GR translation: smells of long illness and terminal occupation

Tue Jul 5 04:36:50 CDT 2016

It's likely not about Napoleon's occupation of Berlin in 1806, but about 
the occupation by Freikorps units after they put down the Spartacist 
uprising (which itself manifested also in form of an occupation of the 
newspaper district) in January 1919.

"The Revolution died---though Leni was only a young girl and not 
political---with Rosa Luxemburg" (p. 155).

 > ... The meaning of the word /Freikorps/ changed over time. After 
1918, the term was used for the paramilitary 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramilitary> organizations that sprang 
up around Germany as soldiers returned in defeat from World War I. They 
were the key Weimar paramilitary groups 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_paramilitary_groups> active during 
that time. Many German veterans felt disconnected from civilian life, 
and joined a /Freikorps/ in search of stability within a military 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military> structure. Others, angry at 
their sudden, apparently inexplicable defeat, joined up in an effort to 
put down communist <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist> uprisings, 
such as the Spartacist uprising 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacist_uprising>, or exact some form 
of revenge <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth>. They 
received considerable support from Minister of Defense Gustav Noske 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Noske>, a member of the Social 
Democratic Party of Germany 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_of_Germany>, who 
used them to crush the German Revolution of 1918–19 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Revolution_of_1918%E2%80%9319> and 
the Marxist <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist> Spartacist League 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacist_League> and arrest Karl 
Liebknecht <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Liebknecht> and Rosa 
Luxemburg <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Luxemburg>, who were 
killed on 15 January 1919. They were also used to defeat the Bavarian 
Soviet Republic <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavarian_Soviet_Republic> 
in May 1919.^[4] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps#cite_note-4>

On 5 May 1919, members of /Freikorps/ Lützow in Perlach 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ramersdorf-Perlach&action=edit&redlink=1> 
near Munich <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich>, acted on a tip from 
a local cleric and arrested and killed twelve alleged communist workers 
(most of them actually members of the Social Democratic Party). A 
memorial on Pfanzeltplatz in Munich today commemorates the incident.^[5] 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps#cite_note-5> ^[6] 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps#cite_note-6> ^[7] 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps#cite_note-7>

/Freikorps/ also fought against the communists in the Baltic 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps_in_the_Baltic>, Silesia 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silesian_Uprisings>, Poland 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland> and East Prussia 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Prussia> after the end of World War 
I, including aviation combat, often with significant success. 
Anti-Slavic racism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Slavic_racism> 
was sometimes present, although the ethnic cleansing 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing> ideology and 
anti-Semitism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semitism> that would 
be expressed in later years had not developed.^[8] 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps#cite_note-8> In Baltic they 
fought against communist and as well against newborn independent 
democratic countries Estonia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia> and 
Latvia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvia> too. In Latvia 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvia>, Freikorps murdered 300 civilians 
in Mitau who were suspected of having "Bolshevik sympathies". After the 
capture of Riga <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riga>, another 3000 
alleged communists were killed,^[9] 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps#cite_note-9> including summary 
executions of 50–60 prisoners daily.^[10] 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps#cite_note-10> Though officially 
disbanded in 1920, many /Freikorps/ attempted, unsuccessfully, to 
overthrow the government in the Kapp Putsch 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapp_Putsch> in March 1920.^[11] 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps#cite_note-11> Their attack was 
halted when German citizens loyal to the government went on strike, 
cutting off many services and making daily life so problematic that the 
coup was called off ... <

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps

On 05.07.2016 03:45, Mike Jing wrote:
> V154.12-17, P156.36-157.4   They are shivering and hungry. In the
> Studentenheim there’s no heat, not much light, millions of roaches. A
> smell of cabbage, old second Reich, grandmothers’ cabbage, of lard
> smoke that has found, over the years, some détente with the air that
> seeks to break it down, smells of long illness and terminal occupation
> stir off the crumbling walls. One of the walls is stained yellow with
> waste from the broken lines upstairs.
>
> What does "terminal occupation" mean here?
> -
> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=nchon-l
>
>

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