Monthly Archives: January 2017

World War II Soldier Blog Post

Posted on by under World War II

With the introduction of World War II in PLP comes another soldier blog post. This is all about learning what the mentality of the soldiers was like back then. It also gives us students some information regarding what the time was like and what people were doing before the war. This blog post will include a diary entry written by me emulating a soldier I researched.

The soldier I researched is called Carl Thomas Edward Lee. I found him through searching through the archives of Canadian dead. I searched with the surname Lee trying to see if I could get an Asian soldier to research but found. I tried other Asian last names to avail so I just stuck with a Caucasian Lee. In his profile, I found many documents of him applying for the Air Force, medical exams, as well many letters informing his parents that he had died in the war.

This soldier was born in February 18th, 1922. He led quite a normal life with no injuries of any kind throughout his life before the war. He went to The University Of Toronto to study radios and how they worked. He was in the middle of his studies when the war broke out. As Canada joined the war, he signed up as a ground crewman for the Air force. He had hoped to be a radio technician as part of the ground team but he was instead trained as a navigator. This meant that he was part of the air crew that flew the warplanes and he was in charge of navigating and also the radios. He came out of training was assigned to bombers. This was late in the war at around late 1943. On January 28th 1944, him and his crew flew a Halifax bomber on a mission to bomb Berlin with other planes. They were shot down over northern Europe and bailed out but was captured. After that, no other records exist that Lee and his crew made it out of the Prisoner of War camp that they would be inevitably sent to if they were not just shot dead after being captured. Many letters were sent to the parents regarding their son’s status which was missing in action. His personal effects were sent home and will enforced after the time of which he was missing for became too long for him to have survived without making contact with Canada.

Below are some diary entries I wrote to show some understanding in what a soldier went through in World War II.

The Effects of the Roaring 20’s and The Great Depression on Germany

Posted on by under 1920's and The Great Depression

 

      The time of The Great Depression was a worldwide disaster that impacted any major country. People lost their jobs and lives, businesses closed down, and debts skyrocketed. It destroyed economies and took down the reputation of political parties that were in charge. What I wanted to examine was the impact of this depression on the World War I loser, Germany. I got interested because of the economic damage that the war has brought upon has been amplified greatly by the depression and I wanted to know how they could have survived as a country.

Introduction to the Situation of Germany

      After World War I, Germany was forced to pay a lot in war reparations to the allied powers because they had lost the war. Having to pay approximately 33 million US Dollars in war reparations in a foreign currency, Germany payed slowly because there was simply not enough money in Germany.

 

The 1920’s

      Germany began printing large amounts of money to buy foreign currencies so they could pay off the reparations without actually industrial infrastructure to back it up. This caused the German Mark to fall from 4 Marks per 1 US Dollar to 48 Marks per US dollar. Soon, Germany could afford to pay like this anymore because the Mark was depreciating too quickly. They were ordered by the allies to pay in resources such as coal. The French occupied parts of the Ruhr Valley where Germany’s coal was to enforce this. German coal workers went on strike so Germany continued paying with money. In late 1923, 1 US dollar was worth 4,210,500,000,000 German marks. Bank notes were so useless that families used whole stacks of notes to stack castles out of. Some were being used wallpaper. A whole barrel full of notes was barely enough to buy a loaf of bread. As the roaring 20s arrived, Germany finally began to recover slightly after 1923. German bankers came up with a currency that was based on the price of rye and the German economy improved. Germany began to ask for loans from countries like the US for money. This resulted in the Germany economy being largely built upon foreign loans. Near the end though, the US started adding tariffs on imports to protect its companies. This shrank the production rate of Germany and factories shrunk which did not help its current state.

Children using money as toys

The Great Depression

      Right after the stock market crash in New York that started The Great Depression, people in America started to recall their loans from Germany to recover their money. This destroyed the German economy because it was largely built upon these loans. There were several runs on major banks in Germany many of which folded. The government decided not to follow normal protocol and increase government spending to stimulate the economy. They started to increase taxes and did wage cuts in an attempt to lower prices on goods. This caused lots of criticism towards the government which created instability with the populace. 6 million people were without work. There were goods to be bought but no one had the money to buy them. Distrust of the political party that was in charge led people to join other parties that had more radical ideas to solve the problem with the economy. One of these parties was the National Socialists Workers Party (NSDAP) more commonly known to the western world as the Nazi Party. Many believe the leader of this party Adolf Hitler only rose to power because of what The Great Depression did to Germany. The NSDAP later was elected as the party in charge when the previous government dissolved and held an election. All of this set the stage for World War II.

 

 

 

 

 

Bank notes as wall paper

Comic

Below is my pathetic attempt to make a comic that is meant to be funny.

Reflection

      I already knew some of the information about this topic from some fun research I did sometime ago. After properly researching the topic for an assignment, I found out so much more and finally understood some of the more complex ideas of hyperinflation. I know I jumped the gun on this assignment when we would learn about this later. I still find it amazing how Germany could have survived as a state after their bank notes were used as wall paper!

PLP Exhibition At Seycove

Posted on by under Canada and World War I

The Exhibition

 

      This year is my first exhibition with PLP along with many of the other veteran PLP students. The exhibition was intended to show three different aspects, each represented by a grade of what they have learned during their first term. HPC 11 (My grade) did Canada’s situation and role before and after World War I. It is supposed to be an immersive experience where scenes from the time would be represented in the most realistic way possible to give the audience a very clear understanding of what was going on at the time.

 

Group and Setup

      The groups were chosen by the teachers and divided into different groups that represented different eras of the time. My group consisted of Jackson, Brianna, Tom, and Gabrielle. Worked proceeded with a preliminary planning stage of what Pre War Canada would have been like. The project was planned to have 2 but later had 3 stages because we had too much area to cover. The very first part in Seycove’s cardio room was going to be the immigration office where people coming into the exhibit were supposed to go so they could immigrate. This would show Canada’s Open Door immigration policy. The second part was a rally stage where Laurier and Henri Bourassa were supposed to have an argument. They would explore the good and bad of the Laurier era. Robert Borden then appears on the stage and speaks about supporting Britain if there is a war in Europe. The audience is then moved into a sign up area where they would join the army. There is then an almost seamless transition into the Trenches group area where one of their group members welcomes them to the battlefield. We used cardboard boxes to divide off the rally stage and the recruitment office.  

This is where Robert Borden held a rally to rile up everyone to support or join the great war that would soon happen in Europe.

During Presentation

      Setup and preparation was a bit rushed due to time so everyone improvised their parts instead of really reading from the script. Brianna manned both the immigration office and the recruitment, Jackson and Gabi argued as Laurier and Bourassa, I was Robert Borden, and Tom was Clifford Sifton welcoming the audience in. The overall exhibition went smoothly with no problems that the audience could recognize. There was however a slight noise problem with another group as their group and our group presented at the same time which resulted in my speech being partially obscured by the sound. As time went by and breaks between groups let us rest and prepare for the next group to arrive, we thought of some ideas that could make our presentation more special. More improvisation ideas were added to the Laurier and Bourassa argument and ideas were also added to Robert Borden’s speech that would make it more effective.

People voting for the next prime minister of that time. This was part of the immersive experience.

Take Down

      Right before the take down, all the groups that presented got to walk through the exhibit and take a look at their classmate’s creations. The taking down of all the exhibitions was relatively easy as it was all basically props from different rooms that still had function and also the fact that most of it was made from cardboard. All was taken down and some props were taken home.

First picture shows a novel idea from the trenches group to build a mock tank for their group which represented trench life. Second picture shows the discrimination and sexism that existed in Canada during that time presented by another group.

My Reflection

      This is the very first time I have done such a thing in this format where the class created a proper immersive experience for the audience. I felt that the time we had in the gym to set up was way too short and that if we had more time, we could have created something very nice. Other than that, I felt the exhibition ran quite smoothly. The teamwork involved was tremendous and in the end, everyone from every group  vb pitched in to help each other to make this exhibition happen. This has definitely been a change from the normal ways of showing what the class has learned and was also a great way to promote our program. The things that needed to be known to do this project was led me to learn a lot of new things about Canada during that time period. Apparently the lineup to see it was very long, maybe Mr. Hughes and Ms. Willemse should charge an entrance fee next time……….

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