Talk:Edelweiss Pirates

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A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on October 25, 2012, October 25, 2014, and October 25, 2021.

Did they have some ideology or just was having fun together? Music? Drinking? Were they engaged in what we would call crime? (Certainly they ware criminal for Nazi standards, I mean thievery, vandalism). Were they living at their parents' or were they street children?

Here are some links that might be useful: http://www.shoahproject.org/widerstand/kids/shkids4.htm

this one seems the most valuable one; it contains the reports made by the Edelweiss Pirates about their activities, which included saving Jews, forced laborers, deserters from the nazi German army, and some other people who were persecuted by the nazi regime. they (Edelweisspiraten) also spread the news about the successes of the Allies in the WWII, to show their fellow Germans the nonsense of further fighting.

http://www.museenkoeln.de/ausstellungen/nsd_0404_edelweiss/

the site of the Museum is a real treasury of information on everything surrounding Edelweiss Pirates and the youth culture in the times of WWII in Germany (including the lyrics to the Edelweisspiraten songs)

http://www.palladiofilm.de/palladio/englisch/proj-01-02-e.htm

this one refers to the film, but it also contains valuable info

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/16/16030/1.html

this one is a press article

http://www.aussichten-online.de/edelweisspiraten.html

this one is a press article, too

http://www.kino-zeit.de/filme/artikel/3519_edelweispiraten.html

this is an article about the movie and the real history behind it

http://www.countryjoe.com/wwwboard/messages/955.html

this is just the song that was quoted on the wikipedia

http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2005w06/msg00286.htm

references to the book titled 'Inside nazi German' and includes the full version (??) of the Navajo song.

At first they started as a protest against the HJ, but later they also started to sabotage NS installations (very small actions of course). Some groups also attacked HJ leaders, as far as I know a dozen HJ leaders were killed by the Pirates. (infos taken from the german article)

1. The movie is very far from the real events.
2. The German article doesn't mention any killed HJ-leaders. The number of 12 was given by the Gestapo in 1945, is exaggerated by far (to justify the harsh measures) and includes policemen and so on. Scholars discuss between 3 and 5 murders done by former Edelweißpirates.
3. Only two of the above links are mentioned in the German article.

What's your game? --jergen 16:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As it was an organization, I am not sure if the redirect should not be the other way round (Edelweiss Pirates --> Edelweißpiraten).? At the German version, there was information about the date of the hanging of Barthel Schink that conflicted with what we had here. Get-back-world-respect 09:11, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Please update this subversive page the 12 or 13 persons were hung only as a direct result of the murder of the head of Cologne Police – before that the group was viewed as nothing more than a minor threat - considering the war time environment and the year what would the result be in any country? - Kolin.

subversive page? speaking about the nazi atrocities is 'subversive'? the anti-nazi activity that costed life of the noble people is 'subversive'? wikipedia is not a place for the nazi apology, and I smell some in your statement (though I may be wrong). Remember, that apologizing nazis is a criminal offense in lots of countries (including Poland where I live, 3 years in prison for 'publicly aplauding fascism, nazism or other totalitarian regime'). And the doctrine of Polish law against hate speech is so, that if one utters something in his country, and the message reaches Poland, he (or she) may be liable for committing the crime and may be pursued at any entry to our country, eg. at the airport Critto

P.s – to find this info you may have to venture off the net conveniently since the group has been “honored” in form of a profitable Money making movie it is very hard to find out just exactly who they killed , to test this do a search.

Sorry for barging in here. I am from Cologne, and I find it mindblowing that someone should see this page as 'subversive'. No- it is not hard to find out who they killed. That happened to be a local Kreisleiter who was getting a little too close for comfort. But they were convicted for stealing food-coupons, quite and simply. Their relatives have been fighting for years to have the convictions quashed as unlawful, and to have them recognised as victims of the Nazi-regime (which is exactly what they were). Those, my dear friends, were people with more backbone than you will ever be able to imagine. The court in Cologne however decided to reject the motion on the grounds that "stealing from the German Nation" back then was a viable reason for execution, since that was the law. It seems to have escaped this bigotted fly-brained bunch of robe-wearing clowns that there were quite a few things which were "the law" back then. There was a German Soldier back then who wrote after the war: "It took me years before I finally figured out that the only duty I had against the Fatherland in this war was to loose it as fast as I could". And- believe it or not: That makes him a real patriot. The Edelweisspiraten, by the way, were not the only ones. In 1938, there was a woman in Ehrenfeld, who received an anonymous Phonecall, telling her that the SA would carry out a raid the following morning to arrest the jews in that place. So- the following morning, the SA were greetet by several hundred women armed with anything from broomhandles to castiron frying-pans. Not one jew was arrested- but the "reception" landed dozens of SA- Stormtroopers in hospital, and at least one of them in the morgue. And you know something? It was a great pity that there were not many more SA- Stormtroopers who got their faces re-arranged. Because- in case the person above did not notice: these people were the filth of the earth. As for the Edelweisspirates- the only "honouring" they received was a bronze plaque put up near the bloody railway-bridge were they got hanged, and that was put up by their relatives. I am speaking as someone whose grandfather had every rib, both arms and all of his teeth broken by these bastards. Therefore, I claim a godgiven right to speak forcefully. I hope you catch my drift...213.94.183.206 02:36, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Needless to say that the women mentioned above were arrested, one by one, by the very police the abovementioned person seems so concerned about, over the course of the next few weeks following the incident. Not one of them was ever seen again.213.94.183.206 02:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to correct myself- I just found out that the Edelweisspiraten were in fact finally recognised as resistance-fighters by the authorities--in 2005. Better late then never. As for the guy who got killed- he was a Gestapo-informant. The story back when I was still living in Cologne was always that he had been a Kreisleiter- or so it goes. Anyways, I got that wrong, so I hereby correct myself.159.134.96.23 23:07, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1. Please sign your contributions.
2. Do you have any reliable sources for your statement (except a Google-it-yourself)?
3. Main subject of the article is the subculture, not the Ehrenfelder Gruppe. Please start a new article, if you want to describe this group.

you fill find some info about their lifestyle in the articles I provided a section above

1. As the article states, only some members of the Ehrenfelder Gruppe were former Edelweiß Pirates. This group killed some people - but surely not the head of the Cologne police. Please read also de:Ehrenfelder Gruppe. --jergen 16:46, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"some people" included the nazi officials and nazi activists, don't speak about them as if they were innocent, anonymous 'people' Critto

The three known people killed by the Ehrenfelder Gruppe are a police officer (no member of the Gestapo), an youth member of the Hitler Youth and one Stormtrooper. None of them ranked high in his organization. Afterwards they attacked innocent passing-by people out of a car. This amok-driving was repeated in the next days.

well, it happened after the police arrested few of their (Ehrenfelder Gruppe) comrades, including Jews (Jewesses) they hid and a Wehrmacht deserter. Some of killings happened at the failed attempt to free those prisoners (there was a more or less regular shootout between the two parties).

Also, the police found the arsenal of weapons that the Ehrenfelder Gruppe stored to combat the nazis (AFAIK they even had a plan to blow up the Gestapo Headquarters (eLDe Haus) in Cologne) and stationed in the neighborhood to stop Ehrenfelders (Ehrenfelder Gruppe) from taking it back. Therefore, there's nothing strange or unusual in the fact that Ehrenfelders shoot the police members: it was war and all people working for the nazi structures were the enemies of the Ehrenfelder Gruppe. Their rank had nothing to do here. All partisans at war shoot their enemies, especially if the foes discover and/or arrest some of them, endanger their actions or confiscate their equipment. The Ehrenfelder Gruppe was the militant group of people (not the peaceful movement as White Rose Society that fought their own war against Hitler and could be called rebels or partisans, and even compared to other militant, anti-nazi resitance movements as Polish Armia Krajowa (Home Army). There was nothing 'amok-like' in it, just a warfare. Critto

Strangely, no reputable German scholars call the Ehrenfeld Group a "resitance movement" - but your recount of the historical inaccurate movie is a good one.

There is nothing strange about it. Further above you'll find a story about women in Ehrenfeld, who fought the SA in the Streets. You won't find much about that, either. The 'reputable' German scholars are in that respect in one boat with the 'reputable' City-councillors of Cologne. Some years ago, there was an artist in Cologne who createt the same graffiti on walls around Cologne, depicting that incident- that's how I learned about it. Whenever the graffiti was finished, the Councillors had it removed: NOT because it's graffiti, but because- and I quote: "...This kind of thing is too embarrassing; History should not be rememberred for things like that..." ...Instead, we have been expected to accept Graf Stauffenberg as a man of "resistance", because that fits the bill better then common people. And were would we get, if just anyone decides to "resist" the might of the state? So- even IF the officers around Stauffenberg waited until it was blatantly obvious to anyone with brains to speak of that this war was lost, and that only a partial truce with the western allies would possibly prevent the Russians from occupying a part of Germany-- it seems a strangely more comfortable position than to have to grudgingly admit that people DO have the right- and one that is beyond any laws, and is even more than a right a DUTY- to resist a brutal and destructive regime. Even- and especially- if it happens to be their own government.213.94.183.206 03:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You should be (and probably are) aware, that it is a disputable, highly-politicised issue with no NPOV solution. In 2005 the Ehrenfelder Gruppe members were honored on the memorial in Cologne as 'resistance fighters against war and terror'. As for me, the facts are simple: they resisted against the nazi regime and hid Jews, so they constituted the Resistance group, whether it is officially acknowledged or not. And I don't need the acceptance of scholars to make a moral judgement based on the plain facts. Also, using Polish legal and historical assessments, all militant and non-militant actions against the nazi regime (including the acts I mentioned and also eg. industrial sabotage, eg. destroying the tools and machines used in factories, especially when committed by the forced laborers) taken for whatever reason _were_ the actions of the resistance that are commended by the Polish state, so in Poland the Ehrenfelder Gruppe would be probably given the same credit the Polish resistance movements are. Critto

Also, the amok-like behaviour is well documented. (cf. Wilfried Breyvogel (Hrsg.): Piraten, Swings und Junge Garde; Bernd-A. Rusinek: Gesellschaft in der Katastrophe.) --jergen 13:59, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I must ask you to read the German articles on this matter since they are far more accurate than the English ones. --jergen 16:19, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Should the group be named Edelweiss Pirates or Edelweißpiraten in the article itself? Since it was mostly in German, I've converted the few English instances for now, but I vote to switch the Pirates to all English. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:08, 19 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've redone the translation of the Navajos song to improve its literal accuracy while preserving (and, I hope, improving) conformity to the original's meter and rhyme scheme. I'm having some trouble, however, with the second and fourth lines, whose literal translations are "we still lie in chains" and "we are about to break the chains [grammatically 'we will break the chains in the immediate future']": It's hard to find a rhyming match between the second and fourth lines that preserves literal accuracy, so I've kept the second line literally accurate and gotten the fourth fairly close, supplying a fully literal translation (and moving the rhyme- and meter-preserving translation to gold to complete the black-red-gold, anti-Nazi-black-white-red color scheme). Improvements are welcome. Antediluvian67 (talk) 16:16, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So they stole food coupons (valuable, undoubtedly) attacked and beat up refugees (displaced persons) and assaulted women going out with allied soldiers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.38.141.202 (talk) 15:50, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]