On Saving Naturist Literature

[BlueTrain]

Being really objective in the case of war reporting would mean not having an interest in the outcome. That is, not having a vested interest in who wins in the end. I assume the British reporters who went along on the Falklands war would have preferred the British to win. The reporting is one thing; the newspapers are another. What gets printed depends on the editor, along with which page it goes on. You also have to remember what news is. It's something that just happened. Something that happened a week ago is no longer news. Unfortunately, that means you usually don't get (as Paul Harvey used to say) the rest of the story. But if you don't eventually see the rest of the story, that doesn't mean it's being kept secret. It's hard to believe there are any secrets these days. If the Russians want to know where we have troops (just about everywhere), they can look it up on Wikipedia, although Wikipedia is by no means always accurate--or without bias.

Television reporting, however, is different. The dynamics are altogether different. You don't pick and choose what to read, although you certainly aren't forced to sit and listen to whatever happens to be on. TV news generally leads with something dramatic. Crime, fires, natural disasters and so on. The bigger the station, the more it becomes entertainment because they want to keep your attention. Network news even more so. I don't know how it could be different. Public radio is different yet again. Their news stories are long and quite in-depth. If only they could do a story without the sound of footsteps on gravel.

Propaganda is big news (usually) that is intended to make your side more impressive or stronger and the other side weak and ineffective. The object is to demoralize the enemy. The Germans in WWII were masters of the art, even though they were good at the art of war, too. But their propaganda was believed and still is, even if the plain facts are otherwise. The propaganda said they rolled through Poland and France, brushing aside all resistance. The facts are that those campaigns were hard-fought, even if the outcome was only barely in question. In the invasion of Poland, Germany lost about 1,000 tanks and armored vehicles and as many as 16,000 killed in action. In the invasion of France, they lost about 27,000 killed in action and about 800 tank. Doesn't sound like it was an easy campaign at all. Of course, they won both campaigns and the other sides lost more. Anyway, blitzkrieg was more propaganda than reality.

[jbeegoode]

"blitzkrieg was more propaganda than reality."
Never heard that one. The Polish Army was supposed to be anything but modern, horse drawn, older cannons and against this new stuff like masses of aircraft. They were no match. It ended in a few days, Poland overwhelmed.

Must be some new stuff. I haven't been keeping up with that new history about WWII.

I've been more into naturist history of late.
Jbee

[BlueTrain]

You just proved how effective German propaganda was. The German army was more horse-drawn than mechanized in 1939. The campaign took just over a month. I once met a man who had been an officer in the Polish army before the war and had ridden in the 1936 Olympics. But we didn't discuss the war.

As far as nudist literature goes, I've always been interested in older books on the subject. There were about a half-dozen (in English) published before the war (same war), of which I've read only a couple. They are quite fascinating, a little quaint and also a little naïve in places, but nevertheless quite informative. In some ways a little dates but in other ways, rather detached from the period. One writer did mention that some German clubs did not admit Jewish members. No mention that I recall of male-female ratios. The 1920s seem to have been the best years of the nudist movement in Germany. Although ideally, club activities took place in rural locations, there were arrangements to have activities in the cities over the winter months, especially at indoor swimming pools.