title: Sparks (band)

text: Relocating to England in 1973 with a new manager, John Hewlett, founder of John's Children, and a deal from Island Records, thanks in part to the exposure garnered by their BBC Two "Whistle Test" performance, they placed an ad in music weekly "Melody Maker" ("Wanted bass player for Sparks. Must be beard free and exciting") and through this hired Martin Gordon. With Adrian Fisher on guitar and Norman "Dinky" Diamond on drums, in the midst of power cuts and a threatened vinyl shortage, they recorded their breakthrough "Kimono My House" in 1974, scoring a No. 2 hit with the single "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us".


title: Sparks (band)

text: Sparks became a UK teen sensation appearing on the cover of "Melody Maker", "Record Mirror" and countless other pop magazines in the UK and Europe. Hits such as "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us", "Amateur Hour" and "Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth" led to many appearances on the BBC's flagship music show "Top of the Pops". Russell's hyperactive movements were in sharp contrast to the keyboard-bound, soberly dressed Ron's expressionless squint and Charlie Chaplin-esque moustache.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Gordon and Fisher were later replaced by Trevor White and Ian Hampton. In 1975, the revised band returned to the US to tour supporting the "Kimono" and "Propaganda" albums which had gained strong cult attention in New York City, Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles primarily from FM radio play and a national TV appearance on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. Flo & Eddie were the supporting act. Influential 1970s progressive FM radio station powerhouse WMMS in Cleveland and its famed DJs such as Kid Leo initially championed the band in America. Sparks also performed on American Bandstand in 1975 with host Dick Clark mugging with Ron and on countless other TV shows in the US and abroad post 1977.


title: Sparks (band)

text: The follow-up albums, "Propaganda" and "Indiscreet", the latter produced by Tony Visconti, were similarly successful and produced the hit singles "Looks, Looks, Looks", "Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth" and "Something for the Girl with Everything".


title: Sparks (band)

text: The Maels returned home to Los Angeles in 1976. Concerned that their music may have become stale, they adopted a more "American" sound and recorded "Big Beat" with Rupert Holmes and Jeffrey Lesser on production, which they followed with "Introducing Sparks;" both albums were mostly recorded with session musicians. This new "West Coast" sound yielded such songs as "Nothing to Do", "Everybody's Stupid", and "Throw Her Away (and Get a New One)". In 1976, Sparks made one of their first forays into the movie business, making a cameo appearance in the disaster-suspense film "Rollercoaster", after Kiss turned down the roles. They performed the songs "Fill 'Er Up" and "Big Boy".


title: Sparks (band)

text: By 1977 the brothers found themselves at a crossroads. They had cut ties with Hewlett and had grown tired of recording within a traditional rock band framework. In a conversation with a German journalist, they expressed their admiration for Giorgio Moroder, a pioneer of electronic disco and pop music. Moroder happened to be a friend of the journalist, and he was able to connect the brothers with the Italian producer, who produced their next album, "No. 1 in Heaven." More electronic and synthesizer-based than their previous efforts, the album would redefine Sparks' sound and challenge the concept of what is meant by a band, and it also became a major influence on emerging electronic pop artists. It spawned two singles in the top-fifteen UK chart: "The Number One Song in Heaven" and "Beat The Clock". The follow-up album in 1980, "Terminal Jive", had a hit single in France, "When I'm With You", which led to the Maels staying in the country for a year promoting the album, during which Russell became conversationally fluent in French. The single also hit the Top 20 in Australia, reaching No.14. In 1981, Belgian synth pop group Telex enlisted Sparks to help write the lyrics for their third album, Sex.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Finding the electronic equipment that they had adopted for their new sound too cumbersome for touring, the band returned to the more conventional band format for their next three releases, although they did not eschew synthesizers entirely: "Whomp That Sucker," "Angst in My Pants," (two tracks from which appear later in the 1983 movie "Valley Girl") and "In Outer Space". They broke into the US singles chart once more, reaching No. 49 with "Cool Places" from 1983's "In Outer Space". The track was a collaboration with the Go-Go's rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Jane Wiedlin (a dedicated fan of the band who at one time ran her own Sparks fan club), and its success was in part thanks to Los Angeles' KROQ-FM radio station, which hailed them as local heroes. In 1984, the Maels wrote and performed several original songs on the soundtrack for the black comedy teen film "Bad Manners" (aka: "Growing Pains"), including the film's title song, "Bad Manners". In 1989, they scored a hit single in France and in Europe with "Singing in the Shower", sung in duet with Rita Mitsouko: the single was produced by Tony Visconti.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Beginning in the late 1980s, Sparks attempted to make the Japanese manga "Mai, the Psychic Girl" into a musical, with interest from Tim Burton and Carolco Pictures, who purchased the film rights in August 1991. Carolco hoped Burton would start production in 1992, but he chose to work on "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Ed Wood" for Touchstone Pictures. The option on the film rights eventually expired, and Burton dropped out. Francis Ford Coppola later developed the property in the late 1990s. In June 2000, Sony Pictures Entertainment started on a different project with Kirk Wong attached to direct. By February 2001, a script had been written by Lisa Addario and Joey Syracuse for Sony's Columbia Pictures. The release of "The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman", a radio musical by Sparks, in August 2009, was informed by the six years the band spent trying to get their "Mai, the Psychic Girl" produced. The album generated new interest, and gained a "second wind", vocalist Russell Mael explained. "The music is all ready and we are hoping that this still might see the light of day." On May 18, 2010, Burton expressed renewed interest in adapting the property.


title: Sparks (band)

text: In 1993, Ron and Russell returned with the single "National Crime Awareness Week", their first release since the 1988 album "Interior Design". The song was produced by the Scottish dance band Finitribe. In 1994, the Maels released "Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins", providing the hit singles "When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way' and "When I Kiss You (I Hear Charlie Parker Playing)". In Germany, "When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way was the No. 1 airplay song for 1994 as well as being hailed critically for its poignant lyrics and touching melody. The band toured in support of the album with percussionist Christi Haydon playing drums. Haydon also appeared in the videos for "When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'" and "When I Kiss You (I Hear Charlie Parker Playing)", which were both directed by Sophie Muller.


title: Sparks (band)

text: 1997 saw the release of "Plagiarism", an album of cover versions of their own songs featuring collaborations with Faith No More, Erasure and Jimmy Somerville. Half of the album was recorded by Tony Visconti in London with the other half recorded by the brothers in their own purpose-built studio in LA, surrounded by busts of Elvis. In 1998 they recorded the soundtrack for the action film "Knock Off", starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, directed by the acclaimed Hong Kong-based producer/director Tsui Hark (who had appeared on his own tribute song by the band on the album "Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins").


title: Sparks (band)

text: "Balls", released in 2000, again put the band in a context of electronic instrumentation with some of Ron's most striking and perceptive lyrics. With the release of "Balls" the band toured the UK, Germany, Japan and Australia.


title: Sparks (band)

text: After "Balls", the band resurfaced in 2002 with the release of an album described of what they called their "genre-defining opus" – "Lil' Beethoven", featuring quasi-classical arrangements of strings and choirs. "Lil' Beethoven" led to renewed interest in the band. "Record Collector" magazine named the album as one of its "Best New Albums of 2002", describing it as "...possibly the most exciting and interesting release ever from such a long-established act" and later in 2003 saying "...it really does feel like one of the best albums ever made." A UK and European tour had the band playing the entire album each night in the first half of the show, with fan favourites making up the second. The line-up now included former Faith No More guitarist Dean Menta in addition to Tammy Glover on drums. Long-time fan Morrissey invited Sparks to perform at the 2004 Meltdown Festival, of which he was curator. They performed their breakthrough "Kimono My House" album, followed by "Lil Beethoven", both in their entirety. Also in this period, the duo appeared in the music video for the Darkness' Justin Hawkins's cover of "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us", in which Ron and Russell play the referee and MC at a darts match between Hawkins and darts champion Phil Taylor. This version of "This Town" reached No.6 in the UK charts. Sparks would later release "Lil' Beethoven"'s closing track "Suburban Homeboy" as a single.


title: Sparks (band)

text: February 2006 saw the release of "Hello Young Lovers", their twentieth studio album. The album is regarded as carrying on where "Lil' Beethoven" left off, being described as "...cynical, intelligent and very, very funny", it has met with considerable acclaim. Sparks led off the album with the striking tune that the BBC deemed too provocative in its title to play, "Dick Around". The song is a multi-section, multi-mood, highly layered track that many felt should have been a UK smash hit had the BBC not misinterpreted the title of the song as being other than it was.


title: Sparks (band)

text: The brothers tend to be dismissive of the latest trends in popular music, seeing most current bands as lacking musical ambition and experimental drive. Indeed, the predictable trends in much of modern rock, as they see it, served as inspiration for their latest album. However, they have expressed admiration for Eminem and Morrissey.


title: Sparks (band)

text: The pair appeared in the season 6 finale of the US TV show "Gilmore Girls", performing "Perfume" from the album "Hello Young Lovers". They released a live DVD of a September 2006 show at The Forum as well as a long-awaited CD release of their previously unavailable 1977 album "Introducing Sparks". The track "Perfume" was featured in a Dolce & Gabbana TV commercial in 2009.


title: Sparks (band)

text: On May 12, 2008, Sparks released the single "Good Morning", taken from the album "Exotic Creatures of the Deep".


title: Sparks (band)

text: May and June 2008 saw the 21-night "Sparks Spectacular" in London, where they played each of their albums in chronological order during the first twenty nights and premiered their new album on the twenty-first concert on June 13, 2008. Each night, they performed an album in its entirety followed by a rare track– many of the songs had never been performed live before. The band asked their fans to visit their website and vote for the track that they'd most like to hear the band perform during the second half of the 21st concert after the premiere of "Exotic Creatures of the Deep", though Russell admitted that he and Ron would probably influence the poll a little.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Fans who bought a "Golden Ticket" (which allowed entry into all 21 gigs) also received a poster signed by the band and a CD single entitled "Islington N1", a reference to the postal address of the venue for the first 20 gigs. The song "Islington N1" was later made available in the box set edition of their "New Music For Amnesiacs" career-spanning box set.


title: Sparks (band)

text: In 2009 the band played two consecutive nights at The Forum on 20 and 21 March. They played "Exotic Creatures of the Deep" in its entirety at both gigs, followed by "Kimono My House" in its entirety on the first night and "No.1 in Heaven" in its entirety on the second night.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Valentine's Day evening 2009 saw Sparks perform the same show featuring their "Exotic Creatures of the Deep" and "Kimono My House" albums played in their entirety before a sold-out hometown crowd at Royce Hall at the Mael Bros. alma mater in Los Angeles, UCLA.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Ron and Russell appeared as interview subjects in the 2009 documentary "The Magnificent Tati", discussing their involvement during the early 1980s in "Confusion", a proposed Jacques Tati movie for which a screenplay was written but never shot (due to Tati's death).


title: Sparks (band)

text: The band premiered the radio musical "The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman", in August 2009. Commissioned by the Swedish public radio (SR) it featured the Mael brothers themselves along with Swedish actors Elin Klinga and Jonas Malmsjö, both of whom worked with Bergman in his lifetime. The musical, partly in English, partly in Swedish, tells the story of Bergman's relocation to Hollywood after his breakthrough with "Smiles of a Summer Night" (1956), and the surreal and discomforting encounter with the movie capital. The UK's BBC Radio 6 Music held a similar event in London two months later whereby the musical was played in its entirety before a live audience at the BBC Broadcasting House in London and later to be broadcast with a Q&A with the Maels.


title: Sparks (band)

text: In June 2011, as part of the Los Angeles Film Festival, Sparks presented the World Premiere live performance of "The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman" at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood. Canadian film director Guy Maddin provided directions based on the screenplay, with Ron and Russell reprising their recorded roles on stage. The role of Ingmar Bergman was performed by Finnish movie actor Peter Franzén and American actress Ann Magnuson portrayed the role of Greta Garbo. The group showcased at the film festival in an attempt to raise funding for a feature film version. The performance garnered glowing reviews from journals such as The Huffington Post, the LA Times, the LA Weekly, and LA Record.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Since 2011, the band have been pursuing the idea of turning "The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman" into a feature film. Originally envisaged as a live-action film, in 2017, the Mael Brothers announced they were taking a new direction and developing Bergman as an animated feature film with director Joseph Wallace, who created the music video for their track "Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me)". As of 2022 no film version of the musical has been made.


title: Sparks (band)

text: In 2010, Sparks remixed Yoko Ono's song "Give Me Something". In July they contributed a remix of sorts to singer Katie Melua's single, A Happy Place, calling it "Sparks VS. Melua." September 2 marked the debut of the new theme songs that Ron and Russell had composed and recorded for NPR radio's Bookworm show, broadcast in Los Angeles on station KCRW. The two songs, titled "Where Would We Be Without Books?" and "I Am A Bookworm", were commissioned by show host and Sparks fan Michael Silverblatt as the first new theme songs for the programme in 21 years.


title: Sparks (band)

text: For the encore of what may have been the final live date ever in America for Faith No More on December 1 at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, Ron and Russell Mael were invited by Mike Patton and Co. to perform the Sparks' classic hit "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us". They reprised the song that also appears as a collaboration with Faith No More on Sparks' 1997 album "Plagiarism" and had also been released as a single.


title: Sparks (band)

text: In 2012 Ron and Russell collaborated with singer Gemma Ray who released a limited 12-inch single titled "Gemma Ray Sings Sparks (with Sparks)", which included Ray's covers of Sparks' ""How Do I Get To Carnegie Hall"" and ""Eaten by the Monster of Love"". In October, Ron and Russell performed for the first time ever as a duo, with no band. The 18-city European tour titled "Two Hands One Mouth" began in Lithuania and followed in Latvia, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, Ireland and finished with a sold-out show at the Barbican Centre in London. The tour then took the group to Japan and the US, including two performances at the Coachella Festival, with a show in Paris following in 2013 where they were joined on stage by Catherine Ringer from Les Rita Mitsouko to sing on their 1989 collaboration ""Singing in The Shower"". Recordings from the tour resulted in Sparks first live album, "," which was released later in 2013. Ron and Russell continued touring in the duo format for a second round, titling the tour "The Revenge of Two Hands One Mouth", taking in dates in both North America and Europe, including Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, Texas and three nights at Union Chapel in London, where Thurston Moore joined them to play guitar on "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us". Both "Two Hands One Mouth" and "The Revenge of Two Hands One Mouth" tours were critically well received. In 2013 they contributed a song and brief voice part to the Guy Maddin movie "The Forbidden Room".


title: Sparks (band)

text: 2014 marked the 40th Anniversary of "Kimono My House". The landmark was celebrated with a performance the album in its entirety, along with a greatest hits set, at the Barbican Centre in London on 19 and 20 December with backing from the 35-piece Heritage Orchestra. Ron and Russell took the "Kimono My House" celebrations to Los Angeles as they performed the album on two consecutive nights with a 38-piece orchestra at the United Artists Theatre at Ace Hotel Los Angeles on 14 and 15 February 2015. Both shows sold out and they received glowing reviews. Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand joined them on stage for duet with Russell on the song ""When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way" on both nights.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Prior to Kapranos's appearance in Los Angeles, Sparks and Franz Ferdinand had been collaborating and in late 2014 had recorded an album together, produced by John Congleton. The supergroup, named FFS, was unveiled in March 2015 with a short teaser video of song "The Power Couple". An eponymous album was released in June 2015. The album was promoted with appearances on BBC programme Later with Jools Holland, and the Glastonbury Festival.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Sparks's 23rd studio album", Hippopotamus," was released in September 2017 to critical and commercial success, peaking at number 7 in the UK Albums Chart. A full band tour, starting in Copenhagen, was undertaken to support the record. In 2019, Sparks collaborated with and were featured on French artist Sebastian's album, "Thirst" on the track, "Handcuffed to a Parking Meter".


title: Sparks (band)

text: The band's first album of the 2020s, "A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip", was released in digital form in May 2020, with the physical release pushed back to July due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The album was preceded by singles "Self-Effacing", and "I'm Toast" in February and March, respectively. Like its predecessor, "Hippopotamus", it entered the UK Albums Chart at number 7 and garnered universal critical acclaim. Coinciding with the physical release of the album, an official music video for the song "The Existential Threat" premiered on YouTube, the animation created by English freelance animator and composer Cyriak Harris. The band then collaborated with Todd Rundgren on the single "Your Fandango", 50 years after he produced their debut album.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Sparks were involved in two 2021 film releases, as screenwriters and composers for the musical "Annette", directed by Leos Carax and starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, and in "The Sparks Brothers", a documentary about their career directed by Edgar Wright. "Annette" premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and was in competition for the Palme d'Or. The leading track "So May We Start" was accompanied by a video featuring the band with Driver and Cotillard, and the "Annette" soundtrack was released on Sony.


title: Sparks (band)

text: In February 2022 Sparks played two sold-out shows at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, their first full concerts since 2018 following postponements of tour dates throughout 2020 and 2021. "Variety" lauded the first concert as "a rousingly celebratory homecoming". North American and European spring tours followed, then festival dates in the US and Japan. The Maels performed at the 2022 Césars, France's national film award ceremony, and received a César for best original music for "Annette".


title: Sparks (band)

text: In November 2022, Focus Features announced they would be producing a new musical titled 'X Crucior' to be written and produced by the Mael brothers. Their next studio album and a world tour were confirmed for 2023.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Their musical style has varied dramatically with Russell Mael's distinctive wide-ranging voice (in particular his far-reaching falsetto) and Ron Mael's intricate and rhythmic keyboard playing style being the common thread throughout their fifty-year career. In its review of "Kimono My House", "NME" described Russell's falsetto as a "stratospheric blend of Marc Bolan and Tiny Tim". In the beginning, they attempted to emulate the sound of their English idols, such as the Who, Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd and the Kinks, sometimes even pretending to be an English band while on the LA club circuit. They relocated to England during the glam rock era where, despite cutting an odd figure on this scene, they found success with their polished brand of intricate pop tunes and convoluted lyrics. Early albums such as "Kimono My House" combined glam rock with elements of bubblegum pop and baroque music. By the second half of the decade, they were concerned that the sound they had developed while based in England was in danger of becoming stale; they returned to LA, determined to adopt a more "West Coast" sound. This they achieved with producer Rupert Holmes on "Big Beat" and (sans Holmes) on "Introducing Sparks".


title: Sparks (band)

text: The band were not satisfied with the results, which they felt lacked personality, perhaps because of the reliance on session musicians. This led to the most dramatic change of style the band would attempt, when they teamed up with Giorgio Moroder, dropped the rock-group format altogether and produced the disco record "No.1 in Heaven" which relied on synthesizers. This album is regarded as a landmark in the development of electronic music and greatly influenced bands which would emerge in the following years. They soon returned to a more traditional line-up, which remained until 1988's "Interior Design". There then followed a long hiatus until 1994's "Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins", which was a foray into the techno dance world, which they had helped to spawn back in the late 1970s.


title: Sparks (band)

text: In 2002, the band switched to a classically influenced art pop style with the release of their album "Lil' Beethoven", replacing the beat-driven synth-pop of their previous albums with complex orchestral arrangements. The band acknowledged this change in style on the album's opening track "The Rhythm Thief".


title: Sparks (band)

text: Lyrically, the band's style has been described as coming from "the school of Cole Porter, favouring caustic wit over trivial personal problems... achingly clever lyrics seesaw between superficial gloss, profound sentiment and the incomprehensibly bizarre". Repeated lyrical motifs have become a distinct feature on recent albums. On "My Baby's Taking Me Home" of "Lil' Beethoven" (2002), the song title is repeated 104 times, with no other words being used, other than a spoken interlude. Similarly, on the same album, "Your Call Is Very Important To Us", uses a corporation style call-hold message: "Your call is very important to us. Please hold" which is then sung with some additional words: "At first she said your call is very important to us, then she said please, please hold." The only other lyrics in the song are "Red light", "Green light", "I'm Getting Mixed Signals" and "Sorry, I'm Going To Have To Put You Back On Hold". These elements are layered with a simple piano line to create a highly textured effect.


title: Sparks (band)

text: The vocal sound on the single "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us" was criticised as being "stylised". This may be because the song was written without any regard for the vocal style of Russell Mael. Ron Mael has explained:


title: Sparks (band)

text: "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us" was written in A, and by God, it'll be sung in A. I just feel that if you're coming up with most of the music, then you have an idea where it's going to go. And no singer is gonna get in my way.


title: Sparks (band)

text: When he wrote "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us", Ron could only play it in that key. It was so much work to transpose the song and one of us had to budge, so I made the adjustment to fit in. My voice ain't a "rock" voice. It's not soulful, in the traditional rock way; It's not about "guts". It's untrained, unschooled, I never questioned why I was singing high. It just happened, dictated by the songs. Ron has always written Sparks' lyrics and never transposed them into a rock key for me to sing. He always packed each line with words and I had to sing them as they were.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Sparks has influenced many later genres including synth-pop, new wave, post-punk, and alternative rock, influencing a wide range of singers and bands including Joy Division, New Order, Depeche Mode, The Smiths, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sonic Youth and Björk.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols said that he constantly listened to "Kimono My House" back in 1974 at Paul Cook's room. "We'd sit in his bedroom for hours listening to them". Joy Division cited "Number One Song in Heaven" as a primary influence during the recording of "Love Will Tear Us Apart". Joy Division's drummer Stephen Morris stated: "When we were doing 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', there were two records we were into: Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits and Number One Song in Heaven by Sparks. That was the beginning of getting interested in Giorgio Moroder". Peter Hook of New Order cited Moroder's production on "The Number One Song in Heaven" as a major influence when his band changed musical style to produce electro/dance-rock songs like "Temptation" in 1982. New Order also delivered an extended live version of "When I'm With You" that same year in Milano. When they started playing music, singer Dave Gahan and composer Martin Gore of Depeche Mode cited them as one of their favorite bands. Gore also later covered "Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth" on his "Counterfeit e.p." in 1989. Other early electronic acts like the Human League, and Erasure, also mentioned the group. Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran stated about "This Town ain't...": "There was something about them that was very different. I was immediately fascinated with that song."


title: Sparks (band)

text: Sparks have also been name-checked by indie pop band the Smiths. Their singer Morrissey named "Kimono My House" as one of "his favourite LPs of all time". Smiths' guitarist and composer Johnny Marr said : "There's nothing better than commerciality crossed with an interesting mind" and named "This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us" as an instance, qualifying it as one of these "Trojan singles". Siouxsie and the Banshees recorded a version of the first Sparks' success as the opening song of their covers album "Through the Looking Glass". Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth also included the Sparks' song "Equator" in his list of all-time favorite songs. Joey Ramone also mentioned his liking for their records, as did later the group They Might Be Giants. Devo's singer Mark Mothersbaugh described himself as a big "Ron Mael fan" and of his look: "it was so not rock n' roll, in an unexpected way, that you just couldn't help but think that there was something there". He also listened to "Kimono my House" during his formative years.


title: Sparks (band)

text: Björk talked about "Kimono my House" as one of the records that changed her life. "[Sparks] were exotic [...], [they] were the most refreshing thing in my life" when she was eight. "I loved the way Russell Mael sung like a geisha, and that they were into wearing geisha clothes, as I was really into Japanese people". Faith No More also mentioned the group and their performances. Their keyboard player Roddy Bottum said: "I saw Sparks play on American Bandstand in 1975. My sister and I went out and immediately bought "Indiscreet". In 2004, Franz Ferdinand singer Alex Kapranos published an article in the NME titled, "why I love the Sparks". He said about their music: "It's only after a few listens you really can get into it [...] Then you really fall in love and bands change your life. Now I can't imagine life without them." John Frusciante of Red Hot Chili Peppers said that he used to listen to "Kimono My House" and "Propaganda" for Adrian Fisher's guitar playing adding, "I'm sure that it is Ron Mael who told him what to play".


title: Sparks (band)

text: Other notable acts that have mentioned Sparks include Ween, Will Sheff of Okkervil River, Mark Burgess of the Chameleons, and Cait Brennan. Electronic band Justice hailed the group saying: "this is [...] something we like in music, this kind of epic feeling, [...] and we were really inspired by bands like Sparks [...] who have this really operatic sound". In 2012, synth-pop duo Spray released the song "Sparks Called and They Want Their Ideas Back".


title: Sparks (band)

text: In 1980 Paul McCartney also gave a nod to the band in the music video for "Coming Up" in which he appeared mimicking Ron Mael on keyboards.


title: Embracer Group

text: Embracer Group AB (formerly Nordic Games Licensing AB and THQ Nordic AB) is a Swedish video game and media holding company based in Karlstad. The company was established under the name Nordic Games Licensing in 2011 as part of Nordic Games Group and as the parent of publisher Nordic Games GmbH.


title: Embracer Group

text: The company has acquired several assets from defunct publishers, beginning with those of JoWooD in 2011 and THQ in 2013. In August 2016, Nordic Games Licensing and its publishing subsidiary changed their names to THQ Nordic AB and THQ Nordic GmbH, utilising the "THQ" trademark that it had acquired in 2014. In November 2016, it became a public company listed on Nasdaq First North. Throughout 2018, THQ Nordic acquired Koch Media Holding (parent of Koch Media) and Coffee Stain Holding (parent of Coffee Stain Studios), both of which became independently operating groups within THQ Nordic, complementary to THQ Nordic GmbH. To avoid confusion with THQ Nordic GmbH and to clarify its position as a holding company, THQ Nordic AB was renamed as Embracer Group in September 2019, while THQ Nordic GmbH retained its name.


title: Embracer Group

text: , Embracer Group has twelve operative groups as its direct subsidiaries: Amplifier Game Invest, Asmodee, CDE Entertainment, Coffee Stain Holding, Dark Horse Media, DECA Games, Easybrain, Embracer Freemode, Gearbox Entertainment, Plaion, Saber Interactive and THQ Nordic. Each group has its own operations, subsidiaries and development studios.


title: Embracer Group

text: At an early age, Swedish entrepreneur Lars Wingefors began successfully selling a diverse range of products, including Christmas magazines and plastic bags, and when he was 13 years old, he founded LW Comics, a company that sold second-hand comic books. He established the business as a mail order company using a 2,000-entry customer register he had acquired from another, defunct mail order company. The company made close to annually. At age 16, Wingefors established a second company, Nordic Games, which did the same as LW Comics, though with used video games instead of comics. In its first year, the company generated in revenue. With growing income throughout the 1990s, Nordic Games was turned into a retail chain—in the same vein as British video game retail company Game—and opened seven stores across Sweden. The company also acquired Spel- & Tele shopen, a game shop in Linköping, Sweden, that had been founded by Pelle Lundborg four years prior.


title: Embracer Group

text: Towards the end of the 1990s, Nordic Games was suffering from a poor corporate structure, and Wingefors was asked to either seek new partners or bring in venture capital, though he instead opted to sell the company to Gameplay Stockholm, the Swedish subsidiary of Europe-wide retailer Gameplay.com, in March 2000 for Gameplay.com stock valued at . Under Gameplay, Nordic Games failed to generate much revenue; the company tried to establish mobile game, digital distribution and cable TV box businesses, all of which did not gain traction. When the dot-com bubble burst, Gameplay faced financial issues, and Nordic Games was sold back to Wingefors in May 2001 for a symbolic sum of (at the time equivalent to ). Wingefors brought in venture capitalists and reformed the company to only sell newly released games, but the company faced strong competition and finally filed for bankruptcy in 2004.


title: Embracer Group

text: Wingefors invested the money he had left into a new limited company and, together with potential customers acting as investors, reformed Nordic Games under the name Game Outlet Europe. The new company saw success with purchasing unsold stock from larger video game companies, such as Electronic Arts, repackaging them on pallets in its Karlstad headquarters, and selling them on the international market and through other retail chains, such as Jula, Coop, and ICA. In December 2008, a new company with the name Nordic Games Publishing was established as the video game publishing subsidiary of Game Outlet Europe. The subsidiary started out with seven people, including primary shareholder Wingefors, based in Karlstad, and chief executive officer Lundborg, who had since moved to Málaga with his wife. Nik Blower in London was added to the management team in February 2010.


title: Embracer Group

text: The idea behind Nordic Games Publishing was to invest in the development of games that would fill gaps in the video game market; Wingefors and Lundborg had noticed that the line-up of games for Nintendo platforms was lacking karaoke games similar to "SingStar", which was exclusive to PlayStation consoles. Based on 100-page requirement documents from Nintendo, which included that the game's microphones should be produced by Logitech, and four months of research at a karaoke bar in Watford, England, Nordic Games Publishing assembled a song list for the game and started producing what would later become "We Sing". Around this time, Nordic Games Publishing also released "Dance Party Club Hits", a dance game that came packaged with a dancing mat. In 2009, Nordic Games Publishing had a turnover of , of which 75% were accounted for by "We Sing" sales. For 2010, the company projected a turnover of , while at the same time, Lundborg was looking for new investors in the company to make it independent from Game Outlet Europe. By March 2011, Nordic Games Holding had been established as a holding company, with Game Outlet Europe and Nordic Games Publishing aligned as its subsidiaries.


title: Embracer Group

text: In June 2011, Nordic Games Holding acquired the assets of insolvent publisher JoWooD Entertainment and its subsidiaries. The acquired assets were transferred to Nordic Games GmbH, a newly established subsidiary office in Vienna, Austria. Several former JoWooD employees were hired by Nordic Games GmbH to work on backlog sales of former JoWooD properties, and Nordic Games Publishing was integrated into Nordic Games GmbH to facilitate operations. Nordic Games Licensing AB, also established in 2011, became the holding company within Nordic Games Holding (later known as Nordic Games Group), as well as the parent company of Nordic Games GmbH. In April 2013, Nordic Games Licensing acquired several assets of bankrupt publisher THQ to be managed by Nordic Games GmbH.


title: Embracer Group

text: In June 2014, Nordic Games Licensing acquired the "THQ" trademark, intending to use the name as a publishing label for its THQ properties. Subsequently, in August 2016, the company changed its name to THQ Nordic AB, while Nordic Games GmbH became THQ Nordic GmbH. According to Wingefors and THQ Nordic GmbH's Reinhard Pollice, the name change was undergone to capitalise on the good reputation of THQ's past, although they avoided naming the companies just "THQ" to avoid connections to THQ's more recent, troubled history being made. On 22 November 2016, THQ Nordic undertook its initial public offering and became a public company listed on the Nasdaq First North stock exchange, being valuated at , while Wingefors retained a 50% ownership in the company.


title: Embracer Group

text: In February 2018, THQ Nordic acquired Koch Media Holding, the parent company of Austrian media company Koch Media, which in turn owned and operated the Deep Silver video game label, for . Koch Media was set to operate independently under THQ Nordic, separate from THQ Nordic GmbH. To better reflect its holding function and to avoid confusion between THQ Nordic and its Viennese office, THQ Nordic stated that it planned to rename itself. In June 2018, the company issued 7.7 million new Class B shares to raise , which would be used for future acquisitions. In November 2018, THQ Nordic acquired Coffee Stain Holding, the Swedish holding company that houses developer Coffee Stain Studios and affiliated companies, for in cash consideration. Coffee Stain became THQ Nordic's "third leg", operating independently like Koch Media. Through the two acquisitions and continued sales from THQ Nordic GmbH, THQ Nordic's net sales rose by 713%, to , in the 2018 fiscal year. In December 2018, gaming business website "GamesIndustry.biz" named Wingefors as one of their People of the Year 2018. In February 2019, THQ Nordic issued 11 million new Class B shares, raising ().


title: Embracer Group

text: At the end of its first fiscal quarter of 2019, THQ Nordic acquired Game Outlet Europe from Nordic Games Group for . In August 2019, the company acquired investment company Goodbye Kansas Game Invest (GKGI) for . GKGI held minority investments in five startup developers—Palindrome Interactive, Fall Damage, Neon Giant, Kavalri Games and Framebunker—as well as royalty rights to the THQ Nordic GmbH-published "Biomutant". GKGI's investments in Bearded Dragons, Goodbye Kansas VR and IGDB were retained by its previous parent company, Goodbye Kansas. GKGI had been founded in 2016 and by the time of the acquisition had four full-time employees. To avoid further confusion with THQ Nordic GmbH and clarify its position as a holding company, THQ Nordic assumed the name "Embracer Group" at its annual general meeting on 17 September 2019, while the branch in Vienna retained its name. In December 2019, the company, through GKGI, acquired Swedish developer Tarsier Studios for . The deal included the studio's 65 employees and intellectual property, excluding "Little Nightmares" and "The Stretchers", which remained with their respective owners.


title: Embracer Group

text: GKGI was rebranded Amplifier Game Invest in January 2020 to better reflect its new ownership under Embracer Group. That same month, Amplifier opened River End Games, in Gothenburg, Sweden, and C77 Entertainment in Seattle, United States; two development studios, each with veterans from game studios of the respective areas. Embracer acquired Saber Interactive and its five internal studios in February 2020 for a total of , making Saber the fifth direct subsidiary of Embracer. Embracer raised in April 2020, to be used for future expansion.


title: Embracer Group

text: Embracer Group announced seven acquisitions in August 2020: 4A Games and New World Interactive which will be under the Saber Interactive unit; Palindrome Interactive, Rare Earth Games and Vermila Studios which will be under Amplifier Game Invest; Pow Wow Entertainment which will be under THQ Nordic; and lastly DECA Games which became the sixth direct subsidiary under Embracer and will maintain autonomy under the deal. The group, under Koch Films, also acquired Sola Media, a Stuttgart-based television-and-film licensing group focusing on children and family properties. In November 2020, Embracer Group announced the acquisition of twelve companies: 34BigThings, Mad Head Games, Nimble Giant Entertainment, Snapshot Games and Zen Studios under Saber Interactive; A Thinking Ape Entertainment and IUGO Mobile Entertainment under the DECA Games unit; Flying Wild Hog under Koch Media; Purple Lamp Studios under THQ Nordic; Silent Games under Amplifier Game Invest; and lastly quality assurance company Quantic Lab under Embracer Group to support other studios within the company and public relations company Sandbox Strategies directly under Saber Interactive. THQ Nordic CEO Klemens Kreuzer stated that while large number of acquisitions were driven by the individual divisions under Embracer Group, the move represented part of the portfolio diversity of games that the company wanted to have, in contrast to larger publishers like Electronic Arts which have banked on only a few keystone titles.


title: Embracer Group

text: Embracer Group announced three major acquisitions in February 2021: The Gearbox Entertainment Company including Gearbox Software for a price of for which it will become the seventh major holding label within Embracer, Easybrain for which will become the eighth major holding label, and Aspyr Media for which will be a subsidiary under the Saber Interactive label. The acquisitions were formally completed in April 2021.


title: Embracer Group

text: The company began issuing additional stock in March 2021 to raise another to strengthen its finances and continue its acquisition strategies. In May 2021, the company announced the acquisition of Appeal Studios, Kaiko, and Massive Miniteam under its THQ Nordic subsidiary, which has also established Gate 21 d.o.o. to enable the creation of "world-class 3D characters", as well as acquired Frame Break under its Amplifier Game Invest subsidiary. Massive Miniteam will be fully integrated within the HandyGames organisation, under the operative group THQ Nordic. Later that month, Embracer announced their intentions to build a huge games archive to "embrace the history of games."


title: Embracer Group

text: Embracer acquired several more companies in the beginning of August 2021, including 3D Realms, Ghost Ship Games, Slipgate Ironworks, DigixArt, Force Field, Easy Trigger, CrazyLabs, and Grimfrost, under a combined deal. On 18 August 2021, Embracer announced the acquisition of three more companies including Demiurge Studios, Fractured Byte and SmartPhone Labs, all of which will be made subsidiaries of Saber Interactive.


title: Embracer Group

text: In December 2021, Embracer launched its intent to acquire Asmodee for €2.75 billion, as to incorporate it wholly as Embracer's ninth operational group and allowing Embracer to expand into the board game market. That same month, Embracer also acquired Perfect World Entertainment, including its publishing arm and Cryptic Studios, from the Perfect World holding group and Perfect World Europe, for . Once approved, Perfect World Entertainment would become part of the Gearbox division. It further acquired Dark Horse Media, the parent company for Dark Horse Comics and Dark Horse Entertainment, establishing Dark Horse as its tenth operating division. Additionally, the company acquired both Shiver Entertainment and Digic Pictures as part of the Saber group, and Spotfilm Networx, a German video-on-demand service, as part of Koch Media.


title: Embracer Group

text: In May 2022, Square Enix and Embracer Group entered into an agreement for Embracer to purchase several assets of Square Enix Europe for . These includes development studios Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, Square Enix Montreal, and intellectual properties such as "Tomb Raider," "Deus Ex," "Thief," "Legacy of Kain" and more than 50 others, with the deal expected to be completed in the second quarter of Embracer's financial year. The acquisition was closed by August 26, 2022, with the assets being held under CDE Entertainment which is headed from a London office by Phil Rogers, former CEO of Square Enix Americas and Europe. On October 10, 2022, Square Enix Montréal rebranded as Onoma, but Embracer shuttered the studio and the group's QA team in November 2022 as part of a cost-cutting measure.


title: Embracer Group

text: Additionally, in May 2022, the company established the Embracer Games Archive, a video game preservation effort, using its library of games as well as from other parties. The Archive was established physically in Karlstad, Sweden, with over 50,000 games already within it, and Embracer plans to eventually make parts of the archive available online for research purposes. The Savvy Gaming Group, an entity wholly owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, invested about into Embracer in June 2022, amounting to about 8% of the company's ownership.


title: Embracer Group

text: In August 2022, Amplifier Game Invest opened Infinite Mana Games, in Malmö, Sweden. Also within August, Embracer Group acquired Bitwave Games, Gioteck, Limited Run Games, Singtrix, Tatsujin Co. (which owns the intellectual properties to Toaplan games), Tripwire Interactive, and Tuxedo Labs, all to operate under the Freemode operating group, as well as the intellectual property rights to video games based on "Lord of the Rings" and the "Hobbit" intellectual properties by acquiring Middle-earth Enterprises.


title: Embracer Group

text: Campfire Cabal was established by THQ Nordic in Copenhagen, Denmark in September 2022. Within October 2022, Embracer acquired Anime Limited in Glasgow, Scotland, to operate under the Plaion label, and acquired the VR Group within the Asmodee group. Embracer Group was approved to be listed on Nasdaq Stockholm in December 2022, transitioning from Nasdaq First North Growth Market to Nasdaq Stockholm on December 22, 2022.


title: Embracer Group

text: As of December 2022, Embracer Group has 132 internal game development studios and is engaging more than 15,731 employees and contracted employees in more than 40 countries.


title: Loch Ness

text: Loch Ness (; ) is a large freshwater loch in the Scottish Highlands extending for approximately southwest of Inverness. It takes its name from the River Ness, which flows from the northern end. Loch Ness is best known for claimed sightings of the cryptozoological Loch Ness Monster, also known affectionately as "Nessie" (). It is one of a series of interconnected, murky bodies of water in Scotland; its water visibility is exceptionally low due to a high peat content in the surrounding soil. The southern end connects to Loch Oich by the River Oich and a section of the Caledonian Canal. The northern end connects to Loch Dochfour via the River Ness, which then ultimately leads to the North Sea via the Moray Firth.


title: Loch Ness

text: Loch Ness is the second-largest Scottish loch by surface area after Loch Lomond at , but due to its great depth it is the largest by volume in the British Isles. Its deepest point is , making it the second deepest loch in Scotland after Loch Morar. It contains more water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined, and is the largest body of water in the Great Glen, which runs from Inverness in the north to Fort William in the south. Its surface is above sea level. It contains a single, artificial island named Cherry Island () at the southwestern end. There are nine villages around the loch, as well as Urquhart Castle; the village of Drumnadrochit contains a "Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition".


title: Loch Ness

text: Loch Ness is an elongated freshwater loch in the Scottish Highlands southwest of Inverness, extending for approximately and flowing from southwest to northeast. At , it is the second-largest Scottish loch by surface area after Loch Lomond, but due to its great depth it is the largest by volume in the British Isles. Its deepest point is , making it the second deepest loch in Scotland after Loch Morar. A 2016 survey claimed to have discovered a crevice extending to a depth of , but further research determined this to be a sonar anomaly. Its surface is above sea level. It contains more water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined, and is the largest body of water in the Great Glen, which runs from Inverness in the north to Fort William in the south. Loch Ness lies along the Great Glen Fault, which forms a line of weakness in the rocks which has been excavated by glacial erosion, forming the Great Glen and the basins of Loch Lochy, Loch Oich and Loch Ness.


title: Loch Ness

text: Loch Ness has one small island, Cherry Island (, meaning Murdoch's Island), at the southwestern end of the loch. It is an artificial island, known as a crannog, and was likely constructed during the Iron Age. The island was originally by across, but is now smaller as the water level was raised during the construction of the Caledonian Canal in the early nineteenth century. There was formerly a second, natural island nearby named Dog Island (), but it was submerged when the water level rose. A castle stood on Cherry Island during the 15th century; this was constructed of stone and oak wood and was likely used as a fortified refuge. It has been suggested that Eilean Muireach may have been a hunting lodge, with Eilean Nan Con the home for the hunting dogs.


title: Loch Ness

text: The loch is one of a series of interconnected, murky bodies of water in Scotland; its water visibility is exceptionally low due to a high peat content in the surrounding soil. The southern end is fed by the River Oich, which runs from Loch Oich. The northern end flows out through the Bona Narrows into Loch Dochfour; the "Bathymetrical survey of the Scottish fresh-water lochs" considered Loch Dochfour to be distinct from "Loch Ness proper", but capable of being regarded as forming part of Loch Ness. Dochgarroch weir at the downstream end of Loch Dochfour delineates the start of the River Ness, which connects to the nearby and ultimately leads through Inverness to the North Sea via the Moray Firth. Loch Ness forms part of the Caledonian Canal, which comprises of waterways connecting the east coast of Scotland at Inverness with the west coast at Corpachthe near Fort William. Only one-third of the entire length is man-made, the rest being formed by Loch Dochfour, Loch Ness, Loch Oich, and Loch Lochy, with the man-made canals running parallel with rivers such as the River Oich.


title: Loch Ness

text: At Drumnadrochit is the "Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition" which examines the natural history and legend of Loch Ness. Boat cruises operate from various locations on the loch shore, giving visitors the chance to look for the "monster".


title: Loch Ness

text: Lighthouses are located at the northern and southern ends at Lochend (Bona Lighthouse) and Fort Augustus. There is an RNLI lifeboat station on the northern shore near Drumnadrochit, which has been operational since 2008 and was the first non-coastal RNLI station. It is staffed by a volunteer crew and equipped with an inshore lifeboat (ILB).


title: Loch Ness

text: Loch Ness takes its name from the River Ness which flows from the loch's northern end. The river's name probably derives from an old Celtic word meaning 'roaring one'. William Mackay in his 1893 book "Urquhart and Glenmoriston: Olden times in a highland parish" recounts two Scottish legends that have been reported as the source of the name. In the first, a spring in a valley had been enchanted by Daly the Druid for purity, with the admonition that the well opening must be covered by a stone whenever not in use, or else "desolation will overtake the land". One day a woman left the well uncovered when rushing to save her baby from a fire, and it overflowed and filled the vale, forming the loch. The inhabitants cried out "Tha loch 'nis ann, tha loch 'nis ann!" ("There's a loch now, there's a loch now!"), and so it was named "Loch Nis". A second legend, named "The Tales of the Sons of Uisneach" by Mackay and now considered part of the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology, recounts the Irish woman Deirdre or Dearduil, "the most beautiful woman of her age", who was courted by the king of Ulster, Conachar MacNessa; she fell in love instead with his cousin Noais, son of Uisneach. They fled to Scotland and were married on the banks of the loch, but Noais was slain by MacNessa, and the Loch Naois, River Naois, and Iverness were named after him. Mackay claims that while these legends are not the "true" origin of the name, that many places in the district have names associated with "The Tales of the Sons of Uisneach", and that the same tales have Conachar MacNessa's mother as the river goddess Ness. He argued instead that the etymology of the Celtic "Ness" derived from earlier words for "river".


title: Loch Ness

text: Loch Ness is known as the home of the Loch Ness Monster (also known as "Nessie"), a cryptid, reputedly a large unknown animal. It is similar to other supposed lake monsters in Scotland and elsewhere, though its description varies from one account to the next. Popular interest and belief in the animal's existence have varied since it was first brought to the world's attention in 1933.


title: Loch Ness

text: The following fish species are native to Loch Ness. A number of others such as perch and roach have been introduced in the Loch or Caledonian Canal with various levels of success.


title: Loch Ness

text: Loch Ness serves as the lower storage reservoir for the 300MW Foyers pumped-storage hydroelectric scheme, which opened in 1975. A smaller (5MW) power station nearby used to provide power for an aluminium smelting plant, but now electricity is generated and supplied to the National Grid. Another scheme, the 100-megawatt Glendoe Hydro Scheme near Fort Augustus, began generation in June 2009. It was out of service between 2009 and 2012 for repair of the tunnels connecting the reservoir to the turbines. The 450 MW / 2.8 GWh Red John project was approved in 2021. If funded at £550 million, it would store 5 million cubic meters of water near Dores.


title: Loch Ness

text: John Cobb died in an attempt at the water speed record when his boat "Crusader" struck an unexplained wake on the surface of the loch in 1952. His accident was recorded by the BBC reporters on site at the time. Nearby, there is a memorial to him erected by the people of Glenurquhart.


title: Loch Ness

text: On 31 August 1974, David Scott Munro, of Ross-shire Caberfeidh Water Ski Club, became the first person in the world to water ski (mono ski) the length of Loch Ness. From Lochend to Fort Augustus and back, he covered the in 77 minutes at an average speed of .


title: Loch Ness

text: In July 1966, Brenda Sherratt became the first person to swim the length of the loch. It took her 31 hours and 27 minutes to accomplish this feat.


title: Hebephilia

text: Hebephilia is the strong, persistent sexual interest by adults in pubescent children who are in early adolescence, typically ages 11–14 and showing Tanner stages 2 to 3 of physical development. It differs from pedophilia (the primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children), and from ephebophilia (the primary sexual interest in later adolescents, typically ages 15–19). While individuals with a sexual preference for adults may have some sexual interest in pubescent-aged individuals, researchers and clinical diagnoses have proposed that hebephilia is characterized by a sexual preference for pubescent rather than adult partners.


title: Hebephilia

text: Hebephilia is approximate in its age range because the onset and completion of puberty vary. On average, girls begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11 while boys begin at age 11 or 12. Partly because puberty varies, some definitions of chronophilias (sexual preference for a specific physiological appearance related to age) show overlap between pedophilia, hebephilia and ephebophilia. For example, the DSM-5 extends the prepubescent age to 13, and the ICD-10 includes early pubertal age in its definition of pedophilia.


title: Hebephilia

text: Proposals for categorizing hebephilia have argued that separating sexual attraction to prepubescent children from sexual attraction to early-to-mid or late pubescents is clinically relevant. According to research by Ray Blanchard "et al." (2009), male sex offenders could be separated into groups by victim age preference on the basis of penile plethysmograph response patterns. Based on their results, Blanchard suggested that the DSM-5 could account for these data by subdividing the existing diagnosis of pedophilia into hebephilia and a narrower definition of pedophilia. Blanchard's proposal to add hebephilia to the DSM-5 proved controversial, and was not adopted. It has not been widely accepted as a paraphilia or mental disorder, and there is significant academic debate as to whether it should be classified as either.


title: Hebephilia

text: The term "hebephilia" is based on the Greek goddess and protector of youth Hebe, but, in Ancient Greece, also referred to the time before manhood in Athens (depending on the reference, the specific age could be 14, 16 or 18 years old). The suffix "-philia" is derived from -phil-, implying love or strong friendship.


title: Hebephilia

text: Hebephilia is defined as a chronophilia in which an adult has a strong and persistent sexual interest in pubescent children, typically children aged 11–14, although the age of onset and completion of puberty vary. Although sexologist Ray Blanchard and others who proposed the hebephilia diagnosis have focused on pubescents in Tanner stages 2 and 3 (centering on children who have begun to show signs of pubertal development of sex characteristics but are not at or near the end of this process), discussion of hebephilia has also concerned attraction to pubescents and adolescents in general, which has contributed to confusion among those who have debated the topic.


title: Hebephilia

text: The DSM-5's diagnostic criteria for pedophilia and the general medical literature define pedophilia as a disorder of primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children, thus excluding hebephilia from its definition of pedophilia. However, the DSM-5's age criteria extends to age 13. Although the ICD-10 diagnostic code for the definition of pedophilia includes a sexual preference for children of prepubertal or early pubertal age, the ICD-11 states that "pedophilic disorder is characterized by a sustained, focused, and intense pattern of sexual arousal—as manifested by persistent sexual thoughts, fantasies, urges, or behaviours—involving pre-pubertal children." Because of some inconsistencies in definitions and differences in the physical development of children and adolescents, there is overlap between pedophilia, hebephilia and ephebophilia.


title: Hebephilia

text: The term "hebephilia" was first used in 1955, in forensic work by Hammer and Glueck. Anthropologist and ethno-psychiatrist Paul K. Benedict used the term to distinguish pedophiles from sex offenders whose victims were adolescents.


title: Hebephilia

text: Karen Franklin, a California forensic psychologist, interpreted "hebephilia" to be a variation of "ephebophilia", used by Magnus Hirschfeld in 1906 to describe homosexual attraction to males between puberty and their early twenties, who considered the condition normal and nonpathological. She said that, historically, adults being sexual with pubescents was considered distinct from other forms of criminal sexuality (such as rape), with wide variations within and across nations regarding what age was acceptable for adult-adolescent sexual contacts.


title: Hebephilia

text: Bernard Glueck Jr. conducted research on sex offenders at Sing Sing prison in the 1950s, using "hebephilia" as one of several classifications of subjects according to offense. In the 1960s, sexologist Kurt Freund used the term to distinguish between age preferences of heterosexual and homosexual men during penile plethysmograph assessments, continuing his work with Ray Blanchard at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) after emigrating to Canada in 1968.


title: Hebephilia

text: After Freund's death in 1996, researchers at CAMH conducted research on neurological explanations of pedophilia, transsexuality, and homosexuality, and based on this research, hypothesized that hebephiles could also be distinguished on the basis of neurological and physiological measures.


title: Hebephilia

text: Although hebephilia is distinct from pedophilia, the term "pedophilia" is commonly used by the general public and the media, at least in the English-speaking world, to refer to any sexual interest in minors below the local age of consent and/or age of majority, regardless of their level of physical or mental development.


title: Hebephilia

text: Multiple research studies have investigated the sexual attraction patterns of hebephilic and pedophilic men. The sexual attraction to children appears to fall along a continuum instead of being dichotomous. The attractions of hebephiles and pedophiles are less focused on the child's sex than are the attractions of teleiophiles (people who sexually prefer adults)—i.e., much larger proportions of hebephiles and pedophiles than teleiophiles report being attracted to both males and females.


title: Hebephilia

text: Hebephilia, together with pedophilia and some other paraphilias, has been found to be an important motivator of sexual offending. It also has a high degree of overlap with pedophilia, as well as with similar correlates of sexual offending.


title: Hebephilia

text: The Prevention Project Dunkelfeld is an effort founded in Germany to provide therapy and abuse prevention techniques to adults attracted to children. In a study of 222 men contacting the Dunkelfeld project for help, roughly two-thirds had a sexual interest in pubertal children. These men also reported experiencing high levels of psychological distress, at clinically relevant levels. Both the hebephiles and the pedophiles showed greater distress than teleiophiles, but they did not differ from each other.


title: Hebephilia

text: Researchers from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto conducted a series of studies on neurological and psychological correlates of hebephilia, including brain structure, handedness, intelligence quotient, lesser educational attainment or greater probability of repeating a year in primary education, height, and other markers of atypical physical development.


title: Hebephilia

text: These findings suggest that problems during prenatal development play a significant role in the development of hebephilia. In some cases, head trauma during pre-pubertal childhood, or experiencing sexual abuse during puberty, could also be contributing factors. Differences in brain structure may mean that hebephilic interests result from disconnections in the brain networks that recognize and react to sexual cues.


title: Hebephilia

text: The prevalence of hebephilia within the general population is unknown. There is evidence suggesting that within clinical and correctional samples, as well as anonymous surveys of people sexually interested in children, there are more individuals with an erotic interest in pubescent rather than in prepubescent children.


title: Hebephilia

text: The DSM-5's diagnostic criteria for pedophilia specifies it as a disorder of sexual interest in prepubescent children generally age 13 years or younger. A 2009 research paper by Ray Blanchard and colleagues indicated that, based on penile plethysmographs, sex offenders could be grouped according to the sexual maturity of individuals they found most attractive (because ages are not a specific indication of adolescent sexual development, Blanchard used stimuli with a Tanner scale rating of 1 on essentially all measures to evaluate hebephilic offenders while adult control stimuli all had a Tanner rating of 5). Blanchard noted that the most common age of victims for sexual offenders was 14 years, and suggested there were qualitative differences between offenders who preferred pubertal sex-objects and those with a prepubertal preference. The paper concluded that the DSM-5 could better account for those data if it split the DSM-IV-TR's existing criteria for pedophilia, which focuses on sexual attraction to prepubescent children, but sets the age range at generally 13 or younger.


title: Hebephilia

text: Blanchard suggested the criteria be split into "pedophilia" as sexual attraction to prepubescent children who are generally younger than 11, and "hebephilia" as sexual attraction to pubescent children, generally 11–14 years old. What the DSM-IV calls "pedophilia" would instead be termed "pedohebephilia", with pedophilic and hebephilic sub-types. The proposed criteria for the DSM-5 involved an adult who, for six or more months, experienced sexual attraction to prepubescent or pubescent children that was equal to or greater than their attraction to adults, and who also either found the attraction distressing, used child pornography or had sought sexual stimulation from a child, on at least three occasions in the case of the hebephilic type. The proposed criteria would have been applied to subjects aged 18 or older and who are at least five years older than children to whom they are typically attracted. The sexual and gender identity working group justified inclusion of the use of child pornography due to the expectation that pedohebephilic individuals would deny their sexual preferences, leaving it up to the diagnosing clinician to make inferences whether their patients are more interested in children than adults. The altered wording (from "prepubescent" to "prepubescent and pubescent") and reference age (from a maximum age of 13 to 14) would change how pedophilia was diagnosed to include victims with Tanner scale ratings of 2 or 3 who had partially developed some secondary sexual characteristics.


title: Hebephilia

text: Researchers at the German Dunkelfeld project supported the explicit mention of hebephilia in DSM-5: "Concerning the update of the DSM (DSM-5) a category called 'hebephilic disorder' would have been appropriate, especially considering the given data which shows that in men with a hebephilic preference, who seek treatment, the disorder criteria of the DSM-5 (psychological distress, behavior endangering others) are given in many cases. In this respect there would be men with hebephilia as well as men with a 'hebephilic disorder.'"


title: Hebephilia

text: In a letter to the editor, Thomas Zander argued there would be serious consequences from expanding the definition of pedophilia to include hebephilia, and stated that there are problems in distinguishing between prepubescent versus pubescent victims and thus in classifying offenders, and concluded that it required more research and consideration of implications before the DSM was changed. Blanchard agreed that distinguishing between pedophiles and hebephiles may present difficulties, but stated that in the case of a repeat sexual offender, these fine distinctions would be less important; he noted that other objections raised by Zander's letter were addressed in the original article. In another letter to the editor, physician Charles Moser agreed with Blanchard et al.'s premise that there was a distinction between sex offenders who preferred pubescent versus prepubescent victims and supported the term's usefulness in conducting research, but questioned whether hebephilia would represent a true paraphilia.


title: Hebephilia

text: Karen Franklin stated that she believes the concept is largely the result of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, although CAMH scientist and pedophilia researcher James Cantor challenged her factual accuracy, citing the existence of the concept in the ICD-10, the use of the word in 100 scholarly texts from a variety of disciplines and time periods, and the existence of 32 peer reviewed papers researching the concept. Psychologist Skye Stephens and sexologist Michael C. Seto also argue that because the ICD-10 includes "prepubertal or early pubertal age" in its classification of pedophilia, it includes both pedophilic and hebephilic sexual interests.


title: Hebephilia

text: At a 2009 meeting of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, concern was raised that the criteria could have produced both false positives and false negatives, and that hebephilia as a DSM diagnosis could pathologize sex offenders who have opportunistically preyed on pubescent victims but do not have a paraphilic attachment to a specific age of victim, while excluding offenders who had committed serious offences on only one or two victims. During academic conferences for the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law and International Association for the Treatment of Sexual Offenders, symbolic votes were taken regarding whether the DSM-5 should include pedohebephilia, and in both cases an overwhelming majority voted against this.


title: Hebephilia

text: In a letter to the editor, clinical psychologist Joseph Plaud criticized the study for lacking control groups for post-pubescent and normal patterns of male sexual arousal, overlap between groups Blanchard believed were separate, and lack of specificity in the data. Blanchard replied that the initial publication used sex offenders who had committed crimes against post-pubescent adults as a control group, and that the results supported victim age preferences being a continuous rather than categorical variable. In separate letters to the editor, forensic psychologist Gregory DeClue and mathematician Philip Tromovitch agreed the term would be valuable for research purposes and to subdivide the current diagnosis of pedophilia into victim age preferences, but expressed concern over the term's potential to dramatically expand the number of people diagnosed with a paraphilia without an adequate research base to support it, and that the article did not include a definition of "mental disorder" and thus lacked the ability to distinguish the pathological from the non-pathological. Blanchard stated in a reply that his paper was written under the assumptions that the DSM-5's definition of mental disorder and pathologizing of sexual activity with underaged individuals would be similar to the one found in the DSM-IV.


title: Hebephilia

text: Child sexual abuse researcher William O'Donohue believes, based on the incentive for offenders to lie, that there is a risk of false negatives. O'Donohue praised Blanchard et al.'s proposal to distinguish hebephilia from pedophilia, but questioned the inclusion of offender distress, the use of child pornography as a determining factor and requiring a minimum of three victims, believing the latter choice would result in delayed treatment for hebephiles who have not acted on their urges while ignoring the often hidden nature of child sexual abuse. O'Donohue also had concerns over how information for making decisions about the proposed diagnosis would be acquired, whether the diagnosis could be made with reliability and sufficient agreement between clinicians and issues related to treatment.


title: Hebephilia

text: Debate about hebephilia has also concerned whether the attraction is normal or abnormal. Karen Franklin has criticized use of the term "hebephilia" for pathologizing and criminalizing an adaptation, arguing that the concept stigmatizes a "widespread and, indeed, evolutionarily adaptive" sexual attraction of homosexual and heterosexual males who, across cultures and throughout history "tend to prefer youthful partners who are at the peak of both beauty and reproductive fertility".


title: Hebephilia

text: Commenting on Blanchard et al.'s proposal, psychologists Robert Prentky and Howard Barbaree stated that examples of highly sexualized young girls appear frequently in advertising, fashion shows, television programs, and films, making it questionable whether sexual attraction to pubescents is abnormal. Psychiatrist Allen Frances argued that attraction to pubescent individuals is within the normal range of human behavior and thus could not be considered sexually deviant, though acting on such attraction could be considered a crime. Thomas Zander also expressed concern about the degree to which the potential diagnosis genuinely reflected normal versus abnormal sexual desire.


title: Hebephilia

text: Blanchard argued that critics of his proposal were performing a "rhetorical sleight-of-hand" that conflated sexual attraction with sexual preference, arguing that while normal men may show some degree of attraction to pubescents, they overwhelmingly prefer physically mature adults. In contrast, hebephiles have an "equal or greater" sexual preference for pubescents compared to physically mature adults. He responded to Franklin's comment, writing that presumably Franklin's "adaptationist argument" applied only to heterosexual males, as homosexual hebephilia would have no reproductive advantages. Blanchard cited recent research he had conducted regarding the alleged reproductive success of hebephiles, pedophiles and individuals attracted primarily or exclusively to adults. The results indicated that teleiophiles had more children, and thus more adaptive success than hebephiles, while hebephiles had more success than pedophiles. From this, Blanchard concluded that "there is no empirical basis for the hypothesis that hebephilia was associated with increased reproductive success in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness. That speculative adaptationist argument against the inclusion of hebephilia in the DSM cannot be sustained".


title: Hebephilia

text: Some authors have argued that dysfunction is culturally relative or a social construct, such as by pointing to historical societies where marriage between pubescent girls and older men was practiced. Anthropologist David Ryniker wrote that cultures that practiced marriage between adult men and pubescent girls did so for economic and social reasons, not due to any sexual preference. He argued that, based on the biological evidence, humans did not evolve a strategy of early fertility, and that a sexual focus on pubescents would be maladaptive. Anthropologist Raymond Hames and Blanchard argued that in most cultures, pubescent girls did not begin sexual activity until they were at or near the end of puberty.


title: Hebephilia

text: Stephens and Seto argue that hebephilia can be considered dysfunctional, stating that "conceptually, hebephilia is a paraphilia, reflecting an atypical (statistically rare) sexual age interest in pubescent children." They state that hebephilia is a malfunction of the biological mechanism which drives males to be attracted to sexually mature females, and that while typical men are attracted to youthfulness, they are also interested in cues of sexual maturity (adult size, fully developed breasts, and a waist-to-hip ratio of around 0.70). Hebephiles, by contrast, respond positively to cues of youthfulness but negatively to cues of sexual maturity. Penile plethysmography results show that heterosexual men are preferentially attracted to adult women, with lower responses to pubescent girls and then prepubescent girls, and then males of all ages causing the least response. Stephens and Seto also argue that hebephilia is dysfunctional because it causes significant distress or impairment in those who have it, perhaps via legal issues or disrupted adult relationships, because hebephilic behavior violates social norms or is even illegal in most contemporary cultures.


title: Hebephilia

text: Forensic psychologist Charles Patrick Ewing criticized the diagnosis, saying it is a transparent attempt to ensure that sex offenders who target pubescent teenagers may be subject to involuntary civil commitment. DSM-IV editors Michael First and Allen Frances expressed concern that hebephilia could be misused in civil commitment hearings, and questioned the need and evidence for the inclusion. Frances wrote that the diagnosis of hebephilia "has no place in forensic proceedings." Charles Moser argued against what he saw as the problematic use of paraphilic labels to pathologize unusual sexual interests and incarcerate individuals on the basis of their paraphilia rather than their behavior. He also questioned the usefulness of paraphilias in general when the real issue may be criminal behaviors or stigmatization of unusual but benign sexual acts. Of hebephilia in civil commitment, Prentky and Barbaree wrote, "Hence, for self-serving reasons, it is applauded by those who generally work for the prosecution and criticized by those who generally work for the defense. This is an admittedly cynical, if unfortunately accurate, commentary on the influence of adversarial litigation on clinical deliberation."


title: Hebephilia

text: Psychologist Douglas Tucker and lawyer Samuel Brakel stated that civil commitment as a sexually violent predator does not require a DSM diagnosis, so long as the clinicians who testify in courts do so in good faith and they identify a conceptually and empirically meaningful mental abnormality that is predictive of future sexual violence, irrespective of the term used.


title: Hebephilia

text: Some courts have accepted the hebephilia diagnosis while others have not. In court cases where the term "hebephilia" is used, it is placed within the DSM category of paraphilia, not otherwise specified (NOS). The diagnosis of hebephilia was rejected in one United States federal court in 2009 for being a label, not a "generally accepted mental disorder" and because a mere attraction to pubescent adolescents is not indicative of a mental disorder. Although the court rejected the government's claim that hebephilia is a mental disorder, the government argued that hebephilia may at times fall within a DSM-IV category of NOS. The court was also unconvinced by this.


title: Hebephilia

text: One case that went to the courts due to the sex offender's hebephilia was Malaysian engineer Yap Weng Wah, who gained notoreity for raping a total of 45 boys aged between 11 and 15, with the majority of the victims—31 of them—coming from Singapore and the rest from Malaysia. Yap's rapes lasted two years and seven months from November 2009 to June 2012 before his arrest in September 2012, and he was assessed to have a high risk of re-offending when the High Court of Singapore received the psychiatric report which diagnosed Yap as hebephilic. Yap befriended his victims through Facebook and had used fake identities to slowly get to know his victims before he cajoled the boys into allowing him to have sex with them; the crimes had made headlines nationwide in Singapore and the case was known to be one of the worst sexual crimes committed against pubescent boys in Singapore. After pleading guilty to 12 out of 76 charges related to the sexual penetration of his victims, Yap was sentenced to 30 years in prison and received 24 strokes of the cane in March 2015.


title: Hebephilia

text: Also in Singapore, another hebephilic offender, Malaysian Clement Tan Jun Yan, was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment with no caning on 1 April 2021 for molesting two boys aged 13 and 15 respectively between 2 August to 23 October 2020, and having touched their private parts without their consent. The 21-year-old man, who pleaded guilty to these molestations, had also committed two similar offences on two other boys prior to his capture and trial, and he admitted to having these hebephilic sexual interests and had viewed pornographic materials featuring boys aged above 13, according to a psychiatric report from the Institute of Mental Health (IMH). He claimed that he was stressed at work and this led to him losing his control over his hebephilic sexual interests and thus committing these offences in a moment of folly. The boys were not named in the media due to their ages. Tan was sentenced on the same day as another unrelated sexual offender—60-year-old Singaporean Mohamed Taha bin Ahmad—who also molested a boy (a 12-year-old minor) in October 2020 and thus received a jail term of 14 months.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Manstein (born Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Lewinski; 24 November 1887 – 9 June 1973) was a German Field Marshal of the "Wehrmacht" during the Second World War, who was subsequently convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: Born into an aristocratic Prussian family with a long history of military service, Manstein joined the army at a young age and saw service on both the Western and Eastern Front during the First World War (1914–18). He rose to the rank of captain by the end of the war and was active in the inter-war period helping Germany rebuild its armed forces. In September 1939, during the invasion of Poland at the beginning of the Second World War, he was serving as Chief of Staff to Gerd von Rundstedt's Army Group South. Adolf Hitler chose Manstein's strategy for the invasion of France of May 1940, a plan later refined by Franz Halder and other members of the OKH.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: Anticipating a firm Allied reaction should the main thrust of the invasion take place through the Netherlands, Manstein devised an innovative operationlater known as the "Sichelschnitt" ("sickle cut")that called for an attack through the woods of the Ardennes and a rapid drive to the English Channel, thus cutting off the French and Allied armies in Belgium and Flanders. Attaining the rank of general at the end of the campaign, he was active in the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. He led the Axis forces in the siege of Sevastopol (1941–1942) and the Battle of the Kerch Peninsula, and was promoted to field marshal on 1 July 1942, after which he participated in the siege of Leningrad.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: Germany's fortunes in the war had taken an unfavourable turn in December 1941, and in the following year during the catastrophic Battle of Stalingrad, Manstein commanded a failed relief effort ("Operation Winter Storm") in December. Later known as the "backhand blow", Manstein's counteroffensive in the Third Battle of Kharkov (February–March 1943) regained substantial territory and resulted in the destruction of three Soviet armies and the retreat of three others. He was one of the primary commanders at the Battle of Kursk (July–August 1943). His ongoing disagreements with Hitler over the conduct of the war led to his dismissal in March 1944. He never obtained another command and was taken prisoner by the British in August 1945, three months after Germany's defeat.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: Manstein gave testimony at the main Nuremberg trials of war criminals in August 1946, and prepared a paper that, along with his later memoirs, helped cultivate the myth of the clean "Wehrmacht"the myth that the German armed forces were not culpable for the atrocities of the Holocaust. In 1949 he was tried in Hamburg for war crimes and was convicted on nine of seventeen counts, including the poor treatment of prisoners of war and failing to protect civilian lives in his sphere of operations. His sentence of eighteen years in prison was later reduced to twelve, and he served only four years before being released in 1953.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: As a military advisor to the West German government in the mid-1950s, he helped re-establish the armed forces. His memoir, "Verlorene Siege" (1955), translated into English as "Lost Victories", was highly critical of Hitler's leadership, and dealt with only the military aspects of the war, ignoring its political and ethical contexts. Manstein died near Munich in 1973.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: Manstein was born Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Lewinski in Berlin, the tenth son of a Prussian aristocrat and artillery general, Eduard von Lewinski (1829–1906), and Helene von Sperling (1847–1910). His father's family had Kashubian ancestry and was entitled to use the Brochwicz coat of arms (Brochwicz III). Hedwig von Sperling (1852–1925), Helene's younger sister, was married to Lieutenant General Georg von Manstein (1844–1913); the couple was unable to have children, so they adopted Erich. They had previously adopted Erich's cousin Martha, the daughter of Helene's and Hedwig's deceased brother.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: Manstein's biological and adoptive fathers were both Prussian generals, as were his mother's brother and both his grandfathers (His paternal grandfather, Albrecht Gustav von Manstein, had led a corps in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, and maternal grandfather, Oskar von Sperling, was the chief of staff of First Army). Sixteen relatives on each side of his family were military officers, many of whom rose to the rank of general. Paul von Hindenburg, the future "Generalfeldmarschall" and President of Germany, was his uncle; Hindenburg's wife, Gertrud, was the sister of Hedwig and Helene.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: Manstein attended the Imperial "Lyzeum", a Catholic "Gymnasium" in Strasbourg, from 1894 to 1899. Then he entered the cadet corps. As a cadet, Manstein was reported to be intelligent and capable. In March 1906, after six years in the cadet corps in Plön and Groß-Lichterfelde, he was commissioned into the Third Foot Guards Regiment ("Garde zu Fuß") as an ensign. He was promoted to lieutenant in January 1907 and in October 1913 began the three-year officer training programme at the Prussian War Academy. However, Manstein only completed the first year of the programme, as when the First World War began in August 1914 all students of the academy were ordered to report for active service. He never completed the remainder of his general staff officer training.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: During the First World War, Manstein served on both the German Western and Eastern Fronts. At the beginning of the war, he was promoted to lieutenant and participated in the invasion of Belgium with the 2nd Guard Reserve Infantry Regiment. In August 1914, he took part in the capture of Namur, the site of a massive citadel surrounded by outlying forts. In September, Manstein's unit was one of two transferred to East Prussia and attached to the Eighth Army, commanded by Hindenburg. After seeing action in the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes, his unit was soon reassigned to the Ninth Army, which was in the process of advancing from Upper Silesia to Warsaw. Overstretched, the Ninth Army was forced to withdraw in the face of a Russian counterattack, and on 16 November, Manstein was wounded during the retreat when he was among a detachment that stormed a Russian entrenchment. He was shot in the left shoulder and the left knee; one bullet hit his sciatic nerve, causing the leg to be numb. Recovery took six months in hospital in Beuthen and Wiesbaden.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: After a period of home leave, on 17 June 1915, Manstein was reassigned as an assistant general staff officer of operations to the Tenth Army, commanded by Max von Gallwitz. Soon promoted to captain, he learned first-hand how to plan and conduct offensive operations as the Tenth Army undertook successful attacks on Poland, Lithuania, Montenegro, and Albania. During offensive operations at Verdun in early 1916, Manstein was stationed with Gallwitz and his staff at a new headquarters near the action. He next served as a staff supply officer under General Fritz von Below and chief of staff Fritz von Lossberg at a command post near the River Somme; the area was the scene of several battles over the course of the war. British and French operations from July to November 1916 forced a German withdrawal over the winter to the Hindenburg Line, a series of defensive positions between Verdun and Lens. Manstein continued to serve under Below until October 1917, when he was transferred as chief of staff to the 4th Cavalry Division, serving in Riga during the German occupation of the area. As a result of the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918, Manstein's unit was no longer needed on the Eastern Front; he was reassigned to the 213th Infantry Division near Reims. The German Imperial Army saw some minor successes in the area but was beginning to lose the war. The armistice was signed on 11 November 1918.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: Manstein married Jutta Sibylle von Loesch, the daughter of a Silesian landowner, in 1920. He proposed marriage after having known her for only three days. She died in 1966. They had three children: a daughter, Gisela (born 1921), and two sons, Gero (born 1922) and Rüdiger (born 1929). Gero died on the battlefield in the northern sector of the Eastern Front on 29 October 1942 while serving as a lieutenant in the "Wehrmacht". Gisela was married to Major Edel-Heinrich Zachariae-Lingenthal, a highly decorated officer who commanded II. Panzer-Regiment 15 during the Second World War.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: Manstein remained in the armed forces after the war ended. In 1918 he volunteered for a staff position with the Frontier Defence Force in Breslau and served there until 1919. As part of "Gruppenkommando" II, he participated in the restructuring of the German Imperial Army of 500,000 men into the "Reichswehr", the army of the Weimar Republic (restricted to 100,000 men by the Versailles Treaty). Recognised from an early age as a talented and intelligent commander, Manstein was chosen as one of only 4,000 officers permitted under the treaty. In 1921 he was appointed company commander of the sixth company of the 5th Prussian Infantry Regiment and next served as a staff officer for "Wehrkreiskommando" II and IV, teaching military history and tactics until 1927. That year he was promoted to major and served with the General Staff at the "Reichswehr" Ministry in Berlin, visiting other countries to learn about their military facilities and helping to draft mobilisation plans for the army. Promoted to lieutenant colonel, he was given command of the light infantry battalion of the 4th Infantry Regiment, serving with that unit until 1934. In 1933 the Nazi Party seized power in Germany, thus ending the Weimar period. In violation of the Versailles treaty, the "Reichswehr" had been secretly re-arming since the 1920s; the new government formally renounced the Treaty and proceeded with large scale German re-armament and expansion of the military.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: Manstein was moved back to Berlin as full colonel in February 1934, serving as chief of staff of "Wehrkreiskommando" III. On 1 July 1935 he was appointed the Head of the Operations Branch of the Army General Staff ("Generalstab des Heeres"), part of the Army High Command ("Oberkommando des Heeres" – OKH). During his tenure there, Manstein was one of the people responsible for the development of "Fall Rot" (Case Red), a defensive plan to protect Germany from attack by France. During this period Manstein came into contact with Heinz Guderian and Oswald Lutz, who advocated drastic changes in warfare, emphasising the role of the Panzer. However, officers like Ludwig Beck, Chief of the Army General Staff, were against such drastic changes, and therefore Manstein proposed an alternative: the development of "Sturmgeschütze" (StuG), self-propelled assault guns that would provide heavy direct-fire support to infantry. In World War II, the resulting StuG vehicles proved to be among the most successful and cost-effective German weapons.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: He was promoted to Generalmajor in October 1936, becoming the Deputy Chief of Staff ("Oberquartiermeister I") to General Beck. On 4 February 1938, Manstein was transferred to the command of the 18th Infantry Division in Liegnitz, Silesia, with the rank of Generalleutnant. The transfer meant that Manstein did not receive Beck's post as Chief of the Army General Staff that August (Beck had resigned, in spite of Manstein's urgings not to do so, as he felt Hitler's intended invasion of Czechoslovakia that October would be premature). The position was given to General Franz Halder, who had taken Manstein's former post as Deputy Chief of Staff. The incident created a lasting hatred between the two men. On 20 April 1939, Manstein delivered a speech at the celebration of Hitler's 50th birthday, in which he praised Hitler as a leader sent by God to save Germany. He warned the "hostile world" that if it kept erecting "ramparts around Germany to block the way of the German people towards their future", then he would be quite happy to see the world plunged into another world war. Israeli historian Omer Bartov notes that the rise of officers such as Manstein was part of a tendency for technocratic officers, usually ardent Nazis, to come to the fore; his opinion is that the "Wehrmacht" was fully integrated into Nazi Germany, not a separate apolitical organisation independent of the Nazi regime.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: On 18 August 1939, in preparation for "Fall Weiss" (Case White)the German invasion of PolandManstein was appointed Chief of Staff to Gerd von Rundstedt's Army Group South. Here he worked along with Rundstedt's Chief of Operations, Colonel Günther Blumentritt, to develop the operational plan. Rundstedt accepted Manstein's plan calling for the concentration of the majority of the army group's armoured units into Walther von Reichenau's 10th Army, with the objective of a decisive breakthrough which would lead to the encirclement of Polish forces west of the River Vistula. In Manstein's plan, two other armies comprising Army Group South, Wilhelm List's 14th Army, and Johannes Blaskowitz's 8th Army, would provide flank support for Reichenau's armoured thrust towards Warsaw, the Polish capital. Privately, Manstein was lukewarm about the Polish campaign, thinking that it would be better to keep Poland as a buffer between Germany and the Soviet Union. He also worried about an Allied attack from the west once the Polish campaign was underway, which would draw Germany into a two-front war.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: Manstein took part in a conference on 22 August 1939 where Hitler underlined to his commanders the need for the physical destruction of Poland as a nation. After the war, he would state in his memoirs that he did not recognise at the time of this meeting that Hitler was going to pursue a policy of extermination against the Poles. He did become aware of the policy later on, as he and other "Wehrmacht" generals received reports on the activities of the "Einsatzgruppen", the "Schutzstaffel" (SS) death squads tasked with following the army into Poland to murder intellectuals and other civilians. These squads were also assigned to round up Jews and others for relocation to ghettos and Nazi concentration camps. Manstein later faced three charges of war crimes relating to Jewish and civilian deaths in the sectors under his control, and the mistreatment and deaths of prisoners of war.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: Launched on 1 September 1939, the invasion began successfully. In Army Group South's area of responsibility under Rundstedt, the 8th, 10th and 14th Armies pursued the retreating Poles. The initial plan was for the 8th Army, the northernmost of the three, to advance towards Łódź. The 10th Army, with its motorised divisions, was to move quickly towards the Vistula, and the 14th Army was to advance and attempt to encircle the Polish troops in the Kraków area. These actions led to the encirclement and defeat of Polish forces in the Radom area on 8–14 September by six German corps. Meanwhile, the German Eighth Army was under attack from the north, so elements of the Fourth, Eighth and Tenth Armies were quickly redeployed with air support in an improvised attempt to cut off any Polish break-out back towards Warsaw. The flexibility and agility of the German forces led to the defeat of nine Polish infantry divisions and other units in the resulting Battle of the Bzura (8–19 September), the largest engagement of the war thus far. The conquest of Poland was quickly over, with the last Polish military units surrendering on 6 October.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: "Fall Gelb" ("Case Yellow"), the initial plan for the invasion of France, was prepared by Commander-in-Chief of the Army Colonel General ("Generaloberst") Walther von Brauchitsch, Halder, and other members of the OKH in early October 1939. Like the Schlieffen Plan of World War I, it called for an encirclement attack through the Netherlands and Belgium. Hitler was not satisfied, so revisions of the plan continued throughout October. Manstein was not satisfied with the plan either, as it focused heavily on the northern wing; he felt an attack from this direction would lack the element of surprise and would expose the German forces to counterattacks from the south. The terrain in Belgium was not well-suited as a base of operations for further attacks on France, so Manstein felt the operation would fail to wipe out the enemyas it did in the First World Warleading to only partial success and trench warfare. By the end of October Manstein had prepared the outline of a different plan and submitted it to the OKH via his superior, Rundstedt, for whom he was now serving as chief of staff of Army Group A.


title: Erich von Manstein

text: Manstein's plan, developed with the informal co-operation of Heinz Guderian, suggested that the Panzer divisions attack through the wooded hills of the Ardennes where no one would expect them, then establish bridgeheads on the Meuse and rapidly drive to the English Channel. The "Wehrmacht" would thus cut off the French and Allied armies in Belgium and Flanders. This part of the plan later became known as the "Sichelschnitt" ("sickle cut"). Manstein's proposal also included a second thrust outflanking the Maginot Line, which would allow the "Wehrmacht" to force any future defensive line much further south.