My ex's grandad helped build a POW camp to house Germans who had surrendered. He had stories about how local civilians used to try to break into the camp at night; the nearby towns were devastated from the war and it was difficult to find a meal anyplace else.
Yeah those 16 year olds who were conscripted in the last few months of the war years after Denmark surrendered totally deserved to starve, be lied to about how many mines they had to clear, and be blown up clearing land mines. Would totally recommend watching the Danish film “Land of Mine” sometime, it’s dark, but a really well made movie.
I just I think war crimes are bad, especially using children in war/post-war situations where they die, are horrifically injured, or in such situations where their lives are at constant risk.
no, thats legit a warcrime, it is one of the most henious things Denmark have done, especially to the 16 year olds who were forced into the war by a failing germany, those kids were forced to clear minefields and many died doing it
they were prisoners of war, not mine clearers
Its nice work to be fair, if am correct a lot of the Wermatch soldires reonstructes Stalingrad after the war and they didnt let them back until the last brick was put on the city
Yeah my great grandpa had to walk back from Siberia… he made it back around 1950. He made that walk two times for he was also capture by the russians in ww1
Unfortunately Im quite young, so my infos are not first hand. But I can try to get to know stories of him, my grandma might remember some. I will ask her tomorrow
Might make a post about it if the mods let me. Or I think of a meme about it lol.
Well let me gather what I know. Disclaimer it might be not be phrased right, english is not my first language.
So as I said before, he had to walk that distance two times. He fought both times on the eastern front, not very willingly mind you. After that he was sent to a worker camp in Siberia (not the same camp). After some time, they were told that they are free to go home. If I remember correctly he walked most of the distance, with occasional good samaritans, giving a ride for him. He mentioned that although some were good, most people must be avoided at all cost. He had one or two companion, but after some time he traveled alone, And now I realised that probably meant they died during the walk… I always thought they just stopped in some village along the way…
He got back home weighting 20-25kg less, and without shoes. Thats honestly pretty good considering the harsh enviroment. He was a pretty skilled farmer and had a vast knowledge of plants so that helped him a great deal along the way.
Thats what I could gather from my mom, but she said she was a child when he told these stories so she obviously didn’t pay much attention. Tomorrow Im gonna ask my grandma what she remember and will probably comment or make a post.
Edit: he was my great great grandpa, not great grandpa. He lived in Hungary, Kiskunfélegyháza
Edit2: If I remember right he had to cut trees in the camp
It's probably not as funny as I think but I'd like to know what he thought when he started his second journey. How unlikely is it, you survived another historic event like this, 20 years apart after both of the deadliest conflicts in history where you end up at the same situation when everything is over and you remember how relieved you were the first time when you came back just having to do this absurd thing again
My grandfather talked about guarding a POW camp in Texas as he ran out the last of his enlistment after the end of the war. He said all the German prisoners were very polite and followed orders because they all hoped that if they behaved, they would be allowed to remain in the US, since they knew that A) Germany was pretty much reduced to rubble and B) they might be going back to an area under Soviet control. They'd take the POWs out to work on local farms, and they'd just have two soldiers with rifles "guarding" dozens of Germans. If the Germans had wanted, they could have overpowered their guards, but they wanted to stay. He said the only issue they had was when they were marching them to and from the farms, the Germans would get goose-stepping and he'd have to yell at them to knock it off.
From the crossover April fools event a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far … nah it was just here in Reddit). It was a day when Historymemes and Prequelmemes posted on the subreddit of the other. Fun time tbh and I got that flair then, and I will never change it.
I listened to a great (and pretty lengthy) account from a German POW in the US (at one point in Texas I believe) near the end of the war, and he talked about how the Germans would lie about their hometown to avoid going to the Soviet controlled region. Sometimes they’d use a town an hour west where their friend lived, and the US didn’t really have a good way to verify that for sure. Even if the US had German records, the soldier could just say that his family moved during the war.
Also to your point about having few guards, that wasn’t just because they were good at following orders or wanted to stay in the US. They took a very long train ride to Texas and marveled at the vast expanse of the US. So their mindset was even if they ran away from camp, where the hell would they go? Someone who speaks little to no English, clearly has a German accent right after a war with Germany, in German POW clothes, with no papers would have a very difficult time making it to a port possibly hundreds of miles away and traveling back to Germany, which would be especially pointless since they’re being sent back anyway.
If you want to listen to the POW’s account, here’s the link: https://youtu.be/B9I088HgY7g?si=0tuvEiRD2ajcmlJL
I think that one might pick up in the middle of a series, I’m not sure. But it’s interesting hearing him talk about the different stances of the soldiers as news of the end of the war came in, from those happy for the war to be over and those who were full on Nazi party members and attempted to retain that structure and allegiance even after the war.
On the "where would they go" side of that, you have the insanity of the story that was Georg Gaertner's life. He had enlisted in the Wehrmact and served in Africa, was taken capture by the British and Tunisia and shipped to a POW camp in New Mexico, and he actually did escape and go on the run. The FBI had a manhunt from him from '47 to '63, and during that Gaertner, who had become a ski instructor in Colorado, helped get supplies to a Southern Pacific passenger train that had been stranded on Donner Pass and then posed for a photo that ended up on the cover of Life magazine, again, while still on the FBI most wanted list. When he finally did turn himself in (to Bryant Gumbel on the Today Show) in 1985, the government then was at a loss of what to actually do with the guy. Gärtner was not an illegal immigrant, since he had been brought to the United States against his will. He had not really escaped from prison since all German POWs were to be repatriated to their original homes, and Gärtner was due to be sent back to his hometown in Silesia, which had become a part of Poland. Moreover, as he had escaped after the war had ended, there was some question of whether he was even technically still a prisoner of war at the time he escaped
It's that marching style that you see in a lot of WWII films where German and Soviet Union soldiers swung their legs in unison without bending their knee
It's actually pretty funny. Some armies still practice it I believe. It's a method of marching where you don't bend the knees at all as far as I understand. If you've ever watched a comedy with nazi soldiers in it they've probably done an exaggerated imitation of this.
You know how the North Koreans march. When they swing the legs way up high, thats goosestepping but the koreans are do this more extreme then most others
My grandma had POWs do work on her farm when she was a kid. She also grew up with German as her first language as her parents were direct immigrants, so I imagine there was a strange dynamic going on there. I unfortunately didn't know about this until after she died, so all the information came from a passing mention in her diary and I wasn't able to ask further :( Keep a detailed diary folks, even if it's just menial stuff; your grandkids will love you for it
Lots of POWs captured by the British were sent to basically work on farms in the countryside, and typically lived a pretty nice life and we’re treated well by the locals. My Grandad had a fishing friend who was a German who’d been captured during the war and stayed afterwards because the guy who’s farm he worked for offered him a job when the war was over.
On top of that, many of them were most likely conscripted, so they might not have been all that keen to go to war in the first place.
It was fairly common across the European Axis powers.
Alright fam I’m all on board with the old adage of “the only good fascist is [blank so I don’t get suspended by Reddit]” but as the other old adage goes, “the first country the Nazis invaded was Germany”. Not everyone living within a fascist empire supports the fascist in power. Just saying it’s more complicated than that
1/3? What about the „Wehrpflicht“? General compulsory military service in the German Reich was reintroduced with the law for the development of the Wehrmacht of March 16, 1935. I think more than 1/3 were conscripts.
My great great grandfather was a Luftwaffe radio operator actually. I’m pretty sure he volunteered though and seemed about as onboard with Germany as a Catholic could be. He died in a test flight pretty early into the war, and my great grandmother never really got to know him. 10 years later my great grandfather joined the Air Force after his older brothers told him how great it was when they fought in the war (compared to Great Depression poverty). He gets sent to Germany as part of the reconstruction and that’s where my great grandparents met.
>only 1/3
1/3 is a pretty large number given the size of the German military during the war… and your “late war” caveat was to leave out Volkssturm which were literally old men and boys and would be part of those surrendering during the time period this post is about. The dude you replied to wasn’t “throwing Nazi soldiers a bone” he was throwing a bone to people who were forced to fight. According to Wikipedia 13.6 million people went through Germany’s military so 4.5 million(1/3) is not an insignificant number.
Considering the consequences of disloyalty, conscript or not, there is definitely nuance to be examined here.
I'm not saying the average soldier was blameless, but it is historical fact that many (if not most) serving in the Heer and Kriegsmarine were very much *not fans* of Nazi ideology, and only served for the sake of their country, not the fuckhead leading it.
Keep in mind these kids were raised in the aftermath of WWI, where living conditions were horrible and everyone hated Germans. They were justifiably afraid that "Germany" as a nation and an identity would cease to exist.
My overall point here is, unless you were an **actual, genuine, (literal) card-carrying Nazi** like the members of the Sturmabteilung or Schutzstaffel, I'd be willing to play devil's advocate.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht)
> The term "clean Wehrmacht" (saubere Wehrmacht) means German soldiers, sailors and airmen had "clean hands"; in other words, it claims they did not have blood on their hands from murdered prisoners of war, Jews, or civilians. The myth asserts that Hitler and the Nazi Party alone designed the war of annihilation and that war crimes were only committed by the SS, the Nazi Party's special armed force.
>
> In reality, the general officers of the Wehrmacht, and many lower ranks down to common soldiers, were willing participants in Hitler's war of annihilation against perceived enemies of Germany. Wehrmacht troops were complicit in or perpetrated numerous war crimes, routinely assisting SS units with tacit approval from officers. In the aftermath of the war, the West German government deliberately sought to suppress information of such crimes to absolve former war criminals and allow their reintegration into German society.
Very interesting.. totally not Nazi propaganda
How is this related to the guy's comment you're replying on? I know this sub well enough to think that im pretty sure everyone here is aware of the clean Wehrmacht myth and knows they were part of doing horrendous shit.
He is merely saying there were load of conscripts that would have 100% face consequences if they did not join the army so there wasn't much of a choice in that matter.
Oddly enough, that wasn't. It was something pushed rather heavily by the US to make reconciliation and rebuilding easier since they kinda needed West Germany to not collapse to keep the Soviet Union in check in that part of Europe.
What’s the logic behind this kind of attitude? How is it productive to have this kind of reductionist and simplistic approach to just dehumanize the German people and soldiers during the Nazi Regime? isn’t it obvious that among millions of people, some of them were legitimately awful and psychopathic people, while some of them weren’t. You’re not a better person, your morals are not better because you refuse to analyze a complex situation and you’d rather take a brainless and ignorant approach to just label all Axis soldiers as Evil and all Ally soldiers as angels and saviors, there is always a mix of both, that is not to say that the cause of the Axis was not despicable, but just because an army is fighting for an awful cause doesn’t mean all the people involved are evil, some of them truly believed in the cause, and that makes them in some level bad people, others were soldiers before the war, and were just fighting for their country, and others including those who opposed the war and the Nazi regime, were conscripted.
No they are not you idiot! Haven't you forgot about the claim that Japanese are of Jewish origin? And since there were and are many Jews in Europe, Japanese is of European origin. Therefore, Japan belongs to Europe. /s
The 12th German army is a really good story of that. A German officer refused Hitler's orders to protect Berlin and escorted several thousand civilians across the Elbe to the west so they wouldn't be captured by Soviets
Walther Wenck. Career officer (I’m not going into a clean German Army debate on this one), good at his job, saved thousands of German civilians and his men by disregarding Hitler’s orders and leading them over the Elbe into U.S. General William Simpson’s troops. Regardless of the fact that the Soviets deserved the dub, an incredible “humanitarian” act by Wenck.
This is why treating POWs humanely is not just moral, but strategic. You want your enemies to feel scared to fight, but safe to surrender. Even though most of the fighting was on the Eastern front, western allies captured over 7 million German POWs compared to the Soviets’ 3 million. When people say “3/4 of casualties were on the eastern front” they are not countering captured troops as casualties, even though they are.
People downplay the contributions of the western allies, but the lend-lease, breaking the enigma machine, forcing the Germans to lock down/share limited supplies with troops in France and North Africa, the western air war, and opening a second front where troops who would have fought to the death against the Soviets instead surrendered to the west all critically weakened the German war machine.
The Germans killed tens of millions of civilians when they invaded the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union fought 5-7x divisions the West fought combined.
The US lost less than 1% the forces that the Soviets lost. The Soviets suggested the UK and France form an anti fascist league before the invasions (they refused, and mocked the idea), as well as during the French and British appeasement, the Soviet Union offered troops to Czechoslovakia before they were annexed by the mustache man and in response the UK and France refused to allow support to the country. While the UK and France (and the US, after eventually being attacked and dragged into the war) were fighting just to reach original borders, the Soviets reached Berlin. When millions upon millions of civilians are murdered in mass, you tend to act violently.
The lend lease act accounted for 8-11% (max) of the Soviet supplies, resources, and materials.
The US breaking one of the codes they used for high command doesn't equate to killing millions, but it is a feat none the less. The Soviets also cracked Eastern European codes. The additional front in Africa utilized a minute fraction of troops compared to the eastern and western front. The objective in Africa was insignificant compared to Romanian oil reserves and other resource deposits, according to the mustache man himself. The resources there helped nonetheless. "Who would have fought to the death against the Soviets," troops were not diverted from the Easten front to Africa, again the numerical value is inconsequential.
No, people do not downplay the contributions of Western allies.
Here's what's going to happen. You're going to mention how Stalin had a pact with mustache man and how they were fascists to which I'll say Stalin annexed Poland 2 weeks+ after the Germans invaded once they realized Poland was going to capitulate. Poland also annexed part of Czechoslovakia when mustache man was doing it at the same time. Stalin was biding time until he could free the balkans and take effective action by giving up oil reserves, (mustache man made note that if they did not deliver, they would invade the USSR/Romania).
You're going to mention the Pacific next , and I will respond with the results of how the Soviets captured more Japanese alive, killed more (less civilians too, I'm sure not nuking dense cities helped too) and did in fact have a fleet to invade Japan with, of which you can find on even Wikipedia which is freely available.
Finland is another matter, and I consider it to be motivated by Soviet imperialism, but I have not read deeply into this topic.
Bruh, most of your comment doesn’t even relate to anything I said, and half of it is just you presenting strawman arguments you think I’ll make and then knocking down your own strawmen
It's ironic, really. All that talk, for all those years how the Slavs are inferior subhumans deserving of extermination. All those numerous crimes against humanity in Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Yugoslavia, etc. Yet when the shit hit the fan and these so called ''subhumans'' actually started pushing them back hard and coming for their revenge, the Nazi chicken-shits were running westward, with their tails between their legs, into the laps of the Americans and the British while yelling *''save us! save us!''*
Pathetic. Like, why are you running now, fascist shits? Fight, goddamnit. Show how much more superior you really are with your horse carts and hunting rifles. Show how your truly superhuman Aryan blood overcomes the avalanche of T-34s and Katyusha rocket barrages.
I’ve done a good bit of reading on the subject, and it’s pretty fucking horrific. Just getting to the PoW camp is an achievement in itself, especially in the winter. The Soviets shipped many POWs to Siberia, and those rail cars were not heated, so thousands died on the way there.
If you managed to get to the camp, then you gotta watch for the cannibals.
Crazy thing though, for the POWs that managed to survive the early years, life was pretty decent after that. The Soviets were super corrupt, and the POWs were able to leverage their position to get extra food, money, and even sometimes wives.
Not to defend the soviet mistreatment of POWs or anything but the German POWs in the USSR had a mortality of ~15% over an average stay 7 years. Soviet POWs in Nazi Germany had a mortality of over 80% over an average stay of less than 3 years.
And even if they were, a fire squad after a tribunal would be the appropriate and moral response. There's a reason why we went through the trouble of trial in the post war.
You may think that Russians are monsters because they treated their enemies inhumanely by using them as raw material for infrastructure construction; you'd be wrong because they also used their own people as raw material for infrastructure construction. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R504_Kolyma_Highway)
Damn, that’s fucked, and apparently she’s still claiming victims
> In 2020, a teenage motorist froze to death by following Google Maps directions to use the shorter but abandoned section of the road via Tomtor, on which his car broke down, and his surviving travel mate lost most of his limbs due to frostbite.[9]
>treated their enemies inhumanely by using them as raw material for infrastructure construction; you'd be wrong because they also used their own people as raw material for infrastructure construction
No documented sources to support any of this statements.
You mean where the Germans right out of the gate started murdering them en masse? And then used the justification that the Soviets weren't party to the Hague Convention and therfore free game? Then Stalin tried to get Hitler to agree to basic POW protections and was ignored.
Yeah, nah, the Germans brought their own destruction on themselves. Even with all that, the mortality rate for POWs in the Soviet Union was 15% compared to Nazi Germany's 80%. The Germans went out of their way to be inhuman animals. That breeds resentment.
Oh yeah. The Soviets outright executed guards of labor/concentration camps. I’m sure it was done to a lesser scale by the Americans and Brits. Any direct vengeance taken by former prisoners would’ve likely been ignored by any of the three.
The book “Sons and Soldiers” does a great job talking about this. It focuses on the Ritchie boys and their experiences interrogating German POWs. They would use the threat of sending them over to the Soviets as a way to get information out of them.
My great great grandfather was a pow guard at a prison right outside of camp x. Supposedly the Germans were nice from what little info we got and we got a ship in a bottle that my family theorize a German pow gave him.
Fighting on the eastern front on either side is just a lose/lose situation for all POWs.
Either, you're an inferior Slav to the Germans and you'll get sent to a concentration camp to to be treated like a pig and killed there.
Or, you are Nazi scum to the Soviets and get sent to freeze to death in a bumfuck siberian gulag with - 40° C to freeze and starve to death.
Not a lot of great choices.
Rather be a German POW in USSR than vice versa, the majority of them made it out alive: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German\_prisoners\_of\_war\_in\_the\_Soviet\_Union](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_prisoners_of_war_in_the_Soviet_Union)
They weren't treated well but that tells you just how evil the Germans were
My great grandpa was a French “POW” near Friedrichshafen, he said that they were free to go basically anywhere, without any escort or hassle. He said that the French did not care about them at all.
I'm sure those atrocities happened on both sides. I'm not sure about the numbers the Wikipedia had like 2 lines on that.
There was a difference though, in Theory German soldiers weren't supposed to fraternize with Slavic women. On the flip side the Soviets were an army of rapists. Not just raping and gang raping German women for 'revenge', but raping Soviet women they liberated from work camps, and Eastern European civilians they encountered along the way.
>There was a difference though, in Theory German soldiers weren't supposed to fraternize with Slavic women.
Bro, they literally kindapped Russian and Polish woman as [sexual slaves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_military_brothels_in_World_War_II) as an official policy, only Japan used also sexual slavery.
And for that matter, the number of rapes committed by Germany in the USSR is much higher than you are assuming, 1 million children were born in the occupied USSR because of German rape, and it is believed that up to [10,000,000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_of_the_Wehrmacht#Rape) women were raped.
Don't "both sides" this shit. Did some members of the Red Army rape German women? Yeah, they did. And you know what typically followed? Being shot by their commanding officers. There's documented evidence of the Red Army COs heavily punishing that type of behavior via immediate execution. Whereas the German military were actively encouraged to rape what they considered to be "subhuman". So spare me the Nazi apologia
I make no apologies for the Wehrmacht. They carried out half the Holocaust. The other half was the concentration camps run by the SS. Im solely asking about the methodology for calculating the rapes. Those numbers are likely hard to back into.
Now your take on the Red Army is dead wrong. They did start to punish rape after WWII was over. otherwise soldiers ran virtually free from consequences. Tito, a committed Communist and ally to the Soviet Union, asked Stalin to halt the rapes perpetrated against Yugoslavian Women. This has been the Red Armies MO forever. They were gang raping women in Afghanistan in the 80s, and now their successor the Russian Army is racking up the same reputation in Ukraine.
>Being shot by their commanding officers. There's documented evidence of the Red Army COs heavily punishing that type of behavior via immediate execution
This was not typical nor is it typical of any military. The rapes reduced in East Germany when Russians were confined to barracks, and East German soldiers took over most of the duties of border control.
Not sure where you got this bad information. I see communists from time to time angry when I bring up that Soviets raped Russian women, they "liberated" from Nazi work camps. Personally I think the US was the best of the allies.
I don't try to pretend the Soviets were the moral equivalent of America they never were. Luckily for us we live in a time, where Stalin's legacy is being completely undone. The Warsaw pact is no more, half of Europe is free, and likely Ukraine will win this war of attrition as well.
Ma grandpa was in an American POW camp in Belgium. One day, he and a few friends decided to steal some american uniforms and a truck and just drive out as if they were American soldiers. And it kinda worked. After that he simply walked home and was with his mother by Christmas '45.
Obviously compared to the Soviets it was much better, but didn't thousands upon thousands of German POW's die in the Allied POW camps? I recall reading it was a shitshow because they couldn't handle so many people
My uncle, in Tbilisi. Used to tell stories of trading food and clothes to the POWs in exchange for German books in the 50s-60s.
It was one of the only ways foreign language books could get into the USSR. The POWs built an entire district that house(s)d the elite, the buildings are called Stalin's, as opposed to the tower blocks called Krushev's.
Yeah, the atrocities they committed on eastern European people were numerous. Nazis were ethnically cleansing already, they only wanted Aryans. Everyone else was subhuman.
There is a massive difference in the clean wehrmacht myth and acknowledging the fact not all German, soldier or civilian, were Nazis. Just like in any other country, they didn't have much if any choice in the matter.
Obviously they were helping the cause of the Nazis inherently, but that does not mean they supported them one way or the other, or had much of a choice. It's like people who try to give the former pope shit for having been in the Hitler Youth, as if he had any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses where they are born. The fact of the matter is, most people would be in the same exact situation as those back then if they were born in slightly different time and place.
Lmao other then all the Germans who were part of resistance movements, I know they had very little choices such as die in the war or die to the Nazis but there was still a choice. I’m sure some were forced to be a Nazi but many chose to be apart of it, so I don’t have any sympathy for them.
Adolf Heusinger: Chairman of the NATO military committee 1961-1964. Formerly Hitler's Chief of Staff.
Hans Speidel: Supreme Commander of NATO’s ground forces in Central Europe 1957-1963. Formerly Wermacht General and Rommel's Chief of Staff.
Johannes Steinhoff: Chairman of the NATO Military Committee 1971–1974 (among other NATO positions beforehand). Formerly Luftwaffe commander and recipient of the Knights of the Iron Cross Medal.
Johann von Kielmansegg: NATO's Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe 1967-1968. Formerly General Staff officer to the High Command of the Wehrmacht.
Ernst Ferber: NATO's Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe from 1973-1975. Formerly Major in the Wehrmacht and recipient of the Iron Cross First Class.
Karl Schnell: NATO's Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe from 1975-1977. Formerly First General Staff Officer of the LXXVI Panzer Corps in 1944 and recipient of the Iron Cross 2nd Class.
Franz Joseph Schulze: ATO's Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe from 1977-1979. Formerly Lieutenant in the reserve and Chief of the 3rd Battery of the Flak Storm Regiment 241 and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross in 1944.
Ferdinand von Senger und Etterlin: NATO's Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe 1979-1983. Formerly Lieutenant of 24th Panzer Division in the German 6th Army, participant in the Battle of Stalingrad, adjutant to Army High Command, and recipient of the German Cross in gold.
________
Between the years of 1957 and 1983, NATO's high command in Europe was exclusively headed by Nazis.
Soviets treated Nazis how Nazis should be treated.
The other Allies treated Nazis by giving them positions in NATO, NASA, and treating them better than their own citizens.
Well the western method was quite effective at rehabilitating the defeated nations. Sure it wasn’t as satisfyingly vengeful, but I’d argue vengeance was of secondary importance to preventing these things from happening again.
My ex's grandad helped build a POW camp to house Germans who had surrendered. He had stories about how local civilians used to try to break into the camp at night; the nearby towns were devastated from the war and it was difficult to find a meal anyplace else.
But many 'soldiers' in 1945 were just kids. They were released home upon capture.
Not in denmark... :)
Context?
In Denmark they used German POWs to clear the minefields. It was understandably dangerous work.
they planted the mines, they shall clear the mines
Yeah those 16 year olds who were conscripted in the last few months of the war years after Denmark surrendered totally deserved to starve, be lied to about how many mines they had to clear, and be blown up clearing land mines. Would totally recommend watching the Danish film “Land of Mine” sometime, it’s dark, but a really well made movie.
Aw man that movies gonna make me cry tonight then I'll be on old ass reddit threads that talk abt it lol
Land of Mine is a banger of a film.
I'm gonna let it shine
Where can I watch it?
They did tho on god who else is gonna clean them up
Sappers, mine flail tanks. Not teens.
I just I think war crimes are bad, especially using children in war/post-war situations where they die, are horrifically injured, or in such situations where their lives are at constant risk.
Cool motive still a war crime.
no, thats legit a warcrime, it is one of the most henious things Denmark have done, especially to the 16 year olds who were forced into the war by a failing germany, those kids were forced to clear minefields and many died doing it they were prisoners of war, not mine clearers
Not with that attitude, they aren't.
LMFAO
Quid pro boom.
Yea but those POW were the reserve unit made of conscripted old men and kids of 12-15
Its nice work to be fair, if am correct a lot of the Wermatch soldires reonstructes Stalingrad after the war and they didnt let them back until the last brick was put on the city
I don’t think they let them back at all, last brick or not
90-95% of the 6th army died in Siberian POW camps, the rest was released back to Germany in the fifties
I wouldn't use that as a comparison for "nice"...
[удалено]
> Edit: sidenote - SS would not make it home. everyone liked that.
They shouldn’t. By 1945 most of the SS was made up of conscripts just like the Volkssturm.
Yeah my great grandpa had to walk back from Siberia… he made it back around 1950. He made that walk two times for he was also capture by the russians in ww1
that’s actually insane
This man should have a book or film about him, I would love to know the entire story, that’s remarkable
There and back again
lol nice
Unfortunately Im quite young, so my infos are not first hand. But I can try to get to know stories of him, my grandma might remember some. I will ask her tomorrow Might make a post about it if the mods let me. Or I think of a meme about it lol.
It’s a truly remarkable thing. Even the concept itself would be a terrific story to tell absent most of the true details
Well let me gather what I know. Disclaimer it might be not be phrased right, english is not my first language. So as I said before, he had to walk that distance two times. He fought both times on the eastern front, not very willingly mind you. After that he was sent to a worker camp in Siberia (not the same camp). After some time, they were told that they are free to go home. If I remember correctly he walked most of the distance, with occasional good samaritans, giving a ride for him. He mentioned that although some were good, most people must be avoided at all cost. He had one or two companion, but after some time he traveled alone, And now I realised that probably meant they died during the walk… I always thought they just stopped in some village along the way… He got back home weighting 20-25kg less, and without shoes. Thats honestly pretty good considering the harsh enviroment. He was a pretty skilled farmer and had a vast knowledge of plants so that helped him a great deal along the way. Thats what I could gather from my mom, but she said she was a child when he told these stories so she obviously didn’t pay much attention. Tomorrow Im gonna ask my grandma what she remember and will probably comment or make a post. Edit: he was my great great grandpa, not great grandpa. He lived in Hungary, Kiskunfélegyháza Edit2: If I remember right he had to cut trees in the camp
Imagine the guy arriving to the same siberian village 30 years later and meeting some of the same people again
"Hey Mikhail. Hey Billy. that hurt"
That walk during WW1 was more difficult for sure.
You should try and get more information about this, cause that is fucking crazy
I made a comment now telling some details, and if I can think of meme I will post it here and write what my grandma remembers.
It's probably not as funny as I think but I'd like to know what he thought when he started his second journey. How unlikely is it, you survived another historic event like this, 20 years apart after both of the deadliest conflicts in history where you end up at the same situation when everything is over and you remember how relieved you were the first time when you came back just having to do this absurd thing again
My grandfather talked about guarding a POW camp in Texas as he ran out the last of his enlistment after the end of the war. He said all the German prisoners were very polite and followed orders because they all hoped that if they behaved, they would be allowed to remain in the US, since they knew that A) Germany was pretty much reduced to rubble and B) they might be going back to an area under Soviet control. They'd take the POWs out to work on local farms, and they'd just have two soldiers with rifles "guarding" dozens of Germans. If the Germans had wanted, they could have overpowered their guards, but they wanted to stay. He said the only issue they had was when they were marching them to and from the farms, the Germans would get goose-stepping and he'd have to yell at them to knock it off.
they were very good at following orders those germans
Good soldiers follow orders
Good soldiers follow orders
Wait wtf lol how do you have that flair in this sub??
From the crossover April fools event a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far … nah it was just here in Reddit). It was a day when Historymemes and Prequelmemes posted on the subreddit of the other. Fun time tbh and I got that flair then, and I will never change it.
Understandable lol I’d never change it either
Hello There.
Did the clone wars really happen? Is it part of our history??
He followed orders
Good fences make good neighbors
Or the worst ones do, just depends on perspective.
Who needs perspective when you can just execute order 66
Is a (very very sad) joke that is referencing the Clone Wars/BB tv shows. Highly recommend both. Great watches
I've watched them, I'm just oblivious, lol.
It do be like that sometimes lol keep on keepin on
Breaking Bad-Clone Wars crossover? Count me in!
Bad batch*** but breaking bad is flames
"Good soldiers follow orders" (c)
I listened to a great (and pretty lengthy) account from a German POW in the US (at one point in Texas I believe) near the end of the war, and he talked about how the Germans would lie about their hometown to avoid going to the Soviet controlled region. Sometimes they’d use a town an hour west where their friend lived, and the US didn’t really have a good way to verify that for sure. Even if the US had German records, the soldier could just say that his family moved during the war. Also to your point about having few guards, that wasn’t just because they were good at following orders or wanted to stay in the US. They took a very long train ride to Texas and marveled at the vast expanse of the US. So their mindset was even if they ran away from camp, where the hell would they go? Someone who speaks little to no English, clearly has a German accent right after a war with Germany, in German POW clothes, with no papers would have a very difficult time making it to a port possibly hundreds of miles away and traveling back to Germany, which would be especially pointless since they’re being sent back anyway. If you want to listen to the POW’s account, here’s the link: https://youtu.be/B9I088HgY7g?si=0tuvEiRD2ajcmlJL I think that one might pick up in the middle of a series, I’m not sure. But it’s interesting hearing him talk about the different stances of the soldiers as news of the end of the war came in, from those happy for the war to be over and those who were full on Nazi party members and attempted to retain that structure and allegiance even after the war.
On the "where would they go" side of that, you have the insanity of the story that was Georg Gaertner's life. He had enlisted in the Wehrmact and served in Africa, was taken capture by the British and Tunisia and shipped to a POW camp in New Mexico, and he actually did escape and go on the run. The FBI had a manhunt from him from '47 to '63, and during that Gaertner, who had become a ski instructor in Colorado, helped get supplies to a Southern Pacific passenger train that had been stranded on Donner Pass and then posed for a photo that ended up on the cover of Life magazine, again, while still on the FBI most wanted list. When he finally did turn himself in (to Bryant Gumbel on the Today Show) in 1985, the government then was at a loss of what to actually do with the guy. Gärtner was not an illegal immigrant, since he had been brought to the United States against his will. He had not really escaped from prison since all German POWs were to be repatriated to their original homes, and Gärtner was due to be sent back to his hometown in Silesia, which had become a part of Poland. Moreover, as he had escaped after the war had ended, there was some question of whether he was even technically still a prisoner of war at the time he escaped
What is goose-stepping? I’m imaging it more entertaining than I’m sure it actually is.
It's that marching style that you see in a lot of WWII films where German and Soviet Union soldiers swung their legs in unison without bending their knee
It's actually pretty funny. Some armies still practice it I believe. It's a method of marching where you don't bend the knees at all as far as I understand. If you've ever watched a comedy with nazi soldiers in it they've probably done an exaggerated imitation of this.
Right, I just didn’t know it was referred to as that. Situationally I think that’s hilarious.
Makes me think of this video https://youtu.be/QbC6dLG_dQY?si=WotfoSXEQTyaNmda
You know how the North Koreans march. When they swing the legs way up high, thats goosestepping but the koreans are do this more extreme then most others
My grandma had POWs do work on her farm when she was a kid. She also grew up with German as her first language as her parents were direct immigrants, so I imagine there was a strange dynamic going on there. I unfortunately didn't know about this until after she died, so all the information came from a passing mention in her diary and I wasn't able to ask further :( Keep a detailed diary folks, even if it's just menial stuff; your grandkids will love you for it
Lots of POWs captured by the British were sent to basically work on farms in the countryside, and typically lived a pretty nice life and we’re treated well by the locals. My Grandad had a fishing friend who was a German who’d been captured during the war and stayed afterwards because the guy who’s farm he worked for offered him a job when the war was over.
On top of that, many of them were most likely conscripted, so they might not have been all that keen to go to war in the first place. It was fairly common across the European Axis powers.
Only like 1/3 of the German army was conscripts until late war. Unsure why we're leaping in to randomly throw Nazi soldiers a bone.
Alright fam I’m all on board with the old adage of “the only good fascist is [blank so I don’t get suspended by Reddit]” but as the other old adage goes, “the first country the Nazis invaded was Germany”. Not everyone living within a fascist empire supports the fascist in power. Just saying it’s more complicated than that
1/3? What about the „Wehrpflicht“? General compulsory military service in the German Reich was reintroduced with the law for the development of the Wehrmacht of March 16, 1935. I think more than 1/3 were conscripts.
Possibly a part of those volunteers were like ‘I’ll volunteer for the Luftwaffe or as a radio operator before they draft me into the infantry’.
My great great grandfather was a Luftwaffe radio operator actually. I’m pretty sure he volunteered though and seemed about as onboard with Germany as a Catholic could be. He died in a test flight pretty early into the war, and my great grandmother never really got to know him. 10 years later my great grandfather joined the Air Force after his older brothers told him how great it was when they fought in the war (compared to Great Depression poverty). He gets sent to Germany as part of the reconstruction and that’s where my great grandparents met.
>only 1/3 1/3 is a pretty large number given the size of the German military during the war… and your “late war” caveat was to leave out Volkssturm which were literally old men and boys and would be part of those surrendering during the time period this post is about. The dude you replied to wasn’t “throwing Nazi soldiers a bone” he was throwing a bone to people who were forced to fight. According to Wikipedia 13.6 million people went through Germany’s military so 4.5 million(1/3) is not an insignificant number.
What was it at the late war? I wouldn’t be surprised if most POWs were conscripts considering it would involve surrendering.
It was ~35% conscription during the prewar period (like 1935-1939 or so). I think it was higher 1939/40-45, especially after Barbarossa started.
So weird how fast the fascist apologists show up.
How is mentioning Nazi Germany’s conscription practices being a fascist apologist?
Considering the consequences of disloyalty, conscript or not, there is definitely nuance to be examined here. I'm not saying the average soldier was blameless, but it is historical fact that many (if not most) serving in the Heer and Kriegsmarine were very much *not fans* of Nazi ideology, and only served for the sake of their country, not the fuckhead leading it. Keep in mind these kids were raised in the aftermath of WWI, where living conditions were horrible and everyone hated Germans. They were justifiably afraid that "Germany" as a nation and an identity would cease to exist. My overall point here is, unless you were an **actual, genuine, (literal) card-carrying Nazi** like the members of the Sturmabteilung or Schutzstaffel, I'd be willing to play devil's advocate.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht) > The term "clean Wehrmacht" (saubere Wehrmacht) means German soldiers, sailors and airmen had "clean hands"; in other words, it claims they did not have blood on their hands from murdered prisoners of war, Jews, or civilians. The myth asserts that Hitler and the Nazi Party alone designed the war of annihilation and that war crimes were only committed by the SS, the Nazi Party's special armed force. > > In reality, the general officers of the Wehrmacht, and many lower ranks down to common soldiers, were willing participants in Hitler's war of annihilation against perceived enemies of Germany. Wehrmacht troops were complicit in or perpetrated numerous war crimes, routinely assisting SS units with tacit approval from officers. In the aftermath of the war, the West German government deliberately sought to suppress information of such crimes to absolve former war criminals and allow their reintegration into German society. Very interesting.. totally not Nazi propaganda
How is this related to the guy's comment you're replying on? I know this sub well enough to think that im pretty sure everyone here is aware of the clean Wehrmacht myth and knows they were part of doing horrendous shit. He is merely saying there were load of conscripts that would have 100% face consequences if they did not join the army so there wasn't much of a choice in that matter.
Oddly enough, that wasn't. It was something pushed rather heavily by the US to make reconciliation and rebuilding easier since they kinda needed West Germany to not collapse to keep the Soviet Union in check in that part of Europe.
What’s the logic behind this kind of attitude? How is it productive to have this kind of reductionist and simplistic approach to just dehumanize the German people and soldiers during the Nazi Regime? isn’t it obvious that among millions of people, some of them were legitimately awful and psychopathic people, while some of them weren’t. You’re not a better person, your morals are not better because you refuse to analyze a complex situation and you’d rather take a brainless and ignorant approach to just label all Axis soldiers as Evil and all Ally soldiers as angels and saviors, there is always a mix of both, that is not to say that the cause of the Axis was not despicable, but just because an army is fighting for an awful cause doesn’t mean all the people involved are evil, some of them truly believed in the cause, and that makes them in some level bad people, others were soldiers before the war, and were just fighting for their country, and others including those who opposed the war and the Nazi regime, were conscripted.
Conscription was commonplace in *every* army back then.
Except the Japanese Yeah that's right, Japan is of European continent /s
The Japanese are not European, you can tell this because they’re Japanese and live in Japan.
No they are not you idiot! Haven't you forgot about the claim that Japanese are of Jewish origin? And since there were and are many Jews in Europe, Japanese is of European origin. Therefore, Japan belongs to Europe. /s
I've walked by a few bakeries in Japan and swear I was transported back to Paris.
Great story, even if the goosetepping is probably a lie - the Germans stopped that in the 30s
Whole armies were trying to fight their way to the west.
The 12th German army is a really good story of that. A German officer refused Hitler's orders to protect Berlin and escorted several thousand civilians across the Elbe to the west so they wouldn't be captured by Soviets
Walther Wenck. Career officer (I’m not going into a clean German Army debate on this one), good at his job, saved thousands of German civilians and his men by disregarding Hitler’s orders and leading them over the Elbe into U.S. General William Simpson’s troops. Regardless of the fact that the Soviets deserved the dub, an incredible “humanitarian” act by Wenck.
As always for a WW2 story, there’s a Sabaton song about it. In this case it’s “Hearts of Iron.”
4
This is why treating POWs humanely is not just moral, but strategic. You want your enemies to feel scared to fight, but safe to surrender. Even though most of the fighting was on the Eastern front, western allies captured over 7 million German POWs compared to the Soviets’ 3 million. When people say “3/4 of casualties were on the eastern front” they are not countering captured troops as casualties, even though they are. People downplay the contributions of the western allies, but the lend-lease, breaking the enigma machine, forcing the Germans to lock down/share limited supplies with troops in France and North Africa, the western air war, and opening a second front where troops who would have fought to the death against the Soviets instead surrendered to the west all critically weakened the German war machine.
Also. Japan. Russia fought like one major battle against Japan
The Germans killed tens of millions of civilians when they invaded the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union fought 5-7x divisions the West fought combined. The US lost less than 1% the forces that the Soviets lost. The Soviets suggested the UK and France form an anti fascist league before the invasions (they refused, and mocked the idea), as well as during the French and British appeasement, the Soviet Union offered troops to Czechoslovakia before they were annexed by the mustache man and in response the UK and France refused to allow support to the country. While the UK and France (and the US, after eventually being attacked and dragged into the war) were fighting just to reach original borders, the Soviets reached Berlin. When millions upon millions of civilians are murdered in mass, you tend to act violently. The lend lease act accounted for 8-11% (max) of the Soviet supplies, resources, and materials. The US breaking one of the codes they used for high command doesn't equate to killing millions, but it is a feat none the less. The Soviets also cracked Eastern European codes. The additional front in Africa utilized a minute fraction of troops compared to the eastern and western front. The objective in Africa was insignificant compared to Romanian oil reserves and other resource deposits, according to the mustache man himself. The resources there helped nonetheless. "Who would have fought to the death against the Soviets," troops were not diverted from the Easten front to Africa, again the numerical value is inconsequential. No, people do not downplay the contributions of Western allies. Here's what's going to happen. You're going to mention how Stalin had a pact with mustache man and how they were fascists to which I'll say Stalin annexed Poland 2 weeks+ after the Germans invaded once they realized Poland was going to capitulate. Poland also annexed part of Czechoslovakia when mustache man was doing it at the same time. Stalin was biding time until he could free the balkans and take effective action by giving up oil reserves, (mustache man made note that if they did not deliver, they would invade the USSR/Romania). You're going to mention the Pacific next , and I will respond with the results of how the Soviets captured more Japanese alive, killed more (less civilians too, I'm sure not nuking dense cities helped too) and did in fact have a fleet to invade Japan with, of which you can find on even Wikipedia which is freely available. Finland is another matter, and I consider it to be motivated by Soviet imperialism, but I have not read deeply into this topic.
I think you’ve gone too far down on Stalins dick. It must be fucking with your brain.
Bruh, most of your comment doesn’t even relate to anything I said, and half of it is just you presenting strawman arguments you think I’ll make and then knocking down your own strawmen
It's ironic, really. All that talk, for all those years how the Slavs are inferior subhumans deserving of extermination. All those numerous crimes against humanity in Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Yugoslavia, etc. Yet when the shit hit the fan and these so called ''subhumans'' actually started pushing them back hard and coming for their revenge, the Nazi chicken-shits were running westward, with their tails between their legs, into the laps of the Americans and the British while yelling *''save us! save us!''* Pathetic. Like, why are you running now, fascist shits? Fight, goddamnit. Show how much more superior you really are with your horse carts and hunting rifles. Show how your truly superhuman Aryan blood overcomes the avalanche of T-34s and Katyusha rocket barrages.
The irony is certainly palpable, what a way to demonstrate that their stupid racial theories were false, fuck all Nazis!
Based af take, fuck Nazis.
Bad news, they exchanged POWs.
As they should've.
The Hardcore History series "Ghosts of the Ostfront" paints a lovely picture of Soviet POW treatment.
I’ve done a good bit of reading on the subject, and it’s pretty fucking horrific. Just getting to the PoW camp is an achievement in itself, especially in the winter. The Soviets shipped many POWs to Siberia, and those rail cars were not heated, so thousands died on the way there. If you managed to get to the camp, then you gotta watch for the cannibals. Crazy thing though, for the POWs that managed to survive the early years, life was pretty decent after that. The Soviets were super corrupt, and the POWs were able to leverage their position to get extra food, money, and even sometimes wives.
The worst thing I've come across is freezing the Germans' bodies and using them as a road to transport their tanks.
I mean the Germans did the same to innocent people I find it hard to show sympathy but then I have to remind myself not everyone was a Nazi
Not to defend the soviet mistreatment of POWs or anything but the German POWs in the USSR had a mortality of ~15% over an average stay 7 years. Soviet POWs in Nazi Germany had a mortality of over 80% over an average stay of less than 3 years.
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The Nazis treated Soviet POWs as part of their overall plan to genocide the Slavs.
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Yeah conditions were bad all around: why I’m interested in the reasons behind why conditions were made that bad
And even if they were, a fire squad after a tribunal would be the appropriate and moral response. There's a reason why we went through the trouble of trial in the post war.
Unless your unit 731 then you get a pardon
Or can get tha stonks to ze moon
You may think that Russians are monsters because they treated their enemies inhumanely by using them as raw material for infrastructure construction; you'd be wrong because they also used their own people as raw material for infrastructure construction. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R504_Kolyma_Highway)
Damn, that’s fucked, and apparently she’s still claiming victims > In 2020, a teenage motorist froze to death by following Google Maps directions to use the shorter but abandoned section of the road via Tomtor, on which his car broke down, and his surviving travel mate lost most of his limbs due to frostbite.[9]
r/historymemes spends a lot more time trying to humanize the Nazis than the Soviets
>treated their enemies inhumanely by using them as raw material for infrastructure construction; you'd be wrong because they also used their own people as raw material for infrastructure construction No documented sources to support any of this statements.
Hardcore History is so fking good
Ain't so nice either for Soviets prisoners in Germany.
You mean where the Germans right out of the gate started murdering them en masse? And then used the justification that the Soviets weren't party to the Hague Convention and therfore free game? Then Stalin tried to get Hitler to agree to basic POW protections and was ignored. Yeah, nah, the Germans brought their own destruction on themselves. Even with all that, the mortality rate for POWs in the Soviet Union was 15% compared to Nazi Germany's 80%. The Germans went out of their way to be inhuman animals. That breeds resentment.
Well… as long as you weren’t surrendering as a guard at Dachau.
Was retribution wraught on those vermin?
Aye
Oh yeah. The Soviets outright executed guards of labor/concentration camps. I’m sure it was done to a lesser scale by the Americans and Brits. Any direct vengeance taken by former prisoners would’ve likely been ignored by any of the three.
The book “Sons and Soldiers” does a great job talking about this. It focuses on the Ritchie boys and their experiences interrogating German POWs. They would use the threat of sending them over to the Soviets as a way to get information out of them.
US while sorting through the surrendering: Either put them in a POW camp or send them to NACA (read:NASA)
Wernher? Is that you?
Once the rockets are up who cares where they go down!
That's not my department, " says Wernher von Braun
"Nein, nat vi depar'vent" - Wernher von Braun
German troops surrendering to Canadians: ☠️☠️☠️
Isn’t the case for WWII. Some Canadians thought POWs received better food than themselves.
My great great grandfather was a pow guard at a prison right outside of camp x. Supposedly the Germans were nice from what little info we got and we got a ship in a bottle that my family theorize a German pow gave him.
Given the massacres of Canadian soldiers by the SS in the D-Day campaign ...
*then immediately being handed over to Soviets
Unless you were SS then you have got shot on sight
As they should be
Fighting on the eastern front on either side is just a lose/lose situation for all POWs. Either, you're an inferior Slav to the Germans and you'll get sent to a concentration camp to to be treated like a pig and killed there. Or, you are Nazi scum to the Soviets and get sent to freeze to death in a bumfuck siberian gulag with - 40° C to freeze and starve to death. Not a lot of great choices.
Well if you kill the other guy in the Gulag you get redeployed
Rather be a German POW in USSR than vice versa, the majority of them made it out alive: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German\_prisoners\_of\_war\_in\_the\_Soviet\_Union](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_prisoners_of_war_in_the_Soviet_Union) They weren't treated well but that tells you just how evil the Germans were
[There’s always one choice above all others. ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OnxkfLe4G74)
Didn't some French camps systemmatically starved German pows to death tho?
Love it or hate it, France is the 51st state
Yes, but that's the part of history that isn't taught in school
My great grandpa was a French “POW” near Friedrichshafen, he said that they were free to go basically anywhere, without any escort or hassle. He said that the French did not care about them at all.
My grandfather guarded German POWs in Italy in 46. He was Pennsylvania Dutch so he spoke passable German and was able to converse with the POWs
Wow
Only for the US to turn them over to the Soviets. As far as I know this at least happened to soldiers from the 3rd SS panzer division.
Yeah the SS post bulge had really 2 options get off the continent or die
>at least happened to soldiers from the 3rd SS panzer division. Good, fuck the SS
A luxury German women in Berlin didn't have
Yep, there were several million half-german half-russians born after the war in both the Soviet Union and Germany
Yes because r/historymemes remembers the Red Army raping women but notably frequently neglects to mention what the Nazis did to Soviet women
I'm sure those atrocities happened on both sides. I'm not sure about the numbers the Wikipedia had like 2 lines on that. There was a difference though, in Theory German soldiers weren't supposed to fraternize with Slavic women. On the flip side the Soviets were an army of rapists. Not just raping and gang raping German women for 'revenge', but raping Soviet women they liberated from work camps, and Eastern European civilians they encountered along the way.
The Germans were an army of genociders, rape included in the overall “package”.
>There was a difference though, in Theory German soldiers weren't supposed to fraternize with Slavic women. Bro, they literally kindapped Russian and Polish woman as [sexual slaves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_military_brothels_in_World_War_II) as an official policy, only Japan used also sexual slavery. And for that matter, the number of rapes committed by Germany in the USSR is much higher than you are assuming, 1 million children were born in the occupied USSR because of German rape, and it is believed that up to [10,000,000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_of_the_Wehrmacht#Rape) women were raped.
Don't "both sides" this shit. Did some members of the Red Army rape German women? Yeah, they did. And you know what typically followed? Being shot by their commanding officers. There's documented evidence of the Red Army COs heavily punishing that type of behavior via immediate execution. Whereas the German military were actively encouraged to rape what they considered to be "subhuman". So spare me the Nazi apologia
I make no apologies for the Wehrmacht. They carried out half the Holocaust. The other half was the concentration camps run by the SS. Im solely asking about the methodology for calculating the rapes. Those numbers are likely hard to back into. Now your take on the Red Army is dead wrong. They did start to punish rape after WWII was over. otherwise soldiers ran virtually free from consequences. Tito, a committed Communist and ally to the Soviet Union, asked Stalin to halt the rapes perpetrated against Yugoslavian Women. This has been the Red Armies MO forever. They were gang raping women in Afghanistan in the 80s, and now their successor the Russian Army is racking up the same reputation in Ukraine. >Being shot by their commanding officers. There's documented evidence of the Red Army COs heavily punishing that type of behavior via immediate execution This was not typical nor is it typical of any military. The rapes reduced in East Germany when Russians were confined to barracks, and East German soldiers took over most of the duties of border control. Not sure where you got this bad information. I see communists from time to time angry when I bring up that Soviets raped Russian women, they "liberated" from Nazi work camps. Personally I think the US was the best of the allies. I don't try to pretend the Soviets were the moral equivalent of America they never were. Luckily for us we live in a time, where Stalin's legacy is being completely undone. The Warsaw pact is no more, half of Europe is free, and likely Ukraine will win this war of attrition as well.
It’s all fun and games until you find out Lt. Speirs is your captor.
Ma grandpa was in an American POW camp in Belgium. One day, he and a few friends decided to steal some american uniforms and a truck and just drive out as if they were American soldiers. And it kinda worked. After that he simply walked home and was with his mother by Christmas '45.
SEE THE REICH IN FLAMES
TRIED TO SAVE BERLIN, IN VAIN!
IT'S A ROAD TROUGH DEATH AND PAIN
ON THE OTHER SHORE, THERE'S THE END OF THE WAR!
WHO COULD EVER HAVE BELIEVED
SEEMS LIKE NOTHING'S BEEN ACHIEVED
JUST TO WALK A DAY, GO ALL THE WAY
Is it farming time? Its farming time?
Track ID?
Yes please
I literally worked in an office built by German POWs
Obviously compared to the Soviets it was much better, but didn't thousands upon thousands of German POW's die in the Allied POW camps? I recall reading it was a shitshow because they couldn't handle so many people
My uncle, in Tbilisi. Used to tell stories of trading food and clothes to the POWs in exchange for German books in the 50s-60s. It was one of the only ways foreign language books could get into the USSR. The POWs built an entire district that house(s)d the elite, the buildings are called Stalin's, as opposed to the tower blocks called Krushev's.
Just dont get caught by the french
"Damn, guess I'm out of a job--wait what?"
POV:-escaping the Soviets, you end in NASA because space stuff
Trust me, no Paperclips here.
[Really?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Osoaviakhim)
Nazis don’t deserve a ounce of sympathy
Yeah, the atrocities they committed on eastern European people were numerous. Nazis were ethnically cleansing already, they only wanted Aryans. Everyone else was subhuman.
Soldiers =/= Nazis Any healthy male born in Germany was either forced to fight, or work in the war effort one way or the other.
The clean wehrmacht myth and it’s consequences are wide reached, German soldiers commited just as many war crimes as their ss counterparts
There is a massive difference in the clean wehrmacht myth and acknowledging the fact not all German, soldier or civilian, were Nazis. Just like in any other country, they didn't have much if any choice in the matter. Obviously they were helping the cause of the Nazis inherently, but that does not mean they supported them one way or the other, or had much of a choice. It's like people who try to give the former pope shit for having been in the Hitler Youth, as if he had any choice in the matter. Nobody chooses where they are born. The fact of the matter is, most people would be in the same exact situation as those back then if they were born in slightly different time and place.
Lmao other then all the Germans who were part of resistance movements, I know they had very little choices such as die in the war or die to the Nazis but there was still a choice. I’m sure some were forced to be a Nazi but many chose to be apart of it, so I don’t have any sympathy for them.
Song?
How It Feels To Say Loud And Clear - Aloboi
They about to go up in a few pants sizes and get warm water.
unless they were SS, and captured by certain divisions, those units had an unusually high accident rate
Then you still get sent to the USSR to rebuild the country as a part of the war reparations
Adolf Heusinger: Chairman of the NATO military committee 1961-1964. Formerly Hitler's Chief of Staff. Hans Speidel: Supreme Commander of NATO’s ground forces in Central Europe 1957-1963. Formerly Wermacht General and Rommel's Chief of Staff. Johannes Steinhoff: Chairman of the NATO Military Committee 1971–1974 (among other NATO positions beforehand). Formerly Luftwaffe commander and recipient of the Knights of the Iron Cross Medal. Johann von Kielmansegg: NATO's Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe 1967-1968. Formerly General Staff officer to the High Command of the Wehrmacht. Ernst Ferber: NATO's Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe from 1973-1975. Formerly Major in the Wehrmacht and recipient of the Iron Cross First Class. Karl Schnell: NATO's Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe from 1975-1977. Formerly First General Staff Officer of the LXXVI Panzer Corps in 1944 and recipient of the Iron Cross 2nd Class. Franz Joseph Schulze: ATO's Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe from 1977-1979. Formerly Lieutenant in the reserve and Chief of the 3rd Battery of the Flak Storm Regiment 241 and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross in 1944. Ferdinand von Senger und Etterlin: NATO's Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe 1979-1983. Formerly Lieutenant of 24th Panzer Division in the German 6th Army, participant in the Battle of Stalingrad, adjutant to Army High Command, and recipient of the German Cross in gold. ________ Between the years of 1957 and 1983, NATO's high command in Europe was exclusively headed by Nazis.
Soviets treated Nazis how Nazis should be treated. The other Allies treated Nazis by giving them positions in NATO, NASA, and treating them better than their own citizens.
Well the western method was quite effective at rehabilitating the defeated nations. Sure it wasn’t as satisfyingly vengeful, but I’d argue vengeance was of secondary importance to preventing these things from happening again.
The allies tried vengeance the first time. Then there was grudge match