Traudl Junge, Working For Evil, Part Three/Final

In both her book and her interviews, Traudl Junge relates a number of anecdotes about life so close to Hitler, including his obsession with his female German Shepherd, Blondie. In her interviews she said that Hitler was detached from the ruin he was bringing to Germany, let alone to other nations, and that, when she once  mentioned to him about the destruction in Munich (she was from Munich) from air attacks, he just started spouting his usual slogans about how he would retaliate against his enemies once he regained the upper hand. She noted that, as far as she could recall, Hitler never saw a bombed out German city or area of a city, as he kept the curtains drawn in his private train and when he went to Berlin, the train would arrive in the darkness of night and the chauffeur would travel on streets with little or no damage. This is the sign of a man hiding from himself.

Traudl Junge spent much time telling of the final days of Hitler in his Berlin bunker, located well beneath the Reich Chancellery complex. His long time mistress, Eva Braun (pronounced like  "brown," not "brawn") joined him there. About a week before his death, Hitler told the women to get ready to leave Berlin, as a plane was going to take them to southern Germany. He admitted the war was lost. Two secretaries left, along with a number of other personnel, but Traudl Junge and one other secretary, Gerda Christian, as well as Eva Braun, chose to remain in Berlin. Traudl told of how during lulls in the fighting for Berlin, she, Eva and Gerda Christian would venture above ground and out into the garden part of the complex. They once came upon a fountain statue of a woman much to Eva's liking. Upon returning to the bunker, Eva told Hitler of the statue, and, with Soviet troops only a few blocks away, she asked if he would buy the statue for her if he won the war. Now, you've got to admit, that's pretty bizarre, BUT he answered her! He told her the statue was government property and that he couldn't just buy it and give it to her for her own private garden, but she asked if he would make this one exception just for her. These people were NUTS! 

Also along those same lines, as the war approached its end, some of the Nazi leaders still played cutthroat politics in an effort to grab more power. As the Soviets closed in, Hermann Göring, Hitler's designated successor, sent a telegram from southern Germany to Hitler stating that with Hitler surrounded in Berlin, and with the likelihood of his losing the ability to communicate orders to the military and to the nation, that if a reply to his telegram was not received from Hitler by that evening, he would assume Hitler no longer had the ability to communicate orders, and that he, Göring, would assume power as Hitler had specified several years before. The telegram was not anything unreasonable, and at first, according to Junge, Hitler too seemed to have accepted it as such. Then Martin Bormann convinced the fanatical, furious Führer that Göring's act was high treason. Hitler became violently upset and ordered Göring's arrest and possible execution.* Then came word from a British radio broadcast that Heinrich Himmler, the powerful head of the dreaded SS, and a murderous nutcase if there ever was one, had entered into negotiations with the Allies through a neutral party. Hitler had another serious temper tantrum, as the man he called "mein treuer Heinrich" (my true or loyal Heinrich) abandoned the fanatical, furious Führer too. He ordered Himmler's arrest and execution.** For good measure, Hitler ordered the arrest of Himmler's adjutant, Hermann Fegelein, who was Eva Braun's brother in law (he was married to her sister, Gretl, who was like 8 months pregnant at that time). Eva's brother in law notwithstanding, Fegelein was then executed. Even in the final days of his life, with the Russians just a block or two away, Hitler spread death over essentially meaningless things.

Junge noted, Hitler had told her he would never be captured alive, and in preparation for that situation, he had received cyanide capsules from Himmler. With Himmler's peace negotiations Hitler became suspicious that the poison Himmler had provided would not be sufficient to take his life; the fear being that Himmler might try to trade "a live Hitler" for his own safety, so Hitler had it tried out on his dog Blondie, and it was found to be potent, as the poor dog died immediately. Hitler married Eva Braun and he told Traudl Junge he wanted her to take some dictation from him. It was his last will and testament. Traudl said at first she thought something like, "Now we'll hear the real reasons for everything, the truth," but instead, Hitler spouted his usual nonsense, including blaming Jews for the war. Not long after she typed the dictated notes, Hitler and Eva committed suicide. Traudl Junge was part of a group that tried to get through the Soviet lines to the Western Allies. Some of the group were killed, others were captured, but Traudl got through, only to turn around and return to Berlin before getting to the Allies. I believe she said she hoped to be able to get a train to her parents in southern Germany. Instead, she ended up in Soviet captivity for about a year and a half.

Traudl eventually made it home and she worked at a number of jobs over the years, but she also learned what Hitler and the Nazis had done during their time in power. She said initially she felt no particular connection between her life and the terrible events that had transpired, that she had just been a secretary and had not known about the atrocities, but then one day in Munich, she saw the plaque commemorating Sophie Scholl for her resistance to the Nazis,*** and she realized that some Germans DID try to learn about what had been going on. For the rest of her life she had emotional troubles, as she struggled to deal with her role in the tragedies wrought by Hitler. Her guilt feelings got to the point they were not rational, as she even blamed herself for the initial Nazi persecution of German Jews in 1933, when she was only 12 or 13 years old. She said she took some consolation in the knowledge that millions of other Germans had been swayed by Hitler, but that it was just not enough to soothe her conscience. She died of cancer in 2002, age 81. As I've "preached" here at times, Traudl Junge came to realize, too late, that once you let fascists in, you don't get them back out easily, and that people from all walks of life can become susceptible to their hate and destructiveness. Stopping the advance of fascism starts with our own self evaluation and then the determination not to fall under the spell of simplistic solutions or hate filled slogans and rants by radio or television personalities trying to worm their way into our lives and minds. They lay the groundwork for fascist politicians to gain control. Traudl Junge's message was, "Pay attention to what's going on around you! Don't think it has nothing to do with you."   

* Martin Bormann was one of Hitler's closest and most powerful associates during the war, when his power grew tremendously. He controlled who got in to see Hitler and he saw all correspondence before it got to Hitler's desk. The German public knew little about Bormann, although he was almost always by Hitler's side from 1941 until the very end. With loads of captured Nazi documents available after the war, historians came to realize that the little known Bormann was one of the most powerful Nazi leaders, besides Hitler himself. For more on Bormann, see my article: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2011/09/german-leaders-of-nazi-erabormann.html

** Himmler did not fall victim to his fanatical, furious Führer, but rather he was captured by the British awhile later. He committed suicide while in their custody. For more on Himmler, see my article: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2011/10/german-leaders-of-nazi-erahimmler.html 

*** In early 1943, Sophie Scholl, her brother, Hans, and a friend, Christoph Probst, were arrested for distributing leaflets at the University of Munich urging Germans to resist the Nazis and the war. They were "tried" before a Nazi court and then beheaded. There are several memorials and honors to this young courageous German woman and to the other Germans who tried to fight evil, and who gave their lives doing so. A 2003 poll of Germans showed Sophie and Hans Scholl are viewed as some of the most important Germans in history, and another poll of Germans placed Sophie as one of the greatest women of the 20th Century. Germans have learned the lessons the hard way, others should pay heed to the German experience.

Photo is from the paperback edition of "Bis zur letzten Stunde" (Until the Last Hour) by Traudl Junge, with cooperation from Melissa Müller, published in paperback in 2003 in German (there have been English language editions also), although there have been various printings since the original paperback. This is the 8th German paperback printing from 2011 from List Taschenbuch.

WORD HISTORY: 

Turf-This word for "grass covered area" goes back to Indo European "darbh/dorbh," which meant "clump or tuft of grass." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "turb," which meant "grass covered surface/area." This then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "turf," with the same meaning. Some dialects had "torf" and "tyrf," but eventually English kept "turf" as the standard spelling. In post World War Two American English the word was used for "a neighborhood dominated by a gang;" that is, "their turf." Common in the other Germanic languages: Low German Saxon has "Torf/Törf," which means "peat" (soil with dead and decomposing plants, as the area of northern Germany and northern Europe had bogs/marshes, where such was common), standard German has "Torf," also meaning "peat," as the word came into standard German from Low German; Dutch and West Frisian have "turf" (peat), Danish "tørv"  (peat), Icelandic has "torf" (sod), Norwegian has the compound "gresstorv" (sod, turf) and Swedish has "torv" (turf, peat).

Poison Gas & The War On Innocents

Having done a couple of articles on poison gas, I can't finish with the subject without covering the Nazi use of poison gas against innocent, defenseless people, namely Jews and Gypsies (also known to some as the "Romani" or "Roma").* The Nazis murdered many other people, and this article is not meant to diminish their loss, but Jews and Gypsies were specifically targeted for eradication by the insane Nazi racial nonsense, just because of their heritage. Many Gypsies and many Jews lived in communities together in various countries, although they learned the language and customs of their respective country.** Most of these people came to view themselves as being true citizens of the country in which they lived, in spite of periods of persecution, including some outbreaks of intense violence. After the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, persecution of minorities, especially German Jews, intensified, coming into full view for the world to see in November 1938 with the "Kristallnacht," "the night of broken glass," when Nazi thugs broke into Jewish businesses and religious facilities throughout Germany (which then included Austria, and Vienna had a substantial Jewish population). Many Jewish properties were burned or otherwise severely damaged, many Jews were hauled off to concentration camps, and others were killed.

The Nazis were murderers long before they started using poison gas, but the conquest of much of Europe, and especially of eastern European, where millions of Europe's Jews lived, brought them the desire to come up with a more "efficient" way to kill other human beings. They had tried mobile vans, pumping in carbon monoxide to kill their victims, but for the Nazi nutcases, led by nutcase-in-chief Adolf Hitler and his henchman, assistant nutcase, Heinrich Himmler, the process was much too slow. By 1941-42, the Nazis had discovered that using a cyanide-based pesticide gas, they could kill people faster than ever, an important point to these murderous bastards. The gas was called "Zyklon B," and it was kept in canisters. Usually pellets of the gas were dropped into fake shower rooms filled with victims. The most notorious of the sites where Zyklon B was used was "Auschwitz," a combination labor-extermination camp complex in a part of southeastern Poland annexed to Germany after Poland's defeat in 1939. The Nazis "sorted" people into those who could work, putting them into the labor camp areas, and into those they wanted to eliminate immediately. Once "workers" became too exhausted, sick or weak from malnutrition to work anymore, they too became expendable. The whole thing so boggles the mind, it is no wonder that many survivors and liberators feared the world would not believe such things had taken place. The Nazis used the poison gas in other camps too, but it was in Auschwitz where it has been figured that somewhere between about one and a half million to two and a half million people were gassed, with Jews being the overwhelming percentage of those killed. Records on how many Gypsies were gassed is not known, but it is estimated that about a quarter million Gypsies perished at the hands of the Nazi butchers, with quite a few of these victims having been gassed at Auschwitz.

* Gypsies or the Romani are a people who trace their roots back to India, and indeed, their language is from the Indo-Aryan part of the Indo European language family. English is part of the Germanic sub-branch of the Indo European languages, so Romani and English are related, although much further down the family tree. The Romani people migrated from India and many reached Europe at some point between 1000 and 1100.

** Jews were often forced by European "Christians" (I only use the term because that's what they called themselves) to live in particular areas of cities and towns, usually less appealing areas. Eventually these Jewish areas came to be called "ghettos." I plan to do an article, or a series of articles, on the history of ghettos very soon.

WORD HISTORY:
Lose-This word goes back to Indo European "leu" or "lu," which had the notion of "undo, loosen, separate." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "lausam," with the same basic meanings. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "los," a noun which meant "loss," in the sense "total loss, destruction." From this came the verb "losian," which meant "to lose, to perish." Gradually "losian" overtook the then common word for "lose;" that is, its close relative, "leosan." "Losian" later became "losen" before the modern version. German has "lösen," which means "to solve or resolve (a problem)," from the original notion of 'undo,' and some Low German has "leese," also meaning "solve," Dutch has "oplossen" (also solve, resolve), West Frisian has "ferlieze" (lose), Norwegian and Danish have "løse" (solve), Icelandic has "leysa" (solve, also "untie") and Swedish has "lösa" (solve). Old English also had "liesan," from the same Germanic source. It meant, "to loosen, to free from something," but also had the the secondary meaning, "to redeem," perhaps from the notion of "loosening, or freeing something by giving up something." The related German word, "lösen," also has a secondary meaning of "buy a ticket" (usually for travel), and this is just purely speculation on my part, but tickets are often torn off or dispensed by machines, which ties in with the meanings of the Old English form "liesan."  Interestingly I could not find the Old English word for "solve" (English borrowed "solve"), but I've got to believe it was similar to its other Germanic relatives and thus would be related to "lose." I will keep checking. I will also do the history for "solve" very soon, and it may surprise you to learn that "solve" is distantly related to "lose."

German Leaders Of The Nazi Era/Himmler

"Heinrich Himmler"

Himmler was born in Munich (German: "München"), in the German state of Bavaria. He was only taken into the military near the end of World War One; thus his military career was very limited, something he "may" have tried to atone for later in his leadership role in the Nazi Party. After joining the Nazis, he became a "storm trooper," the organization being called the "Sturmabteilung" (Storm or Assault Detachment), or simply "SA," for short. A special section of the SA was charged with providing Hitler and Nazi leaders with protection at rallies. It was relatively small and was called the "Schutzstaffel" (Defense Staff or Section), or "SS," for short, and Himmler became a member and officer of the special force. Around this time Himmler became a chicken farmer to help earn a living. Himmler eventually became the commander of the "SS," a few years before Hitler took power, when it was still a part of the "SA," but even then he changed the uniforms from the typical "brown shirt" uniforms of the stormtroopers, to a black uniform. About a year and a half after becoming chancellor, Hitler purged the "SA" by having many of its leaders executed or imprisoned. To do so, he used the "SS" to carry out the killings and arrests; after which, the "SS" became a separate organization in its own right, with Himmler in charge. Within a few years, Hitler gave control of the German police to Himmler, too, although he had already gotten control of the "Gestapo" (Secret State Police), which had developed in the German state of Prussia by Göring.

Himmler was heavily involved in the study of the ancient Germanic tribe rituals and medieval Germany, as well as his belief in the "racial" superiority of the "Aryan," and especially the "Nordic" element of the Indo European peoples. As such, there was a lot of paganism and genetics involved in Himmler's "SS," as well as mysticism and the occult. You may have seen old film footage of Nazi parades with personnel dressed in the garb of knights and such, and this was all part of this retreat to the distant, distant past. Liking history is one thing, but taking it to the level of Himmler and the Nazis was another matter entirely. Much of it was pretty wacky stuff, in my opinion, but that's what can happen when you try to take people back to times long since gone, as fascism, in its various guises, attempted to do. The great leaders of history have led people forward, not backward, at least not back to long ago centuries.

The Nazis mirrored the German government in organization; that is, the party had corresponding positions and departments to the German government, which, in theory at least, was separate from the Nazi Party, although to me, the aim was to gradually blend the two together to completely Nazify every aspect of German life. It is important to remember, the German Army maintained a certain independence of the Nazis until Paul von Hindenburg, the old field marshal and President of Germany (and thus the supreme military commander) died in August 1934. At that time, Hitler combined his position as chancellor with that of the presidency, and had army members swear an oath to him PERSONALLY, not to Germany!!! As part of the "mirroring" of traditional German government and institutions, Himmler set up a small, at first, military element of the SS, which became the Waffen SS, or "armed SS." This was an SS counterpart to the German Army.* He set rigid standards for this super elite force, although during the war, the rigorous standards declined dramatically, but the Waffen SS expanded tremendously, with about one million men going through its ranks, including notable numbers of Albanian and Bosnian Muslims, Frenchmen, Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Finns, Dutchmen, Flemings, Walloons,** Estonians, Latvians, Italians, Russians, and Indians. The military quality of the various Waffen SS units varied considerably, but there is no question that the core units were exceptional, although it must be remembered that many an atrocity can be traced to these units too. Fanatical Nazi ideology together with virulent anti-semitism and anti-communism, combined to provide the foundation for no restraint murder for some Waffen SS members.

Himmler bears much responsibility for the terror implemented by his SS. The guards for the concentration camps and the execution units (the "Einsatzgruppen") that followed in the wake of the German military, to murder Jews, communists, intellectuals, and any other potential opponents, came from the SS. The symbol of the SS was a "death's head," that should tell you something right there!***

After the failed attempt against Hitler's life,**** centered in the German Wehrmacht, Hitler trusted no one outside of his Nazi faithful. He put Himmler in charge of the German Replacement Army ("Ersatz Heer"), where many of the conspirators had held positions. Later still, with the collapse of the German front in Poland in January/February 1945, Hitler put Himmler in command of the army group trying to halt the Soviet offensive, thus giving Himmler a chance to fulfil his early dreams of commanding military forces. It was a disaster! The inexperienced Himmler made matters worse, and the Soviets came to within about 40 miles or so of Berlin, before they halted from exhaustion, lack of supplies, and stiffening German resistance. Himmler was replaced.

As the end of the Nazi Reich approached, Himmler began to plan to save his own skin, as if such a mass murderer could make a deal with ANY respectable person or group. He tried to use Jews remaining in SS custody as a bargaining chip, but the Allies were not interested in deal making with this despicable son-of-a-bitch. Shortly before committing suicide, Hitler was informed of Himmler's attempts to negotiate a peace deal through neutral Sweden. Hitler went ballistic, and ordered that Himmler be arrested and then executed immediately, but the order was never carried out. Himmler shaved off his moustache, put a patch over his eye, put on the uniform of a dead policeman, and carried phony identification papers. He was picked up by the British in northern Germany, who did not know he was Himmler at first, but he bit into a capsule of poison after being recognized and while being examined. If there was a rival to Hitler for nuttiness and nastiness, it was Heinrich Himmler.

* The German Airforce, the Luftwaffe, was heavily influenced by the Nazis early on, as Göring was made its commander-in-chief, and it owed its expansion (against the provisions of the Versailles Treaty) to Hitler and the Nazis. The German Navy ("Kriegsmarine") was more traditional, but also owed its gradual expansion to Hitler. Remember, for men rising through the ranks in all branches of the military because of this, they had to feel a major degree of loyalty to Hitler for their newly elevated positions, only cementing them more closely to the regime.

** Walloons are from the French speaking part of Belgium, and Flemings are from the Flanders part of Belgium, where the Germanic (not German) language there, once classified as a separate Flemish language, has in more recent times been classified by linguists as a dialect of Dutch. Being Germanic, it is closely related to English.

*** For information on Nazi terror and murder, please check out this link, it is extraordinary: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/holo.html

**** The conspirators had hoped to kill all of the top Nazi leadership; Hitler, Göring and Himmler, but the three were rarely together to provide such an opportunity.

WORD HISTORY:
Fly-This is the noun form, most commonly used for the "insect." It goes back to Old Germanic "fleugjon" ("flying insect"), which was derived from the Old Germanic verb form "fleuganan,"^ which meant "to fly." This had come from Indo European "pleu," which meant "to flow," as the "p" sound had become "f" in the Old Germanic spinoff. The Germanic noun gave Old English "fleoge," which at first seems to have applied to flying insects in general, but gradually became more specific to those pesky little critters that love to participate in picnics and barbecues. Later in English it became "flie," before the modern spelling, and the plural ended in "n," before the gradual change to "s." The idea of "wings flapping" gave rise in the 1800s to the flaps on tents being called a "fly," which shortly thereafter came to be applied to clothing, more specifically to pants, a term still in use today. Common throughout the close relatives of English, the other Germanic languages: German has "Fliege," Low German Saxon has "Fleeg," some Low German dialects have "Fläje," Dutch has vlieg, Swedish has fluga, Danish and Norwegian have "flue" and Icelandic has "fljúga."

^ For the history of the verb form, see: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2011/10/german-leaders-of-nazi-erahess.html

The German Question, Part One Hundred Forty-Nine

Hitler Rules Germany" Part Two/C
"Germany In World War Two" Part Three/B
"The Greatest Shame of German History"

Not long after the Nazis took power, the first concentration camps were set up. They were prison camps, often for political prisoners like communists, or opponents of the regime, real or perceived. Since German Jews were seen by the Nazis as enemies of the state, some Jews were also incarcerated in these camps during the earlier years of Nazi rule. Prisoners led a wretched existence, often doing forced labor, where they were mistreated and malnourished. Some were executed for any number of reasons. When the war started, the first country to fall, Poland, contained a large Jewish population, although initially, a good number of these people lived in what became the Soviet annexed areas, as much of this territory had belonged to the former Russian Empire, where Jews had been more concentrated in western Russia.* When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, special execution units, called "Einsatzgruppen" (literally "action groups")** followed right behind the army forces to round up and execute Jews, Communist officials, and anyone perceived as a potential threat to the German occupation. Tens of thousands of men, women and children were executed throughout the western regions of the Soviet Union.

In Germany, German Jews had dwindled in number since the 1933 appointment of Hitler as chancellor. Many had emigrated, although some did not go far enough, as they crossed into other European countries soon to be taken over by the Nazis. Still others had been put into concentration camps or had already been killed by the time of the early war years. With the occupation of Poland and large areas of the Soviet Union, the Nazis then had control over millions of European Jews, and they planned their destruction, as a businessman would plan to increase production in his factory. It is absolutely mind boggling, and no matter how much actual newsreel footage I've seen over the years, or how many books and articles I've read, it is still difficult to get my mind around these terrible events. And by the Germans! (Although often aided by non-Germans.) Nothing I write here can even scratch the surface of this disturbing subject, which is about sheer evil.

The overall plan for the extermination of European Jews was under the control of Heinrich Himmler's "SS."*** In various parts of Europe, but especially in Poland, camps were set up with the purpose of using Jews (Gypsies were also a major target of Nazi racial theories) for labor purposes, but with the ultimate aim of killing them; that is, if they hadn't already been worked to death. Those deemed unfit for work were killed, often within just a short time after their arrival at a camp. The organization for transporting Jews from across Europe to these death camps came under one SS officer, Adolf Eichmann (he had the right first name, if you get my point).**** Of all of the camps set up in Germany and throughout Europe during Nazi rule, "Auschwitz" was the most notorious, and millions died there. Rooms were made to look like shower areas, but once inside, victims were locked in, and poison gas canisters were dropped inside, killing everyone. The bodies were then burned in huge ovens, "crematoria." Any and all valuables were confiscated from these helpless people. Even when dead, gold or silver fillings were extracted.

Amidst all of the hatred and death, there were still some acts of heroism, and if you haven't seen "Schindler's List," please do so; you will never forget it. Above all, DON'T BE A RACIST OR A HATER!

* This area was known as the "Pale" in Russia. It was the western part of the Russian Empire where Jews were permitted to settle and live on a permanent basis beginning in the late 1700s. Most Russian Jews were not permitted to live east of the Pale (in interior Russia) for any major period of time, but there were exceptions.

** The "Einsatzgruppen" were part of the "SD," the initials of the "Sicherheitsdienst" ("Security Service), which was a branch of the SS.

*** Himmler was a Bavarian, born in Munich, and he joined the Nazi Party in the early 1920s.

**** Eichmann was born in Germany, but his family moved to Linz, Austria when he was just a child. Interestingly, besides the shared first name, Hitler, who was considerably older than Eichmann, had lived in and around Linz as a child, too, and he always considered the city to be his home town, so much so, that he had grand plans to make Linz into one of the primary cities of Nazism, if they had won the war.

WORD HISTORY:
Camp (noun and verb)-This is another one of those words with an uncertain ancient history. What is known is, it goes back to Latin "campus,"^ with the general meaning "open area or field," which then progressed to "field of military contest, battlefield." Old Germanic borrowed the word as "kampan," with this "contest, battle" meaning. This then gave Old English "camp," but with that same "contest" meaning. This also gave Old High German "champf," which then later became "Kampf," meaning "battle, struggle," still in use today, and it is part of the title of Hitler's book, "Mein Kampf," covered earlier in this series on "The German Question." The same word also gave German the verb form "kämpfen," meaning "to fight." English "camp" then got a bit of a twist in meaning via French "camp" (also from the Latin source) in the 1500s, this being a "field used for military training and lodging," which then later in English also came to be applied to non-military situations, and both military and non military senses are still used today.^^ The "contest" meaning died out in English. The verb form, as in, "we'll camp by the river," came from the noun during the 1500s. So here we have English and German with essentially the same word, "camp/Kampf," and both from the same source, but with different meanings; the German word retaining much of the original "contest" notion. By the way, Italian has "campo," obviously from its Latin roots, and it means "field." 

^ "Camp" is related to "campaign" and to "champion" (also the shortened form "champ"), Latin-derived words borrowed by English from French, and to "campus," a word English borrowed directly from Latin.  

^^ Generally, the modern meaning in English means, "a place in the rural countryside, often, but not always, near a lake, river or stream, where people congregate for some temporary purpose, like hunting, fishing, vacationing, recreation, or some educational or instructional purpose, often with tents, cabins, huts or other type of basic shelter. This meaning came from an older meaning in English based around "a place to temporarily stay ("put up/set up camp") to provide shelter to sleep and to fix food around a fire, called a campfire."