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1512
1513

Pyramid of captured German helmets outside Grand Central Terminal, New York, ca.1918 [1024 × 853] (sirismm.si.edu)

submitted ago by marquis_of_chaos

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[–]Boxing_Clever 114 points115 points ago

What did I learn in the wars:
To march in time to swinging arms and legs.
Like pumps pumping an empty well.

To march in a row and be alone in the middle,
To dig into pillows, featherbeds, the body of a beloved woman,
And to yell "Mama," when she cannot hear,
And to yell "God," when I don't believe in Him,
And even if I did believe in Him.
I wouldn't have told Him about the war.
As you don't tell a child about grown-ups' horrors.

-What Did I Learn in the Wars / Yehuda Amichai

[–]javetter 14 points15 points ago

What a perfect place for this poem. Thank You

[–]recreational 8 points9 points ago

WWI had the best poetry for some reason. The Waste Land, too, and I'm a big fan of this one:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge. 
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.


If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
  • Dulce et Decorum est, by Wilfred Own (Killed in action in 1918, a week before the war ended)

[–]soothfast 1 point2 points ago

This poem is sublime. Its the most evocative of all the WWI poems.

[–]Good_WO_God 0 points1 point ago

It was the loss of war-time glory. Sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country, not!

[–]Sub_Popper 5 points6 points ago

beautiful

[–]R_Schuhart 2 points3 points ago

I dont know whats better, the original post or your poem. My helmet is of to you sir. (could NOT resist).

[–]marquis_of_chaos[S] 17 points18 points ago

Info page.

[–]mcaffrey 45 points46 points ago

If the heads were still in them, it could probably be used to summon Cthulhu.

[–]Punkndrublic 20 points21 points ago

You don't summon Cthulhu silly. You accidentally run your boat into his house island and he runs out like a flabby idiot and eats your friends.

[–]helloxcthulhu 2 points3 points ago

I beg to differ.

[–]kitatatsumi 6 points7 points ago

That-is-awesome!

Another great find Marquis

[–]NeverTheMachine 40 points41 points ago

This subreddit delivers so much. As someone who has been ambivalent to a lot of finer points in history, this is very eye opening, learning from the ground up, spurned from some interesting photograph posted here.

This picture has a certain sense of evilness to it, as in the United States officially celebrating the act of not winning the war, but simply killing. Underscores how harmful we had to be in order to remove a greater wrong.

[–]this_sort_of_thing 24 points25 points ago

Well, they never said anything about killing. Far more people surrendered or were non-fatally wounded than actually died (well, that's the case most of the time)...and when you surrender or are lying there wounded they get to take all your stuff from you.

Saying that, I wouldn't be surprised, or it's also possible this is a mount of helmets taken from fatalities.

[–]Raoc3 7 points8 points ago

What's really eye-opening is that there was no greater wrong here. The US got involved in a european war that we had no business in. What followed as a result was even worse. So very horrible and pointless.

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points ago

That's a start. You might have heard of the Monroe-doctrine, in which the US claims the western hemisphere to be under the control of the US, while claiming neutrality in European conflicts. The US did help end the Great War faster by its influx of extra soldiers.

But lose the 'we'. You didn't do anything. Nationalism is problematic enough for stuff happening right now, let alone historical events. I would suggest losing moral judgement as well, but that would take away the emotional impact, I guess.

[–]austro-american 18 points19 points ago

The "we" is very important in a democracy. A certain sense of shared responsibility is important to making sure the right choices are made in the future.

[–]yousifucv 6 points7 points ago

We say "we" in a democracy because we are presently apart of that democracy. We shouldn't say "we" for things before our time.

[–]austro-american 7 points8 points ago

I recognize that distinction. But I think that people need to take more, rather than less responsibility in the actions of their country. Cutting off the connection to it for events that happened less than a century ago seems counterproductive to that end.

[–]yousifucv 0 points1 point ago

But they aren't responsible for any of that past stuff, so you shouldn't think you are. Just try to be a better democracy and a part of a better people, learn from past mistakes, but don't feel you need to take any responsibility for them.

[–]sudosandwich3 1 point2 points ago

Just because "we" are not responsible does not mean the other side forgives you. Look at Japan and China, people are still enraged by this though it happened a long time ago.

[–]BigRedS -1 points0 points ago

Perhaps, but that doesn't make you responsible for it.

[–]tehhunter -1 points0 points ago

It was the US' isolationism that led to many of the horrors of the second world war. Hitler believed, correctly for three years, that the US wouldn't get involved in another European conflict. If he believed otherwise, he wouldn't have attacked our allies.

[–]Raoc3 9 points10 points ago

Yes, but this was World War I (1918). There was no clear evil aggressor like there was in WWII, and without the US's involvement in WWI, the history of the 20th century would have been very different. Its all just speculative, of course, and everything could have ended up much much worse, but its not hard to imagine how a slightly different ending to WWI could have resulted in WWII never happening at all.

[–]Bernie_Roscoe 1 point2 points ago

On the flip side, one could easily argue that Europe would have turned out much worse in the aftermath. If you remember the 1919 Paris Peace Talks, the US really were the only power to largely support weaker reparations paid by the Germans.

[–]Raoc3 1 point2 points ago

Of course, like I said, its all speculative. Without US involvement, Germany might have won, and WWII could have been Nazi France trying to take over the world. What we can say for sure is this: The United States had no "moral" argument for getting involved in WWI, as we did (or at least moreso) in WWII. The conditions at the end of WWI resulted directly in everything that followed, including the rise to power of Hitler, the Holocaust, the Cold War, etc... What else might have been we can olny guess.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points ago

The picture shows that a certain part of the US government and/or military found it necessary to use propaganda to show the war was successful.

It doesn't underscore how harmful you had to be in order to remove a greater wrong. Because that's just nonsense.

[–]Rhenoph 9 points10 points ago

does anyone know what the statue on top of the pyramid is of?

[–]taranig 10 points11 points ago

I would make a guess that it would be the Goddess Nike (the Roman Victoria), the goddess of Victory.

edit: images; wings spread behind, holding a laurel wreath in front of her to place upon the brow of the victor, the United States.

[–]artman 7 points8 points ago

Amazing, why does it remind me of this?

[–]bfogarty27 4 points5 points ago

without looking i assume it's buffalo skulls

[–]datoo -2 points-1 points ago

OMG! That is so horrible, makes me want to cry.

[–]Kit_Emmuorto 4 points5 points ago

Sweet, yet I believe the idea was stolen from someone else

[–]alupus1000 11 points12 points ago

Actually it was the Mongols.

One infamous incident occurred during Tamerlane's Indian campaign. Tamerlane, an heir to the Mongol martial tradition, built a pyramid of 90,000 human heads in front of the walls of Delhi, to convince them to surrender.

The proper way to do this was to build it in Berlin, but I guess the war was about over by that point and real heads don't travel well.

[–]kafkaesque_bakesale 5 points6 points ago

Considering the logistics of transporting rotting crania? Alupus1000 is your man!

[–]permachine 2 points3 points ago

WHAT IS THIS? Menhir deliveryman is like the best joke I have ever heard, although I don't get what it has to do with a pyramid of helmets?

[–]Kit_Emmuorto 1 point2 points ago

and beating up Roman legionnaries (and occasionally collecting their helmets)

Surprisingly, the almighty Google appears to not have a single image of Obelix piling up roman helmets. Here is the only thumbnail that shows up in the image search, only to disappear once clicked

[–]rmm45177 1 point2 points ago

All these were from soldiers who were killed?

[–]gingerkid1234 1 point2 points ago

Does this remind anyone else of Roman victory celebrations?

[–]Iliketuwtles 1 point2 points ago

Ethical implications aside, this is an amazing photograph- a unique and fascinating scene brimming with historical, political, and sociological meaning, beautifully framed by the photographer. Thanks, OP.

[–]deadmantra 4 points5 points ago

The occult symbolism of this structure couldn't be any more apparent.

[–]nocubir 2 points3 points ago

That is a metric shit-tonne of dead Germans.

Probably one of the most chilling photographs I've ever seen.

[–]Learnincurve 8 points9 points ago

It's horrible, world war 1 and 2 were completely different animals. To me the first world war is mostly about young men being sent to the slaughter by old aristocrats with grudges and no concept of the new warfare or tactics that came with the advancement of technology and chemical warfare. People were given high rank for stupid reasons - for example they were the second son of a Duke and needed something to do, and not on merit. This appalling leadership lead to astronomical casualties on both sides, which is something that history should remember.

[–]BeatlesForSale 1 point2 points ago

Related?

[–]Learnincurve 1 point2 points ago

Sadly both figuratively and literally.

[–]sea_admrial 1 point2 points ago

*captured

[–]slashblot 0 points1 point ago

This pyramid I estimate to be made up of 62720 german helmets based on a visual count of 56x56x60

[–]alupus1000 4 points5 points ago

I have a suspicion it's a wooden pyramid with helmets just nailed to the outside.

The Saddam-era Victory Arch in Baghdad also incorporated the helmets of enemies, but allegedly they couldn't find enough real ones and made their own.

[–]slashblot 1 point2 points ago

ok makes sense, so 1486 per side (*4) = 5944 helmets.

[–]turnerbalm 1 point2 points ago

Wow, they managed to get all those helmets in the very short time they were involved in that war.

[–]anyonethinkingabout 1 point2 points ago

was that all filled up on the inside?

[–]sea_admrial 1 point2 points ago

Maybe wooden scaffolding.

[–]jsmith65 1 point2 points ago

This is a sick, sick display of disgusting nationalism.

[–]cardozaa 0 points1 point ago

War is strange...

[–]brosenfeld 0 points1 point ago

Inside GCT, they had a pyramid of ottomans.

[–]conrick 0 points1 point ago

I just loved the speakers.

[–]emohipster 0 points1 point ago

Pretty morbid if you ask me.

[–]The419 0 points1 point ago

Kind of like the symbolic version of the treaty of versaille. Although there is no excuse for nazism, to an extent, this type of attitude is what made it possible for the madmen who took charge of Germany to do so in the 30s. Dancing on a pile of corpses doesn't do much for peace.

[–]MoT 1 point2 points ago

So does that make Tamerlane the hardcore hipster?

[–]standardalias 1 point2 points ago

If I could upvote more than once I would.

[–]MoT 0 points1 point ago

Ha! a blast from the past. Glad someone got the reference :)

[–]patrick721 0 points1 point ago

they knew how to do shit back in the day SO REAL Now, we see things on TV, but nothing in our real lives.

[–]Elshar 0 points1 point ago

When you think of all the people who died wearing those helmets. It's sickening, no matter who the people were.

I can see why they don't do things like this anymore. It's a very grotesque way to display your victory over a foe. And I don't think people in this day and age could stomach seeing a symbol of so much death at our own hands.

[–]roterghost -1 points0 points ago

Can't believe I've never seen this before. That's damn awesome!

[–]scotthendo -2 points-1 points ago

Americans...

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