re: #184 HappyWarrior

The Germans I have read were one group that was pretty anti slavery. Makes me wonder if that was part of my second great grandfather’s motivations for enlisting. I have no idea. He died when my Dad’s grandmother was a girl. We used to have his discharge papers I believe but I think one of my aunts or uncles got them when my Dad’s mom passed away.I’d love to have those but I do have a photo of him and his blacksmith shop on my wall.

Yeah, the background of the folks fleeing Germany in the mid-1800s is that a lot of them were basically slaves for centuries under the (not-so)Holy Roman Empire.

They’d gotten fucked over by generations of land-owning shitheels, and they weren’t coming to a new country that promised freedom, only to see that cycle repeating itself.

Also, they hated the snotty, sneering, arrogant English. Deep aversion to “peacocking” in the Germans.