Distinction is lost me, the Luftwaffe didn't give a shit about the political affiliation of my British family, whether or neutral / pacifist or other they still dropped bombs and killed a number of my family so as far as I am concern I don't care if the Luftwaffe crew were dedicated nazis or just along for the ride. They got repaid in kind. You reach for the sword, and start killing you cannot expect quarter when it starts going wrong for you. Don't start what you cannot finish.
@@shrade2.016 Thats very True i think because The Allies won WW2, their War Crimes often got Forgotten (i dont Try to excuse German War Crimes with this comment)
Every German who was fighting in Wehrmacht was fighting for nazism. It was not a deffencive war, but offencive. They came to kill and take. So they were nazis. Germans were fighting against nazism.
Especially at the end of the war the war was far from offensive anymore. At that time most of the soldiers were either forced to fight or be killed or just wanted to defend their homeland and families. As already noticed the allies did commit crimes during the war too, like the Dresden Firestorm. (Also no excuse for Germany starting the war in the first place and the Nazis horrible crimes.)
@@philipleese1565 Yeah, sure of course. Such tricks does not work. It is like crying that bully was kicked back. Otherwise bully would not learn his lesson. Most soldiers were afraid of justice for their crimes. They should be thought about defending their families before they started war and before they atacked homeland of other people, before they destroyed other families. I have read memoirs of Wehrmacht soldiers and what they thought when they were invading USSR. "Those, who come to our home with sword - would fall from the sword" - Alexander Nevskiy
Indeed... WW2 was the darkest time in humanity, where our absolute worse was shown. A massacre tells very little how many died in those six years of fighting.
@@pepper-0ni-t1m ww1 and ww2 were truly terrifying wars to fight in, fighintg in trenches like in ww1 would be hell, fighting in battles like Stalingrad and d day would also be hell
On the global scale, yes, but not in more local context. The video includes examples like ~40M deaths attributed to Mao that are concentrated in China and largely in the span of just a few years...
@@GediMini That's.... kinda what I meant. I used humanity in a general sense, not a plural sense. Granted, there are several things that showcase cruelty on par or, dare I say, exceed that of WW2 but, in the general aspect, the second world war was humanities darkest moment in the time it's been on Earth.
@@razr-x9666 i think ww1 is far worst, waiting in trench with the corps+artilery bombardment and animal fighting when run out of ammo. Ww2 take more life bcos they r mobilize, and kill somebody on the way
German history/philosophy teacher here, I appreciate ur insights and the way you comment. My great-grandfather was one of the very few german soldiers who died in the early western campain in Belgium. He wrote many letters to the my great-grandmother in a style of handwriting that was common back then but almost nobody can read anymore. We got those letters translated a couple years ago by an expert from swizzerland. Those documents give a really interesting insight starting with "the belief in Hitler and being part of something special" to war experiences. The last letter to my great-grandmother is not from her husband but his closest comrade after he had fallen. Sometimes I use them in my history lessons.
If it’s not too personal and if you’re okay with it, could you scan them along with the translations and post them online. It’s very fascinating as I also have some from my great grandparents, one of my favorites and oldest are from my great great grandfather from early 1900s
Hey, I think you might be apropriate person to ask this about. The creator of this reaction video made a point of distinguishing Nazis and German soldiers. Is this really correct in the end of the day? The comparison made on the video was roughly, It wouldn't be correct to say democrats won the ww2 for US. I disagree with that on the basis that Wehrmacht was deeply Nazi/Fascistic throughout the high leadership and officer core even before Nazis got properly into power and rebuilding the military had started. It was deeply corrupt institution.
@@TealJosh it is correct. most germans fought for their country not the ideology, especially in the later years. even if you werent a nazi you didnt want soviets to take over. similar how today most of the US troops in iraq for example arent fueled by imperialism like the government is.
@@hullmees666 well that is not correct. while the number of supporters varied, after fall of paris as much as 9/10 germans supported the ruling part (before the war is was slightly above 33%). Back then no1 even heard the term "nazi" those were all germans, my great grandfather when i asked him about nazis he had no idea who they were so i had to explain to him and he was like "och, germans?". Thats from a person whos been to concentration camp and had his parents and siblings murdered. The whole distinction between germans and nazis started to surface very recently to help people distance nowadays germas from their grandfathers
@@Thalaranthey nah. Maybe where you are from all were called nazis. Not from where i am. Also supporting a seemingly successful leader and sharing his ideology are not the same thing.
Mathematics can be astonishing. If we had a minute of silence for each one who died during WW2 and had them start right after the war ended... The world would still have been quiet with more than 50 years yet to come. Nothing's to be forgotten. No one's to be forgotten.
Ah, a mathematician should check my math. That was over 1 year, not 6. So one person every 3 seconds, or about 33,000 per day, or almost a million per month.
In Russia, the effects of WWII can still be seen in the population growth today. There are two big gaps in the graphics that depict the amount of people in every generation when you look at them. These gaps are the generations of the children and grandchildren of those killed in WWII would have been born at that time, had their (grand)parents lived.
There's also a dip in Russian gender demographics that can be traced back to the stresses of the cold war leading to the stillbirths or abortions of many male infants.
The same is true for the period of WW1 and the following civil war. The civil war was even more deadly for Russia/former russian empire lands then WW1 and that is saying something. From 1914 to 1945 Russia had a human death rate that is utterly redicilous for most people to comprehent.
@Billy Oak Ummm... 18 million people of African descent died, innocently, at the hands of Caucasians, in North America, and 20 million Natives were slaughtered, both, all in the name of God, money, "capitalism", and land grabbing. We can't cast that stone too far.
@Billy Oak 100 million* at the most, though that number is probably even more inflated since a lot of """non-biased""" orgs that tally those numbers count both German and Soviet soldiers in WW2 as "victims of communism" which is...troubling to say the least. Also, did you know that 20 million people die of easily preventable causes like starvation, unclean water and disease annually? That means that 5 years of modern capitalism has more deaths than 100 years of authoritarian communism. Just an interesting tidbit.
@@maltegodkas4931 Yeah, no. The 100+ million people are DIRECT victims of communism, not all deaths that happened in communist countries throughout history. And of those 20 million people you mentioned, vast majority dies in countries that you can hardly call "modern capitalist" (often times not even one of these words)...
@@randomguy6822 I don't know how to reach you beneath all of that red scare propaganda but 100 million is the highest tally anyone has ever done, and that tally is suspicious since it includes the death of german and soviet soldiers as "victims of communism" in a war that a fascist far-right police state started. Those countries are very much modern capitalist countries, they're the most important places on earth for capitalism. Without the cheap labour and exploitation of their resources, rich countries wouldn't have cheap consumer goods, and that's why the large, western capitalist powers make sure the poorest countries stay poor. Those 20 million that die every year are due to capitalism since capitalism is the standard economic system on earth right now and capitalism is also the system which governs those countries and keeps those conditions in order to exploit them for profits.
You do remember how many people the war took but you don't remember how many innocent lives had been taken behalf of the bloodthirsty and perfidious recidivists Lenin and Stalin?
As an ethic Russian living in the US who has a Victory Banner hanging in my apartment that often draws ire from my friends, that visualization is why. I don’t have the banner to commemorate communism or any other political ideology, I have it to remember those who died defeating the Third Reich in the Great Patriotic War. Nothing more needs to be said.
As your fellow American it makes me sad that many other Americans do think that way. We should care about each other as people, not as ideologies. I do think things are slowly changing and more Americans are beginning to appreciate the massive number of Soviets (mostly Russians) who died fighting Nazi Germany.
As a Russian living in Russia, I thank you. Keep the memory of the fallen heroes of that war and do not listen to your friends brainwashed by Western propaganda
Bad genarals and mediocre soldiers but a lot of soldiers. Stalin is very well known for just throwing away lives. Sure Hitler's the same but he always has a plan and had good generals. Stalin even said something like "quantity is its own quality" Basically saying that the main quality of the red army is their quantity. It's not really the red army's fault, though. They had good generals but thanks to stalin's paranoia a lot were executed or exiled. He also said something about how Napoleon, a military general started a coup against the government and he doesn't want that happening to him. History would be completely different if the nazis had as many soldiers as the red army did.
@@formerunsecretarygeneralba9536 That is not true. Have you heard about Ezhov? He was a head of NKVD and he is in charge of crimes, in which you are blaming Stalin. During great purge he and his agents made false charges against people. Stalin personaly amnestied lots of people, including Korolev - the father of Soviet space industry. Great purge was made to fight german spies and trotskist, but Ezhov used it to gain his own goals. Later there was investigation against Ezhov and he was punished for that with death penalty. Second you are misinterprenting Stalin's words. Quality was a main goal of red army, but unfortunately Germany had better equipted mechanized army, while USSR in the begining was loosing in artilery and mechanization. Third, such big loses are connected with some mistakes of field generals, unexpected atack to unmobilized army, quantity superiority almost twice in strategic directions. Nazis encircled millions of soviet soldiers and these soldiers were killed in concentrational camps. Germany had more than 4 mln fully mobilized army during barbarosa operation, while USSR had only 3 mln unmobilised forces in the east front during first months of war. You don't know history so keep your "knowlage" to yourself. With your "opinion" you show disrespect to great people who were ready sacrifice their lifes for those, who they love, for their kids and their future. Couse if they would show their wickness, there would be way more loses and there would be no me. Learn history first, couse with such sayings you only dishonour yourself. One of my great grandfathers was killed during Polands liberation campain. Other is missing. Third one and his brother were liberating Berlin and Dresden. He was field medic and he has awards for saving dozens of people under fire in several battles.
@@formerunsecretarygeneralba9536 sounds like bullshit. It would make sense for USSR to be the country with the most death count, since it was the only country who actually punched Hitler to the nuts and made him crawl back into his dog booth. Its not like war was ever taken on US land at all or on UK land as much as it was taken to the USSR, civillians were raped, slaughtered, their towns burnt to the ground. Trying to downplay USSR's part in the Hitler's defeat is a crime. It is true that red army wasnt as well supplied as german soldiers were, because the country was still rebuilding after the revolution and it was big achievement for USSR to gain such production capacities in such a short time. Im not trying to negate the input of the western allies into the victory over nazism, but everyone should always remember who put the flag on the reichstag in 1945 because of how many lives were lost before this was achieved
@@timwoods8297 I don't like my opinions getting in the way of historical facts but sure you do you, bud. I can't stop you from believing what you want but it's not gonna change facts either.
@@Imaxxd22 it seems like you're getting you opinion in the way of historical facts. Respect to your great grandfather but the last paragraph is completely irrelevant to what we're talking about. The numbers themselves explain how superior (in terms of quality) the german army was to the red army. Not take your opinions as facts but you're always allowed to have one.
@@VloggingThroughHistory i think one of the reason why "Nazi soldiers" is often used in war documentaries and articles is also because the German Army during WW2 wasn't entirely German, especially towards the end of the war and unfortunately a lot of those non Germans who died were still included into the German death count so its not entirely accurate to call them all "German Soldiers" a more accurate way would be to call them soldiers fighting for Nazi Germany (a lot against there will) but when making a documentary or something along those lines that is a lot to say every time you want to reference it so it gets shortened and unfortunately Nazi Soldiers is the easiest and most understandable way for the viewer to understand
@@comeatmebro3229 in that case I'd say using Axis would be more appropriate...similar to referring to the Allies when combining forces from various nations.
@@VloggingThroughHistory i would also agree however when talking about statistics like armed force casualties generally they are categorized by country like Italian soldiers and German Solders aren't put into the same statistic yet conscripted soldiers from annexed countries like Czechoslovakia and yugoslavia who were conscripted into the actual German army do tend to get included into the German army death count, a bit like the United Kingdoms death counts also sometimes contain British and former British colonies like South Africa, Australia and New Zealand like in this video for instance there is no mention of any deaths from Australia and New Zealand because there numbers are included into the United Kingdom.
I am from the former Yugoslavia and very happy that someone is finally talking about our losses. Half a million still seems too little to me - the partisan struggle may have resulted in up to a million deaths. But we tied up an enormous number of German soldiers who were urgently needed in Russia. The Second World War was not only won in Normandy. Thank you for this good video. PS: subscribed
Yugoslavia suffered severe human and material losses. This is a false interpretation of the numbers concerning the Second W.W. A distorted picture of history. Giving absolute numbers changes the true dimensions of the tragedy. I come from the country. who suffered the most during the Second W.W. During World War II, Poland suffered the greatest biological losses (for every 1,000 inhabitants, it lost 220 people). For comparison: USA - 2.9, Belgium - 7, Great Britain - 8, France - 15, Netherlands - 22, USSR - 116. It estimated the total personal losses at 6.028 million people, including 3.2 million Polish citizens of Jewish origin. The death losses of the Slavic Polish population under the German occupation amounted to approximately 2,770,000 people. This group does not include the victims of Soviet crimes in the territories incorporated into the USSR after 1939, and it does not include the victims of the UPA crimes in Volhynia. The post-war census showed 24 million, and the census covered 2 million Germans and about 1-1.5 million Poles living in Germany before World War II. Before the war, Poland was inhabited by 35 million citizens. Of which 13 million in the lands annexed by the Soviet Union, 22 million in the areas occupied by Germany. Poland suffered the greatest material losses during World War II. Material losses per capita, which amounted to $ 626 compared to the second Yugoslavia with $ 601. According to materials presented at the International Reparation Conference in Paris in 1946, material losses in Poland amounted to $ 16.9 billion, respectively, in Yugoslavia - $ 9.1 billion. (Losses are given in 1946 value of money.) 2/5 of Poland's cultural assets were completely destroyed and stolen. Under pressure from the great powers, Poland also had to cede 48% of its territory to the Soviet Union, losing about 178,000 km² in the east. Most of the losses resulted from the German occupation, the USSR was responsible for the other part of the losses. One sentence at the end. Stalin killed many more USSR citizens in 1923-39 than they died during the Second World War
9:22 Very important comment! My grandfather was a hardcore christian and forced to go to Stalingrad as a scout. He told me a story, where he was hiding at night in a bush to spy on the enemy when a russian soldier came straight to him and took a piss just 2m away. He laid there, his gun aimed at the russian soldier and he prayed to god to not have to shoot him. It was against his beliefs and he did not want to harm anybody. Luckily the soldier didn't noticed him and went away soon. My grandfather got to leave the eastern front soon later, right before the 6th took Stalingrad. He went on to smuggle his wife and daugher out of Germany to Ghana and became a missionary doctor there.
This is a very well done video but I also cringe at that comment as well, my grandfather also fought in Stalingrad, he also made it out before the disaster there. He was not a nazi by any means. My father was born in February 45 near Hamburg, and my grandfather survived the war. They immigrated to America in the 1950s.
The last bit, I think, is the most important part. There's good reason to think that WWII kind of shocked the developed world into realizing we can't keep doing this to ourselves. However, as WWII fades from living memory we run the risk of forgetting that lesson that has led to the era of unprecedented "peace" that we currently live in. EDIT: God, I hate being right.
ww3 nuclear and bacterial war deaths: 7.9 billions. A new era is created,all historycal religions,cultures,simbols,corruptions,sects,politics,all gone. A new world order made by privileged people has begun created on the blood of humans for the elects ones destinated to be gods. GAIA =)
There were "world wars" before the 20th century. It was 99 years between the end of the Napoleonic wars and the start of WWI. The "Long Peace" is nothing special.
I feel like the war crimes of the Japanese Empire were mostly forgotten because it was somewhat overshadowed by the nuclear bombings, almost like they were given a free pass for their atrocities.
I would rather think that the war crimes of Japan were never really a big deal in the West since it mostly concerned other Asians (except for British and American prisoners but this is not the same scale). I know for a fact that they did not forget at all in Asia.
The us didn't really care about japan as tension with the ussr were heating up. Which is why they didn't care to dethrown the emperor. They wanted an ally against communism and the nationalistic japan was very against communism.
nah I think its mainly bc WW2 was so massive in scale and unless you take a course specifically covering it you only have a very short time to cover it in school. As a result the focus is honed in on "heres why the war started" and "how we beat the germans bc they were much more locked in and difficult to overcome than the japanese due to the stranglehold they had over all of europe by the time we entered the war". The pacific theatre was basically just really shitty island jumping that resulted in a lot of deaths but was mainly just a "rinse and repeat" over and over and over again as we had to retake like a thousand islands.
@@stinkbug4321 When I said "not the same scale" I was talking about westerners pow. The West has not really been impacted by Japanese war crimes, this is what I was trying to say. And that’s why, I believe, westerners don’t really know about it (+Japan is an ally of the US).
Yugoslavia, well Serbians for the most part but not excluding other nations, gave Germany the finger from the occupation onward, tied up 19 or more of their divisions and finally liberated itself in the end.
At least they've cleared judaism from poland, non-jewish people in poland especially in states like danzig weren't being treated that bad as far as I know
Another dad, here. I looked at that picture too long and cried, too. Fact about that photo: The murderer isn't pointing the gun at the woman and child, but at the people to the right. It only appears like a point-blank shot because of the angle. If the murderer shot at such close range, he would have had to wash the backsplash from his uniform.
@@-HughJass- Yeah sure. There were millions of death, prople being butchered, gazed or outright executed in mass graves, but the Soviet union had to use photoshop (years before modern computers) to create a picture of an execution. Makes sense.
I admit, i cried a little bit when I saw that photo of the mother holding child who is about to be executed. Many people forget how devastating World War 2 was.
The executions were so frequent and brutal, that they had to do rotations, cause the psychological strain on the German soldiers were too much. And the stories coming from how the USSR soldiers behaved, when they took over the areas, the German had taken, are absolutely horrible
It's hard to remember because the numbers are quite literally mind boggling. The event of "World War II" was an insanely massive and complex event that is just so hard to wrap it all up in your mind.
IMO, this is the reason peace has been trending recently. Everyone realizes what will happen during a great powers conflict now, and nobody is willing to risk it, because regardless of what side you fight, it will spell annihilation for everyone. Now that nearly every major country has the bomb, we all have to play nice with the nuclear gun to our heads.
@TopFlight WW3 will be so destructive and catastrophic that any subsequent war will be devoid of the technology that once was, due to the sheer annihilation of the planet's surface.
@@DingleFlop if ww3 is fought, I doubt nukes will be used since most nations know that their chances of winning is impossible if the country or resources they want to conquer or have no longer exists, ww3 will only use nukes imo when really needed.
My Grandpa was a German soldier on the Eastern front, basically from day one until the last day. He was the only one of his friends to return. Initially, he was gunner on a sidecar of a motorcycle. While on the offensive, they’d ride into enemy towns on their own, drive around town square and spray some buildings with a few bursts from the machine gun. If nobody shot back, the town was deemed safe and the army would march through. If fire was returned, depending on how much fire the army would either storm the house from which the return fire came and kill everyone in there or the artillery would just level the entire place. He actually was shot in the head once, but survived, it only scraped him. He had street smarts. He once told me, that in every situation, he always looked for a way out in case of nasty surprises. For example, he was once instructed to man a listening post, basically a hole in the ground near Soviet lines. He didn’t like the look of it and hid in a bush near the hole. So when the Russians came and checked the holes, he was safely watching. While he survived, he was scarred for life. Every Christmas when we sang Christmas songs he cried, as it reminded him of a terrible Christmas he had in Russia. That day, every German soldier received a whole goose from the home front as a special treat. They were all starving so every one of them ate their entire goose. Of course they all fell sick. That night the Russians launched a major attack, and my Grandpa and his comrades were shitting their pants while mowing down the Russians. He said that it was terrible, the Russians had no chance, they were charging the German machine guns and were easily mowed down, yet they kept on coming. He wished that they‘d stop as they’d surely all die. But they kept coming. At some point that night, he said they started to hear strange screams from the Russian soldiers they were killing. When they examined the battlefield the next day, he saw that eventually the Russians sent women, they were the origins of those strange screams. He was devastated by how many good Russians died that night in a completely pointless encounter. He also said that the more ideologically driven the German soldiers were, the quicker they died. Whenever a proper Nazi joint their ranks, he gave him two weeks. That’s how long they’d last on average. They were too determined to play the brave hero, doing pointless stupid shit. At the end he was relatively high in rank for a regular soldier by virtue of surviving for so long. He was actually in Dresden during the famous fire bombing raid. There he was ordered to organise the “Volkssturm“, the last ditch defensive force comprised of kids and old people. When he saw them, he told them all to go home and then went underground, there he survived the bombing. He said the railroad tracks were glowing red hot from all the heat of the bombs, even underground. He then tried to make his way home through the Czech republic. There two partisans found him. First they told him to hand over his medals, which he did, then they told him to strip. He knew they’d kill him, but he had a gun hidden on himself all the time, so he killed them first and took off. That’s how he lost all his medals. He eventually made it to American lines and surrendered there. While on the way to a POW camp, the truck he was on went through his home town by chance. So he jumped off and ran home. The Americans apparently had bigger fish to fry and didn’t try to catch or shoot him. Unfortunately, I only know a fraction of his stories. His experience would have made for a great anti-war movie. I know that it was horrific for him and that he saw a lot of messed up shit. He really was a broken man for the rest of his life. He saw all his friends die and he himself had to kill many times. Still, he was one of the few lucky ones, particularly since he got into trouble several times, like when he refused to execute a Russian girl which apparently shot at them from her home, or when he was careless enough to doubt that Germany would win the war in front of the wrong people. He worked on his farm for the rest of his life, never spoke much, but every Christmas, he had to talk about his experiences.
Thank you for sharing this..it puts a very personal and individual perspective into all of this data..each of these victims of the war, also, had their own history and identity.
@@georgewbush762 I can only tell you what he told me. He was there and this night in particularly scarred him so much that he had to cry every Christmas. Maybe he embellished it in his mind over time, but I find that unlikely. Elements like the Soviets sending women isn’t anything one makes up subconsciously and it certainly speaks to the fact that lots of soldiers were sent to die pointlessly, why else would you eventually start to send women, particularly back then?
And of course you believed all of his stories without any reliable source to back it up... Maybe you shouldn't. There's countless soldiers of that time making up their own versions of what happened.
Most of the men from my family have never returned back home. There is a possibility that some of them have been killed either by your grandfather or his dead friends. I’m not surprised that your grandpa was running to us camp, because he probably knew what Soviets would do to him for the crimes he had committed on our land.
I have seen some of these videos many times from watching other reaction channels but yours is one I find most enjoyable. Seeing the video and then getting your added knowledge on the subjects just adds a whole new level to them. Thank you for making these videos as entertaining and educational as you do. I am 48 years old and I am still learning something new about the subjects I did not know with each of these videos.
@@VloggingThroughHistory Exactly, I made a promise to myself that when my school days were over I would continue to learn. I set a personal goal of learning at least one new thing every day and maybe even learn a new talent or skill regularly and have stuck to that since.
@@VloggingThroughHistory btw in this video stated, that SU suffered 8,7m losses. But in Russia we have special site called "memorial" and I believe it have 16,6m unique records of soldiers who died in a Great patriotic war. number might go up to 19,5m , since more than 20m death notifications have been send
And this is only the military, and how many victims among the civilian population!? One of my grandfather (grandmother's brother) is not even in the lists of those who fought, and he met the war in the Brest fortress in 1941, having served in the army for 1 year. Nothing more is known about him((
I know probably too much about ww2. And I don’t see why anyone should watch this. Personally I think every person should tour aushwitz. And if unable to go there then best to just watch ww2 in color show here on RUclips.
An interesting fact I heard. There was a building in Stalingrad which was of significant strategic importance that the Germans and Soviets were fighting over. The Germans lost more soldiers fighting for that single building than they lost in their entire conquest of France.
I'm really glad you made a point to talk about the picture of the execution. It humanizes the whole thing. Like with the Stalin quote about a million deaths being a statistic, when people hear 6 million dead they don't comprehend the amount of death and bloodshed behind the number. The sadness and suffering. The families torn apart. Everyone should see that photo, and understand that something like this should never happen again.
Wdym no longer? The points he made still stand. Ukraine is a much smaller country than Russia, and it’s not a major war, if that is what you are referring to. And the antagonism with china and North Korea against the USA will most likely not end up in war.
Although I am not German, I would like to thank you for clarifying the difference between Nazis and the soldiers, it is always bothering me when someone is just using Nazi for everyone from Germany at that time, and also demonizing Axis soldiers whom, (especially those who died on the fronts, although under a faulty system ) fought mainly for their homes and families, not necessarily the system and ideology itself.
I am usually careful to separate the actions of governments from the people who live in the country. As an American I certainly don't want people thinking I support all the past and present actions of my country, let alone a country with more blood on its hands. I think the danger is when we won't forgive individuals for the sins of the group, each should be judged on their own actions and not the actions of the whole.
The Battle of Kursk was unbelievable. There were like 3-4 MILLION on that battlefield. The Soviets halted the Nazis, but with some of the heaviest fighting and casualties imaginable. Even after Stalingrad, it was one of the largest attempted counterattacks in history.
@@spicysnowman8886 I cracked on imagining the second family slaughtered, you'd go mad before comprehending each possible situation with so many left unknown
As a Pole, the civilians death count always gets to me. So much Polish blood was spilled during WW2. Including my Great-Granfather who died in the camps when he got captured by the Germans. My Grandfather grew up without a father. He still holds his death certificate.
My grandpa was German Werhmacht and the first chance he has during the war he deserted and took a boat to the US and lived happily till he passed away in 2004 due to cancer. He never wanted to fight but didn’t have a choice
It's important to understand situations like this. He has talked about what Germany looked like and how it was there post WW1 and most just wanted help/out of a very bad situation that unfortunately got alot worse.
Man the pilots of both chechoklovakia and poland ware amazing. I personnally think czhechkoslovalkia had better individiuals but still poles had the best squadron overall
@@---gk9ve maybe his friend's grandfather was a russian, but his family move during the revolution and when his friend's grandfather return from the camp he just live in russia (atleast that's my theory)
Thank you for discussing this video on your channel! It’s a great tool for students (I do literature but my historian friends have used this video as the visual impact of it **really** impresses on the students the incredible brutality of the Eastern Front, and how much it took for the Red Army to push the remaining Wehrmacht forces back all the way to Berlin)
The real number of deaths is much more than shown in this video! According to the latest data, more than 27 million people died in the Soviet Union and volunteers still find the remains of people killed by the Nazis on our land! In every family of the former Soviet Union there are victims of this war, and it is the blood of our grandparents that is paid for freedom and peace on earth, but this ungrateful Europe has simply forgotten!
@doctor_alfa Do you know what the Gulag is and what the concentration camps created by the fascists are? Before comparing the liberation of Europe from fascism by the Russians and the correctional camps that existed in the USSR from 1930 to 1960, take the trouble to study history at least a little, and preferably from historical documents, and not from the false propaganda that you are fed in the West! Unlike you, my family has learned both what the Gulag is and what war is in full! Of the 4 grandfathers, only 2 returned from the war, while my mother's father was arrested for being a prisoner of the fascists ( he escaped from captivity and fought with the partisans), he was acquitted after half a year and returned his military awards! It was a very difficult time: the country was destroyed by the war, there was no money, people were starving, and on top of everything else, many saboteurs and traitors to the Motherland (who fought on the side of the enemy) were still at large.... You know, there is no point in explaining all this to you, if you really wanted to know the true story, you would study it not only from your propaganda sources! And I will add, I do not justify the GULAG, but I do not understand how you can compare the sacrifice of our people in the fight against fascism and the correctional camps, in which the majority were criminals under the articles for plundering property, hooliganism and banditry?!(((
@@doctor_alfa I saw a Russian sources claiming that 20 milion Soviet people went through Gulag, but mortality rate was relatively low- 10%. In gulags there was no focus on exploiting people to death on purpose. If gulags were similar (and I believe they were) to post war POWs camps, you got a food depending on if you manage to fulfill your daily task. If you fulfilled 80% pf it, you only got 80% of a meal. But when were Germans too thin ("dystrophy"), they could rest for some time and got their ratios. But sometimes it was too late, or diseases stroke...
Leonard Cohen once said, "There's no decent place to stand in a massacre." All the nations involved did terrible things during these years and the years that followed. I hope each of us remembers the PEOPLE that died, on both sides, and how tragic the loss of such life is for all of humanity. How many of those millions of people, could have changed our futures with incredible discoveries, innovations, and ideas. Let's keep peace the primary goal of our countries!
I feel for you. We've all done wrong things. When a country has the best army it's not long before it invades other countries and commits war crimes. Rome did it. Ottomans, the Mongols, the Brits. There is a cruel streak in every nationality it seems.
If it makes you feel any better, at least in Polish schools we learn of Yugoslavian resistance and how they were the only ones to liberate themselves by the end of the war. Probably not a thing in the "West", tho.
@@randomguy6822 i was born in yugoslavia, and i moved to vienna, u dont learn in the schools what was going on in yugoslavia, how the soliders killed children for dead nazis.... its fucked up how noone wants to remember that people who didnt get help from USA and UK to get free of the war.... the people had to do it them self... and i have the feeling that the number is not right, it seams to small
@@Kleines89 Not just for dead Nazis - in occupied Poland, the punishment for helping Jews was death sentence for whole families, including children. I have to say it was a bit of a shock to me when I learned that in occupied France the punishment for the same "crime" was just a fine. With such vastly differing experiences, how are western societies supposed to really understand the war without proper education? Well, they kinda don't.
@@randomguy6822 oh i know, i was born in serbia, i lived there and i went there to school... i know the differences... its just crazy how differend the history is
@@wierzba1992 That's an overstatement and even then it is primarily the US invading countries and not without reason either. No matter how bad the reasons may seem, they are still reasons.
As a German who lost grandfathers and great grandfathers in that war, I can really appreciate that you took the time to distinguish between ordinary Germans and real Nazis. We know most about just half of the family, the other half is kind of shrouded in mystery due to chaos, family splits etc. but of the ancestors I know about who fell/fought in WW2, none of them were real Nazis. The real Nazis are those engaging with the Nazis/Nazi party from its inception until 1939. One even was a communist, resisting the Nazis as much as possible, but he eventually had to back down and serve to protect his family and children. He spent years in soviet work camps and would never speak a word of the war, but the trauma was always visible for everyone. I take it as a personal insult when people gernalise all Germans who lived through the war as "Nazis", in fact, most of the actual army personnel were no nazis but were forced or coerced into serving for the Nazi regime. Fighting back is not as easy as some people make it out to be, you not only run the risk of being killed yourself but also your entire family being executed or sent off to the camps. If you have the choice of going to war with a slim chance of survival, most people would take that over certain death for you and your peers.
About french losses : he counted inland (metropolitan france) and colonies separatly, the total military french death count is kind of foggy, i have seen 500 000 to 900 000. North and center afrikan bataillons (french and natives soldiers) fought until 1944
I was gonna say... bc the french number he reported was hella small especially given they were effectively conquered yet kept fighting with the allies till the end of the war.
@@onebuffalo5402 I think the french were spared from a lot of german wrath, they were considered better humans than the slavs and jews and they didn't get killed as much, because britain was watching
@@niepowaznyczlowiekAnd also because of the open colaborationism of the Vichy government. It wasn't until 1943 with the invasion of North Africa that the French resistance truly arose to the peak of it's activity.
I've watched the reaction videos to this a few times and having you be able to drop actual facts to help people understand the content and the numbers is amazing. Instead of the poeple that just add a tear to their thumbnail. Thank you for your channel and the amazing content you put out.
there is a series called 'war against humanity' which follows the war crimes committed against civilians during the war month by month, and it hits different to see it in real-time. it's only in 1942 and yet every episode hurts. the most important thing I've ever told myself to watch.
Germany here: When this video came out I mentioned the issue as well. I am really happy that there's a response about that problematic term. Now, there's no need for rationalizing anything about what my fellow ancestors did.... it is clear as glass. The main personal part for me had been that almost my entire German family was erased during this war, too. And yes... I do know about the USSR... and people of jewish faith. That many families had actually been completely eradicated. My ancestors who lived in Latter Pomerania fought and MANY died in it, too. Either as soldiers due to warfare or as collateral damage by bombing or expulsion and rape. My grandmother told me my family was rather national conservative but did not actively support the nazi party. In fact she told me they made jokes about nazis that were completely dangerous of course. The origins of my grandfather are unclear as he was adopted... he must have been a sunday baby. At least that's the rumor she told me. During the 80s my grandparents went to Poland and found my grandfather's foster mother but she refused to say anything lieing on her deathbed. All documents had been destroyed during the war. He had been a wehrmacht soldier (first lieutenant at the end) and when the war began he was 19. Born in 1920 he entered the war in 1942 or 43 after extensive officer training. According to my mother's mom (maternal grandmother) our family had been quite big. Today... I belong to the tiny little bit of what once had been quite a big 'dynasty'. War sucks! Maybe some other contemporary nations will learn this, too.
@Knut Ritter Yes, war sucks! I am Russian, out of 4 grandfathers who fought with the Nazis, only 2 returned home. I didn't have a chance to ask about the war, since I was born when they were already dead. My mother's family lives in the north near Moscow, my father is from the Urals and the fascists did not get to them and no one else died in the war. My mother's father went to the front as a volunteer at the age of 17 ( he served in Russia from the age of 18 ) in July 1941. He was wounded in the battle of Moscow and captured, escaped and fought until 1944 with the partisans against the Nazis. I don't know anything more, because he didn't like to talk about the war, and my mother didn't ask(( Last year I found the grave of my grandmother's brother, whom the family considered missing. I found out that he fought at Stalingrad, was awarded the medal "For Military Merit", and a year later in December 1943, he died in the battles near Pskov, where he was buried in a mass grave along with 5,000 Red Army soldiers. My father's mother's brother met the war in the Brest fortress (on the border with Poland, the first invasion of the USSR), nothing more is known about him and even in the archives I have not yet found information about his existence, only a letter from him, written to my mother in May 1941 from Brest, remains. I write all this only to show how much grief the war will add, and in my country there is no family that would not have suffered at the hands of the fascists! 27 million Soviet people died during the Second World War!(((Appreciate the world that came at such a price!
This is a false interpretation of the numbers concerning the Second W.W. A distorted picture of history. Giving absolute numbers changes the true dimensions of the tragedy. I come from the country. who suffered the most during the Second W.W. During World War II, Poland suffered the greatest biological losses (for every 1,000 inhabitants, it lost 220 people). For comparison: USA - 2.9, Belgium - 7, Great Britain - 8, France - 15, Netherlands - 22, USSR - 116. It estimated the total personal losses at 6.028 million people, including 3.2 million Polish citizens of Jewish origin. The death losses of the Slavic Polish population under the German occupation amounted to approximately 2,770,000 people. This group does not include the victims of Soviet crimes in the territories incorporated into the USSR after 1939, and it does not include the victims of the UPA crimes in Volhynia. The post-war census showed 24 million, and the census covered 2 million Germans and about 1-1.5 million Poles living in Germany before World War II. Before the war, Poland was inhabited by 35 million citizens. Of which 13 million in the lands annexed by the Soviet Union, 22 million in the areas occupied by Germany. Poland suffered the greatest material losses during World War II. Material losses per capita, which amounted to $ 626 compared to the second Yugoslavia with $ 601. According to materials presented at the International Reparation Conference in Paris in 1946, material losses in Poland amounted to $ 16.9 billion, respectively, in Yugoslavia - $ 9.1 billion. (Losses are given in 1946 value of money.) 2/5 of Poland's cultural assets were completely destroyed and stolen. Under pressure from the great powers, Poland also had to cede 48% of its territory to the Soviet Union, losing about 178,000 km² in the east. Most of the losses resulted from the German occupation, the USSR was responsible for the other part of the losses. One sentence at the end. Stalin killed many more USSR citizens in 1923-39 than they died during the Second World War
@@yakeosicki8965 Your main concern was about using absolute numbers.... in the video relative numbers were used, too. And the video clearly states that it's about human losses in the war and not about material losses. of course they had been huge as well but they are not mentioned in this video.
@@ЛюдмилаК-и4и EN. Greetings from Brest. In the Brest Fortress, new bodies are found on an ongoing basis, you can go to the places where the excursion is held, and meet a bunch of equipment from the Great Patriotic War. I personally found bones, and a bunch of everything. To come on an excursion, nothing of this can be found, however, people living in Brest know where to look ... It is simply impossible to clear the entire territory, the bones literally come out of the ground over time It's scary to think how many bodies there are. In Brest, what is not a construction site, then excavations. It comes to the point that children can find bones almost in the sandbox (conventionally). RU. Приветствую вас из Бреста. В Брестской крепости на постоянной основе находят новые тела, можно идти по крепости (не в местах проведения экскурсии), и встречать кучу снаряжения времен ВОВ. Лично находил кости, и кучу всего. Если приехать на экскурсию, ничего этого не найти, однако люди живущие в Бресте знают где искать... Расчистить всю территорию банально невозможно, кости буквально выходят из-под земли со временем Страшно подумать, сколько там еще тел. У нас в Бресте, что не стройка, то раскопки. Доходит до того, что чуть ли не в песочнице дети могут находить кости (условно).
God.. seeing the number of the Soviets stacking up more and more is just heart wrenching and when you realize the Russian population truly staggered after WWII makes that heart break even worse.. Russia is still suffering from the war in terms of population.. an entire generation worth of men died fighting in that war.. and knowing that makes watching the numbers get visualized feel so much more bone chilling and depressing..
I remember watching this in my college history class. We were all so shocked and dumbfounded that once the video was over, it was SO quiet you could hear a pin drop
the first time I watched this, listening to the wind while the soviet soldier tally went up made me begin to tear up, all of the hopes dreams and families that never came to be.
I don’t care how many times I’ve seen this video, that photo of the woman holding her child chokes me up every time. Words cannot describe the cruelty and inhumanity that is conveyed in that photo.
My great uncle was held prisoner in Poland. Growing up in North Dakota, he spoke fluent German and English, so he ended up working as a translator. He saw that the Russian POWs were treated worse than any others, and the Russians couldn't escape. If they returned home, they were shot as cowards.
My old grand father was fighting as a russian soldier, he got jailed in force nazi's mine, he was managed to escape, he died from a cancer next, nothing hapened...do you really thing soviets will dont protect their soldiers ???
I’ve seen people react to this so many times, but you’re actually the first person to pause on the picture of the woman holding her child and explains how horrific things were. It’s a very haunting but important photo. Thank you for your reaction and that you mentioned that not all Germans were nazis.
As an American, whenever I think about WW2, I automatically think about Europe and the absolute horror that occurred throughout Europe during the war. I don't know why I don't think about Japan's involvement in the war because upon learning about some of the terrifying atrocities that tool place in the rape of Nanking, I shudder at my own ignorance.
It is strange, we were brought into the war because of the Japanese, but we’re really only thought about the war against the Nazis. We don’t learn much about fighting the Japanese, let alone about the horrific atrocities they committed. I’ve heard a wide range of theories for why that is, but regardless, I think it would be very important for the American school system to teach more about the war on the other front
I felt so uneasy watching the soviet numbers going up. It hit me hard when i realized most of those soldiers had a mother to come home to, a daughter or a son to come home to. A spouse to come home to.
When you mentioned the Rapes in Germany, you understood what the Soviet reasoning was and I was Waiting for someone to point that out. It doesn’t make it any worse than what the Germans did but it gives you a better point of view on why.
Still does not make sense. The Soviets even raped former concentration camp inmates or forced workers. There were also over 100,000 raped women and girls in Poland alone. This was not revenge. And regarding the rapes in Germany, they raped girls as young as 8 and women as old as 80. Revenge does not explain this. This was savagery, not revenge.
@@j.w.b5048 true. i will understand their anger and hatred towards the germans, but seriously? raping 8 year olds? thats not revenge thats called being psychopath
That photo of the mom and the girl getting executed is really heartbreaking. I could only imagine what the mom was thinking. She was probably just trying to calm her kid and letting her know it would be quick. Just saying that is horrifying. And the little girl… she most likely didn’t understand why she was there and horrified. It makes me cry just thinking about the last thing they would’ve said to each other.
One of my grand grandfather was executed from the Czech soldier’s, he was an chlose combat instructor for the Wehrmacht, he never see a battle and still died. On the other hand one of my other grand grandfather was an tank driver in the SS division, he got shoot 8 times and survived every single one, he has lucky to drive the Tiger II and panther. He survived the war and he was still really respect to the allies. Later on his year he was allowed to drives some new US tanks, he was so well respected even he was an SS soldier.
I don't think Stalin would invade Germany as he was taking a defensive position and trying to keep the germans calm as much as he could, while in fact building fortifications and setting up landmines along the border. In fact, since the fall of France, the Soviet High Command already knew the germans would attack due to the huge amount of divisions and planes moving to the german side of Poland, it was Stalin that made the war preparations slow and thought he could solve the problems with Germany in a diplomatic way. In june 22nd he even gave the order to the soldiers not to attack any german territory until they were sure that diplomacy wasn't going to work. The Allies also would send to Stalin details about the german divisions preparing to attack and Churchill even offered Stalin to send a British Expeditionary Force to Russia when Germany attacked, to which Stalin said no thinking it was a provocation to escalate tensions between Germany and the USSR. Another fun fact is that, a german scout plane was flying over the occupied Baltic countries pre invasion in 1941, when the soviets shot the plane down, Stalin directly intervened and told the soldiers to treat the pilot, they later gave him dinner, medical treatment and allowed him to go back to Germany. War between the two powers was the last thing Stalin wanted.
he was building up an invasion force in 1941, and had plans to invade. (thats why his defense was so bad intially, most of his units were concentrated on the border in prporation for a soviet attack, which made it easier for the germans to encircle them)
@@anthonypit3508 its not that simple, there is a lot to it, why people can get pushed to terrible acts. In fact, most of them cant be blamed personally
@@DrClef_1 Actually it's more like "it's good Communists killed so many Communists" since the Soviet Union is NOTORIOUS for Logistics failures. The Soviets would have piles of Ammo and rifles, but then FORGOT to plan in advance to MOVE those supplies. Not to mention Soviet Generals work against each other in a Competition, while in the West Generals work with each other. So in... some Ironic way, the Western Allies work as a Collective, while the Soviets work for the Individual high ranking officer... who hate each other. Communists REALLY do not.. like other communists.. at all.
@@someblackguy7371 90% of the dead Nazis were killed by Soviet soldiers, and only 10% by all Western Allies combined. There wasn't even any fighting on the western front until 1944 lol
если бы это было правдой, то что вы говорите, то советская армия не смогла гнать нацистов до самого Берлина и поставить на рейхстаге знамя победы, красное знамя
the USA actually landed on the wrong beach in the Utah landing, wich was fortunate couse it turned out to be a easier landing than the original. also their comanding general was the only high ranking officer to fight with his troops on the battlefield.
I didn’t know I would appreciate the differentiation between nazis and germans so much. what’s often forgotten is that Germany annexed austria and Austrian soldiers were forced into the war. my great grandfather was 19 when Germany annexed Austria and he had to fight on both the western front and eastern front and never once adopted the nazi ideology - he was a communist before the war and after.
I first watched the original video roughly 5 years ago and was completely blown away to see everything laid out so clearly. it had such an impact on me (my eyes watered up the first time i saw the Russian numbers and i still have a hard tme getting thru it), that i have repeatedly shared the link to it and have it bookmarked. Every one should see this. It's a fantastic piece of work by Neil Halloran. Thanks for "bumping" it.
You could take a look on the stories of collaborators in Belgium, that's something that's a part of our history that makes me sick just thinking about what people did after the war
23:00 The war that skyrockets in the back is the An Lushan Revolt. The An Lushan Revolt was a Chinese civil war in which the Tang Dynasty overthrew the Yan Dynasty. It lasted 7 years, from 755 to 763 AD. According to the Chinese Census, the population dropped from 52 Million, down to just 16 Million. That's 36 million deaths, a sixth of the world's population at that time.
He mentioned the inner Chinese wars. Thats a topic that i would really like the media to focus a bit more onto. The changes of dynasties often came with unbelievable costly conflicts. And that at a time of swords and arrows, they comited genocide on their fellow countrymen with bare hands.
Half of my 4 grandgrandfathers’ brothers and uncles are in those Soviet military column. And it is impossible to find their graves, because most of them are missing
Yeah… I enjoyed that no major European wars, tho I have to admit (for the joke’s sake) that it is rather surprising that the people fighting somehow isn’t France Vs Britain or Denmark VS Sweden. finally broken that age old ritual, huh?
@@twojstarymojary6598 Sorry but your comment frustrates me somehow.. Please whatch this wonderful film to brighten your view on how it is not as simple as Germany "allowed" Hitler to "win the election": ruclips.net/video/jFICRFKtAc4/видео.html It's not long and really well explained
Thought I’d drop a comment saying I just found your channel and I’m amazed and excited. Not only are you (or should I be safe and say you appear to be) a great historian, but you can appreciate some of the comedy, add to the conversation rather than just saying “I agree” or “funny,” you look and seem somewhat like a teacher I’m still acquaintances with (a history teacher and Christian just like you), and, arguably most importantly, you’re from Ohio. I’m from Ohio! I never expected to see the stars align (so to speak) like this. I’ve already left some comments on your Oversimplified (USA) Civil War video (reaction), and I can’t wait to see and hear and discuss more. Amazing work, and frequent uploads too it seems! Keep up the great work!
@Poe Dameron805. Maybe for Americans, history is fun, but for Russian people, the history of the Second World War is the suffering of relatives, the grief of mothers, the crippled fate and millions of people killed and starved to death! In America, they do not know anything about this war, only they drive into their descendants that America defeated fascism in the Second World War. Well, after all, you are a "great" nation and it is you who liberate the world, and others start wars! So I want to ask Russian: how much longer will you lie to your people and rewrite history?!!!
@@ЛюдмилаК-и4и I don't meant to say that "history is fun" or to ignore things that you said. I don't doubt the war was horrible in/for Europe. That's why I like to study it, to find out why bad things happen so that they don't happen again. I didn't mean to offend you by my lack of knowledge of just how bad it was.
@Poe Dameron805 If you are so interested in history, then I advise you to look and read not only Western sources of information. As they say: "The story looks different from different sides, but the truth is somewhere in the middle." For example, look at the Soviet film of 1985 -"Go and see", although the front-line soldiers said that everything in the films is not true, but this film very closely conveys the atrocities of the fascists. And also read the books of the Nobel laureate, journalist-Svetlana Usievich: "The war is not a woman's face" and " The last Witnesses. Solo for a child's voice", where real women and children who survived the war tell about the events of the Second World War. I was crying: ((
Until I watched this video a couple years ago I had always thought that more of the United States soldiers died fighting in the Pacific Theater than the European Theater because of how difficult Japan was making it for the United States to take most of those islands
When you look at raw deaths it dosnt seem as bad as the european theater. But when you look at casualties per square meter thats when the brutality of the pacific war comes into perspective. Losing dozens, hundreds, thousands for these tiny little spits of rock out in the middle of nowhere where you cant have big army engagements.
You should look into the details of the war. It was absolutely horrible. Everything from executions, to how the Russians re-captured Europe. It was all absolutely horrible. I couldn't even listen to the stories, in detail, of how Dr. Mengele treated his patients.
@@GoalOrientedLifting how the Russians recaptured Europe? Is that what you said? The Soviets freed Europe from the maniacs! Recaptured? Where in the world you could learn to use this word in the WWII context.
Fascinating original video and excellent reaction. The Commanding General of Soviet Forces at Stalingrad, Chuikov, said once that more Germans died trying to take a building at Stalingrad called 'Pavlov's House' than died trying to take Paris, the sort of resistance that explains why the Russians don't call the conflict World War 2 but The Great Patriotic War. On a lighter note, my grandad was responsible for bringing down several German fighters during WW2. The Luftwaffe said he was the worst mechanic they'd ever employed.
That nameing is propaganda, becaouse Russian government until today not recognaize the USSR invasion on Poland in September 17th, ocupation of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and attack on Finland in winter 1939/1940
@@wojciechpiszczek3583 No you -diot lmao, its because theres a difference between World war 2 (which no, did not start in *your* country but started in China in 1937) and the war USSR had with the nazi Germany. Cause newsflash, yeah, everyone only cares about their country, what a bummer.
My Granddad was on the eastern front in the soviet union. he got captured and one day a few drunk soldiers wanted to beat him dead. he survived because some officer came into the room and stopped the madness. he was 18 when he went into war and was 32 when he got of captivity. he wrote down all his wartime storys before he passed away.
The first time I ever saw this video was 3 years ago in my APUSH class. I've seen it multiple times since, and not once has it failed to make me cry. My family is from and Eastern European country that was once part of the Soviet Union, and I have family in Russia, so watching the Soviet tallies just keep rising brings me to tears. There is actually a documentary about the German occupation of Russia called "Moscow Strikes Back." It has real images and video of the atrocities committed by the SS(they were the ones who committed most of the Nazi war crimes we hear about). There's images of children hanging from makeshift gallows outside of Moscow as their mothers are forced to watch. It hurts to even see. I'm not proud of what the Soviets did when they invaded Germany. The crimes the Red Army committed are absolutely abhorrent. But thank you for recognizing that many of those soldiers who did what they did had seen the darkest sides of humanity and experienced hell a hundred times over. It takes a lot to find mercy for the enemy who took everything from you. Some just can't find it in their hearts.
Unfortunately, cruelty is the reality of any war! But why is everyone talking about what the Red Army did, and why did the Americans and the British just smile and give out chocolate bars during the war, while the Russians were liberating the world from fascism?!
One thing that is not addressed here is the Bengal Famine in British India. Winston Churchill had deliberately diverted supplies from Bengal, one of the most populous states in India at that time, and shipped them off to the western front to act as buffer stock. This led to one of the largest famines in history, killing around 3 million in Bengal alone, alongside other states.
What I heard was that Japan cut off the food supply to bengal “According to some RUclips short” churchill was quite “disappointed” and he “eventually” got Australia to import food to bengal
What isn't talked about at all though is how the Japanese bombed crops with poisonous pesticides which poisoned the soil in what is now Bangladesh. The Japanese were at fault for the famine, it was our fault (the British) for not responding well. It's a terrible part of our history but Japan never gets the blame for the famine.
Thank you for making the distinctions that you made in this video. As a European, trying to put the impact of World War 2 into words is overwhelming and frustrating, because words tend to fail at the pure breakdown of humanity, meaning, and order. The Hebrew word for the Holocaust is "shoah" which translates as 'catastrophe', and the word "Holocaust" itself means "complete devastation or destruction, especially by fire". That's what World War 2 was; a large void of humanity that consumed the whole world. My grand father died on the Eastern Front where he was sent to fight for the Germans because he needed to go on social security. The Danish government at the time ordered people on social security to go fight there. He died at the front, and the men who returned after the war would usually be sent straight to prison for collaborating with the occupying Germans. Stanley Kubrick didn't like Schindler's List because he hated that it was a story about success in the midst of the war. “The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed. ‘Schindler’s List’ is about 600 who don’t,”.
Also part of the reason why they moved to camps rather than mobile killing groups is because it mentally buffered the soldier from what they were doing. The suicide rate among MKGs was massive because just constantly individually executing non-combatants destroyed their will to live.
Unfortunately (or not, depending on your perspective), it was not - we are still in the long peace, as it was presented in the video. There's a reason the cutoff was a deliberate, human cutoff "44th largest economy" - and unfortunately, Ukraine's economy was the 74th largest economy in the world prior to invasion according to Wikipedia. The war in Ukraine by Russia would be part of the calculated long peace cost, and a subset addition to the 3.5 million deaths in interstate war. I'm not trying to minimalize it, it's a global catastrophe and tragedy, but rather point out how the numbers for it would be reflected in the video. And let us hope that, for the sake of all, my comment here will not age poorly, and the large powers will not go to war.
The threat of nuclear war essentially brought relative peace. None of the wealthy nations see the potential losses of a nuclear conflict as worth the potential gains of a successful war.
I just want to say in the original video he expresses the aspect of him saying nazi soldiers and saying it was a mistake and it didn’t occur in the foreign version of the videos
My grandfather was a runner for General Buckner, apparently this guy got grabbed by his men because he never took proper cover. He wore the shiny type of rank insignia as well that some Marines said they could recognize him from hundreds of yards away. So it was no surprise that he was eventually killed by a Japanese rocket.
@@direct2397 Russian soldiers in the area literally had no magazines/ammo with them, because there was no need for them. Almost all the ukrainian garrisons peacefully surrendered. Only 4 people died during the entire thing due to minor conflicts, and 2 people died because of conflicts between 2 different protests groups, while the other 2 died during an assault on UAF's photogrammetric center. Even then, it's unknown as to why that assault even started in the first place. So yes, this was relatively peaceful.
My great great grandfather fought for the Soviets against the Nazis's and won medals for bravery and my mum's aunt went through and survived the Siege of Leningrad, she would always tell my mum "please, hope there will be no war in the future!" She just wanted peace for everyone. Everyone needs to see this video especially in schools.
Sorry for being blunt in advance. I really enjoy watching historians, scientists, engineers, psychologists and other "expert reacts" taking a look at popular videos and movies on RUclips. It's much more satisfying and educational than watching some 20 year old RUclipsr reacting to videos that they don't really understand, giggling or crying ignorantly.
26:05 - I think another “world war” would be inevitable. I think it comes down to human nature. However, I think it would be on a far smaller scale, speaking from the standpoint of how many countries join, but the advancements in weapons, training, military strategies, etc would counter the lack of countries. Therefore I would guess the death toll would be around the same, maybe slightly higher than WW2.
Not sure about less countries. If a world war happens in our lifetimes, you'd still have much of the northern hemisphere in war. And if southern hemisphere countries are ever attacked or involved in any way, there could very well be even more than in WW2.
I really appreciate you differentiating between Nazis and Germans several times
Distinction is lost me, the Luftwaffe didn't give a shit about the political affiliation of my British family, whether or neutral / pacifist or other they still dropped bombs and killed a number of my family so as far as I am concern I don't care if the Luftwaffe crew were dedicated nazis or just along for the ride. They got repaid in kind. You reach for the sword, and start killing you cannot expect quarter when it starts going wrong for you. Don't start what you cannot finish.
@@shrade2.016 Thats very True i think because The Allies won WW2, their War Crimes often got Forgotten
(i dont Try to excuse German War Crimes with this comment)
Every German who was fighting in Wehrmacht was fighting for nazism. It was not a deffencive war, but offencive. They came to kill and take. So they were nazis. Germans were fighting against nazism.
Especially at the end of the war the war was far from offensive anymore. At that time most of the soldiers were either forced to fight or be killed or just wanted to defend their homeland and families. As already noticed the allies did commit crimes during the war too, like the Dresden Firestorm. (Also no excuse for Germany starting the war in the first place and the Nazis horrible crimes.)
@@philipleese1565 Yeah, sure of course. Such tricks does not work. It is like crying that bully was kicked back. Otherwise bully would not learn his lesson. Most soldiers were afraid of justice for their crimes. They should be thought about defending their families before they started war and before they atacked homeland of other people, before they destroyed other families. I have read memoirs of Wehrmacht soldiers and what they thought when they were invading USSR. "Those, who come to our home with sword - would fall from the sword" - Alexander Nevskiy
Seeing the Soviet numbers going up and up....really send chills
Indeed... WW2 was the darkest time in humanity, where our absolute worse was shown. A massacre tells very little how many died in those six years of fighting.
@@pepper-0ni-t1m ww1 and ww2 were truly terrifying wars to fight in, fighintg in trenches like in ww1 would be hell, fighting in battles like Stalingrad and d day would also be hell
On the global scale, yes, but not in more local context. The video includes examples like ~40M deaths attributed to Mao that are concentrated in China and largely in the span of just a few years...
@@GediMini That's.... kinda what I meant. I used humanity in a general sense, not a plural sense.
Granted, there are several things that showcase cruelty on par or, dare I say, exceed that of WW2 but, in the general aspect, the second world war was humanities darkest moment in the time it's been on Earth.
@@razr-x9666 i think ww1 is far worst, waiting in trench with the corps+artilery bombardment and animal fighting when run out of ammo.
Ww2 take more life bcos they r mobilize, and kill somebody on the way
German history/philosophy teacher here, I appreciate ur insights and the way you comment. My great-grandfather was one of the very few german soldiers who died in the early western campain in Belgium. He wrote many letters to the my great-grandmother in a style of handwriting that was common back then but almost nobody can read anymore. We got those letters translated a couple years ago by an expert from swizzerland. Those documents give a really interesting insight starting with "the belief in Hitler and being part of something special" to war experiences. The last letter to my great-grandmother is not from her husband but his closest comrade after he had fallen. Sometimes I use them in my history lessons.
If it’s not too personal and if you’re okay with it, could you scan them along with the translations and post them online. It’s very fascinating as I also have some from my great grandparents, one of my favorites and oldest are from my great great grandfather from early 1900s
Hey, I think you might be apropriate person to ask this about. The creator of this reaction video made a point of distinguishing Nazis and German soldiers. Is this really correct in the end of the day? The comparison made on the video was roughly, It wouldn't be correct to say democrats won the ww2 for US. I disagree with that on the basis that Wehrmacht was deeply Nazi/Fascistic throughout the high leadership and officer core even before Nazis got properly into power and rebuilding the military had started. It was deeply corrupt institution.
@@TealJosh it is correct. most germans fought for their country not the ideology, especially in the later years. even if you werent a nazi you didnt want soviets to take over. similar how today most of the US troops in iraq for example arent fueled by imperialism like the government is.
@@hullmees666 well that is not correct. while the number of supporters varied, after fall of paris as much as 9/10 germans supported the ruling part (before the war is was slightly above 33%). Back then no1 even heard the term "nazi" those were all germans, my great grandfather when i asked him about nazis he had no idea who they were so i had to explain to him and he was like "och, germans?". Thats from a person whos been to concentration camp and had his parents and siblings murdered.
The whole distinction between germans and nazis started to surface very recently to help people distance nowadays germas from their grandfathers
@@Thalaranthey nah. Maybe where you are from all were called nazis. Not from where i am. Also supporting a seemingly successful leader and sharing his ideology are not the same thing.
Mathematics can be astonishing.
If we had a minute of silence for each one who died during WW2 and had them start right after the war ended...
The world would still have been quiet with more than 50 years yet to come.
Nothing's to be forgotten. No one's to be forgotten.
If you flatten out the deaths across the 6 years of war, 2 people died every second.
Ah, a mathematician should check my math. That was over 1 year, not 6. So one person every 3 seconds, or about 33,000 per day, or almost a million per month.
which also means, that even giving each 1 single seccond we would be silent a whole year
In Russia, the effects of WWII can still be seen in the population growth today. There are two big gaps in the graphics that depict the amount of people in every generation when you look at them. These gaps are the generations of the children and grandchildren of those killed in WWII would have been born at that time, had their (grand)parents lived.
There's also a dip in Russian gender demographics that can be traced back to the stresses of the cold war leading to the stillbirths or abortions of many male infants.
@@Thalanox At the time, there was NO way to know if it was a male or female fetus.
@@carlajenkins1990 Yes, and?
The same is true for the period of WW1 and the following civil war. The civil war was even more deadly for Russia/former russian empire lands then WW1 and that is saying something. From 1914 to 1945 Russia had a human death rate that is utterly redicilous for most people to comprehent.
@@noobster4779 I've heard that most of Russian history can be summarized as "...and then it got worse".
And here I am, sitting in my dark room, looking at a rolling screen of hundreds of red dots, feeling so very, very small.
I hear ya.
@Billy Oak Ummm... 18 million people of African descent died, innocently, at the hands of Caucasians, in North America, and 20 million Natives were slaughtered, both, all in the name of God, money, "capitalism", and land grabbing. We can't cast that stone too far.
@Billy Oak 100 million* at the most, though that number is probably even more inflated since a lot of """non-biased""" orgs that tally those numbers count both German and Soviet soldiers in WW2 as "victims of communism" which is...troubling to say the least.
Also, did you know that 20 million people die of easily preventable causes like starvation, unclean water and disease annually?
That means that 5 years of modern capitalism has more deaths than 100 years of authoritarian communism.
Just an interesting tidbit.
@@maltegodkas4931 Yeah, no. The 100+ million people are DIRECT victims of communism, not all deaths that happened in communist countries throughout history.
And of those 20 million people you mentioned, vast majority dies in countries that you can hardly call "modern capitalist" (often times not even one of these words)...
@@randomguy6822 I don't know how to reach you beneath all of that red scare propaganda but 100 million is the highest tally anyone has ever done, and that tally is suspicious since it includes the death of german and soviet soldiers as "victims of communism" in a war that a fascist far-right police state started.
Those countries are very much modern capitalist countries, they're the most important places on earth for capitalism.
Without the cheap labour and exploitation of their resources, rich countries wouldn't have cheap consumer goods, and that's why the large, western capitalist powers make sure the poorest countries stay poor.
Those 20 million that die every year are due to capitalism since capitalism is the standard economic system on earth right now and capitalism is also the system which governs those countries and keeps those conditions in order to exploit them for profits.
I'm Russian and I just want to say thank you for remembering how many people we lost at this war.
You do remember how many people the war took but you don't remember how many innocent lives had been taken behalf of the bloodthirsty and perfidious recidivists Lenin and Stalin?
There would be 250 million ethnic russian today
@@anastastsankov5479 Lenin and Stalin are not a whole country.
@@Ruslan-iy7dw Did you even read my comment?
@@anastastsankov5479 that wasn’t reproach in your direction, I agree with you. That was just a remind, for all. Don’t judge by 2 people.
As an ethic Russian living in the US who has a Victory Banner hanging in my apartment that often draws ire from my friends, that visualization is why. I don’t have the banner to commemorate communism or any other political ideology, I have it to remember those who died defeating the Third Reich in the Great Patriotic War. Nothing more needs to be said.
Absolutely
As your fellow American it makes me sad that many other Americans do think that way. We should care about each other as people, not as ideologies. I do think things are slowly changing and more Americans are beginning to appreciate the massive number of Soviets (mostly Russians) who died fighting Nazi Germany.
And yet, you only get a part of the story.
As a Russian living in Russia, I thank you. Keep the memory of the fallen heroes of that war and do not listen to your friends brainwashed by Western propaganda
@@Anonymous-qj3sf greetings from abroad!
Jesus, I knew the Soviets took many losses, but that visualization is staggering.
Bad genarals and mediocre soldiers but a lot of soldiers. Stalin is very well known for just throwing away lives. Sure Hitler's the same but he always has a plan and had good generals. Stalin even said something like "quantity is its own quality" Basically saying that the main quality of the red army is their quantity. It's not really the red army's fault, though. They had good generals but thanks to stalin's paranoia a lot were executed or exiled. He also said something about how Napoleon, a military general started a coup against the government and he doesn't want that happening to him. History would be completely different if the nazis had as many soldiers as the red army did.
@@formerunsecretarygeneralba9536 That is not true. Have you heard about Ezhov? He was a head of NKVD and he is in charge of crimes, in which you are blaming Stalin. During great purge he and his agents made false charges against people. Stalin personaly amnestied lots of people, including Korolev - the father of Soviet space industry. Great purge was made to fight german spies and trotskist, but Ezhov used it to gain his own goals. Later there was investigation against Ezhov and he was punished for that with death penalty.
Second you are misinterprenting Stalin's words. Quality was a main goal of red army, but unfortunately Germany had better equipted mechanized army, while USSR in the begining was loosing in artilery and mechanization.
Third, such big loses are connected with some mistakes of field generals, unexpected atack to unmobilized army, quantity superiority almost twice in strategic directions. Nazis encircled millions of soviet soldiers and these soldiers were killed in concentrational camps. Germany had more than 4 mln fully mobilized army during barbarosa operation, while USSR had only 3 mln unmobilised forces in the east front during first months of war.
You don't know history so keep your "knowlage" to yourself. With your "opinion" you show disrespect to great people who were ready sacrifice their lifes for those, who they love, for their kids and their future. Couse if they would show their wickness, there would be way more loses and there would be no me. Learn history first, couse with such sayings you only dishonour yourself.
One of my great grandfathers was killed during Polands liberation campain. Other is missing. Third one and his brother were liberating Berlin and Dresden. He was field medic and he has awards for saving dozens of people under fire in several battles.
@@formerunsecretarygeneralba9536 sounds like bullshit. It would make sense for USSR to be the country with the most death count, since it was the only country who actually punched Hitler to the nuts and made him crawl back into his dog booth. Its not like war was ever taken on US land at all or on UK land as much as it was taken to the USSR, civillians were raped, slaughtered, their towns burnt to the ground. Trying to downplay USSR's part in the Hitler's defeat is a crime. It is true that red army wasnt as well supplied as german soldiers were, because the country was still rebuilding after the revolution and it was big achievement for USSR to gain such production capacities in such a short time. Im not trying to negate the input of the western allies into the victory over nazism, but everyone should always remember who put the flag on the reichstag in 1945 because of how many lives were lost before this was achieved
@@timwoods8297 I don't like my opinions getting in the way of historical facts but sure you do you, bud. I can't stop you from believing what you want but it's not gonna change facts either.
@@Imaxxd22 it seems like you're getting you opinion in the way of historical facts. Respect to your great grandfather but the last paragraph is completely irrelevant to what we're talking about. The numbers themselves explain how superior (in terms of quality) the german army was to the red army. Not take your opinions as facts but you're always allowed to have one.
The creator corrected himself in the comments about the nazi/german algamation
Good to know
@@VloggingThroughHistory i think one of the reason why "Nazi soldiers" is often used in war documentaries and articles is also because the German Army during WW2 wasn't entirely German, especially towards the end of the war and unfortunately a lot of those non Germans who died were still included into the German death count so its not entirely accurate to call them all "German Soldiers" a more accurate way would be to call them soldiers fighting for Nazi Germany (a lot against there will) but when making a documentary or something along those lines that is a lot to say every time you want to reference it so it gets shortened and unfortunately Nazi Soldiers is the easiest and most understandable way for the viewer to understand
@@comeatmebro3229 in that case I'd say using Axis would be more appropriate...similar to referring to the Allies when combining forces from various nations.
Yep
@@VloggingThroughHistory i would also agree however when talking about statistics like armed force casualties generally they are categorized by country like Italian soldiers and German Solders aren't put into the same statistic yet conscripted soldiers from annexed countries like Czechoslovakia and yugoslavia who were conscripted into the actual German army do tend to get included into the German army death count, a bit like the United Kingdoms death counts also sometimes contain British and former British colonies like South Africa, Australia and New Zealand like in this video for instance there is no mention of any deaths from Australia and New Zealand because there numbers are included into the United Kingdom.
I am from the former Yugoslavia and very happy that someone is finally talking about our losses. Half a million still seems too little to me - the partisan struggle may have resulted in up to a million deaths. But we tied up an enormous number of German soldiers who were urgently needed in Russia. The Second World War was not only won in Normandy. Thank you for this good video.
PS: subscribed
It wasn't won in Normandy at all. Several battles in the Eastern Front took more lives than the entire Western Front throughout the whole war.
nobody can win a war. Everyone lose people.
@@lorrdy7640 except the neutral nations since they lose nothing
Yugoslavia suffered severe human and material losses. This is a false interpretation of the numbers concerning the Second W.W. A distorted picture of history. Giving absolute numbers changes the true dimensions of the tragedy. I come from the country. who suffered the most during the Second W.W. During World War II, Poland suffered the greatest biological losses (for every 1,000 inhabitants, it lost 220 people). For comparison: USA - 2.9, Belgium - 7, Great Britain - 8, France - 15, Netherlands - 22, USSR - 116. It estimated the total personal losses at 6.028 million people, including 3.2 million Polish citizens of Jewish origin. The death losses of the Slavic Polish population under the German occupation amounted to approximately 2,770,000 people. This group does not include the victims of Soviet crimes in the territories incorporated into the USSR after 1939, and it does not include the victims of the UPA crimes in Volhynia. The post-war census showed 24 million, and the census covered 2 million Germans and about 1-1.5 million Poles living in Germany before World War II. Before the war, Poland was inhabited by 35 million citizens. Of which 13 million in the lands annexed by the Soviet Union, 22 million in the areas occupied by Germany. Poland suffered the greatest material losses during World War II. Material losses per capita, which amounted to $ 626 compared to the second Yugoslavia with $ 601. According to materials presented at the International Reparation Conference in Paris in 1946, material losses in Poland amounted to $ 16.9 billion, respectively, in Yugoslavia - $ 9.1 billion. (Losses are given in 1946 value of money.) 2/5 of Poland's cultural assets were completely destroyed and stolen. Under pressure from the great powers, Poland also had to cede 48% of its territory to the Soviet Union, losing about 178,000 km² in the east. Most of the losses resulted from the German occupation, the USSR was responsible for the other part of the losses. One sentence at the end. Stalin killed many more USSR citizens in 1923-39 than they died during the Second World War
@@yakeosicki8965 very good point. You are right.
9:22 Very important comment!
My grandfather was a hardcore christian and forced to go to Stalingrad as a scout. He told me a story, where he was hiding at night in a bush to spy on the enemy when a russian soldier came straight to him and took a piss just 2m away. He laid there, his gun aimed at the russian soldier and he prayed to god to not have to shoot him. It was against his beliefs and he did not want to harm anybody.
Luckily the soldier didn't noticed him and went away soon.
My grandfather got to leave the eastern front soon later, right before the 6th took Stalingrad. He went on to smuggle his wife and daugher out of Germany to Ghana and became a missionary doctor there.
This is a very well done video but I also cringe at that comment as well, my grandfather also fought in Stalingrad, he also made it out before the disaster there. He was not a nazi by any means. My father was born in February 45 near Hamburg, and my grandfather survived the war. They immigrated to America in the 1950s.
The last bit, I think, is the most important part. There's good reason to think that WWII kind of shocked the developed world into realizing we can't keep doing this to ourselves. However, as WWII fades from living memory we run the risk of forgetting that lesson that has led to the era of unprecedented "peace" that we currently live in.
EDIT: God, I hate being right.
i think its more nukes scared the major powers into peace, however as anti-missile technologies improve they might loose this fear
Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. Ideas have consequences, they did in 1939 and they will in 2039.
ww3 nuclear and bacterial war deaths: 7.9 billions.
A new era is created,all historycal religions,cultures,simbols,corruptions,sects,politics,all gone. A new world order made by privileged people has begun created on the blood of humans for the elects ones destinated to be gods.
GAIA =)
There were "world wars" before the 20th century. It was 99 years between the end of the Napoleonic wars and the start of WWI. The "Long Peace" is nothing special.
I feel like the war crimes of the Japanese Empire were mostly forgotten because it was somewhat overshadowed by the nuclear bombings, almost like they were given a free pass for their atrocities.
I would rather think that the war crimes of Japan were never really a big deal in the West since it mostly concerned other Asians (except for British and American prisoners but this is not the same scale).
I know for a fact that they did not forget at all in Asia.
The us didn't really care about japan as tension with the ussr were heating up. Which is why they didn't care to dethrown the emperor. They wanted an ally against communism and the nationalistic japan was very against communism.
nah I think its mainly bc WW2 was so massive in scale and unless you take a course specifically covering it you only have a very short time to cover it in school. As a result the focus is honed in on "heres why the war started" and "how we beat the germans bc they were much more locked in and difficult to overcome than the japanese due to the stranglehold they had over all of europe by the time we entered the war". The pacific theatre was basically just really shitty island jumping that resulted in a lot of deaths but was mainly just a "rinse and repeat" over and over and over again as we had to retake like a thousand islands.
Everyone is wrong. War is just a stupid thing
@@stinkbug4321
When I said "not the same scale" I was talking about westerners pow.
The West has not really been impacted by Japanese war crimes, this is what I was trying to say.
And that’s why, I believe, westerners don’t really know about it (+Japan is an ally of the US).
I studied history at a level here in the uk and we were NEVER told about what happened in Yugoslavia so that’s came as a big shock to me
What do you think about 1999?
Well. Mostly Serbs. Croatian facists were helping the German
Yugoslavia, well Serbians for the most part but not excluding other nations, gave Germany the finger from the occupation onward, tied up 19 or more of their divisions and finally liberated itself in the end.
Lmao uk history is so bullshit and biased in favour of themselves. Nothing about colonies, japan or smything interesting
Deaths in Yugoslavia were covered at GCSE level. You weren't paying attention.
That one is six Poles died in the Second World War, unbelievable. I'm so glad that these figures are shown like this, it makes the truth transparent.
Poland has been threw hell and back multiple times over, it's super sad when you hear about some of the stories of what the people had to go threw 😪
At least they've cleared judaism from poland, non-jewish people in poland especially in states like danzig weren't being treated that bad as far as I know
The russians helped kill those Poles, let's not forget that.
@@headhunter1945 yes they did!
@@headhunter1945 Yeah but the vast majority were killed by the Germans.
The pic of the mother holding the child.
As a kid and adult i said wow that sad.
As a dad it was a weeping experance.
Take this away, kid. The ones who FIGHT monster, are not that woman or her child.
Another dad, here. I looked at that picture too long and cried, too.
Fact about that photo: The murderer isn't pointing the gun at the woman and child, but at the people to the right. It only appears like a point-blank shot because of the angle. If the murderer shot at such close range, he would have had to wash the backsplash from his uniform.
@@nateotto3960 thats interesting.
It actually changes the dynamic a bit.
That picture is a Soviet photoshop/alteration.
@@-HughJass- Yeah sure. There were millions of death, prople being butchered, gazed or outright executed in mass graves, but the Soviet union had to use photoshop (years before modern computers) to create a picture of an execution. Makes sense.
I admit, i cried a little bit when I saw that photo of the mother holding child who is about to be executed. Many people forget how devastating World War 2 was.
Cruel shit is still happening
The executions were so frequent and brutal, that they had to do rotations, cause the psychological strain on the German soldiers were too much.
And the stories coming from how the USSR soldiers behaved, when they took over the areas, the German had taken, are absolutely horrible
@@GoalOrientedLifting The Soviet groups were far worse, especially the Mongolian units
@@jaklm4221 Where?
It's hard to remember because the numbers are quite literally mind boggling. The event of "World War II" was an insanely massive and complex event that is just so hard to wrap it all up in your mind.
"I don't know what weapon would be used in WWIII. But in world war 4 we will use stones"- A. Einstein
@TopFlight Nukes
IMO, this is the reason peace has been trending recently. Everyone realizes what will happen during a great powers conflict now, and nobody is willing to risk it, because regardless of what side you fight, it will spell annihilation for everyone. Now that nearly every major country has the bomb, we all have to play nice with the nuclear gun to our heads.
@TopFlight WW3 will be so destructive and catastrophic that any subsequent war will be devoid of the technology that once was, due to the sheer annihilation of the planet's surface.
@@DingleFlop if ww3 is fought, I doubt nukes will be used since most nations know that their chances of winning is impossible if the country or resources they want to conquer or have no longer exists, ww3 will only use nukes imo when really needed.
@@ratatosk001 what would be the point of the war then? Just killing everyone?
My Grandpa was a German soldier on the Eastern front, basically from day one until the last day. He was the only one of his friends to return.
Initially, he was gunner on a sidecar of a motorcycle. While on the offensive, they’d ride into enemy towns on their own, drive around town square and spray some buildings with a few bursts from the machine gun. If nobody shot back, the town was deemed safe and the army would march through. If fire was returned, depending on how much fire the army would either storm the house from which the return fire came and kill everyone in there or the artillery would just level the entire place. He actually was shot in the head once, but survived, it only scraped him.
He had street smarts. He once told me, that in every situation, he always looked for a way out in case of nasty surprises.
For example, he was once instructed to man a listening post, basically a hole in the ground near Soviet lines. He didn’t like the look of it and hid in a bush near the hole. So when the Russians came and checked the holes, he was safely watching.
While he survived, he was scarred for life. Every Christmas when we sang Christmas songs he cried, as it reminded him of a terrible Christmas he had in Russia. That day, every German soldier received a whole goose from the home front as a special treat. They were all starving so every one of them ate their entire goose. Of course they all fell sick. That night the Russians launched a major attack, and my Grandpa and his comrades were shitting their pants while mowing down the Russians. He said that it was terrible, the Russians had no chance, they were charging the German machine guns and were easily mowed down, yet they kept on coming. He wished that they‘d stop as they’d surely all die. But they kept coming. At some point that night, he said they started to hear strange screams from the Russian soldiers they were killing. When they examined the battlefield the next day, he saw that eventually the Russians sent women, they were the origins of those strange screams. He was devastated by how many good Russians died that night in a completely pointless encounter.
He also said that the more ideologically driven the German soldiers were, the quicker they died. Whenever a proper Nazi joint their ranks, he gave him two weeks. That’s how long they’d last on average. They were too determined to play the brave hero, doing pointless stupid shit.
At the end he was relatively high in rank for a regular soldier by virtue of surviving for so long. He was actually in Dresden during the famous fire bombing raid. There he was ordered to organise the “Volkssturm“, the last ditch defensive force comprised of kids and old people. When he saw them, he told them all to go home and then went underground, there he survived the bombing. He said the railroad tracks were glowing red hot from all the heat of the bombs, even underground.
He then tried to make his way home through the Czech republic. There two partisans found him. First they told him to hand over his medals, which he did, then they told him to strip. He knew they’d kill him, but he had a gun hidden on himself all the time, so he killed them first and took off. That’s how he lost all his medals.
He eventually made it to American lines and surrendered there. While on the way to a POW camp, the truck he was on went through his home town by chance. So he jumped off and ran home. The Americans apparently had bigger fish to fry and didn’t try to catch or shoot him.
Unfortunately, I only know a fraction of his stories. His experience would have made for a great anti-war movie. I know that it was horrific for him and that he saw a lot of messed up shit. He really was a broken man for the rest of his life. He saw all his friends die and he himself had to kill many times. Still, he was one of the few lucky ones, particularly since he got into trouble several times, like when he refused to execute a Russian girl which apparently shot at them from her home, or when he was careless enough to doubt that Germany would win the war in front of the wrong people. He worked on his farm for the rest of his life, never spoke much, but every Christmas, he had to talk about his experiences.
Thank you for sharing this..it puts a very personal and individual perspective into all of this data..each of these victims of the war, also, had their own history and identity.
@@georgewbush762 I can only tell you what he told me. He was there and this night in particularly scarred him so much that he had to cry every Christmas. Maybe he embellished it in his mind over time, but I find that unlikely. Elements like the Soviets sending women isn’t anything one makes up subconsciously and it certainly speaks to the fact that lots of soldiers were sent to die pointlessly, why else would you eventually start to send women, particularly back then?
;
And of course you believed all of his stories without any reliable source to back it up...
Maybe you shouldn't.
There's countless soldiers of that time making up their own versions of what happened.
Most of the men from my family have never returned back home. There is a possibility that some of them have been killed either by your grandfather or his dead friends. I’m not surprised that your grandpa was running to us camp, because he probably knew what Soviets would do to him for the crimes he had committed on our land.
I have seen some of these videos many times from watching other reaction channels but yours is one I find most enjoyable. Seeing the video and then getting your added knowledge on the subjects just adds a whole new level to them.
Thank you for making these videos as entertaining and educational as you do. I am 48 years old and I am still learning something new about the subjects I did not know with each of these videos.
Appreciate that, James! We are all here to learn.
@@VloggingThroughHistory Exactly, I made a promise to myself that when my school days were over I would continue to learn. I set a personal goal of learning at least one new thing every day and maybe even learn a new talent or skill regularly and have stuck to that since.
@@VloggingThroughHistory btw in this video stated, that SU suffered 8,7m losses. But in Russia we have special site called "memorial" and I believe it have 16,6m unique records of soldiers who died in a Great patriotic war. number might go up to 19,5m , since more than 20m death notifications have been send
And this is only the military, and how many victims among the civilian population!? One of my grandfather (grandmother's brother) is not even in the lists of those who fought, and he met the war in the Brest fortress in 1941, having served in the army for 1 year. Nothing more is known about him((
Was hoping you'd react to this at some point and I'm glad you did!
Yeah this is something everyone should watch, everyone
@@morrettigames5153 I agree
I know probably too much about ww2. And I don’t see why anyone should watch this. Personally I think every person should tour aushwitz. And if unable to go there then best to just watch ww2 in color show here on RUclips.
An interesting fact I heard. There was a building in Stalingrad which was of significant strategic importance that the Germans and Soviets were fighting over. The Germans lost more soldiers fighting for that single building than they lost in their entire conquest of France.
How interesting
I guess you mean Pavlov's House (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlov%27s_House). The fight for this building was a part of Stalingrad battle
Yes. Its true
The conquest of Paris. They did lose more with the cinquest of France, but Stalingrad as a whole made France look like a house of cards in comparison.
I'm really glad you made a point to talk about the picture of the execution. It humanizes the whole thing. Like with the Stalin quote about a million deaths being a statistic, when people hear 6 million dead they don't comprehend the amount of death and bloodshed behind the number. The sadness and suffering. The families torn apart. Everyone should see that photo, and understand that something like this should never happen again.
The ending hits so much harder now than the first time I watched your reaction. I am crying over that the long/new peace are no longer
Wdym no longer? The points he made still stand. Ukraine is a much smaller country than Russia, and it’s not a major war, if that is what you are referring to. And the antagonism with china and North Korea against the USA will most likely not end up in war.
Although I am not German, I would like to thank you for clarifying the difference between Nazis and the soldiers, it is always bothering me when someone is just using Nazi for everyone from Germany at that time, and also demonizing Axis soldiers whom, (especially those who died on the fronts, although under a faulty system ) fought mainly for their homes and families, not necessarily the system and ideology itself.
I am usually careful to separate the actions of governments from the people who live in the country. As an American I certainly don't want people thinking I support all the past and present actions of my country, let alone a country with more blood on its hands. I think the danger is when we won't forgive individuals for the sins of the group, each should be judged on their own actions and not the actions of the whole.
@@lexpox329 Well written !
you are hungarian
@@lexpox329 op op a
The original video maker corrected himself in the comments.
When the sowjet level rises and you hear only the noise of the wind und know every line are 20.000 killed soldiers.....OMG
I can't even begin to comprehend that many people dying.
The Battle of Kursk was unbelievable. There were like 3-4 MILLION on that battlefield. The Soviets halted the Nazis, but with some of the heaviest fighting and casualties imaginable. Even after Stalingrad, it was one of the largest attempted counterattacks in history.
@@spicysnowman8886 I cracked on imagining the second family slaughtered, you'd go mad before comprehending each possible situation with so many left unknown
Always makes me shed a tear, the soviets freed the northern part of my country their sacrifice will not be forgotten.
As a Pole, the civilians death count always gets to me. So much Polish blood was spilled during WW2. Including my Great-Granfather who died in the camps when he got captured by the Germans. My Grandfather grew up without a father. He still holds his death certificate.
My grandpa was German Werhmacht and the first chance he has during the war he deserted and took a boat to the US and lived happily till he passed away in 2004 due to cancer. He never wanted to fight but didn’t have a choice
It's important to understand situations like this. He has talked about what Germany looked like and how it was there post WW1 and most just wanted help/out of a very bad situation that unfortunately got alot worse.
And because of that, here you are :)
What a coward
@@destroyerarmor2846
K
@@kayvan671 he should have fought till the end. He betrayed his country
Video: *mentions Czechoslovakia*
Me: Don't do it. Don't you do it man.
Me: PILOTS OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA JOIN THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN
Dammit Sabaton.
Could you explain? I don't get it xd
Search far frome fane
GUARDING THE SKIES OF THE ISLE!
And pilots of poland
Man the pilots of both chechoklovakia and poland ware amazing. I personnally think czhechkoslovalkia had better individiuals but still poles had the best squadron overall
My Great Granpa was captured at stalingrad. Crazy he was one of the 6000 that returned.
Wow. Glad for your family that he did.
My friend's grandfather stayed there. He defended his home.
When did he return? It was usually sometime in 1950s...
@@Wecker42 i don't understand: was he german soldier and died in Stalingrad?
@@---gk9ve maybe his friend's grandfather was a russian, but his family move during the revolution and when his friend's grandfather return from the camp he just live in russia (atleast that's my theory)
Thank you for discussing this video on your channel! It’s a great tool for students (I do literature but my historian friends have used this video as the visual impact of it **really** impresses on the students the incredible brutality of the Eastern Front, and how much it took for the Red Army to push the remaining Wehrmacht forces back all the way to Berlin)
This video should be shown in history classes! It is in my opinion one of the most differentiated and informative video.
Imagine clearing up 1.5 million dead bodies up in Stalingrad
You must be getting paid good
@@electronium6378 They got German prisoners to do it. Then made them rebuild the city until they died.
@@Davey-Boyd good
A lot of the bodies are still being discovered
That’s just the military deaths. If you add civilian deaths it’s more like 2 million total
I have watched this video multiple times, as well as multiple reactions. The reality of the deaths still hits incredibly hard.
The real number of deaths is much more than shown in this video! According to the latest data, more than 27 million people died in the Soviet Union and volunteers still find the remains of people killed by the Nazis on our land! In every family of the former Soviet Union there are victims of this war, and it is the blood of our grandparents that is paid for freedom and peace on earth, but this ungrateful Europe has simply forgotten!
@@ЛюдмилаК-и4и Did you just say, that the ussr fought for freedom? Dude they had the gulags that says everything
@doctor_alfa Do you know what the Gulag is and what the concentration camps created by the fascists are? Before comparing the liberation of Europe from fascism by the Russians and the correctional camps that existed in the USSR from 1930 to 1960, take the trouble to study history at least a little, and preferably from historical documents, and not from the false propaganda that you are fed in the West! Unlike you, my family has learned both what the Gulag is and what war is in full! Of the 4 grandfathers, only 2 returned from the war, while my mother's father was arrested for being a prisoner of the fascists ( he escaped from captivity and fought with the partisans), he was acquitted after half a year and returned his military awards! It was a very difficult time: the country was destroyed by the war, there was no money, people were starving, and on top of everything else, many saboteurs and traitors to the Motherland (who fought on the side of the enemy) were still at large.... You know, there is no point in explaining all this to you, if you really wanted to know the true story, you would study it not only from your propaganda sources! And I will add, I do not justify the GULAG, but I do not understand how you can compare the sacrifice of our people in the fight against fascism and the correctional camps, in which the majority were criminals under the articles for plundering property, hooliganism and banditry?!(((
@@doctor_alfa I saw a Russian sources claiming that 20 milion Soviet people went through Gulag, but mortality rate was relatively low- 10%.
In gulags there was no focus on exploiting people to death on purpose. If gulags were similar (and I believe they were) to post war POWs camps, you got a food depending on if you manage to fulfill your daily task. If you fulfilled 80% pf it, you only got 80% of a meal. But when were Germans too thin ("dystrophy"), they could rest for some time and got their ratios. But sometimes it was too late, or diseases stroke...
Leonard Cohen once said, "There's no decent place to stand in a massacre." All the nations involved did terrible things during these years and the years that followed. I hope each of us remembers the PEOPLE that died, on both sides, and how tragic the loss of such life is for all of humanity. How many of those millions of people, could have changed our futures with incredible discoveries, innovations, and ideas. Let's keep peace the primary goal of our countries!
I've been waiting for this! loved your reaction and analysis. I think people either don't realize, or tend to forget the sheer scale of these numbers
As a German this is hitting something pretty hard
I don't even know how to say it
Well. I do know what to say. Don't vote for the fucking AfD, regardless of how much you dislike Merkel ;)
@@littlerave86 do not cry leftist
@@vladrubanov7394 the AFD are neo nazis. you dont need to be left wing to hate them.
@@vladrubanov7394 Lmao imagine being such a fuckin Nazi you think Angela Merkel is a leftist my god
I feel for you. We've all done wrong things. When a country has the best army it's not long before it invades other countries and commits war crimes. Rome did it. Ottomans, the Mongols, the Brits.
There is a cruel streak in every nationality it seems.
thank God when at least someone mentioned Yugoslavia
If it makes you feel any better, at least in Polish schools we learn of Yugoslavian resistance and how they were the only ones to liberate themselves by the end of the war. Probably not a thing in the "West", tho.
@@randomguy6822 Cannot have a Slavic nation be better than Great USA.
@@randomguy6822 i was born in yugoslavia, and i moved to vienna, u dont learn in the schools what was going on in yugoslavia, how the soliders killed children for dead nazis.... its fucked up how noone wants to remember that people who didnt get help from USA and UK to get free of the war.... the people had to do it them self... and i have the feeling that the number is not right, it seams to small
@@Kleines89 Not just for dead Nazis - in occupied Poland, the punishment for helping Jews was death sentence for whole families, including children. I have to say it was a bit of a shock to me when I learned that in occupied France the punishment for the same "crime" was just a fine.
With such vastly differing experiences, how are western societies supposed to really understand the war without proper education? Well, they kinda don't.
@@randomguy6822 oh i know, i was born in serbia, i lived there and i went there to school... i know the differences... its just crazy how differend the history is
Stalin: "The British gave time, the Americans gave money, the Soviets gave blood."
fuark all three, they cause all the problems
@@wierzba1992 You're wrong but nice try.
@@empress_alex How am I wrong? Whos consttantly invading other countries? All of above :D
@@wierzba1992 That's an overstatement and even then it is primarily the US invading countries and not without reason either. No matter how bad the reasons may seem, they are still reasons.
To be fair the soviets probably wouldn’t have so many dead if they didn’t purge all of their officers and generals
As a German who lost grandfathers and great grandfathers in that war, I can really appreciate that you took the time to distinguish between ordinary Germans and real Nazis. We know most about just half of the family, the other half is kind of shrouded in mystery due to chaos, family splits etc. but of the ancestors I know about who fell/fought in WW2, none of them were real Nazis. The real Nazis are those engaging with the Nazis/Nazi party from its inception until 1939. One even was a communist, resisting the Nazis as much as possible, but he eventually had to back down and serve to protect his family and children. He spent years in soviet work camps and would never speak a word of the war, but the trauma was always visible for everyone.
I take it as a personal insult when people gernalise all Germans who lived through the war as "Nazis", in fact, most of the actual army personnel were no nazis but were forced or coerced into serving for the Nazi regime. Fighting back is not as easy as some people make it out to be, you not only run the risk of being killed yourself but also your entire family being executed or sent off to the camps. If you have the choice of going to war with a slim chance of survival, most people would take that over certain death for you and your peers.
This video brought me to tears every time I watched it.
About french losses : he counted inland (metropolitan france) and colonies separatly, the total military french death count is kind of foggy, i have seen 500 000 to 900 000. North and center afrikan bataillons (french and natives soldiers) fought until 1944
ruclips.net/video/7PwDCoswn_A/видео.html
I was gonna say... bc the french number he reported was hella small especially given they were effectively conquered yet kept fighting with the allies till the end of the war.
@@onebuffalo5402 same goes for the British tbh, British empire deaths were around 1 million
@@onebuffalo5402
I think the french were spared from a lot of german wrath, they were considered better humans than the slavs and jews and they didn't get killed as much, because britain was watching
@@niepowaznyczlowiekAnd also because of the open colaborationism of the Vichy government. It wasn't until 1943 with the invasion of North Africa that the French resistance truly arose to the peak of it's activity.
I've watched the reaction videos to this a few times and having you be able to drop actual facts to help people understand the content and the numbers is amazing. Instead of the poeple that just add a tear to their thumbnail. Thank you for your channel and the amazing content you put out.
there is a series called 'war against humanity' which follows the war crimes committed against civilians during the war month by month, and it hits different to see it in real-time. it's only in 1942 and yet every episode hurts. the most important thing I've ever told myself to watch.
link?
Germany here: When this video came out I mentioned the issue as well.
I am really happy that there's a response about that problematic term. Now, there's no need for rationalizing anything about what my fellow ancestors did.... it is clear as glass. The main personal part for me had been that almost my entire German family was erased during this war, too.
And yes... I do know about the USSR... and people of jewish faith. That many families had actually been completely eradicated.
My ancestors who lived in Latter Pomerania fought and MANY died in it, too. Either as soldiers due to warfare or as collateral damage by bombing or expulsion and rape. My grandmother told me my family was rather national conservative but did not actively support the nazi party. In fact she told me they made jokes about nazis that were completely dangerous of course.
The origins of my grandfather are unclear as he was adopted... he must have been a sunday baby. At least that's the rumor she told me. During the 80s my grandparents went to Poland and found my grandfather's foster mother but she refused to say anything lieing on her deathbed. All documents had been destroyed during the war. He had been a wehrmacht soldier (first lieutenant at the end) and when the war began he was 19. Born in 1920 he entered the war in 1942 or 43 after extensive officer training.
According to my mother's mom (maternal grandmother) our family had been quite big. Today... I belong to the tiny little bit of what once had been quite a big 'dynasty'.
War sucks! Maybe some other contemporary nations will learn this, too.
Appreciate hearing your perspective and your family's history. Thank you for sharing!
@Knut Ritter Yes, war sucks! I am Russian, out of 4 grandfathers who fought with the Nazis, only 2 returned home. I didn't have a chance to ask about the war, since I was born when they were already dead. My mother's family lives in the north near Moscow, my father is from the Urals and the fascists did not get to them and no one else died in the war. My mother's father went to the front as a volunteer at the age of 17 ( he served in Russia from the age of 18 ) in July 1941. He was wounded in the battle of Moscow and captured, escaped and fought until 1944 with the partisans against the Nazis. I don't know anything more, because he didn't like to talk about the war, and my mother didn't ask(( Last year I found the grave of my grandmother's brother, whom the family considered missing. I found out that he fought at Stalingrad, was awarded the medal "For Military Merit", and a year later in December 1943, he died in the battles near Pskov, where he was buried in a mass grave along with 5,000 Red Army soldiers. My father's mother's brother met the war in the Brest fortress (on the border with Poland, the first invasion of the USSR), nothing more is known about him and even in the archives I have not yet found information about his existence, only a letter from him, written to my mother in May 1941 from Brest, remains. I write all this only to show how much grief the war will add, and in my country there is no family that would not have suffered at the hands of the fascists! 27 million Soviet people died during the Second World War!(((Appreciate the world that came at such a price!
This is a false interpretation of the numbers concerning the Second W.W. A distorted picture of history. Giving absolute numbers changes the true dimensions of the tragedy. I come from the country. who suffered the most during the Second W.W. During World War II, Poland suffered the greatest biological losses (for every 1,000 inhabitants, it lost 220 people). For comparison: USA - 2.9, Belgium - 7, Great Britain - 8, France - 15, Netherlands - 22, USSR - 116. It estimated the total personal losses at 6.028 million people, including 3.2 million Polish citizens of Jewish origin. The death losses of the Slavic Polish population under the German occupation amounted to approximately 2,770,000 people. This group does not include the victims of Soviet crimes in the territories incorporated into the USSR after 1939, and it does not include the victims of the UPA crimes in Volhynia. The post-war census showed 24 million, and the census covered 2 million Germans and about 1-1.5 million Poles living in Germany before World War II. Before the war, Poland was inhabited by 35 million citizens. Of which 13 million in the lands annexed by the Soviet Union, 22 million in the areas occupied by Germany. Poland suffered the greatest material losses during World War II. Material losses per capita, which amounted to $ 626 compared to the second Yugoslavia with $ 601. According to materials presented at the International Reparation Conference in Paris in 1946, material losses in Poland amounted to $ 16.9 billion, respectively, in Yugoslavia - $ 9.1 billion. (Losses are given in 1946 value of money.) 2/5 of Poland's cultural assets were completely destroyed and stolen. Under pressure from the great powers, Poland also had to cede 48% of its territory to the Soviet Union, losing about 178,000 km² in the east. Most of the losses resulted from the German occupation, the USSR was responsible for the other part of the losses. One sentence at the end. Stalin killed many more USSR citizens in 1923-39 than they died during the Second World War
@@yakeosicki8965 Your main concern was about using absolute numbers.... in the video relative numbers were used, too. And the video clearly states that it's about human losses in the war and not about material losses. of course they had been huge as well but they are not mentioned in this video.
@@ЛюдмилаК-и4и
EN. Greetings from Brest. In the Brest Fortress, new bodies are found on an ongoing basis, you can go to the places where the excursion is held, and meet a bunch of equipment from the Great Patriotic War. I personally found bones, and a bunch of everything. To come on an excursion, nothing of this can be found, however, people living in Brest know where to look ... It is simply impossible to clear the entire territory, the bones literally come out of the ground over time
It's scary to think how many bodies there are. In Brest, what is not a construction site, then excavations. It comes to the point that children can find bones almost in the sandbox (conventionally).
RU. Приветствую вас из Бреста. В Брестской крепости на постоянной основе находят новые тела, можно идти по крепости (не в местах проведения экскурсии), и встречать кучу снаряжения времен ВОВ. Лично находил кости, и кучу всего. Если приехать на экскурсию, ничего этого не найти, однако люди живущие в Бресте знают где искать... Расчистить всю территорию банально невозможно, кости буквально выходят из-под земли со временем
Страшно подумать, сколько там еще тел. У нас в Бресте, что не стройка, то раскопки. Доходит до того, что чуть ли не в песочнице дети могут находить кости (условно).
Such an underrated channel! I’ve learnt more about the war in 3 of this guys videos than 5 years at school!
God.. seeing the number of the Soviets stacking up more and more is just heart wrenching and when you realize the Russian population truly staggered after WWII makes that heart break even worse.. Russia is still suffering from the war in terms of population.. an entire generation worth of men died fighting in that war.. and knowing that makes watching the numbers get visualized feel so much more bone chilling and depressing..
9:20 earned my respect.
I love your content. You don't just react, but complement. The videos get better with your reaction
I remember watching this in my college history class. We were all so shocked and dumbfounded that once the video was over, it was SO quiet you could hear a pin drop
the first time I watched this, listening to the wind while the soviet soldier tally went up made me begin to tear up, all of the hopes dreams and families that never came to be.
I don’t care how many times I’ve seen this video, that photo of the woman holding her child chokes me up every time. Words cannot describe the cruelty and inhumanity that is conveyed in that photo.
9:20 Thank you
That was a good viewing of horrendous video. Your reactions and comments were very sincere, just and humane. Kudos for that.
My great uncle was held prisoner in Poland. Growing up in North Dakota, he spoke fluent German and English, so he ended up working as a translator. He saw that the Russian POWs were treated worse than any others, and the Russians couldn't escape. If they returned home, they were shot as cowards.
My old grand father was fighting as a russian soldier, he got jailed in force nazi's mine, he was managed to escape, he died from a cancer next, nothing hapened...do you really thing soviets will dont protect their soldiers ???
I’ve seen people react to this so many times, but you’re actually the first person to pause on the picture of the woman holding her child and explains how horrific things were. It’s a very haunting but important photo. Thank you for your reaction and that you mentioned that not all Germans were nazis.
That's horrific? She got out painless and easy. Trust me for WW2 standards that was easy way out.
@@panm2906 Probably got out painless yes, but leading up to that moment is nothing but horrific.
As an American, whenever I think about WW2, I automatically think about Europe and the absolute horror that occurred throughout Europe during the war. I don't know why I don't think about Japan's involvement in the war because upon learning about some of the terrifying atrocities that tool place in the rape of Nanking, I shudder at my own ignorance.
Because American history textbooks censor, distort and manipulate certain historical events.
It is strange, we were brought into the war because of the Japanese, but we’re really only thought about the war against the Nazis. We don’t learn much about fighting the Japanese, let alone about the horrific atrocities they committed. I’ve heard a wide range of theories for why that is, but regardless, I think it would be very important for the American school system to teach more about the war on the other front
6:00 You mentioned Gen. Buckner. Glad to see that someone knows him, he's part of my family tree... yes, I'm a Buckner.
That's really cool
The highest ranking officer to be killed in Okinawa?
yoo thats sick myguy.
I felt so uneasy watching the soviet numbers going up. It hit me hard when i realized most of those soldiers had a mother to come home to, a daughter or a son to come home to. A spouse to come home to.
When you mentioned the Rapes in Germany, you understood what the Soviet reasoning was and I was Waiting for someone to point that out. It doesn’t make it any worse than what the Germans did but it gives you a better point of view on why.
Still does not make sense. The Soviets even raped former concentration camp inmates or forced workers. There were also over 100,000 raped women and girls in Poland alone. This was not revenge. And regarding the rapes in Germany, they raped girls as young as 8 and women as old as 80. Revenge does not explain this. This was savagery, not revenge.
@@j.w.b5048 yeah that is fucked up. No excuses
@@j.w.b5048 true. i will understand their anger and hatred towards the germans, but seriously? raping 8 year olds? thats not revenge thats called being psychopath
See,s Russian soldiers haven’t changed at all considering this current conflict
@@j.w.b5048 Dresden bombing was a savagery.
That photo of the mom and the girl getting executed is really heartbreaking. I could only imagine what the mom was thinking. She was probably just trying to calm her kid and letting her know it would be quick. Just saying that is horrifying.
And the little girl… she most likely didn’t understand why she was there and horrified. It makes me cry just thinking about the last thing they would’ve said to each other.
One of my favorite videos on the internet
One of my grand grandfather was executed from the Czech soldier’s, he was an chlose combat instructor for the Wehrmacht, he never see a battle and still died.
On the other hand one of my other grand grandfather was an tank driver in the SS division, he got shoot 8 times and survived every single one, he has lucky to drive the Tiger II and panther. He survived the war and he was still really respect to the allies. Later on his year he was allowed to drives some new US tanks, he was so well respected even he was an SS soldier.
I don't think Stalin would invade Germany as he was taking a defensive position and trying to keep the germans calm as much as he could, while in fact building fortifications and setting up landmines along the border. In fact, since the fall of France, the Soviet High Command already knew the germans would attack due to the huge amount of divisions and planes moving to the german side of Poland, it was Stalin that made the war preparations slow and thought he could solve the problems with Germany in a diplomatic way. In june 22nd he even gave the order to the soldiers not to attack any german territory until they were sure that diplomacy wasn't going to work.
The Allies also would send to Stalin details about the german divisions preparing to attack and Churchill even offered Stalin to send a British Expeditionary Force to Russia when Germany attacked, to which Stalin said no thinking it was a provocation to escalate tensions between Germany and the USSR.
Another fun fact is that, a german scout plane was flying over the occupied Baltic countries pre invasion in 1941, when the soviets shot the plane down, Stalin directly intervened and told the soldiers to treat the pilot, they later gave him dinner, medical treatment and allowed him to go back to Germany. War between the two powers was the last thing Stalin wanted.
he was building up an invasion force in 1941, and had plans to invade. (thats why his defense was so bad intially, most of his units were concentrated on the border in prporation for a soviet attack, which made it easier for the germans to encircle them)
9:23 best teaching you made for this video. Every single American always spewing nazi this and nazi that about world war 2 german soldiers.
that's what I just thought and this was why I browsed through comment section
Yeah, not every Nazi is German. Heck, even some German officers tried to abolish Nazism, most notablely Stauffenburg
@@mustard4762 yes but the majority of the German soldiers new what they were doing, killing hundreds of people by the day and they were civilians!
@@anthonypit3508 its not that simple, there is a lot to it, why people can get pushed to terrible acts. In fact, most of them cant be blamed personally
@@jvv5961 i guess
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
@Christian Lopez if you’d have paid attention you’d have noticed I put it in quotation marks, almost like it’s a quote
@Christian Lopez you defo weren’t loved as a child
ww4 wont be fought, because no man woman or child will be alive...
@TopFlight look at the guys comment, it was posted after mine...
I always loved that quote from Einstein. Einstein broke that nucleus which is insane.
The Soviet Union suffered more casualties during the siege of Leningrad than the US suffered throughout the entire war.
And then Americans will say that "it was good that fascists killed so many communists"
I was honestly shocked
@@DrClef_1 Actually it's more like "it's good Communists killed so many Communists" since the Soviet Union is NOTORIOUS for Logistics failures. The Soviets would have piles of Ammo and rifles, but then FORGOT to plan in advance to MOVE those supplies. Not to mention Soviet Generals work against each other in a Competition, while in the West Generals work with each other. So in... some Ironic way, the Western Allies work as a Collective, while the Soviets work for the Individual high ranking officer... who hate each other. Communists REALLY do not.. like other communists.. at all.
@@someblackguy7371 90% of the dead Nazis were killed by Soviet soldiers, and only 10% by all Western Allies combined. There wasn't even any fighting on the western front until 1944 lol
если бы это было правдой, то что вы говорите, то советская армия не смогла гнать нацистов до самого Берлина и поставить на рейхстаге знамя победы, красное знамя
@@Anonymous-qj3sf There was on the Southern front
the USA actually landed on the wrong beach in the Utah landing, wich was fortunate couse it turned out to be a easier landing than the original. also their comanding general was the only high ranking officer to fight with his troops on the battlefield.
I didn’t know I would appreciate the differentiation between nazis and germans so much. what’s often forgotten is that Germany annexed austria and Austrian soldiers were forced into the war. my great grandfather was 19 when Germany annexed Austria and he had to fight on both the western front and eastern front and never once adopted the nazi ideology - he was a communist before the war and after.
You're a good man with a good heart, Pastor. I appreciate your videos.
Appreciate that, Stephen!
I first watched the original video roughly 5 years ago and was completely blown away to see everything laid out so clearly. it had such an impact on me (my eyes watered up the first time i saw the Russian numbers and i still have a hard tme getting thru it), that i have repeatedly shared the link to it and have it bookmarked. Every one should see this. It's a fantastic piece of work by Neil Halloran. Thanks for "bumping" it.
You could take a look on the stories of collaborators in Belgium, that's something that's a part of our history that makes me sick just thinking about what people did after the war
23:00 The war that skyrockets in the back is the An Lushan Revolt.
The An Lushan Revolt was a Chinese civil war in which the Tang Dynasty overthrew the Yan Dynasty. It lasted 7 years, from 755 to 763 AD. According to the Chinese Census, the population dropped from 52 Million, down to just 16 Million. That's 36 million deaths, a sixth of the world's population at that time.
He mentioned the inner Chinese wars. Thats a topic that i would really like the media to focus a bit more onto. The changes of dynasties often came with unbelievable costly conflicts. And that at a time of swords and arrows, they comited genocide on their fellow countrymen with bare hands.
Half of my 4 grandgrandfathers’ brothers and uncles are in those Soviet military column.
And it is impossible to find their graves, because most of them are missing
I really like this stuff. I'm impressed with the high quality video, and audio. I just subscribed.
Welcome aboard!
Looks like the long peace is coming to an end. I wish it could've lasted longer.
There was never peace. Unless you mean European peace, which was just transported to the third world. Lol
@@chelseacomps829 Yeah, I was just talking about the major European powers.
Yeah… I enjoyed that no major European wars, tho I have to admit (for the joke’s sake) that it is rather surprising that the people fighting somehow isn’t France Vs Britain or Denmark VS Sweden.
finally broken that age old ritual, huh?
well its a war between two former soviet states
Its nice that you made it clear that no every german was a nazi.
But germans allow Hitler to win election
@@twojstarymojary6598 Sorry but your comment frustrates me somehow.. Please whatch this wonderful film to brighten your view on how it is not as simple as Germany "allowed" Hitler to "win the election": ruclips.net/video/jFICRFKtAc4/видео.html
It's not long and really well explained
@@twojstarymojary6598 Bro, about half of the voters voted mainly the communist or socialist parties. Don't say such stupidity
"Этот праздник со слезами на глазах..."
I appreciate your providing context to the reaction as well as including the link to the original video.
Thought I’d drop a comment saying I just found your channel and I’m amazed and excited. Not only are you (or should I be safe and say you appear to be) a great historian, but you can appreciate some of the comedy, add to the conversation rather than just saying “I agree” or “funny,” you look and seem somewhat like a teacher I’m still acquaintances with (a history teacher and Christian just like you), and, arguably most importantly, you’re from Ohio. I’m from Ohio! I never expected to see the stars align (so to speak) like this. I’ve already left some comments on your Oversimplified (USA) Civil War video (reaction), and I can’t wait to see and hear and discuss more. Amazing work, and frequent uploads too it seems! Keep up the great work!
Appreciate the kind words from a fellow Buckeye!
@@VloggingThroughHistory Only being honest. Thanks for the response. History is fun, what can I say?
@Poe Dameron805. Maybe for Americans, history is fun, but for Russian people, the history of the Second World War is the suffering of relatives, the grief of mothers, the crippled fate and millions of people killed and starved to death! In America, they do not know anything about this war, only they drive into their descendants that America defeated fascism in the Second World War. Well, after all, you are a "great" nation and it is you who liberate the world, and others start wars! So I want to ask Russian: how much longer will you lie to your people and rewrite history?!!!
@@ЛюдмилаК-и4и I don't meant to say that "history is fun" or to ignore things that you said. I don't doubt the war was horrible in/for Europe. That's why I like to study it, to find out why bad things happen so that they don't happen again. I didn't mean to offend you by my lack of knowledge of just how bad it was.
@Poe Dameron805 If you are so interested in history, then I advise you to look and read not only Western sources of information. As they say: "The story looks different from different sides, but the truth is somewhere in the middle." For example, look at the Soviet film of 1985 -"Go and see", although the front-line soldiers said that everything in the films is not true, but this film very closely conveys the atrocities of the fascists. And also read the books of the Nobel laureate, journalist-Svetlana Usievich: "The war is not a woman's face" and " The last Witnesses. Solo for a child's voice", where real women and children who survived the war tell about the events of the Second World War. I was crying: ((
Until I watched this video a couple years ago I had always thought that more of the United States soldiers died fighting in the Pacific Theater than the European Theater because of how difficult Japan was making it for the United States to take most of those islands
I remember being surprised when I first learned that breakdown as well.
When you look at raw deaths it dosnt seem as bad as the european theater. But when you look at casualties per square meter thats when the brutality of the pacific war comes into perspective. Losing dozens, hundreds, thousands for these tiny little spits of rock out in the middle of nowhere where you cant have big army engagements.
You should look into the details of the war. It was absolutely horrible. Everything from executions, to how the Russians re-captured Europe.
It was all absolutely horrible.
I couldn't even listen to the stories, in detail, of how Dr. Mengele treated his patients.
@@GoalOrientedLifting how the Russians recaptured Europe? Is that what you said? The Soviets freed Europe from the maniacs! Recaptured? Where in the world you could learn to use this word in the WWII context.
Pacific Island are small. Even if it's carnage like Okinawa you can't fit as many soldiers there as you can do in France.
Fascinating original video and excellent reaction. The Commanding General of Soviet Forces at Stalingrad, Chuikov, said once that more Germans died trying to take a building at Stalingrad called 'Pavlov's House' than died trying to take Paris, the sort of resistance that explains why the Russians don't call the conflict World War 2 but The Great Patriotic War. On a lighter note, my grandad was responsible for bringing down several German fighters during WW2. The Luftwaffe said he was the worst mechanic they'd ever employed.
That nameing is propaganda, becaouse Russian government until today not recognaize the USSR invasion on Poland in September 17th, ocupation of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and attack on Finland in winter 1939/1940
@@wojciechpiszczek3583 No you -diot lmao, its because theres a difference between World war 2 (which no, did not start in *your* country but started in China in 1937) and the war USSR had with the nazi Germany.
Cause newsflash, yeah, everyone only cares about their country, what a bummer.
whos ur dad
My Granddad was on the eastern front in the soviet union. he got captured and one day a few drunk soldiers wanted to beat him dead. he survived because some officer came into the room and stopped the madness.
he was 18 when he went into war and was 32 when he got of captivity.
he wrote down all his wartime storys before he passed away.
The first time I ever saw this video was 3 years ago in my APUSH class. I've seen it multiple times since, and not once has it failed to make me cry. My family is from and Eastern European country that was once part of the Soviet Union, and I have family in Russia, so watching the Soviet tallies just keep rising brings me to tears. There is actually a documentary about the German occupation of Russia called "Moscow Strikes Back." It has real images and video of the atrocities committed by the SS(they were the ones who committed most of the Nazi war crimes we hear about). There's images of children hanging from makeshift gallows outside of Moscow as their mothers are forced to watch. It hurts to even see. I'm not proud of what the Soviets did when they invaded Germany. The crimes the Red Army committed are absolutely abhorrent. But thank you for recognizing that many of those soldiers who did what they did had seen the darkest sides of humanity and experienced hell a hundred times over. It takes a lot to find mercy for the enemy who took everything from you. Some just can't find it in their hearts.
Unfortunately, cruelty is the reality of any war! But why is everyone talking about what the Red Army did, and why did the Americans and the British just smile and give out chocolate bars during the war, while the Russians were liberating the world from fascism?!
Lol allies bombing Dresden and Tokyo made far more crimes then soviets.
@@ЛюдмилаК-и4и huh
One thing that is not addressed here is the Bengal Famine in British India. Winston Churchill had deliberately diverted supplies from Bengal, one of the most populous states in India at that time, and shipped them off to the western front to act as buffer stock. This led to one of the largest famines in history, killing around 3 million in Bengal alone, alongside other states.
What I heard was that Japan cut off the food supply to bengal
“According to some RUclips short” churchill was quite “disappointed” and he “eventually” got Australia to import food to bengal
What isn't talked about at all though is how the Japanese bombed crops with poisonous pesticides which poisoned the soil in what is now Bangladesh. The Japanese were at fault for the famine, it was our fault (the British) for not responding well. It's a terrible part of our history but Japan never gets the blame for the famine.
Why is it that everytime World War II is discussed, some one brings this up as the most important thing not mentioned?
Thank you for making the distinctions that you made in this video. As a European, trying to put the impact of World War 2 into words is overwhelming and frustrating, because words tend to fail at the pure breakdown of humanity, meaning, and order. The Hebrew word for the Holocaust is "shoah" which translates as 'catastrophe', and the word "Holocaust" itself means "complete devastation or destruction, especially by fire". That's what World War 2 was; a large void of humanity that consumed the whole world. My grand father died on the Eastern Front where he was sent to fight for the Germans because he needed to go on social security. The Danish government at the time ordered people on social security to go fight there. He died at the front, and the men who returned after the war would usually be sent straight to prison for collaborating with the occupying Germans.
Stanley Kubrick didn't like Schindler's List because he hated that it was a story about success in the midst of the war. “The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed. ‘Schindler’s List’ is about 600 who don’t,”.
Also part of the reason why they moved to camps rather than mobile killing groups is because it mentally buffered the soldier from what they were doing. The suicide rate among MKGs was massive because just constantly individually executing non-combatants destroyed their will to live.
24:25 Incredible to watch this scene from the perpective of 2022, that this peace was broken by the Russians invading Ukraine.
Unfortunately (or not, depending on your perspective), it was not - we are still in the long peace, as it was presented in the video. There's a reason the cutoff was a deliberate, human cutoff "44th largest economy" - and unfortunately, Ukraine's economy was the 74th largest economy in the world prior to invasion according to Wikipedia. The war in Ukraine by Russia would be part of the calculated long peace cost, and a subset addition to the 3.5 million deaths in interstate war. I'm not trying to minimalize it, it's a global catastrophe and tragedy, but rather point out how the numbers for it would be reflected in the video.
And let us hope that, for the sake of all, my comment here will not age poorly, and the large powers will not go to war.
Try to find info about Donetsk, Odessa, Lugansk. Watch this numbers and think about ukr nazi.
@@LeMontAgr stop trying to push that
The threat of nuclear war essentially brought relative peace. None of the wealthy nations see the potential losses of a nuclear conflict as worth the potential gains of a successful war.
We must be thankful to nuclear weapons and people who invented it.
@@danielunnamed9438 And yet the UN has made a treaty to prohibit and ultimately eliminate these weapons. I worry this might be a terrible mistake.
@@yashjoseph3544 yeah. Nukes keep us from WW3.
@@danielunnamed9438 Or they are the first and last weapon.
@@danielunnamed9438 There are many more weapons of mass destruction other then nuclear bombs. Think of chemical warfare.
I just want to say in the original video he expresses the aspect of him saying nazi soldiers and saying it was a mistake and it didn’t occur in the foreign version of the videos
My grandfather was a runner for General Buckner, apparently this guy got grabbed by his men because he never took proper cover. He wore the shiny type of rank insignia as well that some Marines said they could recognize him from hundreds of yards away. So it was no surprise that he was eventually killed by a Japanese rocket.
9:11 The germans never took full control of Stalingrad
They took about 90% of the city before the Soviet counter attack.
I think the video is althought truly heartbreaking a truly amazing video
The part about peace in Europe sadly isn’t all true. Apart from Georgia there is the Balkan wars, Cyprus and in 2014 Crimea(Ukraine)
Crimean takeover was more or less peaceful though. The civil war in the Eastern Ukraine is definitely not peaceful though, yeah.
Some people think Europe means Germany, France, UK and Benelux countries.
@@kacperwoch4368 yeah, probably true.
@@Someone-lr6gu peaceful? Go watch some footage of that small war. Far from peaceful.
@@direct2397 Russian soldiers in the area literally had no magazines/ammo with them, because there was no need for them. Almost all the ukrainian garrisons peacefully surrendered. Only 4 people died during the entire thing due to minor conflicts, and 2 people died because of conflicts between 2 different protests groups, while the other 2 died during an assault on UAF's photogrammetric center. Even then, it's unknown as to why that assault even started in the first place. So yes, this was relatively peaceful.
My great great grandfather fought for the Soviets against the Nazis's and won medals for bravery and my mum's aunt went through and survived the Siege of Leningrad, she would always tell my mum "please, hope there will be no war in the future!" She just wanted peace for everyone. Everyone needs to see this video especially in schools.
Sorry for being blunt in advance. I really enjoy watching historians, scientists, engineers, psychologists and other "expert reacts" taking a look at popular videos and movies on RUclips. It's much more satisfying and educational than watching some 20 year old RUclipsr reacting to videos that they don't really understand, giggling or crying ignorantly.
26:05 - I think another “world war” would be inevitable. I think it comes down to human nature. However, I think it would be on a far smaller scale, speaking from the standpoint of how many countries join, but the advancements in weapons, training, military strategies, etc would counter the lack of countries. Therefore I would guess the death toll would be around the same, maybe slightly higher than WW2.
Not sure about less countries. If a world war happens in our lifetimes, you'd still have much of the northern hemisphere in war. And if southern hemisphere countries are ever attacked or involved in any way, there could very well be even more than in WW2.
15:30 it's actually really awful to think about the fact that a few seconds after that photo was taken, the women was shot.
15:00 I feel you it’s horrifying to think about and the picture… I have no words