City fan' letter in "Radio Times"

[AliBobbyJ]

The disappointment for me was that my first City hero lied about his Nazi past, denying it until near his death when he finally came clean.

(With apologies for another derailment, or at least diversion.) I'm a bit puzzled by this. We all knew about Bert's war service, of course, so do you mean it was his membership of the Hitler Youth that he'd kept quiet about? I thought that was frankly admitted in both Bert's own "Steppes to Wembley" and the Alan Rowlands biography, though I don't have either book to hand so could be wrong about that. Also, didn't the British interrogators classify him as having had Nazi Party membership rather than being just an ordinary soldier when he first arrived in England as a P.O.W? Have to dig the books out of the closet and look this up.
Anyway, thanks to you and to LIz for the link to the Manchester rabbi's letter, etc.

 

[Blue Mist]

Right, enough is enough, can we get this thread back on track please.
As I was saying when I was in Guatemala picking coffee........

 

[Big Joe Corrigan]

I dunno. Is it random? Like you get a group of kids who randomly support one club and then their mates start supporting same and it mushrooms?

On a smaller basis, how come Stockport is so dominantly blue, whereas parts of Manchester are definitely more red? For example in my school (Marple) there were about 150 boys in my year and like 2 were reds. There was the odd Everton fan and others here and there but easily 100+ were City fans. I didn't know of a solitary Liverpool fan in the entire school.

Was that Marple Hall or The Willows? I was at Marple Hall many years ago, and there was a mix of City and rags, the odd Leeds fan, Rangers, definitely no dipper fans.

 

[AliBobbyJ]

Right, enough is enough, can we get this thread back on track please.
As I was saying when I was in Guatemala picking coffee........

I once had a cup of coffee in Guatemala. Age 20 I took the bus in from Mexico and the border guards made me submit to a haircut before they'd admit a long-haired hippy Communist. They gave me a coffee while they did it.

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

(With apologies for another derailment, or at least diversion.) I'm a bit puzzled by this. We all knew about Bert's war service, of course, so do you mean it was his membership of the Hitler Youth that he'd kept quiet about? I thought that was frankly admitted in both Bert's own "Steppes to Wembley" and the Alan Rowlands biography, though I don't have either book to hand so could be wrong about that. Also, didn't the British interrogators classify him as having had Nazi Party membership rather than being just an ordinary soldier when he first arrived in England as a P.O.W? Have to dig the books out of the closet and look this up.
Anyway, thanks to you and to LIz for the link to the Manchester rabbi's letter, etc.

Just finished reading Trautman's Journey which heavily features his early life. It's a brilliant book but pulls no punches about Bert's time in the Hitler Youth and later on the Russian Front where he witnessed first-hand the murder of civilians. The theme of the book is forgiveness and goes into a lot of detail about Bert's transition from a POW to living in North West England where he was overwhelmed by the kindness of the locals towards him and changed his views totally. He openly admits he was a Nazi and growing up even had arguments with his parents who were less enthusiastic than him about the Nazi regime. He grew up in Bremen where there was a strong Communist element in the shipyards and a lot of opposition to Hitler.

 

[Blue Llama]

I believe that most of us of an age that witnessed his performance in goal were quite clear about his background. Because it ultimately became a non issue as Bert was assimilated into British society, younger fans coming into the game as City fans never questioned his background, he was just German. Bert was quite rightly proud of being German but recognised his youthful error in following Nazi doctrine. But just the same as Russian people today are being fed propaganda so we're the Germans in the 1930s and early 50s

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

I dunno. Is it random? Like you get a group of kids who randomly support one club and then their mates start supporting same and it mushrooms?

On a smaller basis, how come Stockport is so dominantly blue, whereas parts of Manchester are definitely more red? For example in my school (Marple) there were about 150 boys in my year and like 2 were reds. There was the odd Everton fan and others here and there but easily 100+ were City fans. I didn't know of a solitary Liverpool fan in the entire school.

Another derailment. The thread just seems to lend itself to it.
Curious, Chippy. When were you at Marple? I spent a year there doing a couple more A levels and generally seeing my (first) girlfriend through the wire fence at breaktimes, 1970-71. But I'm probably an old git compared to you. I remember it being pretty evenly mixed between blues and reds in my particular class. You're right, though, I don't remember a single Liverpool fan who identified as such.
It's always seemed to me obvious that Stockport would be blue; we were broadly speaking on the southern side of the city as long as we were at Maine Road.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

On another note. Lots of weird people were members of the Hitler Youth. When you're fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, you do some strange things and you belong to some strange organisations. Who is 100% certain on here that they wouldn't have been part of the Hitler Youth in the atmosphere of 1930s Germany? I can't say I am. And I think of myself as a firm socialist. I suspect that in a totalitarian society some people take full advantage of it to get a kind of power that they would never in a million years have got. Some actively oppose it, at the risk of their lives. And most keep their heads down, waiting for this to pass. I'm not by any means certain that I wouldn't have been part of the third group.
Towards the end of his life, Nobel prize winner Gunther Grass even owned up to having been a member of an SS battalion towards the end of the war. Now that was a jolt for a lot of people inside and outside Germany. Including myself. Bert, so far as I'm aware, was never in the SS. That would be a different kettle of fish entirely. My parents both fought in the war (mother in the land army) and had a lifelong hatred of all Germans. They saw the newsreels about the liberation of the camps at the end of the war, and were deeply, deeply shocked. I understand their hatred, and don't judge it, not having lived what they saw. But I've never remotely felt it myself.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Another derailment. The thread just seems to lend itself to it.
Curious, Chippy. When were you at Marple? I spent a year there doing a couple more A levels and generally seeing my (first) girlfriend through the wire fence at breaktimes, 1970-71. But I'm probably an old git compared to you. I remember it being pretty evenly mixed between blues and reds in my particular class. You're right, though, I don't remember a single Liverpool fan who identified as such.
It's always seemed to me obvious that Stockport would be blue; we were broadly speaking on the southern side of the city as long as we were at Maine Road.

Blimey you are old ;-) I thought I was old and I was there 72 to 79!

 

[KIPPAX WARR]

(With apologies for another derailment, or at least diversion.) I'm a bit puzzled by this. We all knew about Bert's war service, of course, so do you mean it was his membership of the Hitler Youth that he'd kept quiet about? I thought that was frankly admitted in both Bert's own "Steppes to Wembley" and the Alan Rowlands biography, though I don't have either book to hand so could be wrong about that. Also, didn't the British interrogators classify him as having had Nazi Party membership rather than being just an ordinary soldier when he first arrived in England as a P.O.W? Have to dig the books out of the closet and look this up.
Anyway, thanks to you and to LIz for the link to the Manchester rabbi's letter, etc.

I believe that most of us of an age that witnessed his performance in goal were quite clear about his background. Because it ultimately became a non issue as Bert was assimilated into British society, younger fans coming into the game as City fans never questioned his background, he was just German. Bert was quite rightly proud of being German but recognised his youthful error in following Nazi doctrine. But just the same as Russian people today are being fed propaganda so we're the Germans in the 1930s and early 50s