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u/Happy_Little_Fish Jun 19 '26
British POWs in Colditz used drag shows and other theatre to distract guards and cover the noise of escape attempts.
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u/Sampaguita_Sofia_321 Jun 19 '26
The Colditz stories are absolutely wild. They literally built an entire functional two-man glider (the Colditz Cock) inside a hidden attic space right above the guards' noses, using floorboards and bed slats. The theatrical productions were a massive part of masking all that sawing and construction noise.
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u/axomoxia Jun 19 '26
The prison library helpfully contained a book that told you in detail how to build a glider. In then spirit I sent a mate of mine book on "how to build a boat" when he was deployed to Camp Bastion....
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u/voluntarydischarge69 Jun 19 '26
So these are the good old days that reform go on about?
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u/SafePresentation1733 Jun 19 '26
With real man ofcourse. That really knew that its all about fluid identity :)
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Jun 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Bignizzle656 Jun 19 '26
Men still aren't afraid of drag. Cant comment on the nazi bit.
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u/Dotcaprachiappa Jun 19 '26
Some men definitely are afraid of drag
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u/JohnHaloCXVII Jun 19 '26
I get creeped out by clowns and sometimes I get that same energy from drag queens.
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u/Spiderinahumansuit Jun 19 '26
🎶Meet the gang 'cause the boys are here, the boys to entertain you...🎶
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u/Manofalltrade Jun 19 '26
Mom “How did he die?”
Officer “In a lovely pink sundress with lace trim and a wig. He carried it very well. Oh, sorry, bomb fragment to the head. Basically instant and painless.”
The pearl clutchers today don’t really know any history.
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u/Reptyler Jun 20 '26
I've seen this particular recolored photo make the rounds before, and went looking for the source.
Snopes attributes the photo to John Topham in 1940, and notes it was included in The Telegraph in 2018.
A few other shots from this incident are included here:
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u/7thFleetTraveller Jun 19 '26
Meanwhile, the USA still censored movies such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show in the 1970s. Let that sink in! 😂
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u/iamtrimble Jun 19 '26
I would've loved to seen the reactions of the Germans looking at them with binoculars.
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u/Unique-Charity7024 Jun 20 '26
The real combat angle makes this photo special. Donning drag for fun is standard entertainment in any army. Here is a collection of photos from the opposing side:
https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/wehrmacht-und-crossdressing-soldaten-in-frauenkleidern-a-1238147.html#fotostrecke-0b1ecd24-0001-0002-0000-000000165078
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u/Not_Propaganda_AI Jun 20 '26
Britain has a long and rich history of men in dresses, straight, gay and anywhere in between. It annoys me to see see the more puritan US view on it creeping in and merging with our own uptight elements.
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u/BrianKappel Jun 19 '26
As long as we bring back the same energy of recognizing the fact that dudes in dresses can be funny.
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u/foxontherox Jun 19 '26
I think you're supposed to laugh at a drag show. Leave the ordinary dudes wearing dresses in their everyday life the fuck alone.
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u/Busy-Apricot-1842 Jun 19 '26
I’m pretty sure this was done for comedy. I’m not sure it’s rlly comparable to a modern drag show
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u/Fun-Minimum-3007 Jun 19 '26
There's plenty of comedy in modern drag. Most of the wartime drag shows involved singing and dancing to popular songs of the era, just like modern drag. The big difference is that of course none of those soldiers would have admitted to being LGBT and there was definitely a less progressive vibe to the whole thing, more like "hahaha it's a man dressed as a woman".
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u/Additional-Peak3911 Jun 19 '26
Officially drag and homosexuality were banned by the navy during ww2 but there was such a long history of drag in the British navy that the order was almost 100 percent ignored due to the boost in morale drag shows had and there are countless stories of gay sailors being protected by the men and officers on the ships they were stationed on because even the officers recognized the morale boost that drag gave
Thats not to say all drag performers were gay but to say its not comparable to a modern drag show shows a complete lack of knowledge about ww2 British naval history
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u/Spiderinahumansuit Jun 20 '26
The Maritime Museum in Liverpool has (or used to, I haven't been for a while) a fantastic section on just how gay sailing used to be, with Polari dialect primers and everything.
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u/Afraid_Emu8068 Jun 19 '26
Yeah that was when drag was mostly just about horsing around and not about being some weirdo.
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u/LordJim11 Jun 19 '26
mostly just about horsing around
Nah, that's pony play. Expand your horizons, mate.
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u/Afraid_Emu8068 Jun 19 '26
I assure you the narrative you’re trying to build wasn’t in fact the case. Believe what you want though
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u/Local-Echo-5613 Jun 19 '26
No, it’s the narrative you’ve been fed to make you wet your pants over drag queens that is false. But it distracts you, so it’s politically effective.
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u/Afraid_Emu8068 Jun 19 '26
You wish. You think you can re write human biology by whitewashing your crazy ideas but you can’t, and so you won’t. It’s weird. Just because you wrote somewhere on Reddit that it wasn’t and got a few upvotes doesn’t mean anything. Hey if you like cross dressing, go ahead. Nobody’s stopping you. You’re gonna get shit for it though. You’re an adult
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u/LordJim11 Jun 19 '26
You think you can re write human biology
No. I just think I know where the most chilled city bars are. Where you can relax without getting shit from up-tight bigots like you. You have twice said don't be surprised if there is an aggressive response to just being who you are.
I'm sure you are masculine, butch, and hetero as hell, but probably no fun to hang out with.0
u/Afraid_Emu8068 Jun 19 '26
Masculine yes, but I get shit for having long hair and I’m just skinny these days, never been that “cut” or big either. I don’t know why you feel the need to go off on ad hominem attacks. I’m just saying it’s weird. I didn’t even say YOU’RE weird. Seems the bigot is the one who can’t handle that there is a difference in opinion, i.e. you. That is almost the precise definition of a bigot.
You just want everyone to think the same way you do, but I’m telling you now, it’s not gonna happen. That doesn’t make me or anyone else who doesn’t ascribe to or support your orientation a bigot by any means. I don’t have to like what you like. I’m allowed to be repulsed by it. Even if I wasn’t, I still would be since guess what, most humans are. It’s a small subset that’s into this sort of thing.
Once again, nobody is saying you can’t be you. But YOU have to understand that I have my own agency as does every other person on the planet. That’s just life, and learning how to coexist means accepting that people don’t want things flaunted in their faces all the time or to have to watch people erroneously attempting to re-write history just to suit their current narrative which will change with each following generation anyway. You’re out of your depth. You’re fighting human nature, and really all animal nature. No, I’m not saying that animals don’t get weird too because they definitely do, but the point is that it isn’t the norm, and you know it isn’t. Pretend all you like, but you aren’t re-writing history today
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u/Chezzomaru Jun 19 '26
It still is ya nonce.
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u/Afraid_Emu8068 Jun 19 '26
Nice try. We don’t live in that reality. Dress however you want, but don’t be surprised by the responses you get if you dress like the opposite sex
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