1945

[jbor]

                                                    ~~~

----------
>From: Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
>To: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: 1945
>Date: Mon, Jan 8, 2001, 2:27 AM
>

> Anyone know when and where "Jewish lightning",
> self inflicted arson for the purpose of collecting insurance
> or other advantage was coined? I think the slur was used
> against the Jews in the 1933 German parliament fire,

I think the Reichstag fire was blamed on the Communists, and that enabled
the Nazis to arrest thousands of "known Communists" in one fell swoop.

The Communists always claimed that it was the Nazis who staged the fire, and
this is generally accepted as what did in fact happen.

Looking it up again now I see that Goering actually boasted at his trial:

"The only one who really knows about the Reichstag is me, because I set it
on fire."

best



~~~
    "By 1945, the factory system - which, more than
     any piece of machinery, was the real and major
     result of the Industrial Revolution - had been
     extended to include the Manhattan Project, the
     German long-range rocket program and the death
     camps, such as Auschwitz.It has taken no major
     gift of prophecy to see how these three curves
      of development might plausibly converge, and
                before too long. ... "
                                 (T. Pynchon, 1984)