black horses. From there Vertin passes out.

Notes:

*Story is being placed some time after chapter five as that was the most recent Chapter released as of me writing this, and the ending indicated the start of/ during what looked like world war II, but that was simply speculation on my part. **Critters have not been widely explained in game other than being fabled creatures, no specific definition on what a critter is/ can be has been given in game as of now. For my Fan fic we can assume some rumors or stories drove more famous Critters to be hunted down, even when the rumors were disproven later on.

#reverse 1999 #fanfic #disney twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland #crossover #video games

[hannahssimblr]

Chapter Twenty (Part 4)

I don’t feel like talking anymore, so when a boy Jen knows comes over to join us on the sofa, I don’t even bother introducing myself, I just get up and go back inside. I spend some time wandering from room to room, going in and out of living rooms, dining rooms, studies, libraries, just looking at the kinds of things these people have in their house. Things that seem extravagant, that seem to have been bought just because they could be, not because they were necessary. There’s no way that anybody could ever read so many books in a lifetime. 

I go into the room with the grand piano and sit there plucking out some notes for a while, and then when I give up, having not produced anything that sounded all that great, I look to yet another bookcase and scan its shelves for something interesting enough to absorb myself in for a while. 

I spot a copy of Goodnight Mr. Tom tucked away among a row of hardcover classics. It’s a book I haven’t read in years, and I can hardly remember much about the story, only that I enjoyed reading it. I take it and flip open the front cover, and it’s well worn, the pages stained and fingerprinted. There’s writing on the first page, neat, looping, pencilled cursive that forms the words: Jude Turner. 5th Class. I stare at it for a while, and consider whether anybody would notice if this book went missing. How easy would it be for me to take it back into the kitchen and smuggle it into my bag, just so I could hold onto something that’s his?

“Are you going to play a tune or what?” 

I spin around with a start to see Jude leaning against the door frame with amusement on his face. I wonder how long he’s been standing there looking at me. I gather myself quickly and hold up the book to show him. “I was looking at this, actually. I read it in school.”

“I did too. It must have been on the national curriculum.” He comes over and sits with me on the piano stool, and I let him take it out of my hands. “I think about this book a lot, actually, and how it was kind of nuts that they made eleven year olds read it.”

“Why? Because of the war stuff?”

He lets out a little laugh. “Yes, the war stuff. And also that bit where the woman has to suffocate her own baby in that cupboard under the stairs. It’s harrowing, I still think about it.”

“Me too.” I admit, and then he puts the book right back on the shelf. 

“No need to be reading a book like that when you’re at a party.” He says to me, “It’s grim enough.”

His whole left side is pressed against me, and I feel nervous and fidgety. “How are you feeling? A bit sad?” I ask him. 

“No. I’m doing fantastic.” He says. “Are you sad?”

“No, never better.” I say, and we stare each other down, a pair of rotten liars.

“I’m sorry I haven’t had a lot of time to talk to you, it’s hectic. Everyone wants to relive their fondest memories of me and talk about the good times. It’s weird, it’s kind of like being at my own funeral.” 

“They’re just going to miss you.”

“Yes but I’m not dying, I’m going to Germany.”

“It won’t be the same when you’re gone, though.” I begin, but he quickly cuts me off with a sharp: “I don’t want to talk about this.”  

I feel stupid, and stare down at my feet, the same old white adidas that saw me through the summer now looking so worn out and scruffy, their condition accentuated by the polished wooden floor beneath them.  

“Jude.” Someone says from the doorway, and I look up to see Michelle standing there, her mere presence only making me feel a hundred times worse. “We have a surprise for you. Can you come out to the garden?” 

“Yeah, just a second.” He tells her, and then she goes away. Nobody bothered introducing us and I’m glad of it, because I don’t think I could handle the discovery that Michelle is not only beautiful, but also a nice person. 

“They’ve all signed a card.” He explains. “And they’re going to give it to me now.”

“So much for a surprise.”

“Jen already let it slip. I don’t think I even want it.” He admits. 

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not goodbye, it’s like a see-you-later. I just hate all the fuss.” A muscle twitches in his jaw.

“Well, then I’m glad nobody asked me to sign it.” 

“Me too. I don’t want you to have written some platitude for me, some yearbook style ‘You rock! Never change!’”

“Is that what you think I’d write?” I laugh. 

“No, I just… you get the idea.”

“I do.”

“I’ll see you again, Evie. It’s not the end.” He says, looking right at me. 

“I know.” I say, and then someone is shouting his name from the kitchen, I watch him anxiously, waiting for him to get up and leave but he just ignores them. 

“I know we won’t get much time to talk tonight.” He tells me. “But we can tomorrow if you want to. My flight is at seven.”

“That’s early.”

“Yeah, I know, but if you can manage it, you can see me off. I’m getting up at five, so we can have breakfast together.”

“The last meal?”

“Not the last.”

“Okay. The last for now.”

“Will you get up? We can sit out and watch the sunrise. I’ll make you coffee.”

“Just me?”

“Just you, just us.”

“Yes.” I say immediately. “I’ll set my alarm. I’ll be there.”

“Okay.”

They’re still calling for him, so he wrenches himself from the seat and goes out to the kitchen for his gift, looking back at me one more time to point his finger at me. “Five.” he says again, and then he’s gone. 

Jude’s family gets home at midnight, Ivy sleeping in her fathers arms, and after that the party dies down quickly.  I start clearing up all of the cups and filling the bins with bottles and cans while Jude sits down at the end of the garden with Jen, talking about something that seems important, so I don’t interrupt them, regardless of how badly I want to sit and talk to him again, completely addicted to the things my body does whenever he’s close to me.

The last few stragglers, those who are staying the night, hunker down on the living room couches and I go upstairs and take one of the guest rooms. I ignore the pile of suitcases that Jen mentioned, unable to think about a whole life packed into bags like that, set for their journey across western europe tomorrow. 

As I lay in bed with the lights on I listen for Jude’s footsteps on the stairs. I hear him come up quietly, and then go into the bathroom. I imagine him coming to my door and knocking on it, and that I’ll let him in and he’ll sit with me on the bed and we’ll talk and talk about everything we can think of until our throats are sore, and I’ll run my fingers through his hair and touch his nose, his mouth, his earlobes with their tiny silver hoops and trace every freckle on his face so I can draw him from memory when he’s gone. 

But he comes out of the bathroom and goes straight into his bedroom. I grab my phone to set the alarm, then suddenly remember to text my mother. I compose a quick message telling her that I’m safe and well, and going to bed. Then I shove it under the pillow, turn off the light and go to sleep. 

Prev // Next

#sims #sims 4 #ts4 #simlit #sims 4 story #sims story #writing #fiction #romance #sims4 storytelling #sims 4 storytelling #sims storytelling #lucky girl part 1

[catt-nuevenor]

I remember the book thief. It was a good, sad, book.

I held off answering this until I finished the book, and here we are. I finished the Book Thief yesterday.

It is a very good book and I highly enjoyed my time with it. I also think it is a very important book, and it deserves the accolades and awards it has achieved over the years since its first publication.

That all sounds like I'm gearing up for a 'but', doesn't it?

I'm not, not really. But I've found myself coming back to the comment of 'sad' a lot while I was listening to it and since I finished it.

I say the following to give context to my approach to the book, not to associate myself directly with the struggles of the characters, or the historical events they are based on in an exploitative or inherently informed manner.

A bit of background on me. I'm a history nerd. I did an undergraduates degree in ancient history and archaeology, I watch documentaries for fun and leisure, I regularly consume books that deal with world history and such things do not shy away from difficult topics.

Side recommendations for non-fiction books related to WW2 and the topics discussed in the Book Thief:

Their Darkest Hour: People Tested to the Extreme in WWII by Laurence Rees

The Good Germans: Resisting the Nazis, 1933-1945 by Catrine Clay

Nazi Wives: The Women at the Top of Hitler's Germany by James Wyllie

The Holocaust: A New History by Laurence Rees

The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917-1923 by Robert Gerwarth

Obviously Content Warning for Extreme Violence, Radicalisation, Bigotry, Genocide, and Psychological Trauma. These are not pleasant books at times, they are important.

Secondary bit of background info on me. My Grandfather served in the Royal Signals Corp during WW2 and volunteered the day war was declared in England. He served in Africa, Italy, took part in the D-Day landings, moved up through Belgium, the Netherlands, then into Germany where he and his unit were put in charge of minding SS prisoners in a converted concentration camp, north-northeast of Hamburg, for two years after peace was declared. During his time in Germany before the official end of the conflict, he served as a signalman with the 15th Scottish Division, this includes the liberations of Bergen Belsen, Neuengamme, and a sub camp of Neuengamme, Bad Segeberg concentration camp, the latter of which is where the SS prisoners were held.

I am incredibly lucky for three things in relation to my Grandfather:

He and my Grandmother kept all their letters from the war, labelled them in frankly archival detail, and passed said letters down to me.

Working in Signals allowed my Grandfather to write about events during the war that might not have otherwise made it past army censors, such as details, and dates.

He was a very good writer, and he wrote every day about all that he had seen.

Now, all that out in the open for everyone to get on the same page (more or less), back to the Book Thief.

In all honesty, I laughed and cheered more times than I felt upset while listening to it. I adore Rosa Hubermann, though I'd loathe her in reality if I had to deal with her, she and her 'tact' made me cackle with glee so many times. Zuzack's descriptions are as beautiful as they are at times a little too flowery for my personal tastes, but they are immersive despite this. And of course the Narrator is wonderful.

I always knew what was coming and the depth of what was happening beyond our view of events in the story, so it did take some of the punch out of matters for me. I couldn't ever say I was sad while listening to it.

A book can be read in as many ways as there are individuals to read it. My reading of it left me with a strong impression of civilian life during the third reich from a child's perspective, it taught me how to swear in German much to my (learning) German-speaking father's delight and bemusement, and it's given me a new recommendation to put forward to the teen offspring of friends as a good first book to discussing the complexities of WW2.

So, yes. I highly recommend the Book Thief by Markus Zuzack.

#asks #The Book Thief #Book recommendations

[mightyflamethrower]

Bill Maher Brutally Eviscerates Palestinian Grievances in Less Than 10 Minutes

I’m waiting for Bill Maher to roll out an inaccurate commentary that rips conservatives, but he hasn’t done that lately. The liberal HBO host has been chiefly directing his firepower toward those on his side of the aisle for their historically illiterate and illiberal tendencies. The HBO host has been riding an asphalt roller over the far left for their pro-Hamas advocacy that’s now infested the highest echelons of American academia. He rightfully torched the college presidents who couldn’t condemn or say that chants for Jewish genocide constitute harassment. The comedian also noted that these institutions are factories for breeding a “bunch of f**king idiots,” along with brainwashing its student bodies into thinking that antisemitism is a requirement for leftist activism.

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Maybe we should have seen this coming from the 2012 Democratic National Convention, where, yes, the Democratic delegates booed God, but also the resolution recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The warning signs were there, but Hamas’ October 7 attacks and Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip to eliminate the terror group have ignited a wave of antisemitism not seen since the National Socialist German Workers’ Party rose to power. Maher has had enough of these people who chant “from the river to the sea” and used simple history lessons to shut down this narrative, along with this message to the pro-terrorist TikTok crowd: grow up. 

Maher noted that after World War II, Germans in Poland, Russia, and Czechoslovakia were purged and driven back to Germany proper for reasons that don’t need mentioning. In North America, Mexico lost most of the Southwestern United States, including California, in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. And Jews across the Arab world have been ethnically cleansed. The HBO host's point was that the Palestinians aren’t unique. They’re not the only people who’ve been displaced, and they should quit their whining and grow up. 

Israel has nuclear weapons, the largest tech sector besides Silicon Valley, and a thriving economy. They’re not going anywhere, so get over it. And this isn’t about land either. The Palestinians had a chance for a homeland in 1947, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2000, and 2008. They turned down all the offers because the Palestinian Authority and Hamas agreed on one action item: destroying Israel. There can be no peace or negotiations when one side views killing everyone sitting at the opposite end of the table as their central bargaining position.

Later, in his New Rules commentary, Maher said that Arabs tried to destroy Israel in 1947, 1967, and 1973—they all lost. While Palestinians whine, they could take lessons from those who’ve been displaced. Mexico doesn’t chant from the Rio Grande to Portland, Oregon. They “got real” and built the 14th largest economy because they knew the United States wouldn’t return Phoenix. As for the colonizer argument, well, read about the first Muslim empire that exploded out of Saudi Arabia following the death of the Prophet Mohammed. As Maher noted, there’s a reason why a sword is on their national flag. 

In less than ten minutes, Maher expertly dissects almost every central talking point peddled by Palestinian activists and their bountiful allies on America’s college campuses. It doesn’t take a seasoned academic to do this—just read any history book. And that’s the funny part. Maher isn’t a historian by trade. He’s a stand-up comic and was able to torch the most common pro-Hamas nonsense we’ve seen splashed on the front pages of newspapers. 

And when you do read about the history of any civilization at any period, you’ll know that it’s riddled with pervasive brutality and filled with misdeeds and past injustices. Get over it. History is violent, with numerous accounts of what we would now call ethnic cleansing. The irony is the pro-Palestinian crowd is too stupid to know that’s what they’re promoting with their rallies against Israel: a complete genocide.

#Youtube

[ramblesofthemad]

What if the BSD Great War...

So while doing some digging around while working on one of my many analysis projects…my brain began to create a weird rabbit hole theory that seems so crazy but it could be like 10% possible. 

As we all know as members of this fandom, there was “The Great War” that occurred 15 years before the start of the running manga. Yet, we are given such little details about such a detrimental event for multiple big-name characters within the series. It makes me question why this might be the case. While I can't pick apart Asagiri to the point where I can figure out his own personal crazy thinking, I can theorize the plausibility that this war was based on a real-life historical event, given the fact that a good 90% of our cast was real people as well, with their BSD relationships reflecting large similarities as the real-life relationships between the authors. 

Now that is said, here is what i came up with…WHAT IF this war we speak off is a odd play off World War II. 

Don’t throw me to the wolves here, I have no clue if anyone else has thought this either… But hear out at least my breakdown: 

Evidence piece number one: Basically as mentioned above, Asagiri uses historical authors and plays the switcheroo game, religiously.

What started as me just trying to figure out what chapter Yosano’s backstory began in, I came across this line in an article breaking down her experience with the war that reminded me that in true international history, WWI was considered The Great War. I stated our Great War is the second one though, but here's why I say it is indeed the second one. We know Asagiri brings in characters that influenced or knew each other in real life, but he does not keep all the facts true with a lot of rearranging of the order of ages and who mentored who, For Example, look at Dazai and Akutagawa; where in the series Aku looks up to Dazai, but in real life it was Aku that inspired Dazai. Yet on the other hand, we also know that if you were to look at the average period most of the authors came from, taking out our lovely Russian friends and a few others, the majority come from the years that are considered pre-WWII to post-WWII. So would it not make sense that he would use people who did experience wartime in real life to have experienced a similar war in this worldly universe as well, which was WWII. This brings us to the next part that looks at the question: so he switched around some things, but why would he need to do that? 

Evidence piece number two: If you look at details from light novels and certain parts of our main story…the alliances between certain countries look oddly familiar. 

I will not lie that I have not read these light novels in a hot minute and I've consumed a lot of other media, so my memories are a bit hazy. But from skimming plot summaries for the books “Stormbringer” and “55 Minutes”(credit to the ppl on this website that give these details) I began to notice something. There are three major groups of authors, once again taking out the Russians, we have the French (who worked in tandem with the English), the Japanese, and the unnamed Germans (besides our man Johann who is mentioned in 55 minutes, I believe). Now pair the countries with how the events played out with the relaying of information about the singularity research, the research that is considered to be one of the major reasons the Great War had even begun, the pairing between countries reflected eerily familiar to the allied and axis powers during the real WWII. The timeline that I have worked it out to be is Germany theorized it first then stolen by France, who succeeded, then stolen again by Germany, and then handed over to Japan, who then also succeeded. 

Evidence number three: Comparing the facts to WWII and the descriptions we receive from the characters in Bungo about the Great War, there are a lot of indirect overlaps.

Since Asagiri made it that out of any event of the series prior to the start of the running manga, he chose the Great War to have the least amount of number facts to its name. Yet, by looking at how the great war within the series is described by the characters who experienced it and then looking at the basic facts about WWII as well, the "events" of Bungo's war are quite familiar. I will say that history was never a class I paid close attention to at any point in my life, but Wikipedia is helping the case here. Whether it is the fact they focus on how it was filled with science and technology advances that led to the deadliest parts of the war. Or the fact that islands played a huge role in many events from the war. There are just enough overlaps for me to consider this as evidence.

And more recently discovered...evidence number four: The book that inspired Asagiri to even create bungo stray dogs was, you can guess, related to WWII.

While I was looking into the career paths that Asagiri had before he became an author, it was mentioned that a book by the late author Shusaku Endo named Ryugaku, which is set post WWII. There are also similarities between the countries used during the great war in Europe and the countries mentioned in this book. This book, combined with Dazai's own novel that also inspired him, gives great sway to the time frame Bungo is actually set in.

Overall all of this could be my delusions doing its delusion things, but I do believe that I can fancy my brain for one minute. Thanks if you decided to read all the way through!

#bungo stray dogs #bsd theories #bsd thoughts #bsd #bsd fandom #media analysis #spilled thoughts #what if

[cbk1000]

Reading this book has made me think a lot about my time in Germany, where Holocaust memorials are everywhere (not just statues, but actual 'stumbling stones' underfoot which are engraved with the names, date of births, and fates of people who were victimized by the Nazi regime). I felt like everywhere I went in Germany, I was being reminded of the Holocaust. This aggressive acknowledgement of such a terrible history is imperative to fight attempts to rewrite it as something that isn't nearly as bad as hysterical liberals are making it out to be.

But that's what we're doing in the States. Some states (Republican-controlled, of course) are even passing legislation about what and how children can be taught about racism in schools. The Civil War was about 'states' rights' (the 'rights' of Southern states to own slaves), and Confederates were plucky rebels willing to die for their freedom. When we reframe the war and the enslavement of human beings in this way, we downplay the systemic issues that are still present today, because we never really reconciled ourselves to the horrors of our actual history, not this sanitized version of it wherein Southern plantation owners didn't even treat slaves that badly and the original iteration of the Ku Klux Klan was comprised of Southern gentlemen protecting their ladies from violent former slaves that the Yankees unleashed during Reconstruction to do as they pleased to innocent white people.

And even if the fiction of the benevolent slave owner were true in the majority of cases, it reminds me of a quote from Oscar Wilde's essay, 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism: “Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good.” Owning another human being is objectively wrong. The argument that many of the slaves were treated well under their masters is absurd. Whether slaves were whipped or not does not make slave ownership any less reprehensible. Human beings were property, whether they were physically beaten or not. Slave owners who refrained from beating their slaves likely did so not out of moral compunction, but because slaves were expensive property. You wouldn't dropkick your iPhone or laptop off a cliff, not because you care about their feelings or autonomy, but because they're expensive to replace; it was the same for slave owners. 'But plantation owners didn't even treat slaves that badly' is not the gentle revisionism you think it is. And the reason why, to this day, we still have such a deep racial divide in this country is because so many of us aren't willing to confront that.

I'm not saying white people need to constantly self-flagellate in this country, only that you always ignore history at your peril.

[deathlygristly]

The spousal person and I thought about going to the city's New Year's thing downtown. All public transit is free tonight including the light rail, which is a good idea I think.

But in the end we decided not to because neither of us were very excited about it, and instead we're going to order pizza and watch some kdrama.

Speaking of which, it's weird trying to find discussion about Gyeongsang Creature. We're two episodes in and watching a third tonight. Maybe fourth, since we're both off tomorrow.

It's set a few months before the end of WWII. Like I always say, I read every book the local library had on the Holocaust when I was 9. I am very familiar with the Germany side of the war. I've only been getting into the Asian side of it within the last couple of years of kdrama watching.

So far the articles I found that bring up Unit 731 and the real history the show is based on seem to not know much about kdramas, and then the kdrama people seem to not know much about the history.

Unit 731 wasn't located in Korea, but there were Koreans imprisoned and used for experiments and killed there - well, all the prisoners were killed at the end of the war, just like in the first episode where the soldiers shoot everyone in the cells.

I don't know. Just saw a take like "there's plenty of story available in that time period, they didn't need the creature" and it's like yeah, but everything shown is real and really did happen except the creature and it's very easy to interpret the creature as the Korean emotion of han made into a brain drinker tentacled thing. At least the creature offers some catharsis of impaling soldiers on her tentacles and drinking their brains.

I feel like I've been expressing a fair bit of frustration lately with some of what I see in the kdrama community, and I guess yeah, I am frustrated. I need to look for people who have more detailed discussions and who are more familiar with different types of stories and who are interested in understanding the history and culture that the dramas come from.

Anyway, yeah, just like with some of the Nazis, the US gave the Japanese officials immunity in return for the information gathered through their experiments.

What is it with fascists and wanting to hurt others so bad? I guess it's their fetish for wanting to compensate for their base weakness and appear strong to themselves by hurting other living beings they project their own weakness into. Was thinking of a statement I found from a doctor who watched some of the Unit 731 experiments and how detached the doctor sounded during a scene in the show in which a prisoner told the Japanese artist who was employed to draw the experiments that he'd get used to it after a while, that everyone there did.

Sigh.

Anyway let's think about happy things like how the spousal person just left to pick up the pizza.

#kdrama #gyeongseong creature #fascism mention

[booksinmythorax]

Some fiction books with sad endings to consider reading, and why

Raise your hand if you've ever been personally victimized by a book where the dog dies at the end. Raise your other hand if you literally flinch when you hear the words "Bridge to Terabithia".

So much of what we read for school in America, at least when I was growing up, was so sad, wasn't it? It was worse when the sadness wasn't earned, when the book was 100 pages of playing with puppies and then 20 pages of sobbing (looking at you, Where the Red Fern Grows).

Why all the bummers? There's a little bit of snobbishness at play there - speaking as someone who got an English degree in undergrad, there are a lot of people who don't believe a book has literary value if it has a happy ending. But there's something more, too: emotional education.

Globally, we're dealing with a lot of sadness in real life right now and have been for many years. There is a very real global mental health crisis happening, especially among young people. Sometimes it is good to use media as a fluffy escape from a grim reality, and as a species we do love a happy ending. I firmly believe in hope and love the hopepunk genre - but I also believe that everything doesn't work out the way we want it to all the time.

Sadness in fiction can function as practice or companionship for experiencing sadness in real life. If you're in the right mindset, it's important to read sad books.

It's not a spoiler to say that the endings of the following books are sad. These books deal with sad material or characters who struggle throughout. Also, a sad ending doesn't necessarily mean the hero doesn't win, that there is no hope for the characters or their world, or that everything is meaningless. It just means acknowledging that suffering is real, sacrifices are sometimes necessary, and at some point, we all have to grieve.

I've listed some titles you might want to peruse below the cut. The "sadness" in them varies book to book, from the personal to the global. I'm linking to The Storygraph for each title, in case you'd like to check the content warnings there. Please comment or send me an ask if you'd like to suggest a title to add to this list! I'd be especially grateful for titles written by Black authors, indigenous authors, and authors of color; titles by Jewish and Muslim authors; and/or titles that were not originally published in English.

-The His Dark Materials trilogy, ending with The Amber Spyglass, by Phillip Pullman (middle grade fantasy about a world where everyone's soul is external, expressed by an animal called a daemon, and a young girl who uncovers a scientific mystery with multiversal consequences)

-A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (young adult fabulism about a boy whose mother has a terminal illness and who suddenly begins receiving visits from a large treelike monster late at night)

-The Elegance of the Hedgehog, written in French by Muriel Barbery and translated into English by Alison Anderson (adult contemporary fiction about a friendship between a middle-aged concierge and a teenage girl with depression, both of whom are secretly brilliant but pretend not to be)

-The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (adult fantasy about a young woman who gains unimaginable power, paralleling the brutal occupation of China by Japan during World War II)

-The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (young adult historical fiction, narrated by a personified Death, about a girl who begins to steal books in Nazi Germany)

-Dear Martin by Nic Stone (young adult contemporary fiction about a Black American boy named Justyce who begins to write letters to Martin Luther King Jr. after he experiences police violence)

-House Arrest by K.A. Holt (middle grade contemporary fiction in verse about a boy who is put on house arrest for stealing money for his baby brother's medical bills)

-Anger Is a Gift by Mark Oshiro (young adult contemporary fiction about a Black American boy who gets panic attacks after his father is murdered by police, whose life is changed irreversibly again after police violence at his school)

-We Are Okay by Nina Lacour (young adult contemporary fiction about a young lesbian who finds herself reflecting on her grief alone in her dorm over winter break)

-The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (young adult contemporary fiction about a girl who witnesses the violent death of a friend at the hands of police, whose murder then starts a wave of national protests and personal turmoil)

-Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (young adult historical fiction about two young women, one a spy, the other a pilot, during WWII)

-And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini (adult historical fiction about a poor family in Afghanistan who experiences far-reaching consequences after a father decides to sell his three-year-old daughter to a wealthy, childless couple)

-A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (adult historical fiction about two Afghani women who marry the same man decades apart after each experiences a family tragedy, as well as what comes after)

-Beloved by Toni Morrison (adult historical fiction about a formerly enslaved woman haunted by the living ghost of her daughter, who died violently as a baby)

-The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides (adult contemporary fiction about a family of sheltered girls who begin to commit suicide one by one)

#sad books #books and literature #booklr #bookblr #librarians of tumblr #librarian #librarians #book recs #book recommendations #books and reading #book reccs

[cazzyf1]

My Favourite Quotes from: Niki Lauda Der Weg Zum Triumph by Peter Lanz

I finished reading the second book I got the other day, so here are the typed-up quotes that I liked. This is translated from German to English via google translate, so it's not grammatically correct and might have some mistranslations.

"If he appears to strangers as a cold, calculating man, he is in fact sensitive to moods and registers feelings that others have towards him very quickly and sensitively"

"Accordingly, Niki Lauda was disappointed in the evening when his wife Marlene came from Ibiza in Nelson Piquet's private jet. He said: "I want to drive the best race of the season tomorrow, but the most important thing in Formula 1 is to survive, that's also part of it."<< Marlene Lauda hadn't traveled to races for five years. She dismissed the fuss of the last few months with a catchy sentence: "It's nice when Niki becomes world champion, but what do I have to do with that?" But now she couldn't stand being alone in her house in Santa Eulalia on the race weekend , although she said she was going mad with excitement in the box, she came to Estoril. At the same time, I know that Niki can also become world champion without me. Reinhold Messner also climbs mountains alone. He doesn't need a woman for that. And Niki Lauda said: "I'm happy when she's there, but that doesn't mean I drive faster or slower."

"Second place meant the world title at that moment. Lauda was asked what he felt in those seconds: "Above all, fear that the petrol would not last until the end. It was trembling and praying. Shortly after five o'clock in the afternoon, when everything was finally over, Niki Lauda showed, perhaps for the first time in public, how much he was carried away by the joy and pride of victory. He, who often doesn't change his face after winning a race, got all excited, hugged his wife again and again, shook everyone's hand and even furtively stroked his eyes once or twice... As the champagne was passed onto the podium, Niki Lauda started shaking the magnum like a little boy and splattered the champagne all over the place, so that in the end Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, McLaren boss Ron Dennis and the car's designer John Barnard, standing with Lauda on the podium were completely soaked."

"Marlene Lauda even hugged Alain Prost, and Niki Lauda kept saying: "I'm really sorry for Prost. he was for the biggest challenge for me in the 13 years that I've been driving Formula 1. Now that the war of nerves is over, I can tell you - he's a really good guy. The next day, Niki Lauda brought his wife and children back to Ibiza and flew on to his office in Vienna himself."

"We had met in a café on Vienna's Schwarzenberg place agreed. When Lauda came in, he did not correspond at all to the image that is commonly made of a racing driver. He seemed rather shy and uptight. He wore a light-colored duffle coat, corduroy pants, and Clarks. In contrast to later times, he immediately made an extraordinary effort to appear in the best light. Somehow he seemed very proud that journalists from Germany flew to Vienna especially to talk to him. We then drove to his parents' house on Potzleinsdorferstrasse, where he had a room, and the first thing Niki Lauda did was to call the Levis jeans advertising man to tell him that he was giving an interview. Then he called the Bosch recruiter and rattled off the same litany again. I don't know if he was so proud of being interviewed at the time or if it was a service for his sponsors, in any case he was very accommodating and when the photographer asked him to he gathered all his trophies and draped them around himself on the needle felt floor. We then took a picture of him packing his racing suit and one of him lying on the couch reading a book. nod The room in which he lived was about thirty square meters and furnished in a rather carelessly manner. The wall was covered with veneered cupboards, there was a washbasin and a shower behind a partition and there were a few Reansport books on the shelves between the trophies. Once his mother looked briefly at the door but went right back. Niki Lauda wore his hair quite long back then, it was neatly parted and smooth, not as curly as it is today. He had a signet ring with a black stone on his left ring finger. His demeanor made him look like hundreds of other boys from upper Viennese society. Only his language didn't fit the picture: he spoke a strong dialect, and to this day he has maintained a certain fondness for flowery expletives. Of course, he knows how to speak High German on TV or in radio interviews, but in small circles, rude words come out quite easily. At that time, Niki Lauda collected the newspaper clippings and photos that dealt with his racing career. He probably wouldn't like to admit that today, but at first he was exceedingly proud when there was something about him in the newspaper. He often called sportswriters on the go and told them how the races he had competed in had turned out. Out of gratitude, the Viennese newspapers always wrote a few words about the young Austrian Lauda, ​​even if he was only placed somewhere in the middle. Nothing that Niki Lauda learned today about his early days counts, is 100% correct. But it's not a lie either. Rather, it's a mixture of half-true memories and a role cliché that he's grown into over the last ten years. In any case, it is certain that it all began in 1967. With a car accident." -p27-29

"So Niki Lauda told her (his grandma) the story of the borrowed car and the accident. He must have told the story to Berst dramatically, because when he left his grandmother he was 38,000 shillings richer - a little over five thousand marks. He was able to buy the battered Mini 1300 from Jose Draxler. For Niki Lauda, ​​getting into racing was a means to an end. All sorts of people in the years that followed made terrible accusations against his grandmother for helping him become a racing driver. If N Lauda had a really warm relationship with a family member, it was with the old lady. And when, many years later, he decided to finish racing, it was Marlene Lauda, ​​his wife, who first called grandmother and told her about the decision.

Question: What is your first childhood memory?' Answer: "I always had to go horseback riding when I was eight or nine years old. I was terrified of the stupid horses. I always disappeared to the toilet and hoped that I wouldn't have to ride then. I never knew why my parents sent me to horseback riding. They just wanted it. Out of. Then I remember my nanny. That must have been before. I was always raised by nannies. I remember her kind of uniform, she had a cap like that on her head. She was about thirty years old. Normal looking, not particularly pretty. She existed, but she couldn't replace my parents. I also remember something that happened when I was about seven years old. My father parked a car on a mountain with the handbrake on. And somehow the handbrake disengaged. Anyway discovered I did and ran with my brother. And I held. We screamed like crazy, then my father came." - p33-34

Niki Lauda didn't get along very well with his classmates at school. Although his parents him repeatedly dragged him to dentists and oral surgeons to have his teeth adjusted, he had to put up with the ridicule of the others. They called him rabbit or squirrel because of his protruding teeth, and his mother's pampering concern did the rest to make Niki Lauda appear as half a portion to his peers. He had to go to school in a hat and coat at the slightest breeze, and once he said: When I think back today and myself. and see my brother when we were kids, well, we were pretty sweethearts.” Which means something like sissy. According to his brother Florian, who is four years his junior, he was "terrified". Nothing fascinated the sissy like a car. - p34

"Niki Lauda once said to me: >> Many young men only start racing out of a need to show off or because of complexes. If you are successful and recognize your complexes, you can discard them. I had a tremendous number of complexes. inferiority complex. I was always bray, I'd never pulled a rascal prank. The only thing that didn't fit the picture of the model boy was my bad performance at school. I was particularly bad at religion.” - p35

"I asked him, 'Have you been dealt with harshly? Have you ever been beaten?< Laura: No. Barely. A slap in the face at most. I have one brother who is studying medicine. He's younger than me. He's very different from me, he's a very quiet, dreamy, spiritual idealist. His interests go more into the music.<< Question: 'Then you are a loud, unromantic, realistic person?' Lauda: »I am harder and more stubborn.<<" - p36

Back then, nothing fascinated Niki Lauda more than trucks. When he spoke in a Playboy interview in 1974 about how crazy he was about trucks, that he was almost addicted to driving such a thing, the Steyr works made a truck train available to him for a day. Lauda drove the truck to Zeltweg, onto the race track and did lap after lap. He'd never gotten a truck license, but he was a natural. He was having fun like a little kid, chasing the train around the track at breakneck speed and making the back of the truck swerve. He even considered opening a trucking company in the past because he was so fascinated by trucks. - p37

"Niki Lauda packed. He had a stack of suitcases in front of him and a light canvas bag with leather details. In it he put his racing overalls, crash helmet, head protection, fireproof shoes, high gauntlet gloves and coarse underwear, which in an emergency could keep the fire away from the body for a few seconds. » Where are my swimming trunks?' asked Lauda. It was bitterly cold in Vienna back in January 1972 and the cold was gradually eating through the brick walls, like that that people had to heat up their ovens vigorously in order to to get the apartments tolerably warm. Mariella von Reininghaus, Niki Lauda's girlfriend, was rummaging around in a drawer. They were at Lauda's parents' house in Vienna. "Here," Mariella held out the swimming trunks, "there she is." - p43

"act that is second to none. At the time, he would break down the doors of anyone who could help him in any way. His confidence bordered on the insane" - p46

"Once upon a time, in November 1972, a skinny, brunette boy started getting drunk in a Viennese wine bar. This young man, who usually only drank apple juice and milk, drank one glass of wine after the other. He had good reason to. He was broke. He was in debt and had no job. The boy was Niki Lauda. He gambled big and lost. There he was with a horrendous loan and no racing car. Because Max Mosley put him on the street at the end of the 1972 season. A stupid situation for the young man from the best family. He was with a sportswriter at the wine bar to get drunk. "Now I don't know what to advise you either," the journalist was saying. The two were silent for a while. Then they ordered wine again. "I could take a job in an office," said Lauda pensively, "and then slowly pay off my debts. ask them for a contract for touring car races. "You would earn more that way than in the office." "But not enough," said Lauda. He had reached the fourth quarter of white wine. It never occurred to him to ask his father for money, although that would have been the easiest way in the situation. He could have helped him. But Niki Lauda decided that only one person could pull him out of the shit he was in now - Niki Lauda. "Louis Stanley asked for my address at Watkins Glen last month for the American Grand Prix," he said thoughtfully. >>So what?< >>What and?<<< »Did you give it to him?<< Laura shook her head. "Not yet. I don't think Stanley had any honest intention of enlisting me. It was just a joke.' The journalist grabbed his arm and looked at him as if he were looking at a madman refusing a cold beer in the desert after seven thirsty days. "Come on," he said, "come on, you have to use every chance you have now."<< Two days later, an airmail letter from Vienna landed in the attic suite of London's venerable Dorchester Hotel on Hyde Park Corner. express, of course. Sender: Nikolaus Lauda. - p49-51

But before Niki Lauda entered the fashionable Dorchester, he passed the Playboy Club, where the Bunnies were busily running around behind glass facades on the first floor. He stopped for a moment and looked up. The girls looked good enough to eat in their tight suits with bunny tails on their buttocks and long legs. Then Niki Lauda quickly walked the few steps to the hotel. The most expensive English luxury limousines were parked bumper to bumper in front of the driveway. This time, Niki Lauda's heart beat even harder than when he saw the Playboy bunnies in the club. Whenever he sees a nice car, he's completely smitten. An almost sensual desire overcomes him, he wants to touch it, sit in it, look under the hood, drive around with it. That was the case then and it's not much different today. Niki Lauda used to wash his car every free hour. There was something immensely calming about washing the car. - p51

Lauda has a cleanliness tick when it comes to cars. His car must always be sparkling clean, Helmut Marko once gave him a car vacuum cleaner, one of the nicest presents, as he claimed for a long time. P52

"A few days earlier he had borrowed a tuxedo for a party. Lauda, ​​who hated formal attire, was quite glad he had his tuxedo with him. He was blessed. After the aperitif, Louis Stanley said: 'Wonderful what you did today. Very splendid. honest.< Fittipaldi and Stewart, the two world champions, came to congratulate them. The Austrian racing driver Lauda was even a little tipsy. After dinner, Stanley offered Lauda a cigar. Lauda refused. Back then, he only smoked a cigarette once, but only when his sponsor, Marlboro, could see him." - p60

He, who doesn't like discotheques, was persuaded by the nightclub manager Bruno Reichmann to advertise a discotheque called Half Moon in Salzburg. He received five thousand schillings a month and the rumor spread that the bar belonged to Niki Lauda." - p61

Lauda later said: "It never occurred to me that there could be another person in the car. The car had overturned, one ran around with a fire extinguisher and tried to extinguish his car. That's what I thought.<< Only when Lauda's BRM fails on the 52nd lap due to fuel pressure problems does the Viennese slowly realize what a drama he had unknowingly witnessed. He didn't help because he didn't know anything about it and because the mushroom cloud made it impossible for him to see what was happening. Lauda felt dying. He crouched in a corner of the box and didn't want to see anyone. A reporter came by. >Why didn't you stop, man? Wh did you let the poor fellow burn without any help?' Lauda was depressed. “I got a puff of smoke. I didn't know there was another one inside. »God in heaven, why don't you see that?<< >If I come along with 250 things, the route i wet from the foam of the fire extinguishers and the air is fuller Rauch, then I must see that I put my BRM on the stop.<< >But I still don't understand why you don't could see.' Lauda became angry. Hell, he had the poor one Roger Williamson actually not seen. He had chosen a goddamn profession, he felt that at the moment and he was full of self-doubt and blame. But the journalist did not want to hear all this. He wanted to hear something else. So Niki Lauda told him: "I'm not paid to save, but to drive." - p63-4

"I asked Lauda: »An American psychologist found that 600 racing drivers who were examined had an above-average desire for intimate intercourse and a great need to attract attention in women. How do you feel? Lauda replied: "Maybe that's how it is in America. It's different here.<< I quoted Stirling Moss, a former racing driver >>There's always a bunch of girls hanging around the racetrack... the sights and sounds that accompany the drama of a race are a strong attraction for almost all women. During a race a woman is more receptive to an offer than usual.<< Lauda said: >> How does Moss want to be able to judge that if he is not a woman? The women who hang around there go to the races because they want to meet one of those special people. So the receptive women go there.<<" - p70

"In the evening, Niki Lauda went to a discotheque in Madrid with Mariella von Reininghaus. Suddenly the Blue Danube Waltz sounded. Lauda said to his girlfriend: 'Today I felt like someone who always stands at the station and has to watch his train go by. He finally stopped today." - (after his first win) p80

"It snowed. Thick, sticky flakes steadily sank to the ground. Lauda liked skiing. He skied for as long as he could remember and he skied very well. Actually, apart from car racing, skiing was the only thing that actually fascinated him at the time. He watched ski racers on TV and really suffered with them. (Much later he was to develop a close friendship with ski racers. When Franz Klammer finally managed to win the World Cup again in 1981, after many, many defeats, Niki Lauda sat at home in front of the television and cried with joy.) In the winter of 1969 he went on holiday in Ba Gastein. It was very cold then. It seemed as if one's breath froze in front of one's lips. Niki Lauda stood on the slope, jumped, pushed himself, took his sticks under his arms and sped off... suddenly he gave a jolt, he lost his footing, snow flew up, he fell, rolled in an avalanche straight down the slope. When he finally lay still, everything was spinning around him. He rubbed his eyes. A young girl stood next to him and watched him silently. The girl was five foot five at most, fairly thin, and had a delicate bone structure. It had huge amber eyes. Niki Lauda later remembered the girl's first words to the letter: "Can I help you in any way?" That's how he met Mariella von Reininghaus." - p82-3

"Niki Lauda hates being photographed. He doesn't like to pose and when a photographer persuades him to do so, he usually looks at the camera in an angry or artificial manner. He didn't like it either when someone wanted to photograph him in his first apartment of his own. However, since his popularity also increased the demand for personality stories, he had to endure a few private photos for better or for worse." - p84

"Before Mariella von Reininghaus, Niki Lauda only had one close friend" - p86

"Once, in March 1982, he was the guest of honor at the Astro Show. He told me at the time that he didn't believe in astrology, that he only went to the show because he liked the presenter, Elizabeth Teissier, so much. He then actually sat across from Madame Teissier throughout the broadcast, gazing at her as enraptured as a rabbit would gaze at a snake, and yet denying all the things that Teissier claimed to have gleaned from the stars about him. But... somehow everything fascinated him." - p87

"Niki Lauda thought he was going crazy for a moment. The spectators behaved like wild animals. Thousands upon thousands pressed on him from all sides. Someone suddenly gave the order for the new champion to be pulled out of the confusion with mounted police officers. Suddenly,« Niki Lauda later recalled, I was surrounded by ten police officers. The policemen sat on mighty horses. I just saw the buttocks and the dangerous hooves of the horses. And so we walked around. It was almost horrible, and I would have wet my pants for fear." - p97

"It was around this time that Niki Lauda started chasing after the girls like crazy. He got engaged when he was almost 20 years old and before that had hardly had time to gain experience with women. A reporter once asked him, "Can you remember the names of your girlfriends? And Lauda answered to everyone's amazement: "Yes, because there was Mariella and before Mariella there was Ursula Aus - that was it." His dogged determination to raise money and get the cars he was given roadworthy took all his strength. In addition, of was shy and more comfortable in the company of other racers." - p98

When he gained enormous popularity after his first Grand Prix victories, he clearly noticed for the first time how unimportant external appearances are for a man. The women fought for the successful one. And to his surprise, he found that he could win at the girls even against handsome men like Clay Regazzoni, the womanizer with whom he often hung out at the time. And he slowly began to get a taste for social life. He really enjoyed being the star of Munich society. And the glittering, glamorous society found it fabulous when the young star Niki Lauda suddenly turned up in one of the Ine discotheques such as Why not or Josephines in the evening, in crumpled tweed jackets, with an open shirt collar and a rat's tail of young, glamorous skinny, long-haired girl in tow. Suddenly Niki Lauda was in all the gossip columns. - p99

"Niki Lauda was certainly never a compulsive womanizer who tried to compensate for defeats with conquests, but through his successes he suddenly found a taste for life. that had been foreign to him until then. He no longer had to face the embarrassment of being rejected by a woman he spoke to. He was famous and anyway the girls made a move on him. He once said to me: "'If I think about it, I didn't meet the prettiest girls at the race tracks, but often in discos like Why not.'" - p100

"Once she gave a party in honor of Niki Lauda. It was a warm summer night, the guests had to appear in costumes from the 1920s, but Lauda herself didn't think of dressing up and came in the usual tweed jacket. And in the free space in front of Why not there was a vintage car. Of course there were also photographers and they persuaded Niki Lauda to pose for photos. »Come on Niki, get in the car, we need some pretty pictures. Lauda took a seat, disgruntled. He hated posed photos. When he wanted to get out, the photographers asked him to put his arm around a girl. The girl was a certain Iris Grass, a model who had already been associated with all sorts of high-profile men and who once said of her first encounter with Niki Lauda: »We were both in a bad mood and hissed at each other.<< But over time, the mood changed. Niki Lauda: I liked her green eyes. She always looked so sincere. As if she had no idea of ​​anything. So... I don't know... poor actually, pitiful. But pretty. I got myself the same evening arranged to meet her and often went out with her.<«< Whereupon the Bild newspaper reported: »The small, almost frail Austrian racing driver has a fiancée in his hometown of Salzburg, who is also from Adel. is very wealthy and beautiful. But that doesn't stop Niki from calling the beautiful Munich girl Iris from all corners of the world to arrange a meeting. Then the two go to La Cave or Victor's Bistro on Hohenzollernstraße to feast - and then they end up dutifully at Why not. I like him very much, Iris openly admits and is happy when the Formula 1 racing driver flies quickly from Frankfurt, Monza or Copenhagen to Munich for her sake. However, she doesn't quite believe that Niki Lauda only goes out with her, as he does with a deep look into her pretty. green eyes has claimed.<" - p101-2

"He fell head over heels in love with the actress Christine Schuberth, who had made her career naked in the cinema as the 'Mutzenbacherin', and then with another actress, Iris Berben." - p103

"Once, when the relationship between the two was about to break up, Mariella von Reininghau complained »Niki can only develop feelings about his car and about nothing else. Maybe he needs someone who only sees him as the world champion when he wakes up in the morning. Niki Lauda wrote about the nasty arguments: "We were arguing more and more often, and I cheated more and more often in the summer of '75 - I just needed a lot of variety as a counterpoint." On the other hand: "I had been with Mariella for seven years and was actually pretty sure that we would get married someday." - p104

"Whenever a reporter asked him the inevitable question, Mr. Lauda, ​​how do you feel about sex before the race?' What really drains your condition is what's around it. You get to know a woman at a race track, you go out to eat with her, then to a bar, and you don't go to bed until four in the morning. It's different with your wife or girlfriend. You can still sleep twelve hours despite all the sex. I once asked Niki Lauda: »Jackie Stewart was a monk two days before the star when he was a racing driver. He has a very attractive wife, but he wants to go hungry and hot, what do St think? Lauda replied: "I don't know what Jackie Stewart used for his races. I need my arms and legs, nothing else. I don't think sex and racing cars have anything to do with each other. A woman is a woman, a car is a car. I can try to master a machine, but you have to understand a person.<< - p104-5

"James Hunt, the Brit who snatched the world title from Niki Lauda in 1976, is a man that women love. And who loves women. One of his friends once said: »He starts caressing your body, kisses you all over. Really everywhere. And he doesn't care if a race is coming up or not. For a while he had a sticker over his heart: 'Sex is also a Sport.' James Hunt once fell into the hands of Wendy Leigh, an attractive Englishwoman who was writing for the book What Does a Girl Do? wife researched well in bed. Hunt's wife Suzy had just gotten engaged to Richard Burton and the racer was willing to provide information to the reporter. He said, "Sometimes I analyze myself a little and watch myself trying to maneuver a girl into bed. Then I'm always surprised at how devious I do it. I fool people. It's actually fun for me, just like selling something to people. Sometimes you get a woman who refuses to do certain things in bed; perhaps because she has inhibitions or is afraid that she will like it too much afterwards. It's your job to relax her, work on her gently, explain things to her skillfully, and get her to think it's a good idea. Then there are women who pretend to reject something, they play you their number, refuse to go to bed with you just because they want to appear different from who they are. These women are a waste of time. Others resist certain things in bed and want to make an impression. But they make no impression on me. I like a woman who asks for what she wants in bed, and I tell her that too. The real pleasure in bed, what really gets me excited, is when I can please a woman. I like it when the girls come to my bed and have a great time there. if they really enjoy it, that's great for a man and that can be fun. Personally, I like the women who reach orgasm quickly. Because that means she enjoys it, orgasm is the same as feeling pleasure.<< James Hunt - p105-6

Lauda didn't like the superficial party talks. He'd never gotten used to the chatter, and for a brief moment wondered if there wasn't a way to slip away undetected, when suddenly he felt someone watching him. He looked up. A beautiful young woman was quiet to him kicked, sat down and naturally put her hand on his knee. The hand was long, slender, and soft as a feather. >Are you thirsty? Do you want something to drink? whisky, gin, Cognac?< She addressed him as "du" straight away, and she had a voice, heaven, what a fascinating voice. A little hoarse, with a barely noticeable foreign accent. It was only much later that Niki Lauda found out that she was born in South America and that she had been brought up there for a few years. In all honesty, he replied, 'I'd have an appetite for a mineral water.< Oh. She gave him an amused look, got up without a word and brought him a glass of mineral water. - p111

"Marlene Knaus was extraordinarily pretty. She liked to wear her hair up, had a dazzling figure and worked as a model in Munich for a while. From time to time she was also photographed naked. (The photos of Marlene, with her hair pinned up, naked, crouching in a wicker chair, still haunt the editorial offices of daily newspapers to the displeasure of her future husband." - p113

Lemmy Hofer came a short time later. Lauda stood up and took a deep breath, the beautiful Lemmy Hofer from yesterday's party. Marlene Knaus. Curd Jürgens' girlfriend! With a few quick steps he stood in front of her and took her hand. "What are you doing there?" he asked awkwardly. Marlene grinned and Lemmy intervened. 'I spoke to her on the phone this morning. She was bored and we made a date. So I thought, just take her with you.' They sat down next to Niki Lauda. Marlene was silent for a while, then she said cheekily: "I wanted to take a look at Niki Lauda in daylight. That's what she did until Lemmy Hofer said: "Imagine, Niki, that Marlene has her no idea about car racing. She thought you were a Marlene nodded. »Yeah? They all ordered coffee. Lauda looked at Marlene furtively. She had a wonderfully even face. the Hair was back in a bun, her skin suntanned. Her hoarse voice, her closeness... I had seen many beautiful women. They didn't worry me. But this woman was something very special.< How would other men behave in Niki Lauda's situation? They would have used all their charm to impress Marlene Knaus. Lauda not. He turned to his friend Lemmy. »Tell me, what's new in Vienna?<< Lemmy looked at him in amazement for a moment. Then he began to tell. The two of them chatted about old times all afternoon. Marlene listened. She said nothing, no doubt irritated that none of the men took any further notice of her. When she said goodbye, she asked Lauda: "One thing I would like to know... are you always so... so reserved?" Niki Lauda smiled. »Depends.<< He had the feeling that he had won this first round." - p117-8

"Miss Knaus, please." »Miss Knaus isn't here.<< Niki Lauda hesitated for a moment. "When will she come back?" We're not expecting her any time soon.'< 'Where is she?' Miss Knaus is in the hospital. She has severe pneumonia.<< Niki Lauda asked the name of the clinic where Marlene was. Later he told friends with a grin: 'It wasn't nice that Marlene was in the hospital, but it was my big chance. Curd Jürgens was shooting a film in Vienna, but I was there. And I sat at his girlfriend's bedside as often as possible.« He visited Marlene every day. And when the doctor threw him out after a while, he would stand by the window and talk to her. She says, "I thought it was cute. I was in a bad way, but Niki helped me with his visits.<<" - p119

"Where do you want to go, Marlene?<< I would love to take you to an inn and have a schnapps.' Lauda had to laugh. "I'll bring the car here carefully so that the doctors don't notice anything," he said. "You're getting dressed and then we'll take off.' No sooner said than done. Fifteen minutes later they were already behind them in Salzburg. Niki Lauda stopped in a pine forest. "Shall we go for a walk?" "Gladly." Marlene got out. He took her hand. Tall conifers left and right. A narrow path, covered with pine needles. Cicadas chirped. The inn, which they soon reached, looked rather run down Window frames hung askew in the wall. Lauda put his arm around Marlene. They entered. Farmers from the area sat at massive oak tables with smoothly scrubbed tops. The only thing not in the tavern fitted, the jukebox was in the corner. Nobody here knew a racing driver, Niki Lauda, ​​and nobody cared about Curd Jürgens' girlfriend. They sat down at an empty table. Marlene laid her head on his shoulder. The innkeeper joined them. Niki Lauda ordered slivovitz twice. You could see a piece of sky from the window. Clouds came up. A locomotive whistled in the distance. A hit came from the jukebox. The innkeeper brought the schnapps. They drunk. Niki Lauda took Marlene's head in his hands and kissed her she. Shall we have another one, Niki?< »But then we're really drunk.<<< So what? The whole afternoon is ours. They held hands, and Niki Lauda suddenly realized: this is the woman for life! Suddenly he felt as if someone had turned on the light in a dark room. He himself had always resisted marriage, he had said: 'If two people like each other and live together, there is no need for a marriage certificate.' But in a tiny second everything had changed. Niki Lauda felt he had to seal his relationship with Marlene Knaus. She asked him, "What are you thinking about now?" And he answered: 'I remember that I'm always with you want to stay with you Always.” His racing car, the world championship, Mariella, Curd Jürgens… everything was suddenly far, far away. The small village economy became the center of the world for him. He was happy. - p121-2

"There is no doubt that Lauda suffered greatly from public attention in his first year of the World Cup. He had enjoyed being a celebrity in the beginning, but it was already too much for him." - p123

"Another racer, who has since died in an accident, took a particularly good-looking stewardess to his bungalow and began exchanging affections with her in broad daylight. Of course, Lauda and Stuck and a few other racing drivers noticed. They crept up to the bungalow, quietly opened the window and then splashed cold water in the room and on the two naked people." - p128

"Once some one poured milk in Jacky Ickx bed. The sun burns relentlessly hot on the bungalows during the day and when Ickx wanted to go to sleep in the evening, there was a pitiful smell of sour milk. Ickx returned the favor and smeared the windows of Lauda's rental car with honey. Mario Andretti, the American Indianapolis winner, piled up all the sun loungers in the swimming pool one night, a little nervous, and James Hunt was delighted to go naked through the pool scurrying around the garden and scaring the female guests (until all of a sudden he got fed up with the fuss and moved to Sleepy Hollow a few miles away and ended up trying to stay with friends when he didn't like it there either)" - p128-9

"Three years after her first visit to Kyalami, when Marlene Lauda was pregnant and couldn't go with her, she sent her husband a sex doll by post and wrote »so that you don't get any stupid ideas down there«. It was also a birthday present for Lauda. Oddly enough, the puritanical customs of South Africa, who otherwise rigorously confiscate every sex magazine, had nothing against the inflatable doll and Niki Lauda's friends seized it, dressed it in overalls and laid it in the garden." - p129

"Niki Lauda, ​​who was with Mariella a few months earlier von Reininghaus had said, "Hand on heart, I feel married and a ring and a marriage certificate wouldn't change that much either," suddenly moved heaven and earth to get the marriage papers for Marlene and himself. "I wanted to marry her because I wanted to get married," he told me at the time. »It's a feeling - she belongs to you. There's no logical explanation for that.<< If someone spoke to him about Marlene's pregnancy, he got very angry: "When a racing driver is married and has children, he doesn't drive any differently than usual. It's just me driving, not mine wife, not my children. When I race, I turn off everything around me. I don't think about whether my wife is pregnant. It doesn't matter if I have 36 children and five wives, or none at all. Anything else is idiotic. A few days after the race in South Africa, Niki Lauda married Marlene Knaus. So that no one would get wind of the event, they decided to get married in England. But then things didn't work out with the papers, Marlene Knaus doesn't have a birth certificate because it was burned at some point in Venezuela and Niki Lauda couldn't find her parents' marriage certificate. Salzburg was just as out of the question as a place for the wedding, just like Vienna. "People would have been standing in line," said Niki Lauda to his friend Dr. Oertel, who got him the first sponsorship money from the Raiffeisenbank years ago. So Niki Lauda and Marlene Knaus decided to get married in Wiener Neustadt, a good hundred kilometers from Vienna in Lower Austria. No one took care of Lauda there, Dr. Karl-Heinz Oertel was the best man and had to lend Niki Lauda a tie because the groom didn't have one." - p131-2

"A child seemed to complement Niki Lauda's life. It gave him the chance to correct his own messed up childhood. Marlene would make the child feel. to be needed and useful. She surrounded herself with a lot of care, and Niki Lauda didn't tell her that during a first training session on the Jarama race track in Spain had crashed through three fangrines at more than 200 kilometers per hour and had been hit in the skull by a wooden stake. Although he had a headache, he continued testing despite the slight concussion." - p132-3

"She remembered for a moment the first race she had witnessed in South Africa. She had been at the finish tower and when he won she ran down to congratulate him. Hundreds of people pounced on Niki Lauda, ​​everyone wanted something from him, Marlene involuntarily withdrew and just waved at Niki Lauda. On the plane she congratulated him and ordered champagne. He adjusted his seat so that he could sleep comfortably. Before he fell asleep, he asked her, "How did you like the first race you witnessed?" And Marlene answered: >>You're all a bit crazy, I think." - p148

"Around this time Marlene Lauda drove to Salzburg, from the airport she wanted to fly to Cologne with the pilot in Lauda's plane and meet her husband. She was a little confused. In Vienna she had had a very strange dream that would not let her go. It had been Friday night into Saturday night. »I saw, she told Niki Lauda's mother, a car on fire. It was Niki's Ferrari. I saw that very clearly. But only the car was on fire, I didn't see Niki.« Lauda's mother tried to calm Marlene, when that didn't help, she snapped at her. >stop. Don't talk nonsense. Here, take a pill.< Marlene thought about this dream while driving to Salzburg Airport. Of this dream and the race from the Nürburgring... it was 1 p.m." - p154

"Arturo Merzario, the small, skinny Italian, was the first to help Lauda. He was lying behind Lauda in his Wolf Formula 1, stopped immediately, jumped out and ran into the flames. Afterwards, he kept remembering what he witnessed at around two-thirty in the afternoon on August 1st: 'Lauda's screams were terrible. I didn't understand what he was shouting, but I can imagine it.<<" - p156

"When the announcement came through the loudspeakers that Niki Lauda had had a serious accident and that the race would be started again, a few thousand spectators in the finish area started to laugh and shouted and hooted with joy. Huschke von Hanstein gave a first radio interview: "Niki is fine," he said, ser is already flirting with the nurses.<< Then the race started again, but four cars were missing: those of Brett Lunger, Harald Ertl, Chris Amon and Niki Lauda." - p159

"When the ambulance brought Lauda to the hospital on the edge of the rolling hills of the Eifel in Adenau, there was tremendous excitement. A doctor held out a telephone receiver to Lauda: "A call for you, Mr. Laudas," he said. Brazilian radio. They want to do an interview with you.<< It was completely absurd. Lauda lay on the stretcher, got a telephone receiver in his hand and spoke live with a reporter. The conversation was broadcast on the radio across Brazil. But Lauda still doesn't know what he said back then. He was completely gone and has no memory" - p161

"The two nurses who took turns tending to him had soft, friendly voices. Later, when he could see again, he noticed that they were very pretty." - p168

"Once his wife asked him if he would like his parents to visit him. They were in Mannheim, but they didn't want to let them into the intensive care unit without his knowledge. Not yet, Lauda indicated with his wife's hand movements. They communicated by finger pressure or by raising and lowering their hands. Lauda couldn't talk. Marlene Lauda remembered: »I stayed in the hospital, I couldn't go to the hotel. I didn't want to take Valium either. Everyone always gave me Valium. I didn't take any. I collected the pills because, I thought to myself, if anything happens, you'll take them all at once. I already had a whole bunch.<<" - p172

"He really wanted to see himself in the mirror. The doctors forbade it, but when nobody was looking he would sit up and face the glass windows in such a way that he could at least catch a glimpse of his appearance. On Friday the swelling around his eyes receded, he recognized his wife and mother. Whoever wanted to visit him had to strip down to his underwear and put on a sterile gown. He blinked at his mother and croaked, "My God, how do you look?" The green smocks confused him. "You look like Martians," he said." - p173

"One night he got up quietly and crept into the bathroom. He looked in the mirror for a while and said to Marlene, who went to the hospital at five o'clock the next morning. »Now I look like I did at the carnival in Rio. Or one of the leading actors in a horror film.' Marlene Lauda didn't know whether to laugh or comfort him." - p174-4

"They came up with all sorts of tricks to let the transport go smoothly. They issued a bulletin saying that three days later the patient Nikolaus Lauda could be transported from Mannheim to Ludwigshafen by ambulance. In truth, however, they drove to the other clinic the following day in the private car of Prof. Peter, the head of the hospital at the time. It was like a thriller and Niki Lauda had fun doing it. He was given a wide-brimmed hat and a blanket covered his bloated body. And while the reporters were standing in front of the front door, they carried Lauda through the delivery entrance to the doctor's Mercedes." - p174

"Lauda had to record radio commercials for a while, which were broadcast before the races and sounded like this: Narrator: Niki Lauda, ​​who do you fear most when racing in South Africa, Hunt, Scheckter or Fimpaldi? Lauda: None of the three. Only the customs, because they always want to take my Römerquelle away from me, because they think it's a magic potion He was paid 180,000 marks for saying such nonsense." - p191

"He always knew that he could hit some people, yes, that he could hurt some if he stole a disproportionate amount of money from them. He punished people by charging astronomical sums. I remember once having lunch with Niki Lauda in a particularly expensive Munich restaurant. He had brought his wife and two other friends. And then there was an older man who wanted to win Lauda for some business. I noticed that Lauda felt uncomfortable in the man's company. He didn't like him. When it came to paying the very high food bill, Lauda shirked. He also motioned to the rest of us to leave the bill behind. In the end, the businessman had no choice left to pay. And Niki Lauda triumphed" - p200

"Lauda herself characterizes himself differently. He once told me: »I really enjoy a candlelight meal with tender music by Leonard Cohen or Gorden Lightfoot, I love sitting in the middle of a green meadow and looking at the flowers.<<" - 211

"On the other hand, he is brutally open in some respects. When his four-year-old son Lukas once asked him where the severe facial burns came from, he put the child in front of the television and showed the video cassette with the film of the accident. 'You see,' he said, 'I sat inside and burned myself.' Lukas was terribly frightened.

He doesn't mind if children stop and look at him and ask what happened to his face. But he hates being stared at by adults. He once said: “I don't like intrigues and lies, even if I'm not involved myself.” What he fears most is “people's stupidity. Not if they're uneducated, but if they're just stubbornly stupid." - p211

"While the phone rang in the living room, Marlene Lauda sat her son Lucas in his little chair. Niki Lauda had said goodbye to her two days earlier and she had no idea that he was planning to give up racing. She kissed him the usual farewell, then he sat down in his car in the garage, about twenty yards away to the kennel, she walked alongside. She picked up the phone. "Yes, please?" "It's me, Niki." It was silent for a moment. Marlene asked: "Why aren't you at training?" She was a little irritated because her husband called at a very unusual time. Lauda replied: "Look out, you can tell Frau Meier, our housekeeper, that she no longer needs to wash my overalls." At first, Marlene Lauda didn't understand what her husband meant. Then she asked softly and doubtfully: Have you... I mean... have you stopped? 'Yes,' he replied. 'But' she didn't know for a split second what was happening to her... she wanted to scream with joy... but she just said: 'You can't stop suddenly, in the middle of the season... why. "Nothing. I have stopped. I can stop.< Bernie Ecclestone picked up the receiver and said: >Marlene, Niki has gone mad.<< Finally, Niki Lauda calmly said goodbye to his wife. Marlene Lauda later confided to friends: »I thought motionless for a whole hour. Why now? But then I stopped wondering. Because, let's assume it's the kid or something. I think he should keep that to himself.<< Marlene went completely nuts. She phoned her sister in Geneva and immediately yelled: »Niki stopped.<< She said later: »I called my doctor. I had him paged by radio at the clinic. This is the doctor who gave birth to Lucas - he's so nice. I called down at the village inn in the middle of the night and said everyone who is there now can drink whatever they want and as much as they want on my account. I also recently called Curd Jürgens. I was already a little tipsy. He was really happy. Anyone who doesn't know something like that doesn't know what it's like to suddenly no longer have to be afraid for the man. No longer afraid that one day they will carry him away on a stretcher and you stand by and know: So that's it - your life, your marriage.<< p219-20

"In early 1977 he even flew from Austria to California in the Cessna Citation, a jet-powered aircraft. The flight lasted 23 hours. Marlene Lauda played stewardess, served ham sandwiches, pepper sausage, mineral water and hot coffee. When they arrived at the Hotel Holliday Inn in Long Beach, everyone thought that Lauda had gone crazy." - p229

"He called a press conference, invited the journalists onto his plane and flew around Austria with them. He was particularly lovable and, for the first time, did something he had always detested. He also took Marlene and his son Lukas, who was born in April 1979, with him and offered the photographers and journalists the opportunity to take family pictures. When Lukas was born in 1979, Niki Lauda was in Long Beach because the American West Coast Grand Prix was coming up. He heard about the birth of his first son over the phone before flying to Las Vegas with his then-team boss Bernie Ecclestone to see the new racetrack. And it was clear to him that his son should not be marketed. “I've strictly forbidden photography. A reporter who offered to radio him a picture of the newborn to America was dismissed: "I said no photo, and I'll see my son often enough." Of course he was proud to be the father of a boy, but he didn't want children as vehemently as Marlene did. Once he said when his wife still was pregnant: "If it's a boy, he's to be called Lukas Ben. If it's a girl, we've already chosen a name... wait a minute, that was... oh. damn, i forgot. Well, it doesn't matter.<< In December 1980, when Lukas was one and a half years old, he kept having his picture taken with Marlene and Lukas and also said: »My boy is a super child. He's friendly and incredibly open-minded. He drives like a wild tractor. Only in the passenger seat, of course. But if he's not allowed to come along, he'll start crying.<< - p249-50

"I am too sensitive. And maybe too open. At least for my self. There are situations when people hurt me. And that hurts me. That's why I build a wall around me." - p251

"Now he was vulnerable, a man with little cultural sense whose favorite film is Jeremiah Johnson starring Robert Redford, who went to the opera only once in his life, as a child, and almost fell asleep doing it, who doesn't read novels and only thought of business." - p251

"Once, it was a Saturday morning, he came home to Hof near Salzburg. He'd gone out to buy newspapers that morning and forgot to close the garage door. Marlene wasn't at home either, so the house was empty for a good hour. As he stepped into the hallway, he saw a man walking around in it. He had his arms spread wide and was striding toward the spiral staircase that leads from the garage hallway to the living room. room on the first floor. The man moved very stiffly and earnestly. It looked funny looking As if he were a bird ready to fly away at any moment. He didn't pay any attention to Niki Lauda. Lauda said: "Hello, can I help you?" The other man looked at him and replied: "Ah, Mr. Lauda, ​​nice day. Thanks, it's all right... Niki Lauda thought hard, but he had it man actually never seen before. The stranger now began to climb the stairs with outstretched arms. He touched the railing with his fingertips. 'Damn,' he said crossly. Now it was too colorful for Lauda. "Listen," he snapped, "this is my house. What are you doing?< The other stopped, put his arms down and left towards Lauda. He seemed really upset. "But you're being rude, Herr Lauda," he said. 'I'm building a house like yours and I'd like a nice spiral staircase like that too. I saw yours in a newspaper. Now I have to measure whether my closet goes up the stairs. My closet is<< - he spread his arms apart again - »>about that deep.<< Lauda threw him out." - p252-3

"Lauda let in on the edge of his large property Put up a sign that read: »Private property<<. That didn't help. People came anyway. Even after he stopped racing, they kept harassing him. When someone was at the door again at the weekend, Lauda asked: "Why are you following me?" He said: »I would like to look at your house.<< Lauda answered: »What would you say if I came to you one day and sat in front of your apartment door?«< "This is something else. You are Lauda. «< Marlene was getting scared. And Niki Lauda tried to get a gun. Initially, however, he was denied a firearms license, saying that taxi drivers had caused enough mischief with pistols and that no new firearms licenses were being issued in Austria. Lauda said: "But I'm not a taxi driver. It took a while and several interventions before Niki Lauda was able to obtain a pistol, a Walther, and received the gun license number 074894. This bureaucracy also annoyed him. And slowly the desire to leave Austria, at least for a while, germinated in him." - p254

"Niki Lauda generally says that he is a particularly cautious driver (»Everyone claims that they are good drivers. Anyone who cannot do it at least says they drive >quickly<<<), but in truth he accelerates vigorously, wherever it is possible. I had an appointment with him on April 27, 1981 to find out more about the rumors that Niki Lauda wanted to return to Formula 1. He told me that he had just overlooked a speed limit on a German autobahn and had run into a speed camera at over 200 kilometers per hour. The police officers who then stopped him were quite perplexed. They said it was one of the few devices that could measure over 200 kilometers per hour and that he was the very first to drive in there. Then they said they would consider that a test measurement and he should continue driving now. Niki Lauda was in good spirits, he had been lucky and he could just as easily have gotten rid of his driver's license" - p261

"At first, Marlene Lauda did not want to accept the fact that her husband was getting back into the Grand Prix circus. "She cried quite a bit," Lauda put it gently. "For what Niki is up to there," Marlene Lauda said to me on the phone in November 1981, "there's really only one word - crazy! I have the impression that he must have gone completely mad. When I first read about these rumors in the newspaper, I still thought they were inventions by journalists.<< But slowly she began to suspect that there was more to it than that. >>Whenever Niki talked to me about car racing, she teased his voice a little. Good heavens, I thought if there is nothing in the bush!<< Then one day she received certainty. “Niki came home from Egypt. He had had difficult negotiations about his airline and the Fokker charter and I thought he would be tired and taciturn. But he was all high-spirited and funny. He was suspiciously in a good mood. There's more to come, I thought. And indeed. That evening he taught me that he wanted to try again.<< Marlene Lauda now knew that nobody could be strong enough to dissuade Niki Lauda from making such a decision. »Not if he's really determined to do it.<<" - p266

Niki Lauda attracted the most beautiful girls. A number of top-class love affairs were immediately attributed to him. There he hung out in New York's Xenon and in Rome's Bella Blue he hung out with Ileonora Vallone, the beautiful, long-haired daughter of actor Ralf Vallone. The Munich evening newspaper then asked Marlene Lauda if she was jealous and she replied: "I don't take something like that seriously. After all, I've known Niki long enough.« The picture said: »An infidelity can happen spontaneously with him«, says his wife, »but he would never let himself be caught.« And: »Niki Lauda prefers to come five minutes too early than a minute too late. But every two months he gets drunk with friends in the village inn in the Salzkammergut, but in between he calls his wife. I'll be there soon and won't be home until after midnight. He even missed Christmas Eve. He drank with his pilots, didn't get home until ten and fell asleep next to the Christmas tree. >The next morning I looked in the mirror and said to myself: you asshole." - p272-3

"At the end of 1982, the Laudas decided to move to Ibiza for a while. "Marlene and the children are there most of the time anyway," he said. He liquidated his household in Salzburg and had his two mastiffs put to sleep. Marlene had longed for the dogs after the wedding, they were two particularly beautiful, dark dogs, Bagheera and Balu. The dogs slept in a four-poster bed with checkered curtains and were kind-hearted. "But then suddenly," Niki Lauda told the Bild newspaper, "they became jealous of our children." Because the dogs were running around freely, there was always trouble with hikers and hunters. Once Lauda even left Austrian television is looking for his dogs because they like had disappeared from the face of the earth and he was afraid they could be killed by hunters." - p273

Tagging @f1yogurt to read in their own time; lots of information here

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