peter fechter (14 january 1944 – 17 august 1962)
aged 18, one of the first victims of the berlin wall’s border guards while trying to cross over to what was then west berlin.

about 1 year after the construction of the wall, fechter attempted to flee from the gdr (german democratic republic) together with his friend helmut kulbeik. the plan was to hide in a carpenter’s workshop near the wall in zimmerstrasse and, after observing the border guards from there, to jump out of a window into the so-called death-strip (a strip running between the main wall and a parallel fence which they had recently started to construct), run across it, and climb over the 2 metre (6.5 ft) wall topped with barbed wire into the kreuzberg district of west berlin near checkpoint charlie.

when both reached the wall, guards fired at them. although kulbeik succeeded in crossing the wall, fechter, still on the wall, was shot in the pelvis in plain view of hundreds of witnesses. he fell back into the death-strip on the eastern side, where he remained in view of western onlookers, including journalists. despite his screams, he received no medical assistance either from the east or the west side. he bled to death after approximately 1 hour. as a result of his death, hundreds in west berlin formed a spontaneous demonstration, shouting “murderers!” at the border guards.

the lack of medical assistance for peter fechter was attributed to mutual fear: western bystanders were apparently prevented at gunpoint from assisting him, although according to a report in time magazine, a u.s. second-lieutenant on the scene received specific orders from the us commandant in west berlin to stand firm and do nothing. it also emerged during the trial that any aid attempt from the west had indeed been made impossible, but according to a report from forensic pathologist otto prokop, “fechter had no chance of survival. the shot in the right hip had caused severe internal injuries.” likewise the head of the gdr border platoon stated that he was afraid to intervene, because of an incident just 3 days earlier when a gdr soldier rudi arnstadt had probably been shot by a western federal policeman. nonetheless, the gdr border soldiers did retrieve peter fechter’s dead body an hour after he had fallen.

+: read more 

the 75 best life photos
pictured: an air force pilot with patterns of light covering his face and shoulders is measured, like a contour map, for a perfectly fitted flight helmet in this 1954 ralph morse photo. morse, whose technical brilliance so often meshed with his eye for the startling, striking image, managed in this portrait to perfectly illustrate the cover story of the december 6, 1954, issue of life: a report titled, simply, “jet age man.”

some of my favs: 9 / 37 / 25 / 2 / 60 / 48 / 41 / 29 / 14 / 23 / 26 / 64 / 27

+: more

the history of… marie antoinette & adolf hitler
by h-57
+: website / see more

a leader in the french army and a companion-in-arms of joan of arc.
gilles served as a commander in the royal army, and fought alongside joan of arc against the english and their burgundian allies during the hundred years war.

after 1432 gilles engaged in a series of child murders, his victims possibly numbering in the hundreds were torturated, raped and mutilated. the killings came to an end in 1440 when he was hanged -before torching the body- on 26 october.

gilles de rais has had some cultural impact and is one among several candidates believed to be the inspiration for the 1697 fairy tale bluebeard by charles perrault.

a history of home video game consoles as any museum has ever created.
@ museum of arts and trades, paris, france

a collection of video games so extensive that all but the most hardcore gamer would be hard-pressed to identify them all. they stretch from the birth of pong in the 1970s through the heyday of console gaming and end with the ps2.

the exhibit also included interviews with many of the developers responsible for these early gems.

+: pictures from the exhibition

1937 nanking massacre, china

mass murder and war rape that occurred during the 6 week period following the japanese capture of the city of nanjing (nanking), former capital of the republic of china, in 1937 during the 2nd sino-japanese war. hundreds of thousands of chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers were murdered and 20,000–80,000 women were raped by soldiers of the imperial japanese army.

an accurate estimation of the death toll in the massacre is never achieved because most of the japanese military records on the killings were deliberately destroyed or kept secret shortly after the surrender of japan in 1945. the international military tribunal of the far east estimates more than 200,000 casualties in the incident; china’s official estimate is about 300,000, based on the evaluation of the nanjing war crimes tribunal. estimates from japanese historians vary widely, in the vicinity of 40,000–200,000. some japanese scholars even deny that a widespread, systematic massacre occurred at all, claiming that any deaths were either justified militarily, accidental or isolated incidents of unauthorized atrocities. these negationists claim that the characterization of the incident as a large-scale, systematic massacre was fabricated for the purpose of political propaganda.

although the japanese government has admitted the acts of the killing of a large number of noncombatants, looting and other violence committed by the imperial japanese army after the fall of nanking, some japanese officials have argued that the death toll was military in nature and that no such crimes ever occurred. denial of the massacre (and a divergent array of revisionist accounts of the killings) has become a staple of japanese nationalism.

eyewitness accounts of westerners and chinese present after the fall of the city state that over the course of 6 weeks, japanese troops engaged in rape, murder, theft, arson, and other war crimes. some of these accounts came from foreigners who opted to stay behind in order to protect chinese civilians from harm, including the diaries of german john rabe and american minnie vautrin. other accounts include first-person testimonies of the nanking massacre survivors, eyewitness reports of journalists (both western and japanese), as well as the field diaries of military personnel. an american missionary, john magee, stayed behind to provide a 16 mm film documentary and first-hand photographs of the nanking massacre.

the osaka mainichi shimbun and its sister newspaper the tokyo nichi nichi shimbun covered a “contest” between 2 japanese officers, toshiaki mukai and tsuyoshi noda, in which the 2 men were described as vying with one another to be the first to kill 100 people with a sword. the competition supposedly took place en route to nanking, directly prior to the infamous “nanking massacre”. 

both officers supposedly surpassed their goal during the heat of battle, making it impossible to determine which officer had actually won the contest. therefore, they decided to begin another contest, with the aim being 150 kills.

noda himself, on returning to his hometown, admitted during a speech:
“i killed only 4 or 5 with sword in the real combat…. after we captured an enemy trench, we’d tell them, ‘ni lai lai.’ (which can be translated as “you, come, come”) the chinese soldiers were stupid enough to come out the trench toward us one after another. we’d line them up and cut them down from one end to the other.”

a group of foreign expatriates headed by john rabe had formed the 15-man international committee on november 22 and mapped out the nanking safety zone in order to safeguard civilians in the city, where the population numbered from 200,000 to 250,000. 

the international military tribunal for the far east estimated that 20,000 women were raped, including infants and the elderly. a large portion of these rapes were systematized in a process where soldiers would search door-to-door for young girls, with many women taken captive and gang raped. the women were often killed immediately after the rape, often through explicit mutilation or by stabbing a bayonet, long stick of bamboo, or other objects into the vagina.

on november 12, 1948, on the basis of a simple majority of the 11 judges conforming the nanking war crimes tribunal, general matsui and foreign minister hirota, with 5 other convicted class-a war criminals, were sentenced to death by hanging. general hisao tani was also sentenced to death.

+: nanking-massacre.com (viewer discretion advised)
+: wikipedia (viewer discretion advised)
+: nanking @ youtube

cultfilms:

35mm
by pascal monaco

a shortfilm about cinema itself. they picked 35 of their favorite movies and tried to simplifly them as far as possible. the outcome is a 2 minute journey through the history of film.
can you name them all?

concept / layout: sarah biermann, torsten strer, felix meyer, pascal monaco
animation: felix meyer, pascal monaco
sound: torsten strer

the 1st oktoberfest was in munich, on october 12, 1810: it commemorated the marriage of prince ludwig (later king ludwig I) and princess therese of saxe - hildburghausen (who’s name was then given to the “theresienwiese” the grounds on which the festival is held). the citizens of munich were invited to join in the festivities which were held over 5 days on the fields in front of the city gates. the main event of the original oktoberfest was a horse race. 

anniversary celebrations were held annually thereafter that eventually became larger and more elaborate. an agricultural show was added during the second year. in 1818, a carousel and 2 swings were set up for the revelers. such amusements were few in the first decades of the festival, but party-goers were amply entertained by the tree climbing competitions, wheel barrow and sack races, mush eating contests, barrel rolling races, and goose chases. by 1870s, mechanical rides were an expanding feature of the festival and in 1908, the festival boasted germany’s 1st roller coaster. when the city began allowing beer on the fairgrounds, makeshift beer stands began cropping up, and their number increased steadily until they were eventually replaced by beer halls in 1896. the beer halls, like the beer tents of today, were sponsored by the local breweries. 

the festival was eventually prolonged and moved ahead to september to allow for better weather conditions. today, the last day of the festival is the 1st sunday in october. in 2006, the oktoberfest extended 2 extra days because the 1st tuesday, october 3, was a national holiday.

next oktoberfest dates
2011: september 17 - october 3
2012: september 22 - october 7

the ghosts of world war ii’s past
by sergey larenkov

taking old world war ii photos, russian photographer sergey larenkov carefully photoshoped them over more recent shots to make the past come alive.

+: mymodernmet 

my music history
january 2010 - june 2010

+: click en la foto (zoom) 

man
by milo manara.

(via lucyphermann) (via supersonicelectronic) 

d-day: june 6th, the 66th anniversary of the successful 1944 allied invasion of france.
the largest amphibious invasion in history - over 160.000 troops landed, assisted by over 5.000 ships, aerial bombardment, gliders and paratroopers. 

up:

left: 13 liberty ships, deliberately scuttled to form a breakwater for invasion vessels landing on the normandy beachhead lie in line off the beach, shielding the ships in shore. the artificial harbor engineering installation which was prefabricated and towed across the channel. 1944 photo.

right: u.s. soldiers approach omaha beach, their weapons wrapped in plastic to keep them dry, june 1944.

down:

left: allied soldiers, vehicles and equipment swarm onto the french shore during the normandy landings, june 1944.

right: the sight of a low-flying allied plane sends nazi soldiers rushing for cover on a beach in france, before d-day june 1944. the aircraft was taking reconnaissance photos of german coastal barriers in preparation for the june 6th invasion.

+: the big picture

nevver:

the donut project » crash course in art history

fuckyeahrocknroll:

this must be the most epic picture ever!

i can spot thurston moore, kim gordon, brian molko, dave grohl and robert smith and billy corgan.

click picture!

hoy 09nov09: 20 años de la caida del muro de berlin
+ (recomendado): click en la foto