People with silly and / or stupid names

You are reading a single comment by @Oliver Schick and its replies. Click here to read the full conversation.

•

General_Strike

Nominative determinism for @Oliver Schick:

Dr Andreas Krieg, the assistant professor in the department of defence studies at King’s College in London, was equally sceptical: “Fighting the insurgency needs a proper strategy that the west, including the UK, does not have.”

•

Oliver Schick in reply to @General_Strike

Ta. I think I may have read about this guy in the King's alumni magazine at some point. The department still used to be called 'War Studies' when I was at King's.

It brings to mind one of the greatest names of all time:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Friedrich
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/FriedrichErnst.htm

His best-known work is "Krieg dem Kriege" ('War against War'). Image search for this at your peril. It contains absolutely horrific images of war wounded (some shown on the second page linked to above).

"Ernst" means "serious" in German (as well as being, at the time, a common first name for men, like 'Ernest' in English). "Friedrich" means "rich/mighty in peace". It would have been a fairly unremarkable name if it hadn't been for his pacifist work. I thought for a long time that it must be a pseudonym, but apparently it's real.

About

Avatar for Oliver Schick @Oliver Schick started