Warfare, combat, and the military

[<k>]

See also: Political revolutions on coins

[africancoins]

Algeria again remembered 1954 in 2004.

[<k>]

Mozambique, 20 and 50 meticais, 1986.

See also: Mozambique since independence.

[chrisild]

Here is a wombat coin ...


(Image: coinect.net)

... now for carfare, I would suggest this topic: http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/board,97.0.html

Christian

[Figleaf]

Too true. The hooligans latest weapon of choice is a coin. Thrown at players or referees, it does real damage and disturbs the game.

IMHO arms on coins are a sign of ... uhhh .... political immaturity?

Which brings up the question of whether a prison stamped on metal would fit in here?

Peter

[villa66]

...Which brings up the question of whether a prison stamped on metal would fit in here?

I think certainly. Isn't there an East German commemorative that memorializes Buchenwald? There are also some Polish commems too, I think, that keep us from forgetting some of the murdered millions.

v.

[chrisild]

Isn't there an East German commemorative that memorializes Buchenwald? There are also some Polish commems too, I think, that keep us from forgetting some of the murdered millions.

Yep, the GDR issued a Buchenwald 10M commem in 1972 (not sure whether that was related to any anniversary though). And Poland certainly issued many WW2 and Holocaust related coins. Making and having them makes sense, although in my opinion the Polish central bank issues, all in all, too many different commemorative/collector coins per year.

Side note: Coins, whether they are from the years that we want to keep in mind or issued later, can sure help against "forgetting". But maybe we coin collectors tend to overestimate the role of coins in that regard. I sometimes read in American forums that some US collectors specifically collect nazi coins because, according to them, that keeps preserving the memory. So if they did not collect nazi propaganda, the world would forget about WW2? Umm ...

Christian

[<k>]

UK, 50 pence, 2006. 

Commemorating the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest award for valour.

[<k>]

2007: 25th anniversary of the Falklands Islands conflict. Britain should never have lost them in the first place, of course, but it helped Mrs Thatcher's "Iron Lady" reputation when she regained them, and restored Britain's post-imperial military confidence; perhaps this later turned into over-confidence, if you consider Tony Blair's policies. 

The Argentinians said "Las Malvinas" were rightfully theirs. The Latin Americans do not like having Anglo-Saxons in their geographical area. However, the Latin Americans are also late-comers, compared to the native Indians, and at least 98% of Falklanders want to remain British, so democracy won on this occasion. Britain also had a lot of covert help from Chile (General Pinochet) and the US under President Reagan. Mrs Thatcher never forgot her gratitude to Pinochet, and spoke on his behalf when he was kept under arrest in England by the Blair government of the 1990s. Now it is said that the Falklands have found oil in their seas, but as usual these days, nothing like as much as was originally expected.

Neither the Argentinian nor the Falkland coin designs are anything special, unfortunately.

[villa66]

....although in my opinion the Polish central bank issues, all in all, too many different commemorative/collector coins per year.

Side note: Coins, whether they are from the years that we want to keep in mind or issued later, can sure help against "forgetting". But maybe we coin collectors tend to overestimate the role of coins in that regard. I sometimes read in American forums that some US collectors specifically collect nazi coins because, according to them, that keeps preserving the memory. So if they did not collect nazi propaganda, the world would forget about WW2? Umm ...

Christian

I share your opinion about the number of Polish commems per year. And I agree that coin collectors--like humans everywhere--are inclined to accord too much importance to their own little neck of the woods. But that said, I think that coins are the great survivors over the centuries, and millennia, so that whatever makes it onto a common (non-zinc!) coin has a decent chance at outlasting the things that don't, at least so far as humanity's historical memory goes.

Collecting Nazi coins to preserve memories of WWII? I take your point, Christian. It seems like a stretch. But I will demur at least to the degree that individual memory is such an incredibly fragile and malleable thing. Without reminders constantly in front of us, we forget.

So I think the American reason for collecting these little swastikas is better grounded in the reality of human experience than is the frequent European approach, which is to ignore their existence.

Sure, ignore them and they lose their power. They lose the ability to excite. But they lose their cautionary power too.

So...

v.

[chrisild]

So I think the American reason for collecting these little swastikas is better grounded in the reality of human experience than is the frequent European approach, which is to ignore their existence.

Sure, ignore them and they lose their power. They lose the ability to excite. But they lose their cautionary power too.

There is that joke that came up in Germany in the late 1960s, I think. People who wanted a job in the German government or as a judge were asked, during the interview, to count from 20 to 50. One guy counted this way: "(...) 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 ---- 45, 46, 47 (...)" and got the job.

Then we have the other extreme. People who can apparently count from 33 to 45 only - nada before and zilch after that.

The best approach would of course be to ignore neither part, in the history of any country. The problem with coins is that they are usually issued by governments and in a way are government propaganda. Does a Krugerrand coin reflect Apartheid? Does a coin issued under Andrew Jackson reflect the "Indian Removal"? We can certainly learn a lot from and with coins. In many cases a subtle change in an inscription gets us interested; we want to find out more about why a king turns from a FID.DEF. IND.IMP. into a mere FID.DEF. for example.

But we should be aware that they - be it pieces that were issued at the time or pieces that commemorate something which happened in the past - are very "selective" reminders of historical events. And back to the original topic (remember, we do not go off-topic but merely meander ), you won't find a single coin from the Federal Republic of Germany with a warfare or combat theme. The GDR issued a 25 Years NVA (military forces) commem in 1981, a 30 Years Combat Groups piece in 1983. Images from ddr-muenzen.de:



Christian

[Ukrainii Pyat]

I sometimes read in American forums that some US collectors specifically collect nazi coins because, according to them, that keeps preserving the memory. So if they did not collect nazi propaganda, the world would forget about WW2?

Uh huh, I know of the people you cite.  Often times they are the ones at gun shows, touting their 2nd Amendment rights(right to bear arms), often times they flout the Confederate flag.  Yup.  Draw your own conclusions, but I have my opinion of them and it is not favourable. 

[Prosit]

By far the majority of those can't tell you anything about the history of the Confederacy, its ideals or the issues that led to Seccession.
Two things they can mention is slavery and rebellion. Slavery was the media attention getting issue but not the only ones by far and at the start
not even the most important.  They may tout the flag but few of them understand it.
Dale

.....often times they flout the Confederate flag......

[villa66]

There is that joke that came up in Germany in the late 1960s, I think. People who wanted a job in the German government or as a judge were asked, during the interview, to count from 20 to 50. One guy counted this way: "(...) 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 ---- 45, 46, 47 (...)" and got the job.

Then we have the other extreme. People who can apparently count from 33 to 45 only - nada before and zilch after that....

Good joke, chrisild, and revealing.

I can remember, twenty or more years ago, genuinely feeling sorry for younger Germans; it was their misfortune to have to live in the time before the crimes of the Nazis could be put into a box. And I remember how sorry I felt for the older German men—about the age of my own father, then still living—who had reached that time in their lives when they wanted so much to talk about their youth, and were unable to fully do so, they said, because the young people around them would not understand.

(And so it was a common thing, when we were out in the countryside war-gaming, for older German men to seek out American soldiers to talk with about "soldiering.")

I can remember having a lot of patience then, and I knew it was only a matter of time—beyond my own lifespan, of course, but only a matter of time—before Germans would be able to put 1933-45 into a box, stick it in the attic, and finally get past the extreme defensiveness that so informed the way they looked at things.

And here below—after a little meandering —are a pair of reminders of the warfare that shaped the world from which we will very soon be emerging:

v.

[chrisild]

Guess that 1968 (and the following years) changed quite a bit here. The "68ers" were not the first ones to ask the generation of their parents uncomfortable questions, but from what I have read, the debate became more public after those years. This "extreme defensiveness" you observed was probably quite common in the generation that was actively involved in the nazi regime, ie. people born in the 1920s or earlier. I don't think there is a trend in today's Germany to put those years aside in any way, but most here do not focus so exclusively on them. Personally I am much more worried about the recent rise of nationalism, partly extreme, in some European countries.

As for those two coins, I have them too - interestingly Nazi Germany did not issue any coins with warfare/combat designs. Maybe those would have come after Hitler's "final victory", who knows. Here is a circulation coin (image: worldcoincallery.com) from Greece, issued during the dictatorship. In front of the phoenix, a soldier armed with some gun. All denominations had that emblem in those years.



Christian