Do you celebrate Labour Day?

Question

https://www.britishpathe.com/video/labour-day-1

Answer 1

Labor Day is a Holiday here but not on the same date as yours. But yes, I celebrate it as I was one of those many workers out there that deserved some recognition.

Answer 2

Not like the old commies from the Islington Local.  

Comments

Is the Islington Local a labor union, Tink? Near where you are?

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Yes, they were a labor union, but no, not from near me.  They were marching in England in 1929. See 0:22 of Kninjanin's clip above.

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Ah yes I had missed it, they even carried their eponymous banner...and toward the end of the clip, proudly displaying their Communist orientation.

Answer 3

No....although the first Monday in May has been a holiday here for some time.

Answer 4

Well Kninjanin I was just talking with another of the old ladies here in the old folks' apts., and both of us remember we celebrated May 1 in childhood as MayDay, when we would make paper baskets out of old wallpaper sample books, fill them with May flowers from Mother's overflowing garden, and hang them on the neighbors' doorknob, ring the bell, and run!

Then from our hiding place we would watch the owners find the flowers with lots of ooh's and ahh's, making a big deal of taking the bouquets inside for place on honor in a vase at supper that night...

BUT, I heard on the radio that May 1 Labor Day  originated in the worker campaigns of the USA, then got exterminated here in the anti-Communist persecution fervor -- even while May 1 worker day still commemorated in many other countries now!

Comments

Mayday was celebrated as a Labor Day even in Nazi Germany, although with a somewhat different flavor.  

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I did not know it, Tink! 

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Mayday in Berlin, 1938.

There even is a huge maypole at the end of the clip.

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Tink I used Google translate for the precise meaning of the words = 'Day of the Greater German Empire.' 

I thought it rather poignant, Hitler completely exposed before such a huge crowd, seems totally confident this would not be another Francis Ferdinand moment...so I looked up where things were on May 1, 1938, and WWII officially began September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland.

Very captivating, isn't it? You can sense how people would feel themselves a part of a tsunami magnificent and wonderful...even the swastika being an ancient mystical symbol, phoenix rising and all...wonderful that we have such powerful historical records as possible with such films.

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I think his biggest and most enthusiastic crowd was after the fall of France.

Hitler Returns To Germany From France (1940) | British Pathé - YouTube

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What a precious and fascinating archive, Tink -- this was in the commentary: "Now considered to be the finest newsreel archive in the world, British Pathé is a treasure trove of 85,000 films unrivalled in their historical and cultural significance."

At 1:19, the cathedral's rose window is shown...apparently Strasbourg cathedral?

As for the crowds...makes you ponder all that Germans had endured, the humiliating defeat of WWI, followed by the hyperinflation that decimated the savings, and lives, of so many...and now in 1940 they are not only thriving, they are winning again...all focused on one man, their savior...

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Yes, it is Strasbourg cathedral.

And at 3:23, we hear the voices of children chanting, "Wir haben keinen anderen Fuehrer!"... "We have no other leader!"   I wonder how many of them didn't survive the war. 

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it is a heart-rending question of wondering...

Recently I came across a 'what-if' question, maybe file this under revisionist history? ...it's the idea that the German economy could have made it through those terrible years without Hitler -- except for the Great Depression. 

Specifically, the Smoot-Hawley tariff act of 1930, which was supposed to protect beleaguered farmers/businesses but is said to have instead made the Depression worse, as well as exported the Depression to the rest of the world, as US trading partners enacted retaliatory tariffs.

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Oh and I just went back to your clip, the first one, to make certain I found the MayPole -- I did not notice it the first time, having been so taken by the swastika mounted atop the summit of the pole!

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Yes, there are so many 'what ifs'... Hitler himself was so improbable. Who would have thought a down-and-out dreamer in Vienna, painting postcards, living in flophouses, no money, no family, no education, no influence, no powerful friends, could possibly  become absolute dictator of Germany?  

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That is so, isn't it? ...utterly improbable...no silvery spoon in his mouth at birth...he did seem to have a way with women, 2 or 3 attempting suicide over him, including Eva Braun...I don't recall if any of the suicides were successful.

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I think he only had a way with any women after he became a significant political figure.

And yes, Geli Raubal (his half-niece) committed suicide. Some sources say it was because he kept her locked up as a virtual prisoner in his apartment, to keep the affair secret. Other sources claim it was because of degrading sexual fetishes he forced her  to take part in.