Zandvliet's repudiation of a victor's vindictiveness is, of course, an old theme, implicit in the gospels and explicitly condemned by Churchill when, as part of the "motto" of The Second World War, he chose the declaration "In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Goodwill." But the crimes of the Nazis were so foul and endemic that Zandvliet's focus on hapless teens in
Feldgrau to wring sympathy for the Enemy Other is too easy.
(I must credit Jason Piper, whose excellent article in
Feldgrau provided a great deal of light on this incident.)
I guess the pinheads forgot that the last couple times France approved our use of violence was when their pals the Germans were "touring" Paris dressed in
feldgrau, with accessories by Mauser.
Feldgrau.com, at http:// www.feldgrau.com/interview4.html (last visited Oct.
Thus Jean Galtier-Boissiere noted caustically in his journal on 21 November 1941: 'Au Casino de Paris, Chevalier fait son tour de chant devant un parterre de
feldgrau, venus uniquement pour voir des fesses'.
324-25), and was replaced by 'Radio-Paris in "
Feldgrau"' (Times, 4 July 1940, p.
Toward the middle of October the
Feldgrau buses deposited fifteen hundred orphans in the snowy assembly plaza, orphans between four and twelve, arriving from the collection camp at Pithiviers .
To escape the Nazis, I had illegally crossed the border into Switzerland and on the way I mistook in the dark the greenish uniform of the Swiss for the
Feldgrau of the Germans.
The Germans replaced their Prussian blue tunics with "
feldgrau" or field grey uniforms in 1910.