John Baker’s Blog

Extract from a speech by Heinrich Himmler, to Schutzstaffel (SS) officers at Poznan on the 4th October,1943:
In the months that have gone by since we met in June 1942 many of our comrades were killed, giving their lives for Germany and the Fuhrer. In the first rank - and I ask you to rise in [...]

It weren’t me I don’t ‘member being there. No sir.
This’s not how I’d do and I never left this place to do nothing. Not me. I’d sure ‘member something like that. I’m not going down for something like that. I’m clean in this respect.
Permission to speak, sir?
Some other guy might’ve but I wasn’t the one [...]

WW1: Experiences of an English Soldier is a blog with a difference, made up of transcripts of Harry Lamin’s letters from the first World War. The letters are being posted exactly 90 years after they were written. This adds an extra dimension to the texts, as we do not know Harry’s fate, whether there will [...]

In Rangoon, people say they are more frightened now than when soldiers were shooting on the streets.
“When there were demonstrations and soldiers on the streets, the world was watching,” said a professional woman who watched the marchers from her office.
“But now the soldiers only come at night. They take anyone they can identify from their [...]