Tremulous

Tremulous (pronounced trem-yuh-luhs)

(1) Of persons, the body etc, characterized by trembling, as from fear, nervousness, or weakness.

(2) Timid; timorous; fearful.

(3) Of things, vibratory, shaking, or quivering.

(4) Of writing, done with a trembling hand.

(5) Faltering, hesitant, wavering

1605–1615: From the Latin tremulus (shaking, quivering), from tremere (to shake, quake, quiver, tremble), from tremō (I shake).  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek τρέμω (trémō) (tremble).  In Latin, the construct was trem(ere ) + -ulus (the Latin adjectival suffix).  In music, the tremulous effect is the tremolo, an 1801 coining from the Italian tremolo, from the Latin tremulus.  The quaver is from the early fifteenth century quaveren (to vibrate, tremble, have a tremulous motion), probably a frequentative of the early thirteenth century cwavien (to tremble, shake, be afraid) which is perhaps related to the Low German quabbeln (tremble), and possibly of imitative origin.  The meaning "sing in trills or quavers, sing with a tremulous tone" is noted from the 1530s; the related forms are quavered & quavering.  In optics, a tremulous light is a shimmer (1821) and in physiology, a shiver (1727), from shiver, "the shivers" in reference to fever chills dating from 1861.  Tremulous is an adjective, tremulously is an adverb and tremulousness is a noun; the noun plural is also tremulousness.

Becoming tremulous: Hitler’s signature: 1933-1945.

Between 1943-1945, Adolf Hitler's (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) handwriting suffered and, towards the end, it took some effort even to etch his name, a process which happened in conjunction with a physical decline noted in many contemporary accounts.  The reason for this deterioration has been discussed by doctors, historians and popular authors, most recently in 2015 by Norman Ohler (b 1970) in Der totale Rausch: Drogen im Dritten Reich (The Total Rush: Drugs in the Third Reich), published in English in 2017 as Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany (Penguin, ISBN: 9780141983165).  Blitzed is a study of the use of methamphetamine stimulants in German society, the military and Hitler himself during the Nazi years with a focus especially on the relationship between the Führer and his personal physician, Dr Theodor Morell (1886–1948) who prescribed and administered a variety of drugs and vitamins between 1936-1945.  It’s the use of opioids and psychoactive drugs that is of most interest.

A best seller, Ohler wrote a lively work in a jaunty style which made his book readable but did attract criticism from the academic and professional historians never happy with journalistic trespassing on their carefully trimmed turf.  While there’s always sensitivity to authors injecting elements of humour and pop-culture references into anything about Hitler and the Third Reich, these essentially stylistic objections matter less than the substantive concerns about presenting as proven fact inferences drawn from incomplete or inconclusive sources.  That critique of scholarship should be noted but Blitzed needs to be read as just another text interpreting the documents of the era and in that, if read in conjunction with other accounts of the time, Ohler’s thesis is in places compelling while sometimes contradicted by multiple other sources.  The argument that the drugs had no effect Hitler’s decline and increasingly erratic behavior were due to stress and the onset of Parkinson’s disease is as dogmatic a position as many accuse Ohler of taking.  There are interesting aspects in the accounts from 1943-1945: the unexpected way Hitler’s physical tremors briefly vanished in the aftermath of the explosion during the assassination attempt in July 1944 and the various clandestine analysis of Morell’s preparations, some of which revealed a strong opioid and some harmless concoctions with barely a pharmacological effect.  While clearly not a conventional work of history, Blitzed seems a valuable contribution.

Hitler and Dr Morell.

The fault in Blitzed is probably that habitual journalistic tendency to exaggeration.  That stimulants were widely available and demonstratively popular in Germany doesn’t mean the entire workforce, every hausfrau and all servicemen in the Wehrmacht were habitual or even occasional users of amphetamines although, given the documentary evidence and the observational accounts of behavior, the case for Hitler’s addictions (or at least dependence) is stronger.  Critics felt also compelled to run the usual objection to anything which could be constructed as some sort of exculpatory argument; the idea that being stupefied by psychoactive drugs could somehow absolve individual or collective guilt.  Among those who lived the Nazi experience, long has been established the guilt to one degree or another of the many and the innocence of a few.  That said, there seems little doubt the rapidity of the Wehrmacht's advances in 1939-1941 were at least partially attributable to the soldiers being supplied amphetamines which enabled a heightened level of alertness and performance for sometimes thirty hours without need for sleep.  It was a most effective force multiplier.  Other factors, notably (1) the revolutionary approach to deploying tanks as armored spearheads, (2) the used of dive-bombers, (3) the ineptness of the Allied response and (4) luck were more significance but the speed did make a contribution.

Not tremulous: Lindsay Lohan and block capitals, Los Angeles, 2010.

Graphology (the analysis of handwriting to determine personality traits) did once enjoy quite wide acceptance in many places including being admissible as evidence in some courts but has in recent years come to be regarded as at least scientifically dubious while other condemn the whole thing as a pseudoscience deserving about the same status as astrology.  However, there are aspects of it which seem helpful in comparing the differences in the handwriting of individuals at various times and anyway, it's often fun to read, even if only to confirm our prejudices.  During Lindsay Lohan’s court appearances, she was known to take notes so, when the opportunity presented itself, a photographer snapped an image and it was provided to graphologist Bart Baggett (b 1969; founder of the Handwriting University, a distance learning school) who wrote an analysis.  He’d actually assessed her handwriting when younger and the style adopted then was different from the all block printing exhibited in 2010.  While he cautioned he wasn’t convinced the sample could provide any insight “…into her psyche” the change between the two was interesting:

”Despite her youth and tendency to find trouble I did see a high level of intelligence in her handwriting.  But, intelligence does not always translate into good behavior or emotional stability.  I will say this: the handwriting shown on this page is not that of an erratic, scattered drug addict.  It is the handwriting of a focused individual; with a high degree of perfectionism.  The straight baseline reveals an overall anxiety at things not going right; someone who loves order and structure.

In graphology, anytime somebody consistently blocked prints it’s seen as a huge (but common) defense mechanism.  Often this is a positive defense mechanism such as extreme masculinity.  I would say most individuals would find it difficult to distinguish between this handwriting and that of a military strategist or perhaps even an engineer who clock prints everything.  The one thing graphologists do agree on is that when someone only block prints, they don’t want people to know their most innermost thoughts and feelings, they are putting up a shield and protecting their intimacy.  Therefore you can bet she now has some major trust and privacy issues and has a guard up.  Who would blame her for having guard up, considering everything that you write is published and everywhere you go someone is snapping a picture of you? I think I would become a block printer too.”

Prussia

Prussia (pronounced pruhsh-uh)

(1) A geographical area on the Baltic coast of northeastern Europe (historic references only).

(2) A Baltic country located in this area, conquered by the Teutonic Order and later part of the Holy Roman Empire (retrospectively labeled the First Reich) and subsequently the former German state.

(3) A former German state (Preussen in German) in north and central Germany, extending from the borders of France and the Low Countries to those of Lithuania and Poland.  It developed into the most powerful military power on the Continent (said at the time to be “an army with a country” rather than “a country with an army”), leading the North German Confederation between 1867–1871 when a German Empire (retrospectively labeled the Second Reich) was created by Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898; Chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890).  Associated with the militarism which led to the First World War and tainted by association with the Nazis (the Third Reich), pursuant to discussions at the Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences  of World War II, the Western allies sought the abolition of Prussia.  Comrade Stalin, influenced by Imperial Russia’s historic relationship with Prussia, was initially sanguine about the name remaining but later agreed to its dissolution and the Allied Control Council issued a law on 25 February 1947.  On that day, Prussia was officially proclaimed dissolved

Pre 1100: From the Medieval Latin Borussi & Prusi (Prūssia in the New Latin), Latinized forms of the native name of the Lithuanian people who lived in the bend of the Baltic before being conquered in the twelfth century and exterminated by the (mostly) German crusaders who replaced them as the inhabitants.  It’s perhaps from the Slavic Po-Rus ((the land) near the Rusi (Russians)) but the New Latin Prūssia was a Latinization used by Peter of Dusburg of a Baltic (Old Prussian, or perhaps Lithuanian or Latvian) autonym. The primitive Indo-European source of the name is unclear but the root may be the one used in the very name of Prusa (Prussia), for which an earlier Brus existed on an early Bavarian map.  In Tacitus' Germania, the Lugii Buri were said to dwell within the eastern range of the Germans and, while speculative, Lugi may descend from Pokorny's leug (black, swamp), while Buri is perhaps the root of “Prussia”.

Although the documentary evidence is sparse, etymologists note the Proto-Balto-Slavic prus-sk which was cognate with the Sanskrit प्रुष्णोति (pruṣṇóti) (sprinkle), the Czech prskat (splutter, sizzle) and the Serbo-Croatian prskati (splash), thus signifying "watery land", interesting because the tribes of the Baltic Prussian region all adopted names reflecting the natural environment, many alluding to water, something not unexpected in lands with thousands of lakes, streams, and swamps.  The first pre-Baltic settlers tended to name their villages after the streams, lakes, seas, or forests by which they settled and the tribes or clans into which they coalesced then took these names.  The Middle English designation for the region, Pruce, derives from the same Latinization and is the source of the terms pruce and spruce.

Prussian Blue

Famous for being among the first modern synthetic pigments created, Prussian blue was a serendipitous discovery in 1704 by Berlin-based color-maker Johann Jacob Diesbach (circa 1970-1748).  He was mixing a red lake pigment to use as a dye, made with iron sulfate and potash but unknown to him, the potash was contaminated with impurities (animal oil) so instead of a vivid red, a purple emerged, which when concentrated, transformed to a deep blue.  This accidental discovery provided an inexpensive alternative to the only permanent blue pigment then available, ultramarine (lapiz lazuli) which, being mined only in tiny quantities in Afghanistan, was ruinously expensive.  Prussian blue revolutionized both art and industrial production because, except for the rare aquamarine, blue dyes obtained from rocks and plants were unstable and unreliably color-fast.

Lindsay Lohan in Prussian blue bikini with high-waist brief and halter-style top.

Its manufacture escaped regulation by painters’ guilds since it was considered a chemical and not paint so use quickly spread. Cezanne’s mustache was stained with it, Ruskin hoarded it, it was Wordsworth’s favorite color and both EE Cummings & Baudelaire wrote of it.  Van Gogh told other artists his Starry Night (1889) wouldn't have been possible without Prussian blue and it's the most remembered shade from Picasso's blue period.

On the Street to Prussian Blue, Oil on Canvas by Victoria Kloch, 2017.

It’s also one of the creations of inorganic chemistry on the World Health Organization's (WHO) List of Essential Medicines because it can be useful as a sequestering agent and therefore an antidote for certain kinds of heavy metal poisoning such as those caused by thallium and radioactive isotopes of caesium.

Volkssturm

Volkssturm (pronounced folks-stuhm)

1944: A German compound, the construct being Volk +‎ -s- +‎ Sturm (a civilian militia (literally “people's storm”) formed during the last days of the Third Reich.  Volkssturm is a proper noun.

One member of the Volkssturm was the philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), noted for his seminal work in phenomenology & existentialism, a flirtation with the Nazis which he spent the rest of his life rationalizing and an affair with the Jewish political theorist Hannah Arendt (1906–1975).  He was drafted into the Volkssturm in 1944 and apparently dug anti-tank ditches.  Although some sources claim a youthful Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger, b 1927; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus since) was a member of the Volkssturm, he was actually drafted as a Flakhelfer (an auxiliary attached to an anti-aircraft (flak) unit).  According to the Pope Emeritus, he was never part of shooting at anything.

Volk was from the Middle High German volc, from the Old High German folc, from the Proto-West Germanic folk, from the Proto-Germanic fulką.  It was cognate with the Dutch volk, the English folk, the Swedish folk, the Norwegian Bokmål folk, the Norwegian Bokmål folk, the Icelandic fólk and the Danish folk.  Volk is famously associated with its best understood meaning (people of a certain race united by culture, history, descent & language) with the phrase used by Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 and head of state 1934-1945) to describe the “Führer state”: Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer! (One People, One Realm, One Leader!).  Whatever the inconsistencies in the reality of the Nazi state, the phrase is an accurate description of the Nazi vision of how the German nation should be understood.  Historically, Volk was also used in the sense of (1) “the common people, the lower classes, the working classes” (now largely archaic), (2) “a large gathering of people (a crowd) in any context” & (3) in zoology (especially entomology) to refer to a herd, covey, swarm, colony etc”.

Sturm was from the Middle High German and Old High German sturm (storm), the retention of the u vowel being irregular; it was lowered to o because of a mutation in all other West Germanic languages (and the Old Norse), despite German being the one Germanic language where a-mutation most consistently occurred, especially of u to o.  A Sturm was a “strong, blustery wind; gust; gale; squall; a storm or tempest” and in Prussia the imagery appealed to the military which applied it to mean a sudden, rushed attack and in the Imperial Army created relatively small units called Sturmtruppen (storm troopers).  As a technique, the precise infiltration tactics of the Sturmtruppen weren’t a German invention and had probably been part of organized military operations as long as warfare has been practiced but the development of rapid-fire weapons had limited the effectiveness of the use of massed formations and during the nineteenth century, the concept of the surgical strike became popular and nowhere was it more fully developed than in the Prussian army manual.  The best known example of the used of the word in this context was the notorious Sturmabteilung (the SA, literally "Storm Detachment"), the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party which was a vital component of the structure until power was gained in 1933, after which, having outlived its usefulness to the point where (a as formation with a membership of millions many discontented with the results of the party had offered them once in power) the Nazi hierarchy (and the army) came to regard them as a (at least potential) threat and a bloody purge (Nacht der langen Messer (Night of the Long Knives), also called Unternehmen Kolbri (Operation Hummingbird)) was executed.

Austrian Sturm.

In Austrian viniculture, Sturm is a beverage made from white or red grapes that has begun to ferment but that has not yet turned into wine.  It’s not obviously appealing to look at and is most popular between late September & early October, served usually poured in a pint glass or large tumbler and resembles a hazy, unfiltered beer.  Sturm is unusual in that it’s a partially completed product, being still fermenting and that said to be a large part of the appeal and there’s much variation, some made with red grapes (though most are from white) and they tend from the sweet to the very sweet, all sharing a fresh, juicy, slightly fizzy quality.  Definitely not made for connoisseurs, Sturm is meant to be guzzled.  As a point of note for English speakers, when the word Sturm is used in the original (meteorological) context, the word has no association with rainfall; a Sturm may be accompanied by rain but it refers only to strong winds.

The Volkssturm was a civilian militia created by the Nazi Party after Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) was appointed Reichsbevollmächtigter für den totalen Kriegseinsatz (Reich Plenipotentiary for the Total War Effort) in the wake of the attempted assassination of Hitler in July 1944.  The attempt clearly focused the Führer’s mind on the dire situation confronting Germany or, as Goebbels noted in his diary: “It takes a bomb under his ass to make Hitler see sense”.  By then however it was already too late.  Had the Germany economy been moved to a total war footing during 1941 it might have altered the course (though probably not the outcome) of the war but, paradoxically, the authoritarian Nazi state lacked the structure to impose the controls the democracies were able quickly to implement early in the conflict.

Hitler Youth members with Panzerfausts.

Germany’s military was by 1944 in retreat on three fronts (the position worse still considering the loss of superiority in the air and the state of the war at sea) and armament production, although it would peak that year, was not sufficient even to cover losses.  The same was true of the manpower required to replace battlefield causalities and for this reason, the decision was taken to created the Volkssturm by conscripting males aged between 16-60 who had not yet been absorbed by the military unit.  Initially, the Volkssturm members continued in their usual occupations, drilling in the evenings or on (their now rare) days off or constructing obstacles such as tank ditches or barricades.  Poorly equipped and lacking adequate weapons or even uniforms, the Volkssturm, when finally committed in combat in the battle for Berlin in 1945 were militarily ineffective (their greatest successes coming in the number of Soviet tanks destroyed with the remarkably effective Panzerfaust (tank fist) although with these bazooka-like devices the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) formations proved even more effective) and suffered a high rate of causalities, just as predicted by the Army commanders which opposed their deployment, correctly fearing they would only obstruct movement. 

Volkssturm members with Panzerfausts. 

The Volkssturm truly was scraping the bottom of the manpower barrel but, in terms of the only strategic option left open to the regime, by 1945 it did make sense in that its deployment might delay the advance of the allied armies and it was Hitler’s last hope that that if defeat could be staved off, the differences the Western powers and the Soviet Union might see their alliance sundered, one bizarre thought being that the UK and US might realize their true enemy was the USSR and they might join with Germany in vanquishing the "Bolshevik menace".  The Führerbunker must have been a strange place to be in the last days although few actually shared Hitler’s more outlandish hopes and it’s not clear exactly when Hitler too finally realized his luck had run out but almost to the end, however many of the Volkssturm could be cajoled or threatened to assemble, were sent into battle.  As well as the support of Goebbels, the platoons of the old and sick were championed by Martin Bormann (1900–1945; leading Nazi functionary and ultimately Secretary to the Führer 1943-1945), one of the breed of blood-thirsty non-combatants which right-wing politics to this day seems to attract.  Hitler would well have understood service in the Volkssturm was a death sentence for those not able to sneak away (which many did).  In 1937 in an address to the Kreisleiters (district leaders) in Vogelsang Castle, he described such civilian militias as a “totally worthless crowd” because “drumming up enthusiasm” could never produce soldiers.  Mr Putin may be reaching the same conclusion.

While videos and photographs circulating on the internet suggest the Russian military machine is not now what it once was (and by most until a few months ago presumed still to be), the Kremlin’s problem is not the dire shortage of men available for military mobilization but their collective unwillingness to join the battle.  It’s unlikely the photographs in circulation showing some rather grey and elderly recruits are representative of the mobilization; like every military, the Russian databases will have a few incorrect records but all the indications are that there are shortfalls in the equipment able to be supplied to the troops thus far available for immediate deployment, let alone those undergoing training.  Certainly, the Kremlin’s claim (apparently verified as official) that the September 2022 mobilization would yield some 300,000 troops (there was no comment on how many would be combat-ready) or about 15 divisions (in historic terms) seems unlikely to be realized.  Even had the numbers become available, the course of the special military action (war) thus far suggests even the available Russian forces so reinforced would not been sufficient to conquer, let alone occupy Ukraine but expectations may have been lowered (adjusted in political-speak) to the point where a serviceable and defensible land-bridge to the Crimea would suffice for victory to be declared.  However, that would likely merely re-define rather than resolve the Kremlin’s problems.  It appears too that the Kremlin’s problems pre-date the special military action (war), the aim in autumn of 2021 to recruit 100,000 volunteers to the Russian Combat Army Reserve falling well short, as did subsequent attempts, the most recent initiated in June 2022.  The compulsory mobilization is a tacit admission the formation of “volunteer battalions” has not been successful.  Still, it’s unlikely the Kremlin will resort to creating its own Volkssturm to try to plug the gaps.

Practical advice to newly mobilized Russian troops.  

Venge

Venge (pronounced venj)

To avenge; to punish; to revenge (archaic).

1250–1300: From the Middle English vengen from the Old French venger & vengier (take revenge, avenge, punish) from the Latin vindicāre (assert a claim, claim as one's own; avenge, punish; vindicate). Also archaic were the related forms were vengefully, vengefulness venged & venging whereas the adjective vengeful, although rare, endured.  The noun vengeance, from the same era as venge, flourished.  Vengeance was from the Anglo-French vengeaunce, from twelfth century Old French vengeance & venjance (revenge, retribution).  Venge & avenge are verbs, revenge is a noun & verb, vengeance & vengefulness are nouns, vengeful is an adjective and vengefully is an adverb; the most common noun plural is vengeances. 

Venge long ago became archaic and is now extinct except when used in a historical context or for literary effect.  Venge is the verb transitive, venges the third-person singular simple present, venging the present participle and venged the simple past and past participle.  Synonyms include vindicate, avenge, chasten, punish, chastise, revenge, repay, redress, requite, square, return, get, fix, retort, reciprocate, score, defend, match, justify and payback.  Venge is one of the unusual words in English which went extinct while various derived forms (vengeance; vengeful; avenge) flourished and the translations of the Bible probably encouraged use, God being vengeful, there’s much vengeance in the Bible:

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Paul to the Romans; Romans 12:19–21

The vengeance weapons

The V-weapons deployed by Germany late in the World War II (1939-1945) all began as conventional projects of the military or the armaments industry but became known as the Vergeltungswaffen ("retaliatory weapons" or "reprisal weapons") after the label was in 1944 applied by Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945; Reich Minister of Propaganda 1933-1945) who used the word as a propaganda device, seeking to give civilians some hope there might be retaliation against (and perhaps even relief from) the area-bombing campaigns being conducted against cities all over the Reich.  The Allies generally translated Vergeltungswaffen as “vengeance weapons”, the best-known of the devices the V-1 & V-2. 

The terminology can be confusing, the vengeance weapons often conflated with the so-called Wunderwaffen (superweapons, or wonderweapons) of which there were literally dozens on drawing boards, in development or (occasionally) in use but the Vergeltungswaffen were just a highly-visible sub-set, although, being so well-publicized and relatively numerous, they do tend more to figure in the popular imagination.  Goebbels had been talking of the Wunderwaffen since 1943 and Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader), German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) had hinted at their existence since 1939 although there’s still debate about the technology to which he alluded.  Confusingly, historians writing in English also use the term “miracle weapons”, perhaps because Hitler, once he realized the war was lost (and the timing of this is debated, a vague consensus being he probably understood it couldn’t be won after the strategic failure of Unternehmen Zitadelle (Operation Citadel or the Kursk offensive) in mid-1943 and that it was lost when the Ardennes Counteroffensive (Battle of the Bulge) was abandoned in early 1945) began increasingly to refer to the “Miracle of the House of Brandenburg”, a term coined by Frederick the Great (Frederick II, 1712–1786; King of Prussia 1740-1786) to describe the fortuitous series of political and military events which saved Prussia from defeat during the Seven Years' War (1756–1763).

By the latter stages of the war, German civilians were noted in the remarkably frank reports compiled by the SD (the Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS (Security Service of the Reichsführer-SS), the internal intelligence agency of the SS and Nazi Party) as being increasingly skeptical about the Wunderwaffen, using words like “wonder” and “miracle” with some degree of irony.  Despite the opinion of some today, Dr Goebbels understood the limits of propaganda and had by 1945 already toned-down the emphasis on the weapons and had switched the focus to matters at least slightly less implausible.  In the post-war German language, Wunderwaffe has survived as a (usually derisive) reference to any universal solution said to be something said (improbably) able to solve many or especially difficult problems.

The actual history of the Vergeltungswaffen became murky almost as soon as the war ended.  What are well documented are the V-1, V-2 & V-3 and there’s some evidence to suggest the V-4 label was, at least in some documents, applied to one or more weapon before the end of hostilities.  The confusion is thought to have been engendered by the normal military & industrial practice of using the "V" designation (denoting Versuchs (attempt, experimental)) plus a number to keep track of all the prototype or version numbers which had to be documented.  Although not mentioned in his dairies or elsewhere, Goebbels seemed just to have hijacked Versuchs (V) and done a rebrand, the word vengeance well-suited to the time and place to which the gangster Nazi state had delivered Germany.  He spoke in public only ever of the V-1 & V-2 and the V-3 is documented in the German military archive but for the V-4 and beyond, the application of the V-x nomenclature is speculative, V-4 having (after the war) been applied variously to a Nazi atomic bomb, the manned version of the V-1, a number of radiological devices and the A9/A10 rocket combination.

After the war, there was a great profusion of often duplicated records spread all over the Reich and it was almost all on paper.  Project codes weren’t standardized even within industries or branches of the military but what was adhered to was the universal allocation of a system of version identifiers, usually as numbers.  A "V" to designate Versuchsmuster (prototypes) was almost always used, usually in conjunction with whatever was the current model designation (eg Ta 189 v1, Me 210 v2 et al) but within project teams, a lot of working documents circulated with just a version number listed; that being all that was required by the team focusing on the one model.  It’s that, at least in part, that’s thought to account for so many different things being described as V-4, V-7 etc, misinformation the expansion of the internet appears to have made more prevalent.

Ironically, the dozens of Wunderwaffen to which so many resources were allocated ultimately achieved more for the Allies than the Germans.  After the war, the British, the Americans and the Russians all took whatever they could grab of the German military and scientific research establishment (equipment and personnel), carted it off, reassembled what they had and put the scientists to work.  In ballistics, rocketry and advanced aviation, the victorious powers of the late 1940s essentially had in their hands what represented probably decades of peace-time research.  It’s not that developments like trans-Atlantic airliners, the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) or the moon landing wouldn’t have been possible without the windfall of the German research but these things almost certainly would have taken longer to achieve, presumably decades such was the pace of advancement during the war.

The Vergeltungswaffen eins (V-1) was the world’s first cruise missile.  One of the rare machines to use a pulse-jet, it emitted such a distinctive sound that those at whom it was aimed nicknamed it the “buzz-bomb” although it attracted other names including doodlebug.  In Germany, before Goebbels decided it was the V-1, the official military code name was Fi 103 (The Fi stood for Fieseler, the original builder of the airframe and most famous for their classic Storch (Stork), short take-off & landing (STOL) aircraft) but there were also the code-names Maikäfer (maybug) & Kirschkern (cherry stone).  Although not fast enough to be invulnerable either to air or ground-fire and insufficiently accurate to be used in precision attacks, it was nevertheless an outstandingly economical delivery system, able to carry a warhead of 850 kg (1,870 lb) to London at a tiny fraction of the cost of using manned aircraft for the same task with the priceless additional benefit of not risking the loss of aircrew.  While the Allied defenses against the V-1 did improve over time, it was only the destruction of the launch sites and the occupation of territory within launch range that ceased the attacks.  Until then, the V-1 remained a highly effective terror weapon but, like the V-2 and so much of the German armaments effort, bureaucratic empire-building and political intrigue compromised the efficiency of the project. 

The Vergeltungswaffen zwei (V-2) was developed first by the German military with the code name Aggregat 4 (A4) and was the first guided, long-range ballistic missile.  With a range of around 320 km (200 miles), it briefly entered the stratosphere (technically the mesosphere) on its trajectory towards the target and once in flight, there was no effective defense; falling to earth faster than the speed of sound, nor was there any warning.  Technologically, it was an extraordinary advance in delivery systems but it was a very expensive way (inaccurately) to deliver a relatively small payload of 725 kg (1,600 lb) of high explosive.  When nuclear warheads were developed, the economics of ballistic missiles were realized.  Deployed simultaneously too early in its development to be successful and too late in the war to realise its strategic purpose, the V2 was influential in the history of both ballistics and space exploration.  It (1) cost more to develop than the atom-bomb, (2) caused fewer casualties when deployed than died during its development and production (most of whom were slave-workers), (3) was the ancestor of the ICBMs and (4), saved the US one or two decades the of research required to produce both the ICBMs and the big Saturn rockets which powered the Apollo programme.  It’s a myth the V-2 had no strategic effect.  From the time the Allies were convinced the programme was a threat (and it took actual physical evidence to convince the British scientific establishment the V-2 was even theoretically possible), much attention was paid, even to the extent of diverting bomber command from their plans to instead concentrate some resources on the V-2.  As a terror weapon, the effectiveness was then unparalleled, the British government was forced to react to the effect on public morale.  Some historians still under-estimate just how many resources the Allies had to divert to deal with the V2s.

The Vergeltungswaffen drei (V-3) was a modern take on a very old-fashioned idea, the big-bore gun.  Essentially, the principle was of one barrel with the projectile launched with multiple charges, each successive propellant charge adding to the velocity and therefore the range.  The concept is something like that used in electronics whereby a signal transmitted along a wire is boosted at intervals by line-drivers to compensate for loses over distance.  To preserve secrecy during development, the project was known as the Hochdruckpumpe (High Pressure Pump or HDP) and, among engineers, it gained the nickname Fleißiges Lieschen (Busy Lizzie).  The idea in ballistics actually dates from the late nineteenth century and was conceived as a way of achieving a high-velocity, large calibre weapon while not requiting an excessively (and probably impossibly) large barrel.  Some of the V-3s were fired a brief operational life before the sites had to be abandoned because of the Allied advance and the two aimed at London were disabled in air attacks on their bunkers using 5,400-kilogram (11,900 lb) "Tallboy" deep-penetration “earthquake” bombs.  A number of claims have been made that certain weapons are the true Vergeltungswaffen vier (V-4) including a variety of missiles, nuclear devices and jet bombers but there’s no conclusive evidence any was ever labeled as such by either the German military or armaments industry.

The Pase Rock: Lindsay Lohan's Revenge.

Ruin

Ruin (pronounced roo-in)

(1) The remains of a building, city etc that has been destroyed or that is in disrepair or a state of decay.

(2) A destroyed or decayed building, town, etc.

(3) A fallen, wrecked, or decayed condition; the downfall, decay, or destruction of anything.

(4) The complete loss of health, means, position, hope, or the like.

(5) Some substance or other thing that causes a downfall or destruction; blight.

(6) The downfall of a person; undoing.

(7) A person as the wreck of his or her former self; ravaged individual.

(8) The act of causing destruction or a downfall.

(9) To reduce to ruin; devastate; to bring (a person, company etc) to financial ruin; bankrupt; to damage, spoil, or injure (a thing) irretrievably.

(10) To induce (a woman) to surrender her virginity; deflower; loss of virginity by a woman outside marriage (mostly archaic).

(11) To fall into ruins; fall to pieces; to come to ruin.

1325–1375: From the Middle English noun rueyne & ruyen, from the Middle French ruwine, from the Latin ruīna (headlong rush, fall, collapse, falling down), the construct being ruere (violently to fall) + -īna (feminine singular of suffix –īnus).  The Middle English verb was ruyn & ruine, from the Middle French ruyner & ruiner or directly from the Medieval Latin ruīnāre, again a derivative of the Latin ruīna.  In the late Old English, rueyne meant "act of giving way and falling down" (a sense which didn't descend into the Middle English), again from the Latin ruina, source also of the Old French ruine (a collapse), the Spanish ruina and the Italian rovina which is a derivative of ruere (to rush, fall violently, collapse), from the primitive Indo-European reue- (to smash, knock down, tear out, dig up).  The sense of "descent from a state of prosperity, degradation, downfall or decay of a person or society" dates from the late fourteenth century while the general meaning "violent or complete destruction" (of anything) and "a profound change so as to unfit a thing for use" (of one's principles, one's goods etc) was first noted by the 1670s, something of an extension of the sense of "that which causes destruction or downfall", from the early fifteenth century.  The special meaning "dishonor of a woman" (essentially the same as "a fallen woman") dates from the 1620s.  Ruins in the sense of "remains of a decayed building or town" was from the mid-fifteenth century; the same sense was in the Latin plural noun.

The verb ruin emerged in the 1580s, first in the military sense of "reduce (a place) to ruin," transitive, from the noun ruin or the fourteenth century French ruiner and from the 1610s it came to mean also "inflict disaster upon" (someone) which extended by the 1650s to mean "bring to ruin, damage essentially and irreparably".  The intransitive sense of "fall into ruin" dates from circa 1600 but is probably now obsolete except for poetic use or as a literary device.  The still well-known financial sense of "reduce to poverty, wreck the finances of" was first noted in the 1650s.  The late fourteenth century adjective ruinous (going to ruin, falling to ruin) was from the Old French ruinos (which endures in Modern French as ruineux) and directly from the Latin ruinosus (tumbling down, going to ruin) from ruina.  The meaning "causing ruin, tending to bring ruin" was from the mid-fifteenth century and by 1817 it was understood almost exclusively to mean "excessively expensive", hence the still popular phrase "ruinously expensive".

The noun ruination is interesting.  It meant in the 1660s the "act of bringing to ruin, state of being brought to ruin" amd was the noun of action or state from the now rare or obsolete verb ruinate (to go to ruin) which had emerged in the 1540s from the Medieval Latin ruinatus, past participle of ruinare, again from the Classical Latin ruina.  Unlike flirtation, floatation, & botheration, ruination was not a hybrid derivative, being regularly formed from ruinate, the technical point being etymologists think it has the effect of a slangy emphatic lengthening of the noun ruin and that only because the parent verb ruinate (in common use 1550-1700) is no longer heard.  For that reason Henry Fowler (1858-1933) in his authoritative Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) suggested "ruination is better avoided except in facetious contexts".

As a noun, ruin means the remains of a destroyed or decayed place, especially a half-standing building or city.  In the latter sense, it’s used most commonly in the plural, often as “ancient ruins”.  When used as a verb, ruin usually means “to spoil or destroy” although the once use to describe “the loss of virginity by an unmarried woman” is now rare.  Related words, sometimes used a synonyms, include bankruptcy, wreckage, collapse, insolvency, wreck, extinction, demolition, destruction, wipe out, mar, impoverish, overwhelm, injure, shatter, exhaust, demolish, crush, decimate, wrack & deplete.  The synonym of ruin most often used is destruction.  Ruin and destruction both imply irrevocable and either widespread or intense damage although, the pattern of use in Modern English seems to have evolved to use destruction (on a scale large or small) to emphasize the act while ruin emphasize the consequence: the resultant state.  Through use, there’s probably also the implication that a ruin is the result of natural processes of time whereas destruction suggests a sudden violent act or event.  The ruins from Antiquity exist both in what remains from the process of decay and as they have been "restored", usually to reflect the expectations of tourists.  For those who like the idea of what the original resembled, there's the odd replica. 

Die Ruinenwerttheorie: Albert Speer and the theory of ruin value.

Ruin value is a concept from architectural theory.  It suggests the design of representational architecture should be such that when eventually the structures crumble or collapse, what remains should be aesthetically impressive ruins which will long endure without any need of maintenance.  The idea was promoted by Hitler’s (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) architect, Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945), who first discussed it while planning for the 1936 Summer Olympics and subsequently published a paper as Die Ruinenwerttheorie (The Theory of Ruin Value).  Underling the idea was not merely the stated rationale for the theory but also the assertion such structures would tend inherently to be better built and more imposing during their period of use.  The notion was supported by Hitler, who planned for such ruins to be a symbol of the greatness of his thousand-year Reich, just as the remains from antiquity were symbolic of Hellenic and Roman civilizations.

Bank of England as a ruin (1830) by draftsman and artist Joseph Gandy (1771–1843)

In his memoirs (Inside the Third Reich, 1970) Speer laid claim to the idea, saying it was an extension of German architect Gottfried Semper's (1803-1879) views on the use of "natural" materials and the avoidance of iron girders.  Speer’s post-war writings however, although invaluable, are not wholly reliable or entirely truthful, even on technical matters such as armaments and architecture.  Ruin value was an older concept and one much-discussed in nineteenth century Europe, the romantic movement in art and architecture much drawn to, if not exactly what antiquity was, then certainly a neo-classical construct of what they imagined it to be.  This fascination even sometimes assumed a built form: a "new ruined castle" was actually built in the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel in the eighteenth century and the motif affected the architect commissioned to design the Bank of England building.  When Sir John Sloane (1753-1837) presented the bank's governors with three oil sketches of the planned buildings one of them depicted it as new, another when weathered after a century and a third, what the ruins would look like a thousand years hence.

Architectural ruins, a vision (1798), water color on paper by Joseph Gandy

A watercolor imagining the Rotunda at the Bank of England (designed by Soane and completed in 1798), drawn in the year of its completion but showing the structure in the style of a Roman ruin.  The small figures of men with pickaxes working around a fire amidst the ruins recall the calciatori of Rome, who pillaged marble from its ancient sites to be burned into lime. This atmospheric watercolor recalls Piranesi's views of ruin with its dramatic point of view, fallen fragments in the foreground.  This drawing was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1832, thirty-four years after it was executed, at the time of Soane’s retirement as architect to the Bank, under the romantic title of Architectural Ruins–A Vision (RA 1832, number 992) and accompanied by lines from Prospero's speech (Act IV, scene 1) in Shakespeare's The Tempest:

The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,

the solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit shall dissolve.

The ruin that never was.  A model of Speer's Volkshalle (people’s hall), centrepiece of Germania, the new capital of the Reich to be built over Berlin.

Speer based his design on a sketch made by Hitler himself in 1925, inspired by the Pantheon in Rome which had been created for an empire that lasted centuries.  Clever use of steel and lightweight concrete behind stone cladding permitted the scale of the structure.  The Volkshalle would have risen some 950 feet (290m), the oculus in the centre of the dome 150 feet (46 metres) in diameter, so big that Michelangelo’s dome of St Peter’s could have been lowered through it.  The volume of the building was such that it would have its own micro-climate and weather patterns; clouds would have formed, and rain drops falling on the masses below.   The Volkshalle symbolized an empire planned to endure a thousand years but the Third Reich fell after barely a dozen years and neither Volkshalle nor Germania were built and at war's end, surrounding the proposed site, Berlin lay in ruins.

Apparatus

Apparatus (pronounced ap-uh-rat-uhs (U) or ap-uh-rey-tuhs (non-U))

(1) A group or combination of instruments, machinery, tools, materials, etc, having a particular function or intended for a specific use:

(2) Any complex instrument or mechanism for a particular purpose.

(3) Any system or systematic organization of activities, functions, processes, etc, directed toward a specific goal; applied especially to government and state control to describe systems and bureaucratic organizations, especially those influenced by political patronage

(4) In physiology, a group of structurally different organs working together in the performance of a particular function:

1620–1630: From the Middle English apparatus (a collection of tools, utensils, etc. adapted as a means to some end), from the Latin apparātus (tools, implements, equipment, originally the act of equipping, preparation), noun of state from the past participle stem of apparāre.  The construct was apparā(re) (to prepare) (ap- the prefix usually found on verbs (and their derived nouns or adjectives) with the meaning “around” or “about”) + parāre (prepare) + -tus (the suffix of verb action)).  The Latin apparātus was the perfect passive participle of apparō (prepare) from ad- (to, towards, at) +‎ parō (prepare, provide) from the primitive Indo-European root pere- (to produce, procure").

The two noun plurals apparatus & apparatuses are both correct although the invariant plural, maintaining the Latin inflection in English on a loanword basis, is less commonly used.  However, because the word also has a mass noun sense in English and it often appears in such a way that its number (singular or plural) is disguised by absence of any inflectional or lexical signals as to which of these two senses is intended, readers may parse it in either sense.  Usually, this creates only a slight ambiguity which affects meaning not at all and is significant only in technical matters such as complex devices where the distinction between single and multiple machines needs to be clear.

Lindsay Lohan inspecting a specific-purpose apparatus in Labor Pains (2009).

Of and by the structure

French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser (1918–1990) published his essay Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d'État (Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses) in 1970.  Fleshing out his earlier theory of ideology, it was a description of the particular form of state superstructure adopted under post-war capitalism to control the social formation required continuously and perpetually to maintain the productive forces (labour and the means of production & distribution).  Essentially an account of how a human being becomes a self-conscious subject, the work analyzed the necessary relationship between state and subject a given economic mode of production might subsist.  It included not only an analysis of the state and its legal and educational systems but also of the psychological relationship which existed between subject and state as ideology.  Althusser held that regimes were able to maintain control by reproducing subjects who believe that their position within the social structure was a natural one, the ideology being one’s function with the apparatus was part of the way the world must function.  The ideology was instantiated by institutions or “ideological state apparatuses” like family, schools and churches which provided developing subject with categories in which they could recognize themselves.

Althusser, in good Marxist tradition, didn’t suggest the imperative was to replace the ideological state apparatuses as a structure but rather that its underlying ideology should be supplanted so that rather than being productive of the bourgeois subject, it became productive of proletarian or communist subjects.  In the half-century since he wrote, there’s been no indication of that happening but the durability of an apparatus can’t easily be predicted on the basis of perception.  When the revolutions of the Arab Spring flared in 2011, it was entirely predictable the state apparatuses in Libya and Egypt would suppress the threat while the weaker, more disparate, Syrian model was vulnerable yet it was Gaddafi and Mubarak who were overthrown while Bashar al-Assad sits still in Damascus.

The idea of the state (corporatist, autocratic, totalitarian or democratic) as an apparatus is neither recent nor controversial and nor is the notion that the mechanism is more typically a number of apparatus which function sometimes in unison, sometimes separately and sometimes in opposition, these occasionally contradictory dynamics able simultaneously to interact.  For those interested in a case study of one famously apparatus-ridden apparatus, Albert Speer's (1905-1981; minister for armaments in the Third Reich 1942-1945) last published work (Infiltration (1981)), although at time turgid and never lively in style, is a valuable account of the actual workings of what was, even in the post-war decades, still often characterized as an efficient administrative unit.  Although some suggested Infiltration was a study of the way the SS (Schutzstaffel (Protection Squadron) which began as the Führer's small personal bodyguard and evolved into a vast economic, industrial and military apparatus more than two million strong) became a kind of "state within a state", while that was the organization's objective (the apparatuses of the Nazi Party, the German state and the SS engaged in a permanent struggle for dominance), the book's alternative title in some markets (The Slave State: Heinrich Himmler's Masterplan for SS Supremacy) is a more accurate precis.  Infiltration is an account of the endless quarrels among contenders for power and rival bureaucracies in the Third Reich, a tale of scheming and plotting, not against the designated national enemy but against one another in the ever shifting battle for for power and influence.  In the wartime UK & US, the prime-minister & president were more effective dictators than ever was the Führer.

Whatever his other gifts (and whether as architect or administrator opinion remains divided), Speer was no great stylist of prose and the reputation his earlier volumes gained for lucidity owe much to the professional journalist who was his editor.  Speer wrote Infiltration unaided unaided and it's no place to start for anyone who wishes to explore the Third Reich but for those familiar with the history, it's an invaluable source and in some aspect, the ultimate cross-reference book.  Certainly, there's never been penned a better portrait of SS leader Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945; Reichsführer SS 1929-1945) and while such a bloodless bureaucrat can never be made to seem anything like a vivid personality, Speer does capture much missed by many.

Trailer of Labor Pains (2009), dubbed in German.