Atlantic Crossing - General Discussion

[BradandJanet]

3 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

Isn't that particular palms inward wave known as the royal wave?

Yes, but I think the British do it a little differently, with the palm facing out and a slight pivot at the wrist. The wave in the show had the palm facing in.  

[Bunnyette]

4 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

Watching Prince Olav get toasted along with the locals brought back memories of the stories of Princes William and Harry in England, and what a job it must be to be the minders of a royal family.  I did like the scene where his assistant slapped him out in the street, saying "I am not your father."  Yeah, you might be a Prince, buddy, but right now you're behaving like a drunken ass.

Then Olav stumbling into car only to find King Haakon sitting there.  I’ll be honest I felt teary eyed watching the return to Norway and Haakon trying not to cry.

[andromeda331]

4 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

Same here.  Was fascinated by the story of the odious Quisling.

So was I. I remember first reading about it on TvTropes. I really wish we got to see what happened to him. It was awesome how Norway dealt with him.

Edited May 24, 2021 by andromeda331

[DoctorAtomic]

4 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

I have always wondered how much briefing FDR's staff gave Harry Truman before his ascendancy to the Presidential office.  It would seem to be extremely negligent of them, realizing that FDR really was dying, not to tell him about so many of the things going on in the nation and the world, but we are always led to believe that, basically, he was told one day that FDR was dead and he was now in charge.

I do think Truman only finding out about the nuclear weapons until becoming president was real. 

[andromeda331]

1 minute ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I do think Truman only finding out about the nuclear weapons until becoming president was real. 

So do I. I think Truman only met him twice before he died? I'm not sure how much he knew about anything. I'm always impressed by the story when he asks Eleanor if there's anything he can do for her and she asks if there's anything we can do for you. Your the one in trouble now. 

[Blergh]

4 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

So was I. I remember first reading about it on TvTropes. I really wish we got to see what happened to him. It was awesome how Norway dealt with him.

To say nothing of what became of the two Mrs. Quislings. His first wife was a Russian teenager  named Alexandra Voronin in 1922 that he quickly repudiated and denied being married to. Then he claimed to marry another Russian woman named Maria Pasetshnikova in 1923 (but no documentation has ever been found to verify this- much less any divorce from Alexandra) while pretending his legal wife was his 'foster daughter' for a time before he forced Alexandra to have an abortion which finally got her fed up enough to permanently separate from him. Alexandra  would eventually flee to China, have her marriage to Quisling annulled in 1933 before embarking on her 2nd of 3 marriages and having a son by her 2nd husband who died shortly thereafter. Luckily Alexandra, her son and her 3rd husband (who she married in 1936)in China somehow survived the Japanese invasion and  all the chaos of WWII before being some of the last Europeans to flee China in 1947 for  Palo Alto, California where the two of them would write about her unpleasant first union to Mr. Quisling and would both live to the 1990's with Maria dying at age 88 and her widower at 94. 

As for Maria, she and Quisling stayed 'married'  and accompanied him back to Norway until his 1945 hanging death then she'd somewhat follow the path of Mussolini's widow and do all she could to rehabilitate his rep and blasting all who didn't worship it before being institutionalized for the last two years of her life and dying in 1980 at age 79.

Yeah, all this made whatever the fictional Olaf's worst nightmares re Martha and FDR seem  like a walk down Sesame Street! 

[DoctorAtomic]

Are we missing episodes? My tivo called this E12, but the PBS site calls it E8. 

I thought it was a bit abrupt the Crown Prince was voted in Defense Chief. 

What did FDR die of? 

Edited May 28, 2021 by DoctorAtomic

[sugarbaker design]

There were 8 episodes.

[meep.meep]

2 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Are we missing episodes? My tivo called this E12, but the PBS site calls it E8. 

I thought it was a bit abrupt the Crown Prince was voted in Defense Chief. 

What did FDR die of? 

Congestive heart failure

[Blergh]

13 hours ago, meep.meep said:

Congestive heart failure

While he may have had that as a secondary condition, his immediate cause of death was an intracerebral hemorrhage. He had been having his portrait painted in his Warm Springs, Georgia retreat (in the company of a one-time co-adulterer Lucy Mercer Rutherford) when he suddenly exclaimed that he 'had a terrible headache' and slumped over unconscious. He was immediately carried into his bedroom but would soon die at 3:35 PM, April 12, 1945 at age 63.  Mrs. Rutherford wasted no time amscraying from the spot. While it would be years before her presence would become public knowledge, Eleanor learned of it almost immediately (as well as  the fact that their daughter Anna Roosevelt Boettiger having facilitated the reunions in recent years) and was understandably quite hurt over those revelations.  It should be noted that it was discovery of their trysts back in 1918 that nearly split the Roosevelts with his mother Sara actually threatening to financially cut off her son if he divorced or even separated from Eleanor  since that would have doomed his political career in those times while Eleanor insisted she'd only stay wed to him if he cut off contact with the then Miss Mercer. He did and she'd marry someone else but after her widowhood in 1944, they resumed their bond.  Perhaps it wasn't mere shock over his longtime husband's death but wanting to avoid letting the public know the extent of her angst that prompted Eleanor to only admit to worrying about where she would live from that point on upon receiving the news. 

[pally]

On 5/24/2021 at 1:43 PM, sugarbaker design said:

Isn't that particular palms inward wave known as the royal wave?

The "royal wave" is an easier motion on the arm than the palm outward wave.  With as much waving as members of the royal families do, they would have chronic tendonitis with the outward palm wave

[Blergh]

26 minutes ago, pally said:

The "royal wave" is an easier motion on the arm than the palm outward wave.  With as much waving as members of the royal families do, they would have chronic tendonitis with the outward palm wave

You GOT it! I think this is something that's been passed down to Royals, celebs and politicians along the lines of 'sit whenever you can, and use the bathroom whenever you can because it may be quite sometime before you get another chance to do either action'! 

I'm already missing watching Princess Martha! 

[proserpina65]

On 5/24/2021 at 10:23 AM, zoey1996 said:

Nice that Olav saw the error of his ways, fictionalized though it was, and they resumed life together.

I hated that the show turned Olav into an ass in order to make Martha seem like a genius in comparison.  I'd have been more interested in something presenting a more balanced view of them and their marriage.  Still, I mostly enjoyed the show, and it did make me look things up about the family and about Norway during the war.

I absolutely loved the archival footage at the end.  That was fabulous.

[DoctorAtomic]

The actor playing the king was nearly a spitting image. 

 

[lucindabelle]

On 4/26/2021 at 4:54 PM, Dehumidifier said:

You answered your own question there.

My father's family lost two members in WW2. I don't think they were fans of FDR. My father used to say the Democrats always get the country into wars.

The democrats?

japaan bombed Pearl Harbor.

oh and I’m Jewish but I guess your dad was ok with Hitler destroying Europe and murdering people.

my father and two uncles fought in WWII.

 

thre only excuse for the America first crowd was time: WWI was only about as distant as 9/11 is to us now. So I get the fatigue.

but hindsight should know better and if you’re truly feeling angry we got into the war I think you missed the point of the episode, If not the show.

[Dehumidifier]

On 6/24/2021 at 12:33 AM, lucindabelle said:

The democrats?

japaan bombed Pearl Harbor.

oh and I’m Jewish but I guess your dad was ok with Hitler destroying Europe and murdering people.

my father and two uncles fought in WWII.

 

thre only excuse for the America first crowd was time: WWI was only about as distant as 9/11 is to us now. So I get the fatigue.

but hindsight should know better and if you’re truly feeling angry we got into the war I think you missed the point of the episode, If not the show.

I didn't say I was angry. Maybe my father was angry about losing his two brothers. And he said warS. Multiple.

[Roseanna]

On 4/7/2021 at 8:45 PM, DoctorAtomic said:

Also agreed that this is a fresh pov on WWII. You don't really hear much about the North. Clearly, there was strategic value. 

Disney has bought a new documentary series Untold Arctic Wars. I don't know if it has been shown yet.

On 4/13/2021 at 2:28 AM, Blergh said:

I wish they had depicted how Martha and her children were able to get into Finland to take that boat that would prove their salvation. 

They probably crossed the border in Tornio and then drove along the famous "Arctic Sea Road" (in Finnish "Jäämeren tie") via Rovaniemi to Pechenga.

Pechenga (in Finnish Petsamo) is an area on the shore of the Arctic Sea. In 1920-44 it belonged to Finland. Between Germany's occupation of Norway and the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the port of Pechenga was the only place where the refugees could take the boat to safety.   

Neither the landscapes of Finnish Lapland nor the port of Pechenga (that is at the bottom of the fjord) seemed genuine - I guess they wanted them to look different from Norway. 

[Roseanna]

On 4/22/2021 at 4:04 PM, JasonCC said:

The Roosevelt marriage always seems to be the epitome of a natural introvert (Eleanor) and natural extrovert (FDR)..and the show does seem to touch on this aspect. He has to "recharge his battery" in the midst of a global spreading war through his infamous WH cocktail hours, seeing people, being social. Eleanor is able to be "his feet on the ground" (events, speeches, visiting working people in coal mines and tenements) but she needs to "recharge her battery" with serious solitude. She hates the DC social circuit but will tolerate it when it has advantages for the goals of their partnership.

That's true, and IRL Martha was just one of women who was light company in FDR's free time. Instead, Eleanor always had important political matters to speak with him which must have been hard for him but on the other hand, after Louis Howe who was the mentor of them both died, she was the only one who dared to speak straightly and honestly to him, without any aims to benefit herself.

But the difference in their characters went even deeper: Franklin, as the only son of a widowed domineering mother had learned to keep his innermost thoughts to himself - a good trait to a president but a bad trait to a husband: he was unable to emotional intimacy that Eleanor longed for. 

As many had said, Eleanor was described quite unfairly. The reason was of course drama. I only made one point more: I don't think Eleanor IRL "gave up to fight for her marriage too easily": it's not enough if one party does all she can if the other party does not do the same. Eleanor just realized that she can't change her husband and began to live her own life while still working also for their common causes.   

On 5/16/2021 at 1:56 AM, andromeda331 said:

I'm still not a fan of the way the show portrays FDR as doing nothing about the war. I get his shock and anger at the bombing of Pearl Harbor but telling Martha she was right was too much. He was one of the few who knew that sooner or later the US was going to have to get involved. It was the country that had zero interest in getting involved.

The US had put so severe sanctions on Japan that unless it wanted to give up its status as a great power, it had to attack and soon as it had raw materials only for a short time. The question was only where: the obvious target would have been British colonies or Russia (but Russia and Japan had before the Operation Barbarossa made an non-aggression pact which made possible to Stalin to order troops from Siberia to save Moscow in November). Pearl Harbor seemed too far. 

On 5/17/2021 at 10:55 PM, BuckeyeLou said:

It made me feel sad to think Olav was such a "jerk" to his wife, so petty & jealous...so I am glad to know he was beloved when he became King & to know a lot of this is made up for drama.

Yes, it was just drama, but as such not unlikely: Olav felt that he could achieve nothing in London whereas Martha could in Washington. And even many ordinary marriages suffered because of separation. 

If somebody was a jerk (in the show), I think it was Franklin who wanted Martha although he couldn't offer her anything but a secret affair that could endanger her marriage.   

[Roseanna]

Although I liked the end scene, I also doubted that coming home was so easy especially to children and there was no difficulties between them (especially Harald who had been only three years old in 1940) and their father whom they had met only rarely during five years.  

I have an old book where it was told: "In the turbulent years after the war, Erling Lorentze, a meritorious member of the resistance, was appointed to accompany Ragnhild's school trips." The couple later married.

Recently I read a book about the Finnish diplomat Tapani Brotherus who saved hundreds of people in Chile after the coup in 1973 (the series Invisible heroes is based on his experiences).

As a son of a diplomat Tapani (born 1938) couldn't help to compare the carefree atmosphere of Sweden even during WW2 and the mirthless one in Norway even in 1947 although the diplomats didn't of course suffer from shortage. But he met two boys whose hair was close-cropped and whose skin was bruised because their father was deemed to be collaborators. Nobody wanted to play - they could be kicked or hacked freely by other children. Tapani thought even then that it wasn't fair. Children were the weakest of the victims of the post-war period and his instinctive sympathies were on the side of the subjugated who had no opportunity to defend themselves.

[andromeda331]

13 hours ago, Roseanna said:

Although I liked the end scene, I also doubted that coming home was so easy especially to children and there was no difficulties between them (especially Harald who had been only three years old in 1940) and their father whom they had met only rarely during five years.  

I kind of wish we got to see them re-adjust to home. Harald probably doesn't remember living anywhere but DC. The girls gotten used to living there too. What was it like to return to Norway after so long?  Living with their father again. Martha had definitely changed and grown more confident and independent. They hadn't lived together for a long time. 

[Roseanna]

On 4/5/2021 at 4:11 PM, lark37 said:

My only quibble was that all the parents from Olav and Martha to Nicolai their servant and his wife looked too old to be parents to young children. The real Crown Prince Olav was in his twenties when his daughters were born and early thirties when Prince Harald (now King Harald) was born. These actors could almost pass as the children's grandparents rather than parents. 

Have you seen old photographs? People looked older than nowadays. 

The show happens in 1940-5 when Olav was 37-42 years old, Märtha 39-44, Nicolai 55-60 and Ragni 46-51 years old. 

Nicolai was appointed as a personal trainer to Crown Prince Olav in 1914 when Olav was 11 years old and Nicolai 29, so they could be father and son. 

On 4/12/2021 at 6:02 PM, Blergh said:

One also can't help but wonder how history might have been different had Crown Prince Olaf wound up being the leader of his nation's defenses. Would he have become a guerilla leader for the duration or would he have wound up being killed or( even more demoralizing to his subjects) captured?

 A very romantic but unpractical idea: it centuries when kings and crown princes fought or personally in war or led them. Most of all, the guerilla war is horrible to civilians.    

[Roseanna]

On 5/3/2021 at 2:56 PM, Dehumidifier said:

When Olav was pleading for American weapons it made me wonder what Norway was doing in the years before while Germany was rearming. Did they not notice?

Norway became endangered only during the Winter War when the British and the French supposedly planned to help Finland but in reality to seize the Swedish ore fields. That was Churchill's favorite strategy: to attack in the flank. It was likely that also the Germans would have come to Sweden too as the Swedish ore was necessary to them.

It was in that context that Hitler on 20th February 1940 ordered General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst to make a plan to attack Denmark and Norway, i.e. Operation Weserübung. He had to present it in the same day and having no time to consult military maps he bought a tourist map.

In April the Germans was in a hurry as the British had already laying mones in the Norwegian coast. So actually it was a race which country would occupy Norway first.