Wednesday 10 April 2013

first instance or operation hummingbird

There is an embarrassment of expert and thorough articles on every subject to be found in the annals and Neulichkeit of Wikipedia, so much sometimes the depth is taken for granted, even if it is repaired to a source of first- and last-resort. 

My mother referred me to such an in depth article about the decisive, inter-bellum episode of the horrific coordinated wave of political assassinations, the Night of the Long Knives, that cemented Nazi control in Germany. Also called Operation Hummingbird after its code-word to commence the awful retaliation, I had seen piece-meal the counter-coup, the silencing through documentaries but had not read a full account with all its nuances. It struck me as especially relevant, with opposition and outrage hardly cresting above unshared rumour or outright support, considering the organized network, recently uncovered, of Neo-Nazi prisoners to communicate with one another and figureheads currently on trial. Missives are hidden in otherwise mundane letters in microscopic printing and cryptograms and can turn jails into incubators for extremists.