Fritz Sauckel Quotes
It so happened that I was on a German sailing vessel on the way to Australia when the ship was captured, and on the high seas I was made prisoner by the French.
International Military Tribunal. Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945 - 1 October 1946. Vol. 14, Secretariat of the Tribunal, 1947, p. 572.
The Ship was British but a passanger ship. Over 1000 civillians were murdered, including 128 Americans. This moved American public opinion towards entering the war against Germany which soon thereafter ocurred,
A local pilot who knew the local waters was necessary to help a large ship to dock in a port. Most of the pilots were patriots and those who weren’t were intimidated by the Continental Congress and the patriots in the community. At this point there was no formal battles yet of the Revolution. The British authorities were really angered that they could not safely land a British ship in the ports of their own colonies. This is another example of the American Revolution starting before the battles of 1776.
At the time, the Muslim nations of the Barbary Coast commonly seized merchant ships anywhere in the Mediterranean and other oceans. They would sell the cargos, enslave the Christian crews and passengers and then demand ransom for the ships and the freedom of the slaves. However, if nations paid each of the rulers of three countries--Morocco, Algeria & Tunisia--enough annual tribute, ships of the paying nation would not be molested. The European Maritime powers paid the tribute rather than go to war. However, this became a political controversy in the U.S. John Adams and many others wanted to pay the tribute. Jefferson and still others, argued that such tribute should never be paid and war was preferable. This treaty, negotiated by Donaldson and the Algerian Ruler, was a great victory for Jefferson as no tribute would be paid by the U. S.—the only country so exempted. However, it took an invasion of Tripoli lead by U.S. Marines and a massive naval bombardment of Algiers to ‘persuade’ the ruler of Algeria to sign the treaty. Later, the Barbary pirates reneged, and the U. S. did pay a tribute rather than have another war. They did however, pay less than the European powers.
The French had a plan to construct a canal across Panama.
America’s oldest foreign policy problem has been freedom of the seas for American shipping. Since the end of WWII, the U. S. however performed this function—and pays for it—for the entire world with some minor exceptions.
Military men tend to rely so much on military history that they are almost always fighting the last war. Soon air power would supplant sea power as the critical factor. Then nuclear power, and then nuclear weapons became too severe for actual use and yet wars still continued with no consensus as to that will be in the future.
Koxinga had an overwhelmingly superior force, and wanted the Dutch to surrender and avoid bloodshed. The Dutch with their typical European colonial attitude, had great difficulty surrendering to “natives” even if outnumbered. Finally, the Dutch Commander agreed to surrender. Koxinga then established a Chinese Government on the Island and became a great hero of the Ming Dynasty. Note the graphic of the statue to him which is one of the very few Chinese memorial statues to a military hero showing him in action—very similar to European statues. Already Koxinga’s massed wooden junks with small cannon and fire torches had sunk one of the Dutch warships (they were not iron but had some iron plates on the deck to protect the gunners) and there were so many junks that the other Dutch ships sailed out to sea to avoid the Chinese huge number of junks.
The patriots did not have any large muti-deck warships but outfitted fast schooners with four small cannon. The schooners had flat bottoms and could navigate in shallow water where the large British warships dared not sail. George Washington made very effective use of his navy interdicting supplies and interfering with truth movements.
See {640847}, {640845} & {640846}. The capitalization is exactly as Adams wrote it. Note the omission of a capital letter for “congress” for whom he and many others had little respect even then.
This was issued in response to Germany issuing a warning that neutral ships might be in danger in their sea war with England -- {583920}. And it was just such an attack on an American Ship that brought America into the First World War.
Ernst Friedrich Christoph "Fritz" Sauckel was a German Nazi politician, Gauleiter of Gau Thuringia from 1927 and the General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment (Arbeitseinsatz) from March 1942 until the end of the Second World War. Sauckel was among the 24 persons accused in the Nuremberg Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and was sentenced to death by hanging.
