Joscha

[Marko 7-19]

As Rohrbach indicated in another thread, I also had my doubts long ago, and have personally stopped paying any heed to joscha's posts, until now.

This fiasco has come to a point where having joscha supply a name to Jason, over email, will not suffice to close the case. A physical, face to face meeting (with paperwork) is the only way to accurately and definitively prove truth or hoax here.

With a little bit of imagination, a soldbuch and a stack of WWII history books and magazines, anyone can create a character for their story and then roleplay that character. It could be either to get attention that they normally lack in their own "real" life or it could be to see just how far they can go in fooling people into believing their "act". We have all seen worse things happen with bored minds.

From our perspective, we want to give people the benefit of the doubt. We hope that everyone comes to the table with honesty and integrity and, as such, tend to believe what they say. It's not foolishness, but good nature. If someone comes in under that guise, threatening the intelligence and honesty of everyone else, then they should be put under question. Justifiably, they have some explaining to do.

My father actually served in the Wehrmacht with mittelabschnitt in Russia. My father was actually captured by the Russians after kapitulation. My father actually escaped from the Russians and began a 5 month journey to get back home. These are not things to be taken lightly. It is my experience with my father, and other veterans, that makes me question the truth of many of joscha's statements. Ask my father if he knew the Russian camp commander and he will tell you "you were lucky to get bread and water or a rifle butt to the body, let alone information on who is running the make-shift camp." Further to this, in joscha's claims of being caputured by the Americans, where does a an enemy POW, one of 135,000 POWs in an American POW camp, have privy and actual verbatim knowledge, let alone the memory, of the outburst that one "CPT Berger" spoke? I find it difficult, from experience, to see that a 5-6 year veteran, having gone through and done so much, would easily remember his entire history detail by detail, fact by fact, word by word. My father was in for just under 3 years. As with most real veterans, he does remember and see "some" of the places in his mind, but has trouble remembering the names of many of the places they fought in, the routes they took, the names of fallen kameraden, let alone word for word discussions that people had (especially officers above his rank).

Ask veterans about some offensive or mission they were involved with and you will hear a simple story told from their perspective around them, not something that you would expect coming from company command. Jason put it best when he said "most have mentioned how MUCH Joscha seems to know". This isn't about "poor" memory. It involves an all too accurate and way too active memory.

In regards to the topic of the King Tigers, which many are pointing at, let's also think of the numbers when we hear a statement like "In less then three minutes our gunner and the other knocked out 28 Soviet armor". That translates into an average of 14 armor knocked out per Tiger. This means one shot, reload, aim and "direct" hit every 13 seconds (tops). My knowledge is very limited in regards to armor, so I would leave the actual details to this possibility to the experts, but my logical mind doesn't seem to want to swallow this story, and I know we are not talking about Michael Wittmann here. People are questioning the existance of night vision equipped Tigers, but should also look into the simple fact and questionable skill claimed in this statement, if it did indeed happen.

Earlier in that statement he also mentions "The Ivan did not care about us, they could hear only two vehicle engines and so they went on their merry way." Are we to believe that 2 King Tigers can easily come rolling up to the enemy and the enemy Russian soldiers (let alone any soldier of any army) are going to react with something like "ahh, it is only two tanks, lets just mind our own business and keep doing what we were doing" ? Furthermore, how does he know what the enemy felt or thought????

In talking to veterans, there is a high chance that the stories will in some way, link up with their emotions. I have yet to see any true emotion in joscha's posts, for himself or for fellow veterans. Just details and numbers.

There are numerous examples to cite here.

Jason runs this board. We participate. I have seen more shots taken at Jason from bringing this up then any towards joscha about his validity. Aside from Jason, I have yet to see anyone directly confront joscha to "@#% or get off the pot". Someone made it clear when they said that a true veteran would be saddened that someone didn't believe them to be who they claimed to be, and would go out of their way to quickly and firmly end any speculation. To give Jason the "proverbial one finger salute" and to tell Jason "Phu Kew", is not something an 80 year old wehrmacht veteran would do, no ifs ands or buts. It is the final proof I need.

If it is somehow proven that he IS who he claims to be, then I, for one, will be very disappointed to have seen a true veteran act and speak in the way he has in his own defence. And before anyone says "ya right, you would do the same if in his shoes", you are wrong!!!

If it is proven that he IS a hoaxter, then it will be a long time before anyone who has experienced this fiasco, will be able to trust anyone, anything or any information as being true and accurate on this board. That would be a shame. As they say, "the damage will have already been done."

Jason, I have always appreciated the existance of this board and the effort you have put into it. It is your call, and only your call to do and take action in any way you see fit. You are standing up for the integrity of the board and for the contributers and members. It is your sole right, nobody else's. I am behind you, regardless of the outcome. Yours is a position right now that is one that I don't envy to be in, yet have experienced in the past (in different ways). Don't bend from any pressure. Take this offline, give joscha an ultimatum and time limit to respond, then see where the cards fall. If indeed this is a hoaxter testing our intelligence and integrity, then he is going to have the last laugh, either way. Just end it so that we can get back to visiting this board for the right reasons, and not to see what happened in today's episode of the "Feldgrau Soap Opera".


Good luck,
Regards,
Marko 7-19

[Fish]

Well I wanted to stay out of this mess and focus about the real reasons we all visit this site.

Marko you are right on with your post. I had hoped like many that joscha was real. I guess I lived up to my name and swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

A real vet would have come back to face the music by now, especially since both camps are posting enough messages in support of each side. He'd stand by those defending him but he left them alone to fend for themselves. Yeah a true vet , Never leave a fallen comrade, well hey joscha you just did man.

My guess is that the imposter is gone only to appear again somewhere in time.

Back to business and the stuff we need to spend time on.
Regards to all

Fish

[Annelie]

I would like to know whom here is without sin?
We are all God's here?

How about the person that continually lies to their "friend" whether outright or with in sutble other ways,
the person whom sells a WWII photo album but scoops out the best
photos first before they send to buyer whom sent money on faith,
or the person that is pretending to be someone else than they say example an lawyer or the person whom exaggerates their war record?

We are all sinnners.....I feel sick at heart about this and all before Christmas...the more I know about people the more I wonder why we are here?

Where are the pure of heart?

I guess I shouldn't be reading all this but I just cannot help.....and give my two cents!

[Matt]

Good post Marko
Your father's story is the reason I come to these forums.
Is he still alive?

Regards
Matt

[anthony]

And.............. are we not entitled to question the validity of information posted on here or any other web site? after all,if man didn't question anything the world would still be square and we would sail off the edge.
Now..... this subject has occurred in the past, could you please provide me with evidence that this cannot happen again, and why I, and anyone else for that matter should accept, if I choose, anything at face value,that would be naive on my behalf.
In conclusion, thankyou,however I shall exercise my Democratic rights and arrive upon my own conclusions with the evidence provided.

[anthony]

Uh oh, I'm sorry, this reply ABOVE is in reference to SEPP, DATED DEC 10 1. 07 a.m

[SunLife]

And.............. are we not entitled to question the validity of information posted on here or any other web site? after all,if man didn't question anything the world would still be square and we would sail off the edge.

Waddya mean the world aint square? Huh, some folks will believe everything they read in the papers

[Annelie]

I would like to add a few thoughts.

It was never my intention to put across that I would know if a person is an Veteran or not, only that I feel the whole thing was handled badly.
Would like to reiterate that I am not for or against anyone since
I would be the last person to be able to judge whether a
person is a veteran of any war or stay in armed forces.

I agree with you but we should also be aware that certain people whom throw the first stones should first think...and so many posters here seem to believe they are "serious researchers" and would an professional person go about in this way?

I have no wish to offend anyone but I think about the past posters whom no longer post here and the ethos of this site has dramatically changed in the last
five or six years.

I hope the Veterans here continue to contribute in their usually good mannered and interesting and informative way..thankyou to those whom represent not only themselves but countless of others who served and cannot speak for themselves......

Annelie

ps. everytime I view the loaded page I can see the veterans above and I think about each one of them and their stories.

[Craig]

Have to agree there, my main problem is not that Joscha may be phoney but in the way it was handled and bought to our notice.