Infinity

I love my World War II classes and the little interesting tidbits of history that I get out of them. Here's some from my Hist 144 course and the Warlords book Scott got me for X-mas:

• Before Germany's invasion of Soviet Russia in 1941, Joseph Stalin had received numerous reports of Hitler's movements along the border to attack the Soviet empire - reports from trusted officials in his own government. In response, as any rational leader would react, Stalin told his Soviet spy in the Luftwaffe to "tell the 'source' in the Staff of the German Air Force to fuck his mother!"
  
• More commonly known, but largely ignored, the country Iran received its name during World War II for the purpose of appeasing Hitler. Meaning "the land of Aryans", Iran was originally known as Persia, until an anti-Semitic, Nazi-symapathizing shah took control and changed its name to show its support of Hitler and his war on the Jewish population.
  
• Now this one, my teacher himself isn't all too sure of, but I'm going to go ahead and say its true and backed up by many sources: When the Germans invaded Greece (Crete), they made a grave mistaking - by using paratroopers. In one instance, a German floated right into a tree and became entangled in some branches. While struggling to cut himself free, an old Greek woman simply came out from her house and slit the German's throat. At the same time, another paratrooper facing a similar problem (the tree) was found by an old Greek man, who, defending his country with merely a stick (a wooden instrument of some sort, I'm assuming), beat the unfortunate German to death. Not so comical at the time when hundreds of Greeks were being bombed and machine-gunned to death, but I enjoyed it in class nonetheless.

So very, very racist, but I posted only by the influence of the others...and I find it funny. Only a little, though. I swear.