favorite Pynchon invention

[Joe Allonby]

I thought there was photographic evidence of African troops and/or
slaves working at the rocket sites?


On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 1:33 PM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
<lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>
> On 30.09.2012 18:14, Don Antenen wrote:
>
> My dad and I were arguing the other day about which is the best Pynchon
> 'invention'... the Schwarzkommandos or W.A.S.T.E.? It is tough, but I have
> to say W.A.S.T.E.
>
> What say you?
>
> all the best,
> Donald
>
>
> Some things about the Schwarzkommando are not an invention of Pynchon:
>
> http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=1109&msg=158908&keywords=butterfly%20of%20prussia
>
>
>
> A review of the article --- Molly McCullers: 'We do it so that we will
> be men'. Masculinity Politics in Colonial Namibia 1915-1949, in: The
> Journal of African History, 52, Volume 1, Cambridge 2011 ---
> you'll find an abstract of here, was in Wednesday's FAZ ( Joseph
> Croitoru: In Uniform. Hereros für Deutschland. 8/31/11, p. N3):
>
> http://www.limnology-journal.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8257456&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S0021853711000077
>
>
> The members of the paramilitary Otruppa wore German uniforms, marched like
> German troops, sang German
> soldier songs and formed their hierarchy along the German example. They also
> liked to give themselves
> German first names; one of their leaders - Fritz Kasutu - even decorated
> himself with the title
> "Schmetterling von Preußen" (Butterfly of Prussia). By all this the young
> Hereros (plus some young
> people from the tribes of the Ovambo and Damara) basically tried to
> compensate the decay of traditional
> authority and initiatory rites. The Union of South Africa was always
> suspicious of the Otruppa and -
> this should be of interest to readers of "Gravity's Rainbow" - although lots
> of its members eventually
> fought on side of the Allies, the Union of South Africa feared around 1940
> that the Otruppa would,
> together with the Nazi supporters among the German settlers, organize a
> social upheaval. Of course,
> the Schwarzkommando from "Gravity's Rainbow" has aspects which do not refer
> to the historical Hereros
> (like the situation of African Americans in the USA), but I remember having
> read here that Pynchon
> exchanged letters about the Hereros with a historian during the 1960s, so
> perhaps ...
>
> In case anybody is a subscriber of The Journal of African History or has
> access to it via some library,
> it would be great to get more information!
>
>
>