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30. mai 2005
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 It sounds like a bizarre joke, but it's a true story. During World War II, Hitler's war machine dedicated quite a bit of resources to creating the world's first sex doll: Borghild.
The ”field-hygienic project” was an initiative of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, who regarded the doll as an ”counterbalance” (or regulating effect) for the sexual drive of his stormtropers. In one his letters, dated 20.11.1940 he mentions the ”unnessessary losses” the Wehrmacht had suffered in France inflicted by street prostitutes.
”The greatest danger in Paris are the wide-spread and uncontrolled whores, picking by clients in bars, dancehalls and other places. It is our duty to prevent soldiers from risking their health, just for the sake of a quick adventure.”
The project was naturally kept top secret, but quite a bit of resources was put into creating the perfect aryan sex doll, to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, and, one assume, racial dilution of the great German army.
Psychiatrist Dr. Rudolf Chargeheimer wrote the following note as the project went forward:
”Sure thing, purpose and goal of the dolls is to relieve our soldiers. They have to fight and not be on the browl or mingle with ”foreign womenfolk”. However: no real men will prefer a doll to a real woman, until our technicians meet the following quality standards-
- The synthetic flesh has to feel the same like real flesh
- The doll’s body should be as agile and moveable as the real body
- The doll’s organ should feel absolutely realistic.”
This, unnecessary to say, was much easier said than done.
Between June 1940 – 1941 IG Farben had already developed a number of ”skin-friendly polymers” for the SS. Special characteristics : high tensile strength and elasticity. The cast of a suitable model proved to be more difficult.
Borghild was meant to reflect the beauty-ideal of the Nazis , i. e. white skin, fair hair and blue eyes. Although the team considered a doll with brown hair , the SS- Hygiene-Institute insisted on manufacturing a ”nordish doll”. Tschakert hoped to plastercast from a living model and a number of famous female athletes were invited to come to his studios, among them Wilhelmina von Bremen and Annette Walter. In the process Tschakert realized it was the wrong way. In a letter to Mrurgowsky he came to the conclusion: ”Sometimes the legs are too short and look deformed, or the lady has a hollow back and arms like a wrestler. The overall appearance is always dreadful and I fear there is no other way than to combine.” While Mrurgowsky still favoured a ”whole imprint” of NS- diva Kristina Söderbaum, the Borghild-designer decided to build the doll’s mold in a ”modular way”. In Tschakerts view the doll should be nothing more than a” female bestform”, a ”perfect automaton of lust”, that would combine ”the best of all possible bodies”. The team agreed on a cheeky and naughty face , a look-a-like of Käthe von Nagy, but the actress politely declined to borrow her face to Tschakert’s doll. After Mrurgowsky’ s exit , Dr. Hannussen rejected the idea to cast a face from a living person. He believed in an ”artifial face of lust”, which would be more attractive to soldiers.
Eventually, the project appear to have been put in the backburner as Nazi-Germany faced more pressing needs, and the German army had to face its enemies without the comfort of the aryan plastic sex bomb. No wonder they lost, squeezed between French prostitutes and Russian bayonets.
What remained of the project was totally destroyed when allied warplanes totally destroyed Dresden in 1945. And here we have heard the bombing raid was of dubious military value.
Norwegian VG alerted me to this story.
PS: Those who read German can find the original story in Bild, and even if you can't, there are some neat disturbing pictures.
Update: This story was too funny to really check, but there are obviously reasons to doubt it is true.
5:28:19 AM 
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 A free Lebanon has started its parliamentary elections, kicking off the first of four rounds of elections. The complex elections allocate seats according to ethnic and secterian divisions to preserve the interests of minorities.
Yesterday's vote was dominated from beyond the grave by Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister whose St Valentine's Day assassination was widely blamed on Damascus.
His image was everywhere in the city on billboards and posters and his message was kept alive by his son, Saad Hariri, 35, who has taken over the loose political association created by his father.
The Hariri-bloc, as it is known, secured all of the 19 seats in Beirut after pre-poll deals with other groups. The bloc is expected to secure the remaining 10 seats up for election yesterday.
Saad Hariris's coalition has claimed victory. Picture shows Nazek Hariri, widow of the killed former prime minister Rafik Hariri, voting.
There is a lot of concern over the showing of the Hezbollah, whose strongholds are in the south, who has made a transition from a terrorist group to a democratic party, however keeping its arms.
The two main Shia groups, Hezbollah and Amal, have formed the Resistance, Liberation and Development list, and are expected to win most of the seats there.
It will take a month or so before the results are finalised.
PS: Ya Libnan has a great selection of election pictures. Yes, there be babes, too.
PS 2: Across the border to Syria, things are not going so well for democracy and human rights. Roger has the story.
3:17:14 AM
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The Sunday Times says that al-Zarqawi has fled to Iran:
IRAQ’S most wanted terrorist has fled the country for emergency surgery after an American airstrike left him with shrapnel lodged in his chest, according to a senior insurgent commander in close contact with his group.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has a $25m bounty on his head after being blamed for suicide bombings, assassinations and the beheadings of western hostages — including Ken Bigley, the Liverpool engineer — is now believed to be in Iran.
He has suffered from bouts of high fever since being wounded by a missile that struck his convoy three weeks ago as he fled an American offensive near the town of al-Qaim in northwestern Iraq, the commander said.
His condition late last week was described as stable, but supporters were said to be preparing to move him to another “non-Arab” country for an operation to remove the shrapnel.
“Shrapnel went in between the right shoulder and his chest, ripped it open and is still stuck in there,” said the commander.
Officials in Washington believe that US forces may have lost their chance of capturing or killing him for now. “If he’s got to Iran, there’s not much we can do,” said one.
Assuming this is true (quite an assumption, but bear with me), tell me why Shia Iran is a safe harbour for the murderer of hundreds of Shias in Iraq.
PS: But this signals a very encouraging development:
For four days this month, U.S. Marines were onlookers at just the kind of fight they had hoped to see: a battle between suspected followers of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a foreign-born insurgent, and Iraqi Sunni tribal fighters at the western frontier town of Husaybah.
In clashes sparked by the assassination of a tribal sheik, which was commissioned by Zarqawi, the foreign insurgents and the Iraqi tribal fighters pounded one another with small weapons and mortars in the town's streets as the U.S. military watched from a distance, tribal members and the U.S. military said.
When a stray mortar round accidentally hit near the Marines, Lt. Col. Tim Mundy recalled, "they'd adjust their fire, and not shoot at us" for fear of drawing Americans into the fight. "They shot at each other," he said.
The only reported damage to the U.S. side occurred when small-arms rounds struck a helicopter as the curious American crew drew too close to the fighting below.
The Sunni Arab tribe involved in the clashes, the Sulaiman, lost four men, Salman Reesha Sulaiman, a member of the tribe, said in an interview after the fighting, which occurred during the first week of May.
On the Zarqawi side, 11 foreign fighters were killed outright, plus an unknown number of other foreign fighters and their Iraqi allies in U.S. bombing runs after local tribes tipped off their location to the Americans.
The fighting at Husaybah was a dramatic sign of the fractures in support and allegiance the foreign fighters are experiencing, several Iraqi political leaders and other Iraqis said. The battles also revealed what appeared to be fissures within the network's top leadership, they said.
When the terrorists are no longer able to rely on at least passive support from the Sunni Arab population, their days are numbered. We may not be there yet, but hopefully we will be soon.
12:46:26 AM
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As expected, French voters rejected the EU constitution:
With 85% of votes counted the "No" vote stood at almost 56%, according to interior ministry figures.
The vote could deal a fatal blow to the EU constitution, which needs to be ratified by all 25 members states.
President Jacques Chirac accepted the voters' "sovereign decision", but said it created "a difficult context for the defence of our interests in Europe".
Must try to restrain glee. Must try to restrain glee.
12:30:27 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 19.06.2005; 10:22:25.
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