I don't know if they were ostracized by French society or not. Is it possible that they were just fast tracked into the French diplomatic service?

I've seen pictures of the ones in Paris being shaved and run out of town.:)

Worth, but not comprising ...

After the war, no one was a collaborator ... everyone was "secretly working for the resistance."

Yeah.

I believe the usual treatment was shaved head and made to run naked through the town, some beatings, some deaths.

Speaking as one who would know, dude, you should start bottling all that acid and consider going into business, you make verjuice look sweet.

Ok, gotta ask. What is verjuice?

Juice of unripened grapes. Very sour. Similar in strength to vinegar.

Not at the time but the Japs have been invited to many subsequent commemorative ceremonies.:)

Yeah. but that was the politician not the General. I'm kidding, yes the resistance was invaluable in preparing for D-Day. It's a shame there weren't more of them.;)

I've always known it as crab apple juce, used for cooking.

Iraq pt. 1? Ruthless dictator makes a territorial grab against a defenseless neighbor, an international force pushes him back, breaks apart his military?

Sounds like a fair comparison to what WWII would have been like if the world had joined the fight at Austria instead of Poland.

-sm

I first saw it in a NYTimes article entitled "Mustard Isn't So Yellow Anymore" about purple mustard made with verjuice instead of vinegar.

Definition:
ver·juice Pronunciation (vûr' joos)
n.
1. The acidic juice of crab apples or other sour fruit, such as unripe grapes.
2. Sourness, as of disposition.

First ask yourself who the enemy was? Was it every German? Yes to the cannon fodder who was sent forward in blind anger to fight the enemy. But in reality - and this is the tragedy of war - the enemy only was top German leadership and their close supporters.

Was the Army blindly battling in Iraq because all Iraqis were evil? Of course not. (Most top generals, as we now know, were even angry that they were stopped from going after a real enemy - bin Laden.) But like in Iraq, most of the German nation was really more a victim of a leader they mistakenly supported in the beginning. In the case of Germany, mistaken support because the supporters were too much inspired by their emotions rather than first comprehend facts and principles. Do you blame all Germans for having created a bad leader based upon their emotional convictions?

The German people such as those coastal security regiments were really a victim of a misguided and corrupted leadership. Soldiers who then had to sit in pill boxes and mow down invaders on the beach until most of the German defenders were killed (sometimes outright butchered in violation of Geneva principles).

Where in all this is there anything righteous or good? That is the evil of war. Many if not most on both sides are really only victims of top management. They were doing their job as is even condoned today by the Geneva Conventions. For that you would condemn them to not honor their peers, killed by a misguided national leadership? I don't think so.

Those German soldiers were on the battlefield for the same reasons that most of those Americans, Brits, Canadians, and Iraqis were on the battlefield. When it comes to honoring the war dead, there is no enemy except the evil leadership who created the whole mess. Those Germans have just as much right to the D-Day ceremonies as their Allied peers.

So what are those ceremonies about? We honor those who most suffered - on both sides - because top management failed to serve the people. We honor those who were most victims of bad political leaders - and who did their job anyway despite the cost.

What do you do when you cut yourself. Do you attempt to rescue every corpusle? Of course not. You sacrifice some to benefit of the many. We just don't honor those corpusles - the one who sacrificed himself to protect the body. And yet we do that in D-Day. The many give tribute to the few who gave so much, on both sides, only because they were doing their duty.

Again, that is the tragedy of war and why we go to war only after a smoking gun exists. Anything less would make D-Day just another killing field. D-Day represents the rare time when leadership caused the worst to happen. Those people on both side had to die just so that the disagreement could be brought back to a conference table. So much lost just because a few leaders were so self serving. It is the tragedy of war and why we really honor those veterans - victims of management (leadership) failure.

*Nods* I agree, I think the German veterans had a place at the commemorations. Interestingly many of the British veterans were pleased they had been included. I dont know what the other nations' veterans thought about it.

although i empathize with the many conscripted, non-german soldiers who died with a german uniform on, i do hold the german nation responsible for the war. did they protest, or do anything appropriate to bring about the end of the nazi reign from within? were their cries for assistance merely drowned out by the furnace's lullaby? i don't think so. germans in the nearby towns claimed they weren't even aware of the death camps, lame excuses about thinking the ash was from burned logs were the order of the day. the average german citizen may not have raised a hand to assist in atrocities, but they didn't do anything to stop them either.

the german people do hold some responsibility for the atrocities. so does the rest of the world that believed appeasement was a viable long term option. "peace in our time" ring a bell?

in any tragedy there is blame to pass around but the german public allowed Hitler and his ilk to come to power, and once there, remain in power.

IMO the german presence at the ceremonies this year wasn't a coming together of all participants, but a statement of current alignment of nations. chirac with his actions indicated that the french have a closer connection with the germans than they do with americans at this point in time.