/r/TheGrittyPast
A collection of the most gritty, dramatic, and awe-inspiring moments from history.
Welcome to The Gritty Past!
Here, we post the most sobering, tragic, heroic - and often violent - accounts from history. History of any culture and era is welcome here.
Ultimately, the purpose of TheGrittyPast is to humble and inspire, but we encourage any academic discussion that may be the result of a submission. We heavily encourage other fans of history to post their own content - the more the better!
For similar content, consider the following:
/r/jessicamshannon
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Amazing
Disturbing
Heroic
Moving
Sobering
Tragic
Violent
Rules
Rule 1: All submitted content must be historical.
Submissions should always be historical - be they anecdotal, recordings, or published accounts. By our definition of history, we insist that content refer to events taking place 20 years ago or more. If you are confused as to whether or not your submission would qualify, feel free to contact the mods and we will be happy to weigh in on the issue.
Rule 2: Submissions must be verifiable.
Either link directly to a reliable source that supports every claim in your submission, or cite your sources in the text post. Citations do not necessarily have to follow a specific format, but they should include a title for the source-material, author, page, and year published, when available. If your content is another type of media (video/audio, etc), please leave a comment below your submission that explains it or lists any source material available.
Rule 3: Don't break Reddit's rules.
Violations of the global user agreement will not be tolerated.
Rule 4: Be civil.
Spamming, personal attacks upon, or harassment of a user will not be tolerated.
Rule 5: Factually inaccurate content may be removed.
Factually inaccurate submissions & comments are subject to removal. The user will be notified of this in the event of a submission/comment removal, and is encouraged to resubmit with any necessary corrections.
Rule 6: No pseudo-history or holocaust denial.
The merits of these things are best discussed elsewhere and are inappropriate material for the sub. This is not the place to "wake up the sheeple."
Rule 7: No politics or soap-boxing will be tolerated.
Submissions & comments that are overtly political will be removed; political topics are only acceptable if discussed in a historical context. Comments should discuss a historical topic, not advocate an agenda. This is entirely at the moderators' discretion.
Rule 8: Please post one or more submission highlights if posting links to articles or videos.
If submitting a link, we ask that you provide, in the comments, one or more particularly appropriate lines or passages that showcase the tragic or moving aspects of the event.
If submitting a video link, we ask that you provide selected, transcribed passages in the same manner. Timestamps to said material are required for video links that are more than 3 minutes in length (and encouraged in general).
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/r/TheGrittyPast
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"Zepf"
The Germans called this alley 'The Road of No Return'. A little man, who was making faces all the time and whose family name was Sukhomil, shouted with grimaces in a deliberately broken German: 'Children, children! Schneller, schneller! The waters getting cold in the bathhouse. Schneller, Kinder, schneller!' And he exploded with laughter, squatted, danced. People, their hands still raised, walked in silence between the two lines of SS, under the blows of sticks, SMG butts, rubber truncheons. Children had to run to keep up with the adults. Speaking about this last, sorrowful passage, all witnesses mentioned the atrocities of one humanlike creature, an SS man called Zepf. He specialised in killing children. This beast wh possessed a massive physical streng, would suddenly seize a child out of the crowd, and either hit the child's head agaisnst the ground waving the child like a club, or tear the child in two halves.
Zepf's work was important. It added to the psychological shock of the doomed people, and showed how the illogical cruely was able to crush people's will and consciousness. He was a useful screw in the great machine of the Nazi state.
p294, "A Writer At War" Vasily Grossman, edit and translated by Antony Beevor & Luba Vinogradova.
20:46 UTC
Jesenovac (1941-1945): The Cruelest Death Camp in World War 2. [viewer discretion advised]
17:21 UTC
Andrew Myrick, a trader who told starving Dakota to "eat grass or dung" was killed on the first day of the Dakota War of 1862. His head was cut off, and his mouth was stuffed with grass.
07:44 UTC
Finnish soldiers stumbled upon cannibalised skins of Soviet soldiers near Maaselkä, Winter War's - 15th December 1942 [Graphic Content NSFL: Viewer's Discretion Advised]
06:35 UTC
Anti-Khmer Rouge child soldiers holding their trophies. The Heads of fallen Khmer Rouges own child soldiers, Cambodian civil war, 1974 [Graphic NSFL: Viewer Discretion Advised]
00:53 UTC
Officer Anton Dostler executed for ordering the execution of 15 American prisoners of war in March 1944 during the Italian Campaign. December 1st, 1945.
05:37 UTC
Aftermath of the First Battle of Bud Dajo in March 1906, in which up to 900 civilians, including women and children, were killed by US Marines. Mark Twain commented, "In what way was it a battle? It has no resemblance to a battle...", adding that helpless people were butchered.
14:16 UTC
Mohamed Boudiaf, Algerian political leader and one of the founders of the revolutionary National Liberation Front (FLN) that led the Algerian War of Independence, was shot and killed by one of his own bodyguards, Lambarek Boumaarafi, on June 29, 1992. It was later broadcast on national TV.
12:28 UTC
"A starving Kurd carrying his dead child who has died of starvation, to the Muslim Cemetery, Kirkuk." World War 1, circa 1917.
15:37 UTC
Thomas Edison Electrocuting Topsy the Elephant, in a Grand and Competitive Display Against Tesla 1903
22:59 UTC
Audio of an Execution by Electric Chair - On July 12, 1984, Ivon Ray Stanley was put to death by the State of Georgia for shooting and burying Clifford Floyd while still alive. His was one of several executions documented on audio.
03:21 UTC
German civilians are forced to view the bodies of concentration camp inmates at Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany. May 3, 1945.
02:32 UTC
German Josef Wende, accused of espionage, is executed by a US Military Police firing squad in Toul, France, during World War 2. November 11, 1944.
19:15 UTC
Gas chamber at the Bernburg Euthanasia Centre, designed by S.S. member Erwin Lambert. Picture from 2006.
17:50 UTC
The body of General Friedrich Kussin after his car was ambushed by British soldiers. Operation Market Garden, World War 2; September 17, 1944.
06:41 UTC
The Milgram experiment. Beginning on August 7, 1961, a series of social psychology experiments were conducted psychologist Stanley Milgram, who measured the willingness of participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience.
08:49 UTC
The bodies of two SS men who were killed by concentration camp survivors, 1945.
00:51 UTC
Eugen Weidmann, German serial killer, executed by guillotine in France on June 17, 1939, the last public execution in France.
01:32 UTC
Panzerfaust lobbed into the Elbe near the body of a German soldier by his Soviet counterpart at Torgau on April 26th 1945
22:02 UTC
Post-mortem photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald, November 1963.
03:38 UTC
When American troops liberated prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp in Germany in 1945, many German SS guards were killed by the prisoners, who then disposed of their bodies in the moat surrounding the camp.
02:46 UTC
The Boxer Rebellion; Decapitated Boxers in front of a group of Chinese and Japanese soldiers. Circa 1900.
04:29 UTC
Dead frozen Soviet soldier propped up by Finnish fighters to intimidate Soviet troops, 1939.
23:36 UTC