My Polish grandma was shot in front of her building together with her neighbors in a similar fashion in Warsaw during the war. She was a kid and fainted from the shot that went through her. She was later rescued by other neighbors after the soldiers left. Luckily the shot didn't hit any organs and she lived a happy life up until 4 years ago, when she passed away in her sleep.
If you appreciate cinematography, watch Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. Cinematography is not an art form in its infancy, it’s already had its golden age. CGI has replaced it.
DO you think 1993 was the stone age? lol You must be like an 18 year old millennial who thinks cgi is the way to go.....CGI was brought in because it is cheaper...not better...cheaper...that is all
3:57 This scene works so well, because even after engaging in an argument with the commanding officer, and even after showing signs of hesitation, remorse, guilt, when the firing order comes, it pretty much sounds like one single shot, as they shoot their rifles in unison. So even though they were neither robots, nor soulless killing machines, they did function as such.
Unbelievable! 12 million watched these German propaganda lies! This propaganda is intended to give the impression that the Nazi soldiers were ordinary soldiers. But that's a lie, because these were soldiers of a criminal Nazi army. By the way, no German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The massacre of Józefów in Poland, in which 1,500 civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht, made it clear that there was no compulsion to obey orders when shootings were carried out. Because only volunteers took part in the shootings and there were always enough of them. It is known that during this massacre the German battalion commander Trapp offered that those who did not feel up to the task did not have to take part in the shooting of civilians . A few did not want to take part, but the vast majority had no problem taking part in the shooting. From this overwhelming majority, soldiers were then ordered to the shooting. This meant that no soldier who refused to take part in the shootings could invoke compulsion to obey orders, because the possibility of freedom of decision without consequences was given.
It is the same for the dudes on the other side, i.e the allies. don't believe propaganda. for example the US general Patton told his men before invading Sicily to "take no hostages" and they literally didn't, they killed over 70 italian war prisoners, simply because they were ordered to. yet they were given a slap on the shoulders and let go, but when a German soldier says "I was ordered to" he is deemed a warcriminal worthy of the worst of fates. Als fuer die seite die gewinnet, dann sie immer Recht haben, als fuer die Versagren, dann die liegen in Falsse.
@@unsrescyldas9745 You are obviously a German. Because you wash the Nazi nation white and also use the in Germany very popular tactic of pointing with the finger at others Nations. In fact, this is a widespread tactic in Germany, in order not to make their own Nations history look so criminal and barbaric. The motivation is to spread the lie that Germans are actually equals among equals, nothing special with their history. As you pointing with your finger at the Americans here. I have experience with it! That's just a kind of falsification of history that this crimes were equal. But your tactic does not work anyway because there is a big difference between the Germans and the Americans. Because the Nazi nation committed various genocides and not "only" a few massacres. Millions of children were murdered in these genocides too! Because of this various genocides using industrial means in a very short time also with millions of murdered children which is unique in human history. So the mendacious equation of Americans with the Nazi nation does not work! The Nazi nation is responsible for around 50 million deaths in Europe! Responsible for the dead in the various wars of aggression in Europe and for the dead in the various genocides. Add to that the catastrophic economic effects of the many wars. What kind of megalomania because that was a war consisting of various wars against various nations in which various cities were turned into ruins, including the Polish capital, which was deliberately systematically destroyed. The economic damages were incredible. The Nazi nation also conducted human experiments on a large scale! Murder of millions of prisoners of war. That was unique in world history. This all is unique! UNIQUE! This completely megalomaniac, mad, criminal, amoral and degenerated Nazi nation with pure, insane, megalomaniac and utterly amoral barbarism was totally unique in all of world history. This is why your finger pointing on Americans is so very impertinent.
@@GreatPolishWingedHussars Lmao classic pole playing the victim, conveniently forgetting the terror the Poles struck into the heart of their neighbors after WW1, infact, not a single one of your neighbors were not at war with your nation after WW1. 1- Lithuania (Poles occupied Wilnus) 2-Czechoslovakia (War over coal-rich territories) 3-Ukraine (War over Western Galicia) 4- Germany (War over Silesia) 5- Russia (War over Belarus) At least the Germans (I am not one buddy, unlike your German Slavicized ancestors) can fully claim that they were never at war with all of their neighbors (Austria) had you left a single one of your neighbors that you did not bully whilst having the backing of the French and Saxons to rein in this terror upon people that were so weary of war? and then you dare to cry about your beloved Warsaw, yet to all observant students of history, there was no other way to deal with an insolent people but as what happened to Warsaw. vengeful and filled with spite, that is literally the entire history of your people after being partitioned between Prussia, Austria and Russia. And so you carried this spitefulness with you into the 20th century, fully thinking you will come out of it victorious, and up until that fateful day when Hitler demanded Danzig back, and even offered you an Alliance against the Soviets, yet just as before, the French and the Anglos smirking from behind the seas told you that you have their backing, but this time their backing meant nothing, and you suffered for your ignorance, and arrogance. So do not go around blaming the "Nemetskaya" for your people's crimes you pathetic man, who does not face up to the crimes of his people yet has all the fun pointing fingers at others, you truly have no honour, lmao "Hussar" what a joke. 50 Million people died because of the Nazis, or because of your foolishness for holding onto Danzig, a land that was always German since the first ever settlement there? (Literally was always German even before the Slavs came out of the Swamps in Ukraine) what a pathetic thing you set your people back for a hundred of years, and now you have the lowest of birth rates of all European countries, good luck, there won't even be a thing as a "Pole" in but years, sidelined to the books of history as you are replaced by a more faithful people. Regardless, regarding what you said about Genocides, that too is not unique or special. just a list of genocides for you committed by the allies 1-The Native Indians (Americans, lmao do we need to state numbers?) 2-The Bengali (British, 7M forced starved to death, more than your "6" gorrilion Jews) 3-The Boers (British, hundreds of thousands died, mostly women and children, lack of food, disease after being rounded up in the 2nd Boers war, none teared for them though, because they didn't have wealthy Jews in the press backing them) The Algerians (French, over a million dead, not to mention the raped, tortured and exiled) and I am sure more learned men can find other examples, and you as a Pole, I do not need to remind you perhaps of the Holodomor or other events that would be genocide on the Russian part. so no buddy it wasn't unique, industrialised slaughter had been common since the Victorian Era and continues to be so, if anything the Nazis were less cruel as they killed efficiently as opposed to the Allies who'd just leave their enemies to starve to death out of utter carelessness for human life that was not important to their interests. So keep seething, your victories will be, have to be, short lived, because God is against the oppressive people, and whatever enjoyment you enjoy as of yet will fleet, so you wait, we too are waiting.
My Father and his brother’s life’s were saved by a German soldier who said ( probably - nobody spoke German) that in the hole in the ground were they were hiding there was nobody: he lifted the wood that covered the hole ( there was in there 6 children - my dad and my uncles) , he had eye contact with them and then the officer yelled something at him. He said “ no “ also shaking his head, left the wood that went back to cover the hole… , and he left.
@Nashiuz Nashiuz Instead of wondering about mystical, you could honor him by Learning from his example in your life. I believe that’s what he would want.
The lone soldier doing the right thing is a miracle, but how do we deal with the mentality that still exists today that killing them is "what needed to be done"?
great and depressing scene that shows some serious personality in these soldiers rather than just making them evil monsters im going to give this movie a try
@@deutscherpatriot4370 The SS was usually the group that carried out out the mass murders. Originally, it was a small group of eight men who were essentially bodyguards, but slowly, their importance within the party grew. As their power and numbers swelled, so did their brutality. By the end of World War II, when the SS was more than 580,000 strong, they were killing thousands of people daily listverse.com/2015/05/25/10-horrible-atrocities-committed-by-the-ss/
My grandfather was part of a truck division that carried medical supplies, he was ambushed by some Wehrmacht youth. He thought he was going to die, but they just wanted to eat his chocolate. Then they waved him through. He carried Hersey kisses for passengers in his glove box as an homage until he died 40 years later.
Right from the first scene he was in you could tell he wasn't a very nice man. The directors purposely made him a hate sink for the audience to despise, and the actor did a great job at that. However I'm sure there were many uptight, unpleasant and downright sadistic pro-Nazi officers like him in the Wehrmacht who didn't think twice about murdering innocent civilians (especially Jews, Russians and other Slavs).
My grandfather told me a story a lot of times of how his family was nearly killed by firing squad when he was just a kid. His village in Poland was occupied by the Germans. One morning the whole family (my grandpa was around 7-8 years old then, his parents and grandparents) gets dragged out from the house by a troop of soldiers and lined up against the house wall. A German officer with the aid of a translator proclaimed the village was accused of harboring resistance fighters and they will be executed as an example what happens if you help the resistance. This was true, the whole village including grandpa's family did frequently feed resistance fighters and couriers and let them sleep in the barn; however, this was not solely from patriotic duty - if you did not help the resistance, your barn and house got burned down in the night. As the Germans waited for a crowd of onlookers from the village to gather for the execution, the leader of the German colonists ran over and started shouting and arguing with the commanding officer. The village chief vouched for my great-grandfather’s honesty, argued that the Germans were here to colonize not terrorize and needed honest hard working Polish farmers. He also threatened the officer with some family connections high in the Nazi party. The officer finally angrily gave up, but took out his frustration on my great-grandfather, beating him unconscious with a rifle butt. My great-grandpa lost his hearing in one of his ears, but lived long past the war. As an added twist - it later turned out the accusation of harboring resistance fighters came from a Polish collaborator from another village, who got rejected by a girl from my grandfather's village and wanted to take vengeance. Resistance fighters beat him and burned his farm to the ground. The story really shows the confusing morality of war. Grandpa was saved from a bad German by a good German, with both good and bad Poles contributing to the situation.
My American grandfather spent the war (unknowingly) bombing my German grandmother in Berlin. After the war, she married a British Royal Navy veteran and had my mother. Grandpa married an Italian girl and had my father. I grew up hearing harrowing stories like yours too. It taught me to learn history through the lens of _humanity_ instead of nationality or ideology. I learned to study history as objectively as possible. I don't "take sides" when it comes to war. It sounds like you were left with a very similar impression.
I am Russian. My grandfather fought and I know this story from him. He was wounded in battle, the battle was won by the germans and he lay wounded, unable to move and watched as a German officer walked across the battlefield and finished off russians wounded by last shoot from his pistol. My grandfather's turn came, a german officer approached him and they looked into each other's eyes. The officer did not shoot and went on. So my grandfather stayed to live, then he was a prisoner in Poland. Came back home. And no one can explain why the officer didn't shoot him.
Even in the most dire moments, when man is consumed by the deepest evil, they do not let their humanity fully go away. Because, well, they’re men. Sometimes even a little good shines in the worst of people
@Stronso "Look at what you have started" are you that fucking dense that you'll blame the Russian people for the war? Most if not all of their citizens are against Putin in his decision.
One thing that's very underestimated in this scene is how the actual Wehrmacht are all wearing ragged clothes, had to be handed new rifles, are suffering from some frostbite, and have clearly been fighting hard. Whereas the Military Police and SS are all dressed in perfect uniforms without as much as a scratch on their helmets, some of the Wehrmacht don't even have helmets.
But they make them participate to share in the responsibility. Much like the in the movie 'Downfall' where Goebbels explains "We let everyone know just enough what was going on so everyone shares in the responsibility".
This comment thread is a goldmine for amazing war stories. Obviously they describe horrifying things but I am fascinated by them. Thank you all for sharing. My only war story is this: my grandfather lived in the occupied Netherlands. He was conscripted to work in a factory in Germany. He avoided deportation by hiding in a wheat field. The story goes that before he left the house to go hide, his mother gave him a kitchen knife and said "don't be afraid to use it". These are basically gentle peace-loving Christian peasants we are talking about. It just goes to show how brutal the war was, that a mother has to give her son instructions like that. And this story is nothing compared to many in this thread.
Unbelievable! 12 million watched these German propaganda lies! This propaganda is intended to give the impression that the Nazi soldiers were ordinary soldiers. But that's a lie, because these were soldiers of a criminal Nazi army. By the way, no German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The massacre of Józefów in Poland, in which 1,500 civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht, made it clear that there was no compulsion to obey orders when shootings were carried out. Because only volunteers took part in the shootings and there were always enough of them. It is known that during this massacre the German battalion commander Trapp offered that those who did not feel up to the task did not have to take part in the shooting of civilians . A few did not want to take part, but the vast majority had no problem taking part in the shooting. From this overwhelming majority, soldiers were then ordered to the shooting. This meant that no soldier who refused to take part in the shootings could invoke compulsion to obey orders, because the possibility of freedom of decision without consequences was given.
My grandfather was the son of a contractor in Brabant, he hid from the Germans in one of those small houses where the street electrical stuff used to be, my grandma brought him food. He was called up by the Germans to perform labor in Germany and he didn't want to so he hid for about 2 years. My grandparents never said anything bad about the Germans. Later he took over the business and became quite successful, fun story he had the first telephone in the town. His phone number for decades was : 1234 My grandma for some reason didn't like it and called it twelvethirtyfour or twaalfvierendertig in Dutch.
My Great Grandfather was harboring a small jewish family in his attic in Amsterdam during the 2nd world war, when germany invaded they searched every single house in all the neighborhoods, one young german soldier was sent by his officer up in the attic to search it and actually saw one of the kids up there. The officer asked what was taking so long and the young soldier lied, saying there was nothing and he just wanted to get a good look. He whispered to my great grandfather's ear when they were leaving to better hide the children next time... If it weren't for that soldier i probably wouldn't be here today.
@@Exalta101 Lol cringe cuckservative, you're just as bad as the demorats. Remember the German Fascists were anti-vax, conspiracy theorists, hated big banks and big corporations, and never mandated anything for their people.
I am Russian. My grandmother was a child during the war, and she was saved by a Wehrmacht soldier. He hid her, when they were executing the whole village, by burning people alive in the barn. Some people too strong to be forced to kill their humanity, and it saving lives.
@@ddadrden unfortunately, this kind of cruelty is a very common story in WWII. My grandfather and his family had to hide from soldiers who would’ve either sent them to labour camps or shot them.
@@ddadrden not every german was evil. Some where soldiers who did as they where told to out of fear. Propaganda makes people feel alone when almost nobody wants to do as they are told to but they believe everyone else wants to. A soldier acts as a piece of shit? He wanted to do this but you can't compare him to another who was scared but had enough strength to do something behind the kommadant"s back.
My great uncle fought in this battle. He was born in 1923 and just 18 years old when he and his friends were sent to Stalingrad in the Summer of 1942. He would always tell my dad that one time they had orders to attack a factory, which was being held by the Soviets. He would always say that that was the day he saw all of his best friends die right in front of him. He would also talk about the situations were he was engaged in hand to hand combat, telling my dad about the struggle and the slowly appearing white shimmer in the eyes of your enemy, once you take his life. He also talked about a war crime he and his comrades committed, when they shot and killed their commanding officer. Because that officer didn’t care about the lives of his men, constantly forcing them to attack strongly fortified positions. He also was awarded his iron cross there for shooting down an enemy plane, which then crashed right into the position of the Soviets. The one thing that always gets me is when I hear the stories about the winter inside the city. My great uncle said that they didn’t have warm clothing, there was no food. It was so cold the young soldiers would not even notice the tears running down their cheeks from crying, praying, yearning for their mothers. When new casualties were suffered, they would go out dragging the stiff-frozen bodies of their own comrades into their position and use them as sandbags. When a firefight erupted those bodies would thaw and pervade the air with a foul smell. In January 1943, he went out of his position, when 4-5 bullets penetrated his legs. His friends took him to the last available airfield and he was fortunate and got flown out of Stalingrad in one of the last airplanes. Neither his friends, who got him on the plane nor one of his other comrades made it out of there alive. They were all between 19-21 years old. After his recovery he was sent to France, where he fought in Normandy, Falaise and the Battle of the Bulge. During the latter he was taken prisoner by the Americans and returned to Germany in 1948. He would never even look at gun again. He passed away at the age of 86 in 2009. He finally found his peace
What a man he seemed to be, I wish more saw the differences between the army and the SS. My own grandpa passed in 2009 aswell, he fought in the pacific especially in the Philippines. Never told a peep about it unless he was drunk.
That is why your way to young at 18 great uncle and his friends should of consciously objected as i certainly would of if i was alive during that time but i don't know what it was like for a german to object to being sent to fight but for me to be put in a situation where your literally watching your friends die and being in close quarters combat to the death with another young man you don't even know and would probably be ome friends with if not for the war all on the orders of old men who don't give a shit about there young lives really hurts me very deep in my soul that you can make youth do that to each other and ruin there lives as i certainly would not of been your uncle and if i went through what he went throuvh and survived i would most likely of taken my life from the guilt of losing my friends and taking lives of strangers
@@yeetuscleetus3833 the myth of the clean Wehrmacht is just that, a myth. The German military committed countless war crimes during WW2. Some might say "they were forced to do it!" but this is again, a myth. There isn't a single documented instance of anyone being executed for not carrying out summary executions, massacres, deportations to camps etc. The ones who participated chose to.
My grandfather was part of the Greek resistance, during the war. He was one day given the order to move a German POW (a captured Wehrmacht soldier, I believe) from one village to the next, during the middle of the night when nobody would see them. So off they went, through the fields, in the middle of the darkness. However, after some time they came to a road, where there was some noise of engines and lights approaching, so my grandfather grabbed the German and held him down in the tall grass, but they were only a few metres away from the road. It was a German convoy of open trucks and armoured vehicles and stuff, passing by. My grandfather immediately pulled out his pistol, held it to the German's head and whispered "if you yell, you die". This was however a known way that some of his fellow resistance fighters had been killed, as previous POWs in this kind of situation had been unafraid to yell out and sacrifice their own lives, just for the sake of the Reich and to have a resistance fighter killed (and perhaps they were done with living as POWs anyway). My grandfather was paralysed with fear because he knew that this German would probably also struggle and call out, despite my grandfather holding a gun to his head, and get them both killed. However, the German POW remained completely still and silent, until the convoy eventually fully passed. They continued their journey. Once they were in some quieter fields, my grandfather asked him (he had a good level of German): "Why didn't you call out? All the other German POWs who saw troops did and got their captors killed." The German replied with something like: "I come from Bavaria, from a family of 5 sons. 2 of my brothers are dead in Stalingrad and another 2 are dead on the Western Front. I am all my parents have left, but now I have been missing for many months and they'll think I am dead. I hate this war, all it has done is destroy my family and I don't want to fight you. I want us to lose so I can go home and see my parents again.". My grandfather indeed did transfer the German POW to some resistance hideout in the next village. My grandfather never saw that man again or found out what had happened to him. He accepts that he will now never know, but he hopes that he survived the rest of the war and then made it home. My grandfather has always told me that WWII movies that portray all Germans as evil killing robots are not so accurate; some Germans were terrible war criminals, while others were not. He says that the majority were radicalised with national socialism and followed the orders that they were given, but essentially behaved like professional soldiers. He also said that there were occasionally soldiers who tried to be helpful or kind. They were just human beings, coming in all shapes and sizes, ranging all across the morality spectrum. He also says that the real evil ones were the SS.
Out of 5 sons. 2 of my brothers are dead in Stalingrad and another 2 are dead in Western Front and I'm all my parents have left. This words actually hit my heart, kind of brought tears in my eyes.. Even though that German soldier survived and returned home but still they would feel voids in their home and would feel there is suddenly lots of space in home..kind of relatable to me actually.. Just ignore some errors in my English..
Man those were some terrible times with 60 million people dead, the war crimes, soldiers forced into war, and the people who suffer from it. War truly is hell
My great grandfather was apart of the German army and despised of the SS an fled here in 1941. He was forced to eat sparrows for months because they could not feed the troops in his squadron. When he found the opportunity to he escaped and fled to the US. He hated the Nazis, SS, and Hitler himself. He was a loyal German but not a sheep. Don’t think they all were from what you see or read.
ButtHeDinduNuffin How you managed to get a minimum of two people to like your comment is beyond me, because that might be the most idiotic thing I’ve read this week. I would say that a bigger embarrassment to the German people was the myriad of atrocities and crimes against humanity committed at the command of the Nazi party, and fuckwits like you that convince themselves that these atrocities aren’t a dark stain on the history of our species. You’re either a Nazi sympathizer or an ignoramus. Either way, you’re willfully stupid.
@ButtHeDinduNuffin There's a difference between being a coward, and choosing to have good fucking morales. What the germans fought was not for courage, honour, or anything. It was for one mans sick ideology. Men like him were stronger, choosing not to follow for what they knew was wrong. The german army hung unarmed civilians in Poland and Belgium!, and that is not more embarrassing??!!!. I find it funny how you don't even mentioned the shit the Germans put people through. Even if his grandfather did it or not, it would not of made him a coward.
@Kabuki Kitsune I believe it was because Erwin Rommel didn't allow his soldiers to kill innocent civilians and Jews and to help the p.o.w's by giving them water and food.
@@hemaneatspizza9111 I doubt there were very many situations to kill innocent civilians and Jews in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts either way. Nowhere as many as in Russia.
@@artificialintelligence8328 German situation in the eastern front are far more brutal than any front, I bet leniency is second to none there. For both sides.
This comment section is a living, breathing history tour de force. So refreshing to see you all keeping your grand-relatives memories alive with their incredible tales, they'd be proud of you.
In my opinion, Stalingrad (1993) is the second best WW2 movie after Das Boot. It has a few more minor flaws, like some weird cuts and some dialogues that feel a little bit too scripted, but captures the reality of war almost perfectly.
@@mickeydrago9401 Saving Private Ryan (SVP) is really good, especially the beach landing scene gives a very good impression of how it must have felt to be a soldier in such a situation. SVP had a much bigger budget, so the battle scenes are more impressive from a pure cinematic/production point of view, while the Stalingrad ones are good enough (they saved a bit for example in the amount of background actors/soldiers) But SVP develops more into telling a story, it's not so much about the horrors of war (apart from the battle scenes), about the desperation of the soldiers, about their inner conflicts. Of course war at the Eastern Front was much worse, so SPR couldn't really show for example big war crimes without being historically incorrect. From pure entertainment value, SVP is the better movie for the mainstream, hence the higher imdb rating, but for showing how devastating war is to those involved, civilians and soldiers, Stalingrad does a better job.
I know it isn't related to the eastern front. But my great grandfather was in the 2nd polish corps he fought for monte cassino and ancona where i live now he got alot of medals for his bravery. He died last year in his sleep i love you grandpa.
There is so much value in movies like this one. They convey how war is. My grandpas, both conscripted into the Wehrmacht, one on the Eastern Front all the way back to Berlin, described the horrors in line with that clip.
They both made it out of this horror alive ? Wow. My direct relatives where luckily either too young or too old to get conscripted. But my great uncle served on the eastern front. He also survived because he ate the rotten bread they gave him in the prisoner camp. Many of those who couldnt swallow it died of hunger and exhaustion. And the big love of my great aunt fell at Charkov in 43. She was single for her whole life afterwards, like many german women of this generation. She died in 2017 at the age of 92. I am thankfull to her that she talked about these hard years to me and my generation. My granpa and both grandmas didnt like to talk about it. Maybe my paternal granma will one day, she is still healthy for her age at almost 90 and the last of her generation in my family. She is such a kind and lovely human being. We still can learn alot from them. If you have relatives who lived during this time, share as many hours as possible with them. They wont be around for much longer. And with them dies a real appreciation for peace.
@@gothia6515 Indeed, one shall learn from them while they are still around. My grandparents are not anymore. They were incredibly kind, just as you are describing your relatives. They were also incredibly hardened. The plight of the women during and after the war would deserve more mentioning. My grandma e.g. was a farm girl in Lower Austria, and remembered how marauding escort fighters, "Tiefflieger" as the were called, shot at everything that moved. Trains, horses, people digging up potatoes. Then, the Russians came. Then, the hunger years.
Wow, our grandpas ended up with a pretty similar ending, except that mine were with the Red Army. One was injured in the leg on the outskirts of Moscow and sent back home, the other made it through the whole war. None of them talked about it in detail, which I assume is because of the horrors they witnessed
@@turmoilbreaker9301 we shall call ourselves lucky they survived, injured and forever scarred, to share what little they were willing to. At school, I had quite a few class mates whose grandpas fell in the war. Presume you had those too.
It's also important to remember that these so called innocents were actually Soviet partisans who were responsible for the deaths of thousands of German troops.
My grandpa fought throughout the whole war for the Wehrmacht. Started with the invasion of France, then later pushed through Belarus. His unit was also tasked with protecting Schwerer Gustav from partisans as it was transported from Sevastopol north to Leningrad. He lived till 96 in Australia, and had what could only be described as severe PTSD for his entire life. I recently watched a documentary on what the Germans did in Belarus (the Bullet Holocaust) and I have pretty strong suspicions that he was involved. My dad was an avid hunter, and would try to get my grandpa to come out with him. My grandpa refused to touch a gun for the remainder of his life, and would have really bad reactions when they were in his presence. He only ever talked about the war once, it was his 80th birthday and he was super drunk, I still remember it even though I was a kid. He said that the most terrifying thing on the Eastern Front was heavy fog. Because heavy fog often meant that the Russians would fix bayonets and he'd probably have to fight up close.
In Russia, veterans (those who actually fought, and not clerks with commemorative medals), as a rule, also did not particularly tell anything even to their relatives. It's not a thing to brag about, these scars will never heal. I'm interested in war dramas and have watched a lot of movies and a lot of books on the subject, good and bad. A revelation for me was the book "War Does Not Have a Woman's Face". This should be translated into all the languages of the world, and hammered into the heads of brainless boys before they take up arms and go to the next "fun war".
My Opa too rarely discussed the war but I’d always see him sitting in his chair in the afternoon before dinner with a shaky leg and staring into space clearly remembering He was a very kindly man who did woodworking with me as a small child and taught me to solder circuits to learn about electricity and taught me German and Spanish I miss him very much South Australia
That's true about veterans attitude towards weapons, shooting etc. My grandfather got a hunting gun as a gift but never used it, it was laying on the shelf without ammos. And when they were to move to another city, he just disassembled it and thrown the parts away on his way to that another city. Red Army infantry, since 1942 - Stalingrad, Kursk, Dnieper, Budapest, Vienna.
@@zloymyx2486 Indeed. Same goes for my granddad who was part of the Wehrmacht and survived the battle of Stalingrad. He would never go into details of what happened and only said once that Stalingrad was a place far worse than anyone could ever imagine hell to be
My dad was 16 when the Russians invaded Latvia in 1939, he came to Canada at , 18. I remember when he would get drunk with polish, Ukrainian and German neighbors. They would argue, drink, swear, and sing their lungs out. This was in the 80s in Toronto canada
@@levvy3006 you mean soviet* ussr was a vast country composed of 14 states that why it named union of socialist soviet republic not "Russia" (sorry if my english bad im french)
@@sharkboi6164 yes what you say is true but it did not only have in Russia but in all the Old Russian Empire for example in Ukraine during that short period of independence and afterwards with the "black army" for example I made a mistake in my first comment totaly missing the point of "non-communist"
I'm Russian, and my grandpa was a very young boy when the Germans invaded USSR, and he remembered how some Wehrmacht detachment arrived in their village, and one particular soldier was very kind to him and gifted him a bar of chocolate, which was a really nice present, before the Germans left. However the great grandfather served in the army and went through the whole war almost up to Berlin (he was wounded in Germany), and he apparently witnessed a lot of evidence of atrocities committed by the German army in Belarus, and it was a very grievous and traumatic experience for him. So he never talked about what the Germans had done when others asked him, because he did not want to remember probably.
War, in the end, is carried out by humans. Some people have a great strength within them to be kind and empathetic even in awful times. Some people use it as an opportunity to let the darkness in their hearts come out freely. Most people, just try and survive and do their job, and what they do comes down to the hearts of the people that give them orders.
That's interesting. I'm Ukrainian and my grandmother talked about how there was German artillery stationed near her house in a village. The soldiers came to her house and also gave her chocolate, which was a real luxury in the USSR at the time.
Ask your grandpa why USSR red army raped 2 million german women during their trip to germany in 1944-1945, also ask why Stalin killed 30 million ussr citizens, also ask why did Stalin ally with national socialists, also ask why russia invaded Finland, and whole of eastern europe. Also, ask about the forests of Katyn in Poland, ask what the red army animals did
@@rallyycar6750 oh really?.. OUR SOLDIERS HAD MORAL RIGHTS TO DESTROY TO ASHES WHOLE GERMANY!! DON'T U THINK OF THAT? DO U KNOW WHAT HITLER WITH HIS ARMIES AND WITH ARMIES OF HIS ALLIES DID IN BELARUS AND UKRAINE? LEARN IT, AND SHUT UP! DO U KNOW HOW MANY ATROCITIES GERMAN ARMIES DID IN THOSE COUNTRIES? MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WERE TORTURED TO DEATH! WOMEN, CHILDREN, OLD PEOPLE...GERMANS CAME TO OUR LANDS, NOT US....SHUT THE FUCK UP! Your Finland is not innocent too...Do u know that they had concentration camps?
@@rallyycar6750 ask yours why Germany exterminated 25% of the Belarus population, 16% of the Polish Population, 14% of the Russian population, 12% of the Ukrainian population, Yougoslavia, Greece, and much more in eastern europe, in total, more than 20 million civilians, and 4 million PoW. Ask him what happened to the women accross eastern europe, the villages where people were put into one house and burned down with flamethrowers, kids, women, and elderly alike. Ask him that I hope this explains the difference in scale of what was done. I do not say that it wasn't wrong. I say, it is a revenge. Revenge isn't right, but it is understandable. Not like an initial will to genocide like the germans did
One of the best war movie of all time, it's really show you how horrible the war can be. When men said "war is hell" they aren't exaggerated even a tiny bit.
High-power rifle shot at close range hammers the spinal cord through hydrostatic shock. Person might rag-doll, stiffen up, slowly topple, jump or just sit down. They might not die in an instant, but bodily control is lost in a millisecond. That's how a hunter can drop a deer, only to have the creature 'recover' 5 minutes later. Spine-shock wore off.
I like how the scene is set you really get a sense just of frigid it was, just no escape from the cold, they used to say that the Russian Work camps in the north didn’t need guards or fences, you could run if you wanted but…you would die before you got anywhere
Japanese soldiers captured by the Soviets in Manchuria were sent to Siberian labor camps where they were tortured , beaten, starved and worked to death. Only a few lived to be repatriated back to Japan after almost a decade of captivity.
3:56 - the look of guilt and sadness on the face of Witzland watching his own squad being taken over by a ruthless Officer and ordered to kill the innocent, is just heartbreaking.
What about from the Soviet perspective? Sad that we never see that, considering they were the ones heroically defending. We always see the perspective only of the aggressor, and in such a way to whitewash the aggression by focussing on individuals.
I watched german Stalingrad documentary from 2003, mostly veterans from both sides talking about their experience and after that I watched this movie. It was like their stories came alive right there on the screen, the similarity of the movie and their experience was unbelievable. Hats down to the whole film crew of the 1993 Stalingrad - true gem among war movies.
I believe that movie was quite realistic,only that in reality there were many more dead bodies of starved and froze to death around than shown in the movie. Both Russian and German. Some stacked like cordwood. Also the movie doesn't get in to depicting the cannibalism that occurred. Although,like our heroes,most did not engage in it.
Unbelievable! 12 million watched these German propaganda lies! This propaganda is intended to give the impression that the Nazi soldiers were ordinary soldiers. But that's a lie, because these were soldiers of a criminal Nazi army. By the way, no German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The massacre of Józefów in Poland, in which 1,500 civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht, made it clear that there was no compulsion to obey orders when shootings were carried out. Because only volunteers took part in the shootings and there were always enough of them. It is known that during this massacre the German battalion commander Trapp offered that those who did not feel up to the task did not have to take part in the shooting of civilians . A few did not want to take part, but the vast majority had no problem taking part in the shooting. From this overwhelming majority, soldiers were then ordered to the shooting. This meant that no soldier who refused to take part in the shootings could invoke compulsion to obey orders, because the possibility of freedom of decision without consequences was given.
I highly recommend Downfall 2003 forget the memes and jokes that movie has the balls to show Adolf as a human love him or despise him he still had emotions and wasn't a cartoon
As a German, I would also like to say something. My great uncle served in the war but never talked about what he did. His sister, my grandmother, often talked about how her parents helped hide Jewish people in the basement of their barn and bring them to safety. It is a bizarre situation, the great uncle on one side at the front and on the other side his family helping the other side as much as they could. My great uncle received several awards, hid them and showed them to no one. We found them in a box when we cleaned out his house after his death. The only one he told about the war was my uncle. He told how he had to kill. He had to kill because he was afraid. My uncle was homosexual and was very afraid that it would be found out. He was an ordinary man who had handled the war well at first glance, but my uncle showed me that it was nothing but a facade. When I visited my great uncle once, he gave me a big stuffed lion that still sits around in my bedroom. My great uncle looked so unimpressive, hiding everything from me even though he went through hell. The second world war brings with it endless guilt and I want everyone to know how much Germany is trying to remember the terrible deeds of the second world war and to create a conscience that such a thing will never happen again.
I honestly believe 99% of German soldiers probably acted just like your great uncle did. There was no "PTSD counseling" back then so they were pretty much forced to suppress their memories and feelings and just try to carry on with life the best they could. But it was obvious they suffered a LOT on the inside. So it's admirable that a nation like Germany can still learn powerful lessons from people like your great uncle. I just wish these Trumpers in America would learn the same lessons. They honestly remind me of the Nazi mindset so much and it sickens me to my core.
@@JoeZaccaris What's wrong with Trumpers? I mean I'm not sure what Trump is promoting in general, but the LGBT agenda and the worship of African Americans really won't lead to anything good. They are already spoiling wonderful films and TV series with this agenda. So if Trump is trying to reduce the worship of all this minority - that 's right !
@@JoeZaccaris SS were literally demons. And Croatian Ustashe were even worse by comparison. Those were not normal soldiers. The way they killed innocent people, especially babies, would make your skin crawl. For example, they would throw babies into the air and hold a knife upright and position it so that the baby falls directly on top of it, in front of their mothers. Or just throw them against the wall/stomp on them. You cannot tell me that the entire country of people is 'unlocked' to do those sorts of things. Yes, people are capable of doing those things, but on that scale and with that much enjoyment? Nope. You had to be a special kind of fuсked up. But every country has people like this. Also, you likening Trump supporters to these types of people shows me i pretty much wasted my time writing this comment, since you are either A: clueless beyond belief, or B: a total fuсkin idiot. You don't know what the Nazi mindset is brother. And for your sake, I pray you never have to find out or experience it.
I've never got round to watching this film, the clip has made me realise I probably should. I could feel the tension and a bitter chill in the air just watching this little scene.
You should definitely watch it! One of the best war movies out there. Unfortunately it kinda flew under the radar when released and was criticized for being too kind an interpretation of the German soldier. Hollywood prefers mindless soldier robots depicted instead of real people.
@@bellicose4653 yes long time ago. Its quite depressing but thats war movies. But this is way greater than shitmade one Stalingrad 2013 film. You can watch this in youtube if your geography allows it. ruclips.net/video/VnJJQxZ0hu8/видео.html
Post Edit: OMG, you cringe people didn't get the joke. Why are you still fighting even after 2 years? I'm editing the comment now so there`s no point in continuing fighting.
I’m Italian American and my grandfather was stationed in Greece after Mussolini rolled over. There were refugees fleeing across a valley below his sentry, and his commanding officer commanded that he shoot said refugees in a similar fashion depicted in this video. He was insubordinate, and ended up being thrown into an East German concentration camp for many years. He was ultimately liberated by Russians and eventually immigrated with his remaining family to America in the 60s. For all of the years that he was in that camp, he shared very little and took the nightmares to the grave.
If you notice, at 1:01 the snow fall slows down when the kid is focused, as to create an effect of sadness and grief. And then the snow is sped back up when the german soldiers are in focus.
My late Uncle from Nebraska was a foot soldier in the European Theatre for the entirety of the war. He told my Dad and I that somewhere in Germany they had taken quite a few German prisoners. The snow was coming down in a near-blizzard and they really had nowhere to stash these prisoners or hand them off for captivity. He said they were made to circle the entire German prisoners....then fire on and execute them. This was done on both sides of the war, and it bothered my Uncle for the rest of his life. He also said that he was on some motorcycle near the war's end and crashed in a field. Unable to move, a German soldier found him. He said he was sure he was going to be executed there as he lay in the field injured, but the German got him up and standing, then righted the motorcycle....got it started....and got my Uncle on it and off he went. My Uncle one way.....the German soldier another. Humanity was realized on both sides. True stories. jbeinarizona
Unbelievable! 12 million watched these German propaganda lies! This propaganda is intended to give the impression that the Nazi soldiers were ordinary soldiers. But that's a lie, because these were soldiers of a criminal Nazi army. By the way, no German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The massacre of Józefów in Poland, in which 1,500 civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht, made it clear that there was no compulsion to obey orders when shootings were carried out. Because only volunteers took part in the shootings and there were always enough of them. It is known that during this massacre the German battalion commander Trapp offered that those who did not feel up to the task did not have to take part in the shooting of civilians . A few did not want to take part, but the vast majority had no problem taking part in the shooting. From this overwhelming majority, soldiers were then ordered to the shooting. This meant that no soldier who refused to take part in the shootings could invoke compulsion to obey orders, because the possibility of freedom of decision without consequences was given.
My great grandfather was a conscripted soldier that fought for the defunct Japanese empire and he knew of certain units that were utilized for tasks that dealt with executions (he implied that it was both millitary and civilian groups). He and other conscripts were not usually trusted with those tasks because of lacking some sense of "honor" or some kind of spirit of a warrior, and it was explained to him that these executions were for responsible and honorable soldiers (of course pure Japanese). My great grandfather like many others knew it was just BS. It was blatant illegal and immoral acts which that regime wanted to bury deep.
Very interesting. I also had ancestors on my mother's side who served in the IJN during WWII. ( I am not pure Japanese ). When I asked him why he served in the Navy all he said was " the Emperor commanded us to fight. So we fought. Later on he commanded us to surrender. We obeyed. " That was all. No high faluting sense of honor or moral principles involved. Plain blind loyalty and obedience to the Emperor.
I'm Navajo, my grandfather fought in WWII to serve along side Americans, not for honor but a duty to defend our homeland as a newly recognized American Citizen.
How interesting to read it, guys....My great grandfather was HERO OF USSR. HE FOUGHT FROM 1943 TO 1945. He advanced to Berlin. Whole life he hated this war and sometimes cried...
My grandfather told me a story about his time in the Japanese-occupied Philippines during WWII. On both sides, he worked as a cook/kitchen helper. He would work in the US camp during the day and then return to the Japanese camp in the evening. When the Japanese discovered this, they imprisoned him in a small cage. My grandfather was probably between the ages of 12 and 15 at the time. He managed to flee, but the Japanese guards pursued him and shot at him. They missed, possibly on purpose.
Based on all the things I've heard about Japanese soldiers --- it's hard to believe they missed your grandfather on purpose, but maybe some of them actually had a soul
My grandfather was heavily wounded as a young civilian in 1944 in Slovakia by Red Army mortar fire. He was saved by a German medic who kept visiting him and treated his wounds.
One my grand-grandfather was captured during uprising in 1944 and another was fightning in East Front in 1941/42 and later he fought in Italy. Both of them came home after war
I'm a german and my heart really aches for our cruel history. My Dad used to be in the army for a short period. Thank God he never went to war. He told me some things though. And the most evil ones where those officers, the head guards. Most soldiers were just scared for their own lives. They would have gotten killed if they refused an order. Sickening to know how evil some people can be.
cruel hystory??digga ich erzähl dir was.allierte?usa:seit bestehen 7jahre ohne krieg!!!!!!das ist ne vergangenheit!!!england?die ganze welt unzerjocht,Kolonien usw. frankreich?napolion?bis zum 1.wk war krieg fuhrennicht nur normal sondern gefordert!sonst galt der führer oderkönig als schwach!man musste seine grenzen erweitern.erst die vollkommen heuchlerischen nürnberger prozesse machten krieg zum verbrechen(was es immer ist für mich aber gut).leicht heute töne spucken.damals dachten die menschen anders.nur zur info
My father was in the US Army during WWII and frequently interacted with German prisoners. Most of them were enlisted 'common' soldiers. He said that many of them were good people...as he said 'they were just like us, 19-20 years old...if we hadn't had orders to kill each other, we could have been drinking buddies." he actually liked most Germans better than most Englishmen
Only 6000 of the 90,000 Germans taken prisoner at Stalingrad ever returned home Sent to gulags and outright killed Atrocious war crimes by the soviets but all sides do that in war
My grand father was one of the ones who was captured in stalingrad, he survived on any rations he could find such as horse meat. The Soviets sent him to a gulag, but he escaped by foot in 1949 from Eastern siberia, over Mongolia, through to Nepal, and then from India he caught a cargo ship to Germany. Then emigrated to Argentina. He suffered alot during the war, his 3 brothers killed at stalingrad, france (1940), and Libya. His father killed in the battle of Berlin for the volkstum. Although he remained fiercely in the national socialist cause, he blamed Hitler in his diaries, he wrote how he wished Japan could attack Russia at the same time. My grand father, worked as a car sales man In his own business.
Wait... OK as I'm hearing this I'm making the biggest mistake asking this but if he was captured by Soviets I have to assume he was German soldier right? A nazi? Please explain what you mean by that?
@@Killgore-ip2yq hi, yes a German solider, German national. He believed in national socialism, but was not a nazi. He helped Argentina with their military tactics and training during the peron leadership , but eventually ran a successful car sales business. He never returned to Germany.
Unbelievable! 12 million watched these German propaganda lies! This propaganda is intended to give the impression that the Nazi soldiers were ordinary soldiers. But that's a lie, because these were soldiers of a criminal Nazi army. By the way, no German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The massacre of Józefów in Poland, in which 1,500 civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht, made it clear that there was no compulsion to obey orders when shootings were carried out. Because only volunteers took part in the shootings and there were always enough of them. It is known that during this massacre the German battalion commander Trapp offered that those who did not feel up to the task did not have to take part in the shooting of civilians . A few did not want to take part, but the vast majority had no problem taking part in the shooting. From this overwhelming majority, soldiers were then ordered to the shooting. This meant that no soldier who refused to take part in the shootings could invoke compulsion to obey orders, because the possibility of freedom of decision without consequences was given.
I knew a man (he isn't alive anymore) who was recruted to war as he was 18 years old. One sunday he toll me: "We were send out to kill people....people we didn't know." He was shaking when he told me this an then took a sip from his glas of wine. It sent shivers down my spine. Always when i see such movies i remember him. God bless his soul.
My great Uncle was a Canadian Soldier In WW1. He lost his sight because of mustard gas. My dad once asked him if he was bitter with the Germans. Surprised by the question he said, “No, it was war”. He was a soldier and understood. Soldiers do not make policy, they obey orders. He was a man among men.
My Grandmother was Serbian. She spoke German as her mother was German and the soldiers gave her preferential treatment for that. Little did they know that she actually hid Broz Tito in a secret wall in her home during the occupation. Eventually someone had spoken up about her but for a different reason and she was sent to a concentration camp. She did survive through WWII until 2014. Tito would come visit her home every winter for a while and asked if she ever needed anything and had it delivered to her after he became Yugoslav leader.
Unbelievable! 12 million watched these German propaganda lies! This propaganda is intended to give the impression that the Nazi soldiers were ordinary soldiers. But that's a lie, because these were soldiers of a criminal Nazi army. By the way, no German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The massacre of Józefów in Poland, in which 1,500 civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht, made it clear that there was no compulsion to obey orders when shootings were carried out. Because only volunteers took part in the shootings and there were always enough of them. It is known that during this massacre the German battalion commander Trapp offered that those who did not feel up to the task did not have to take part in the shooting of civilians . A few did not want to take part, but the vast majority had no problem taking part in the shooting. From this overwhelming majority, soldiers were then ordered to the shooting. This meant that no soldier who refused to take part in the shootings could invoke compulsion to obey orders, because the possibility of freedom of decision without consequences was given. The Wehrmacht and their generals were willing tools of the German Nazi government and participated in countless crimes. Their criminal brutality proves the fact that during the German raid on Poland, soldiers of the Wehrmacht carried out about 60 percent of the mass murders of Polish civilians. 60%!!! Polish civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht but also Polish Prisoners of war (POWs) were murdered by the Wehrmacht. These were not just a few massacres by the Wehrmacht on Polish POWs and civilians. There were a great number of massacres by the Wehrmacht on Polish civilians and on Polish POWs! Because that had a method and was part of the war of extermination against the Gypsies, Slavs and Jews in the occupied areas in the east. The Wehrmacht not only murdered in occupied Poland, but in fact in all occupied countries. Polish soldiers which had put up a stiff fight were penalized for their ‘impudence’ by being punished by being murdered with flame-throwers. The resistance by Polish ‘sub-humans’ was not considered military virtue for Wehrmacht soldiers but just insolence. This example also shows illustrates that this army was completely megalomaniac, mad, criminal, amoral and degenerated like the entire Nazi nation! By the way, Nazi party member was certainly not the definition of a Nazi. That is the definition of Nazi! Supporter and follower of the German Nazi government! By the way, the vast majority of the German army (Wehrmacht) were since 1935 at the latest followers and supporters of the German Nazi government thus they were Nazis! Incidentally, the vast majority of Germans since 1935 at the latest were also followers and supporters of the German Nazi government thus they were Nazis! In fact, the rush for Nazi party membership was so great that the party froze admission of new members. The German army like the the whole nation was a willing tools of the German Nazi government. This army fought with most of Germans doggedly and fanatically to win the war together with the German Nazi government. Because this army was able to avoid defeat for so long, there was so much time to murder so many people behind the front lines.
But it’s a very inaccurate scene german soldiers weren’t forced to commit war crimes and if a officer actually killed a soldier for not committing a war crime the officer would be court martialed
@@talanarsenault1400 You think this didn't happen on the Eastern front? These were desperate times for the Germans, few supplies, the bitter russian winter all capped off by a bloody war that Hitler had mandated NO RETREAT.
As Russian i highly appreciate this film. One of the greatest films about WW2, its mostly about humanity and people but not about tanks/shooting/planes and other "boom-boom" staff that hollywood ( for instance ) is filming nowadays.
@@kikibro2011 No one wants things to get worse, not even Russia. It's the fucking old heads with power who want to reclaim past glories. There will be no future if we keep colliding like this.
Not me. I love to challenge people and can defuse volatile situations. Armed ones included. That officer is harsh abd brutal. but he'll respect you if you challenge him. IF you can speak up and use good logic and reasoning. You saw the result of failing to do that when he asked "Do you want to be an officer?" That was a golden ticket. He was inviting you to challenge him. The average person doesn't have that kind of skill/talent though. If someone doesn't have that experince then they're ill prepared. Only when you know pain and suffering to extremes, only when you have been that monster will you understand. Monsters themselves aren't the problem. It's a matter of which monster can be trusted. Which is honest. Which is a liar that doesn't even know what they do? To quote Batman: "We''re all monsters". Be wary of those that pretend otherwise. They're speaking from ignorance. That makes what they do worse. The devil you know at least makes you aware of the situation.
@@taramaforhaikido7272 Unfortunately most of us can't be fearless near-divine Übermenschen like yourself. We would frankly have no higher ideal than making it back home to be with our children again. This in fact is the more common reality of humanity.
Wow that was intense. Terrible. It's nice to see WW2 German soldiers being portrayed as compassionate for once in film. I'm sure a lot of German soldiers were faced with this moral dilemma during the war. Very sad 😔
@@Alexander-zt9kz Мои соотечественники освободили пол-Европы от фашистских зверей. Про Ваших ничего сказать не могу, так как не знаю, какое вы имеете гражданство.
@@Вселенная2.0-й6ь They sure did, but in doing so, commit war crimes and massacres often worse than those of the Nazis. Every country has committed war crimes, the issue with the Soviets is that like the Nazis, the amount of war crimes commit was on a grand scale and the perpetrators often walked free. A great example of this is the Katyn Massacre. Despite all this, I know that the majority of Soviet troops werent, as you put it, all scum because the war crimes of others. The same can be said about the Wehrmacht
The German soldiers thought they were superior and the Russians were peasants. This led to civillian massares in both Russia and other lNds they invaded.
@SSJ Yeah, cause every Soviet citizen was a cold-hearted communist. They didn't have families and didn't defend their land from a foreign invader... Especially that boy. He must've been the most hardcore commie out there.
We are the demons of our own making. I've learned to embrace it. Only cowards make targets so easily. Only the weak. "Good" people can't challenge enough. Can't speak up enough. Can't do more then just judge or claim a moral high ground. That is why the innocent died. Why they still do. Why they still will. Are you the monster or are you creating them without knowing? Just some food for thought.
A child got shot on TV. We see dead children on TV in other films. It shows how harsh the reality of war (and other events) is. These days people turn a blind eye. Now the innocent suffer more so because of that blindness. People want to hide it. Until it explodes.
@@taramaforhaikido7272 now just imagine Commie Trump putting kids into cages --- and you see why every American wants the entire Trump Crime Family DEAD
My grandfather was in WWII and saw much combat (he told me). In the early 70's a fire devastated many veteran records; miraculously, from what I ascertained some, all or, most of his records survived the devastating fire which bore out some of the stories he told me before his death at 88. Thinking the best way to describe it; such then his unit arrived at Berlin and was supposed to siege the remaining part of it [I deduced this]. He never made it far before being wounded with strict instructions to the Army not to tell his family that he was hospitalized. That one story I was never told. He is buried in a National Cemetery.
John, I knew the guy who ran the new records center in the 1980's. The rumor was that the fire was somehow related to covering up documents concerning people involved in Watergate.
For anyone interested in the perspective of german participants in the war, and the internal struggles they dealt with, read the book “Ordinary Men” by Christopher Browning. It is about a reserve police battalion and their role in the Final Solution. It provides an interesting insight into the atrocities they were required to take part in.
I don't really like how it is in a sense correctly translated but not word for word. For instance at 2:41 he says: "Are we here on a cattle market? Now it is over with this jewing around!
You can't always translate literally, because such phrasing does not make sense to foreign ears. If i say "ich glaub ich dreh hier durch!" Then you can't phrase it "I think i twist here through" but "I think i'm going crazy" "now it is finally enough" for example has a different emphasis, since finally is not used as a means of reaching a treshold but reaching a long awaited goal.
Teufer2, translation word-for-word often produces unnatural utterances in the target language. What sounds natural in German comes out weird in English. OK, it's not a perfect translation but it gives a good sense of what is said. I can't see how you'd translate "Jewing around" into natural English. Maybe they just edited it out for that reason.
I don't know where you are from but no Films need to be approved in Germany - it can be 18+ only or no Advertisement allowed and some rare Cases (Snuff for example) get banned.
@ElectroSalvo What the hell are you talking about, it's a movie about freaking Nazis do you expect them being nice and friendly with Jews? Are you drunk or out of your mind? And I really don't understand why you should insult me.
I love how the SS guy has this giant warm leather coat with a fur lined collar while the infantry have just have their worn out uniforms. Great visual story telling. I HAVENT SEEN THIS MOVIE I ASSUME THE ALL THE GUYS IN FANCY COATS ARE SS STOP CORRECTING MY YEAR OLD COMMENT
Yeah, the Germans didn't prepare for a winter war, partly because they knew that if they didn't win by the first winter, it was over. Also because Germany had trouble with supply by that point. When the government started asking citizens to donate winter clothing to the army, they knew that the beginning of the end was nigh.
@@jameswells9403 It was more that the plan was to win before the winter because the first plan was set to start sooner, before then the balkan war came which was not planed earlyer
My Grandma was a 15 year old girl in East Prussia in 1945 who fled with her family from her home because of the advancing russians. Her Dad was taken by the russians and never seen again. Her mom died of starvation on the fleight. She is still alive.
My grandfather was in General Patton's tank division. He never spoke about the war, which is common. After he died, I found his WWII wool trench coat up in his attic. It was the only thing up there, in perfect condition hanging from a rafter on a wire hanger. I still have it.
Hello, my warmest regards to the memory of your grandfather 🙏 (General Patton's troops liberated my town in Britanny, France) ✌ This movie is a masterpiece 👏
@@mariehuguen4332 Yes, my Grandfather was in France on V-Day. They even sold off all of the war equipment under the Eiffel Tower. He took a photo of one of our bombers parked right under it.
My Grandfather was a medic in the U.S. Army 6th infantry division during WWII and served in the pacific islands. In short, this is his story: When U.S. had the draft, his younger brother had polio and was not eligible. His older brother had just gotten married but WAS eligible to be drafted. My grandfather and met my grandmother already at that time, but instead of marrying her, he volunteered to enter military service, as he didn't want his older, married brother to get drafted. During training he refused firearms/combat training, and informed his officers that he refused to kill anyone. He was instead enlisted as a Medical Technician. His medical kit consisted of surgical scissor and pliers, stitching thread, needles, gauze, bandages, iodine swabs, tourniquets, boric acid ointment for burns, several straps and strings, a pencil and small booklet of medical tags. He also carried a pocket knife and a canteen. The division he was placed in, the "Sightseeing Sixth" faced a total of 306 days of combat during WWII; 219 of those were consecutive days of combat, a historical statistic that still holds the record to this day. The men in his division were briefed that the Japanese did not obey the Geneva Convention. A Red Cross was a target for the Japanese. No medic wore a Red Cross in their division and no man was to cry "medic!". Instead they used code names. Japan at that time had conscription, basically if you could operate a weapon or help the war effort in any way, you were forced into military service. After a battle, while clearing the field of dead and wounded, his platoon came across a 14 year old Japanese boy who had been shot in the leg and was bleeding out fast. My grandfather operated on his leg and likely saved his life. They took him in as a P.O.W. and treated him kindly. My grandfather took a special liking to him and did what he could to teach him English. Eventually the war ended, the boy was released and lived his life in Japan. My grandfather returned to the U.S. married my grandmother and the rest is, as they say, history. At some point in his life (before I was born) my grandfather re-connected with the Japanese boy and they became lifelong friends, communicating mostly through letters in the mail. Every Christmas my grandfather would be excited to open his card from Shinichi. At the 50 year anniversary of WWII ending Shinichi came to visit the U.S. and met with my grandfather. Shinichi later also sent his grandaughter to the U.S. state where my grandfather lived to attend university. Growing up it was rare to be around my grandfather and NOT hear him talk about that time of his life. He never talked about the horrible things that I'm certain he went through. He always talked about traveling the world, the people he met and the things he saw. He had a "den" room at their house FULL of books of all of the coins, paper money, stamps, postcards that he collected, as well as all of his personal effects from that time. He also had two Japanese officer's katanas as well as an Arisaka Type 99 rifle with bayonet. He saved everything and kept it immaculate. As a child I always took his story time for granted. "Oh great I have to hear about Ichi again..." But now as I type this I would give anything to be able to hear him tell me his stories just one more time. I guess now at 28 I look at the life he lived in awe and try to take some kind of lesson from it. Compassion regardless of one's circumstances is the human choice.
thank you for sharing. at the end of the day, soldiers from both sides are humans, and have much more in common than we have differences. To be able to live on and share those stories together is such a beautiful thing.
@@bozmania Question, your grandfather's story with the 14-year-old Japanese soldier happened in the Battle of Okinawa right? Because I think it's the only instance in the entire Pacific War where Japan actually used child soldiers.
For people who do not understand this scene. These soldiers do not want to kill the girl because they just knew him from the beginning of their service in Stalingrad. This is not purging the Germans, it is simply humanizing them. The Germans were people too, and this movie reminds it. Here the problem is not about all these people and the fact of this order, in shock, and naturally, is young Muller, the rest don't even feel emotions anymore, after all they've experienced, but in this group there was a girl whom they saved in a sense and which was for some time in the building where they were stationing.
They worked for, and actively helped keep together, an inhuman regime that killed millions of innocent people industrially. They killed a child and you call them human? Stupid.
My grandfather was MIA in the battle for Stalingrad … he was Soviet soldier .. it was a real meat-grounder . He was 24 at that time and ll remain to us forever young …
and im sure a few years later he wouldve been in the same situation as those germans. in germany or poland or anyother place the soviets slaughtered civilians
My great Uncle was a panzergenadier in 2nd SS Panzer Div Das Reich, and his war diary documents moments exactly like this on the Eastern Front, notably during counter-offensives like the efforts during the 3rd battle of Kharkov and the major push of the subsequent offensive at Kursk. The journal he left for us is both chilling and captivating at the same time. Many entries defy all imagination of what the horrors of war truly are.
Why not donate that diary to a museum or publish it online so it can be saved for history? It’s important to keep these memories alive to remember this and upcoming generations how terrible war is.
My great-grandfather was a Soviet Partisan and after Nazis occupies his town and found out that his house belonged to a partisan there was an order to burn down the house. His wife, my great-grandmother, was locked in there to be burned alive along with two of her children. A Nazi officer broke the door and got them out before it was too late. She had to walk for 3 miles in 3 feet of snow to find a place to stay because no one would let her in because of fear of being associated with her. From the first time that I heard this story, I knew that the people fighting in wars are just people, some evil some good. Most of them just follow orders they would rather not.
First! It is wrong to speak of Nazis instead of Germans. That was a German occupation and not a Nazi occupation! The Soviets fought not against a political party but against the entire nation and their army! By the way, what you are describing was the exception! It is a fact that they murdered many children! This Nazi nation was completely amoral and degenerate. By the way, this movie is German propaganda! No German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The Józefów massacre clearly demonstrates this. As part of the issuing of orders, Major Trapp explained the purpose of their task to the men. Since the Jewish population was in cahoots with partisans, those who were fit for work should be sent to concentration camps immediately, while the rest should be shot immediately. In the end, however, he offered who did not feel up to this task could step aside. A soldier from 3rd Company then accepted his offer. This meant that no soldier who did not refuse to take part in the shootings could plead to an emergency situation, because the possibility of freedom of choice without consequences was given. By the way, these were not just a few massacres by the Wehrmacht. That had a method and was part of the war of extermination against the Slavs, Gypsies and Jews. During the German raid on Poland, soldiers of the Wehrmacht carried out about 60 % of the mass murders of Polish civilians. Also prisoners of war were systematically murdered. Polish soldiers who put up particularly bitter resistance were punished for being so insolent to fight hard with burning to death with flamethrowers after their capture. Which particularly makes it clear how completely degenerate and amoral these soldiers were. The Wehrmacht and their generals were willing tools of the German Nazi government! Moreover, there was in fact no significant resistance in Wehmacht, with the exception of the attempted coup d'état including the assassination attempt in 1944 when it was obvious that the war was lost. Over the years there have been no masses of desertions and no German partisans who fought against the Nazi government. That did not exist because since 1936 at the latest vast majority of the German soldiers were supporters of the German Nazi government, as were the vast majority of all Germans.
@@GreatPolishWingedHussars that’s exactly why I said that some were good. You would be surprised how easy it is under orders to do horrible things. War turns everyday people into killers and brutal murderers and there is no forgiveness for those people unless God grants it himself. Humans are easily convinced when they don’t have a firm belief of something from the start. My family members have fought and some died because of the Nazi’s so you don’t have to tell me of the loss of life.
@@aprcuulestdude9076First! They died because of the Germans. In addition, these are the excuses that Germans used after the war! We only obeyed orders and are therefore innocent! Our superiors are responsible! But these are lies. For example nobody gave the order to the common German civilian who murdered my grandpa. He did it entirely of his own free will. My grandpa worked in a company in Poland confiscated by the Germans. The German was a civilian employee who oversaw the work of the Polish workers. He got mad at my grandpa about something and hit him until my grandpa was dead. My grandpa couldn't defend himself because if a Pole just raised his hand against a German it meant certain death. Such murders were not uncommon in Poland during the German occupation. It also happened that Wehrmacht soldiers shot Poles on on the sidewalk because they failed to greet the German soldier. Because every Pole was obliged to greet a German soldier on the street and to make room for him on the sidewalk too. If a Pole wore a hat or cap, he had to take it off when greeting. It always happened that German soldiers shot Poles as a punishment for not greeting. Such murders were not uncommon in Poland. It was open to the german soldiers whether they at all punished or how they punished. For these murders there were no orders that the Germans could "only" beat as a punishment. By the way, it could be a death sentence if a Pole just dared to cheeky grin at a German! That was part of the daily terror against Poles in addition to the abductions for slave labor or the massacres. Speaking of slave labor! My other grandpa was forced into slave labor and told us how cruel the civilian workers were. If there were mistakes, they were beaten. Serious mistakes were punished by death for sabotage. Usually the mistakes were reported by civilian German workers. Not only the Wehrmacht and the SS and the special commandos took part in the crimes, but actually the entire nation. Also the civilians had enough opportunities to participate in the crimes and they did it with fanatical Nazi conviction. This Nazi nation was completely megalomaniac, mad, criminal, amoral and degenerated!
My grandfather lost an eye to a headshot in Russia but survived. Back in Germany, he was supposed to work as a guard in a concentration camp, but he refused. I've always wondered why he wasn't arrested or killed for it himself. Maybe that shows that his direct superiors weren't brutes either, but that things got worse the higher up the hierarchy people got. That's how I understand the quote I read somewhere: "In war you see young men dying and you hear old men talking."
А ведь твой дед с друзьями из германии уничтожили 30 миллионов русских и двух моих прадедов в концлагерях и жалко, что Сталин стал милосердным, он должен был расстрелять всех жителей стран нацизма(Германии, Италии, УКРАИНЫ, Финляндии и тд.
You weren't forced to work in concentration camps, that's the only thing the Nazis didn't do. Probably to save Morale, but rules are different on the front...especially on gruesome ones like Stalingrad
I recently read Hannah Arendt's "A report on the banality of evil" (strongly recommended btw). She said, and this were her words, that you wouldn't be punished for refusing to work in a concentration camp, or in anything related to murder. It just didn't happen - it's a myth that it did. Now, refusing orders, is a different thing, but she also said that people weren't always punished for refusing to follow orders. Is that true? I am in no position to say. But your story confirms hers.
The higher up in the hierarchy is where you find the true evil. Hitler wasn't in a camp pushing little kids into gas chambers, so it made it a lot easier for him to issue orders to execute millions of lives because he wasn't "knee deep in the muck" as the old timers said.
There are many recorded instances of soldiers of the Wehrmacht (and surprisingly, a few in the SS) that refused or expressed reluctance towards the execution of civilians (do not mistake this for advocacy of the Clean Wehrmacht myth. Remember: they are still brutalizing civilians). Some had absolutely no issue with it, having completely bought into the Nazi hierarchy of races and placing Russians at the lowest tier of slav ethnicity (also of note: the Nazi's weird racial cast included "good" slavs, such as Ukrainians and Slovaks). Many expressed some degree of discomfort, but kept their mouths shut and did their job, feeling guilty later. Some still outright refused or needed coercion/encouragement. This was not uncommon. SS troops were often given alchohol to help executions along. Those that put up too much reluctance were intimidated and mocked into compliance. There are rumors, but no confirmed reports of having been shot for refusing to execute someone (remember, this is a Germany facing a manpower shortage). Common punishments were demotion, transfer to undesireable postings, and penal duties. Heinrich Himmler himself was horrified to witness the execution of Jewish Poles, and was visibly sickened, ordering the men to quickly dispatch a woman who survived the first shot (Himmler being Himmler of course, this did nothing to dissuade him of the Holocaust) More detail than I could ever write out myself, from a reddit thread: it was well documented that many members of the SS Einsatzgruppen had issues carrying out orders to kill people. For those who are unaware, the SS Einsatzgruppen were mobile killing squads sent into occupied territory to kill the Jews and other non-Aryans. They were a precursor to the camps, and they were used before the camps were built. Now the SS moved away from mass executions for two reasons, it was time consuming and wasteful, secondly many SS men refused to carry out orders. The men that did carry out the orders often required alcohol to get through with it. There aren't really any statistics for how many man refused on average, but it was significant enough to cause concern among the SS leadership. As Christopher Browning (author of the popular "Ordinary Men") put it, there were three types of SS men, those who had no issues carrying out the mass killings, those who had issues but used alcohol or other coping methods to carry them out anyways, and finally those who refused outright. To give you an idea how brutal these killings were, and how much of a psychological toll they took, here is what happened when Heinrich Himmler went to his one and only mass execution: "Himmler became very uncomfortable, very quickly. As the firing squad started, Himmler, was even more nervous. During every volley he looked to the ground. When two women could not die, Himmler yelled to the police sergeant not to torture them" Himmler tried to address this problem by making commanders organize social events and other outreach programs to make the men feel better, yet they were largely ineffective. Here is what a local SS commander, named Eirc Von Dem Bach, said to Himmler about his men's psyche after participating in the mass killings. "Look at the eyes of the men of this Kommando , how deeply shaken they are. These men are finished for the rest of their lives.What kind of followers are we training here? Either neurotics or savages!" The refusal to participate in mass killings was not usually punished. The punishments for refusing to partake in the mass killings would be usually a minor slap on the wrist (a transfer back to Germany,reduction in pay,demotion, small things like that), and that's in the rare cases where was something was actually done. Now soldiers that refused would face criticism from their peers;in the form of people questioning their masculinity and their allegiances. They also wouldn't be looked upon favorably for promotions or any sort of commendation. Now during the Belzec Trial, there were a few interesting stories that came out, many involving the head of the camp Christian Wirth. Wirth ruled with an iron fist and anyone who dissented was punished. There are multiple stories that came out of Belzec concentration camp. One is that an SS man refused to carry out an execution and Wirth pulled a pistol on him. Or another example, when SS Erich Fuchs was ordered by Wirth to fix shower heads in the newly erected gassing barracks, he questioned Wirth as to why there were showers with no water pipes, Wirth flew into a rage and beat Fuchs; he then ordered two SS guards to take him away and shoot him, they ended up talking Wirth out of it.
I think it often depended on who the commanding officer was. The "old-generation" who were taught in Prussian military tradition were often very admant of keeping their troops in line (not killing civilians or POW's as they knew it would break disciplin within their own ranks) Younger troops and many SS units were more in line with Nazi ideology and carried out their orders regardless how inhumane they were.
The Slovak government was basically a puppet government of the third reich so that makes sense. The ukraine had a history of being anti-polish and anti-Soviet (because of oppression, conquering, land grabs, and a history of wars) so that also makes sense. The Ukrainians viewed the germans as liberators until the war crimes started
@@dezbiggs6363 Ukraines really complicated (And still is). There are parts that where very pro soviet, and parts very anti soviet. Although the betrayal of Machenko probably damaged the loyalty of the pro soviet faction.
My grandfather was conscripted into the wehrmacht, specifically the Kriegsmarine. He was from Holland. He felt incredible shame for working with the Nazis, but at the time there was mass starvation and he needed to feed his family. My father would tell me his shame was so bad he wouldn't even speak about the war. I'm glad there are movies that show that the common troops were often just following orders or trying to make a living.
Attrition in the Ostfront was and remains incomprehensible, in particular at Stalingrad and Leningrad but also across the entire theater. The average lifespan of a junior officer in the Wehrmacht who had reached the the front lines in Russia was weeks in 1942. Enlisted personnel had days. As more than one German veteran noted, war in the west was proper sport, while war in the east was unmitigated horror. At Stalingrad, without exception, the rubble of every single building work in the city had at least one corpse to be removed, and usually far more than one. The inhabitants of Leningrad were enduring unthinkable hardship and had by the end absolutely 100% had no choice but to engage in cannibalism if they wished to survive. That lasted from 8 September 1941 - 27 January 1944, the longest siege in human history. After the siege was lifted the NKVD executed thousands who partook in the consumption of human flesh for both disgust but primarily to conceal that it even occured. The battle of Stalingrad left over 10,000 orphans, of whom less than 200 were documented to have been reunited with both living parents. There isn't a comparison. It was Hell on Earth, literally.
Yeah, I screwed up my phrasing when I made this. Most likely I posted it in a state of drunkeness. This is the typical cause of errors like this when they come from me on a youtube comment that was actually serious in nature. I do not like to edit my comments, especially when it has received replies, even though it was long after in this case. To me it looks like an attempt to hide something embarrassing more often then to correct something small like a single erroneous word. Then no one has immediate proof as to what degree it was embarrassing (or wasn't.). I have no other explanation as to why that got screwed up. I really don't like this one in particular because an error so demonstrably incorrect undermines the other claims. It's hard enough to try and develop a neutral view of such a consequential war.
This is the first time I have ever felt positive towards German soldiers. In the past, I believed they were bad and evil due to the way they were portrayed by the Allies. However, after watching this movie, my perspective has shifted. I now understand that not all soldiers were bad and evil - they were simply following their orders and sometimes disagreed with what they were asked to do. This realization shows that no one is entirely good or bad, and we are all humans fighting against ourselves.
You have to think about that the germans how hagve the orders also where soldiers. (I'm not judging over others, I'm german myself) Its just so: germans gave orders to germans. I think true is: humans where fighting against ourselvs and not every german where bad, every allaied where bad. But its also to easy just to say there was nothing like good or bad. Many people did many bad things and when they did it they become bad people, on many occasions in the war and through the war. The war was a vehicle of many many bad things in the first place, and by starting it the germans did a great thing to start all that bad to happen... but truly then, they werent just all bad and all there enemys good, in these vehicle all could be both.
My grandpa got drafted into the last ditch effort, the Volkssturm. He just had his 15. birthday. A lot of the Wehrmacht have been assholes, but a lot have just been young people forced into this. My great grandad was in the artillery and they deserted in 1944 and moved from the eastfront to the americans to surrender. He was travelling with some front infantry men which had seen enough. On their way home they run into an SS checkpoint which told them to return to the front. The Infantry men killed the SS Checkpoint crew and headed further west. Especially towards the end, most people didnt believed in the third reich anymore. It is important to learn from history, otherwise you are doomed to repeat it.
I am from Latvia. My old folks lived in countryside and used to tell some stories. One of those is when Germans came, they politely asked a farmer if they could garrison the barn. They purchased some meat and grain now and then. They shared their candy with little kids and chocolate with farmers teenage daughter. Then the Germans went away and warm heartedly recommended farmer to do the same. Farmer did not leave his farm. Well, then russians came, and farmer had to go to live in the barn. They killed all the farm animals and made a feast and shared their wood with farmers teenage daughter. Farmer went to the town for supplies and two russian soldiers went to escort him, because "bandits in the forest". Only the soldiers returned from the town, bandits attacked them and killed the farmer - good thing one of them soldiers managed to salvage farmers wristwatch he kept as nice memory of the nice farmer.
That's because of how western media always portrayed its enemies as "sub humans", the same goes with arabs, if you look at it, us media and news usually potray arabs as terrorists, that's partially true but us media refuses to show the good side of the arabs, if you go to, for example Saudi Arabia or UAE, you will see the people there are so polite.
@Ivan Petrov There are plenty of cases where this DID happen though, sure this may not be directly based on a true story but this stuff did happen. Like the movie 1917, that exact story did not happen, but events similar to it most certainly did
What makes this scene special is that according to the German soldiers' law, which also applied between 1933 and 1945, the refusing to carry out criminal orders was not only possible but mandatory. There have been cases where orders for such killings have been refused and there have been no consequences. Of course, far too few individual cases, officers who gave such orders were also prosecuted.
well for things like this the superior officers would pick the soldiers that were sick and twisted who likely enjoyed doing such things so thats likely why reports of soldiers speaking up are uncommon. as for superior officers who spoke up against these atrocities they didnt need to be killed or criminally punished as they would just relieve them of duty and replace them with somebody more "like-minded" to their agenda. also this was wartime so im sure many incidents just went unreported.
@Milan Kraguljac this shows that you have no idea what you are talking about. I was referring expressively to the "Soldatengesetz" which expressively forbid to execute illegal or criminal orders. That this was too often ignored I didn't deny. Get yourself educated before getting involved in grown up debates.
My father was a combat veteran. He said if an officer ordered you to shoot a woman or child, you should refuse. If the officer threatened you, he said you should shoot that officer. I told him "But you would then be killed." He said "Son, some things are worth dying for."
Absolutely fantastic movie! Absolutely realistic, about the bloodiest battle of World War II! It conveys a lot of sensations. Honor to all the soldiers who died in the war! Greetings from Italy
Unbelievable! 12 million watched these German propaganda lies! This propaganda is intended to give the impression that the Nazi soldiers were ordinary soldiers. But that's a lie, because these were soldiers of a criminal Nazi army. By the way, no German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The massacre of Józefów in Poland, in which 1,500 civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht, made it clear that there was no compulsion to obey orders when shootings were carried out. Because only volunteers took part in the shootings and there were always enough of them. It is known that during this massacre the German battalion commander Trapp offered that those who did not feel up to the task did not have to take part in the shooting of civilians . A few did not want to take part, but the vast majority had no problem taking part in the shooting. From this overwhelming majority, soldiers were then ordered to the shooting. This meant that no soldier who refused to take part in the shootings could invoke compulsion to obey orders, because the possibility of freedom of decision without consequences was given. The Wehrmacht and their generals were willing tools of the German Nazi government and participated in countless crimes. Their criminal brutality proves the fact that during the German raid on Poland, soldiers of the Wehrmacht carried out about 60 percent of the mass murders of Polish civilians. 60%!!! Polish civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht but also Polish Prisoners of war (POWs) were murdered by the Wehrmacht. These were not just a few massacres by the Wehrmacht on Polish POWs and civilians. There were a great number of massacres by the Wehrmacht on Polish civilians and on Polish POWs! Because that had a method and was part of the war of extermination against the Gypsies, Slavs and Jews in the occupied areas in the east. The Wehrmacht not only murdered in occupied Poland, but in fact in all occupied countries. Polish soldiers which had put up a stiff fight were penalized for their ‘impudence’ by being punished by being murdered with flame-throwers. The resistance by Polish ‘sub-humans’ was not considered military virtue for Wehrmacht soldiers but just insolence. This example also shows illustrates that this army was completely megalomaniac, mad, criminal, amoral and degenerated like the entire Nazi nation! By the way, Nazi party member was certainly not the definition of a Nazi. That is the definition of Nazi! Supporter and follower of the German Nazi government! By the way, the vast majority of the German army (Wehrmacht) were since 1935 at the latest followers and supporters of the German Nazi government thus they were Nazis! Incidentally, the vast majority of Germans since 1935 at the latest were also followers and supporters of the German Nazi government thus they were Nazis! In fact, the rush for Nazi party membership was so great that the party froze admission of new members. The German army like the the whole nation was a willing tools of the German Nazi government. This army fought with most of Germans doggedly and fanatically to win the war together with the German Nazi government. Because this army was able to avoid defeat for so long, there was so much time to murder so many people behind the front lines.
It's no wonder that when the tide turned against the Nazis - the Russians took few prisoners - those they did take ended up in Siberia and they didn't live long there either !!!
My father was in the army in WWII, in Holland, France, and Belgium. He said one time that most of the German solders "were just scared kids like us." Obviously others had different experiences, but yeah, they weren't all soulless killing machines.
Hitler and Trump were the most evil men of the past 200 years --- the ability to brainwash people into becoming pawns of murder and mayhem --- such a wicked trait
@@tommitchell7294 As much as I despise Trump, a horrible human being, I have to say your comment is bullshit. Learn some history! Start with Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Pinochet, Mussolini, Franco or Idi Amin.
@@gareth2736 not ridiculous at all --- go watch his violent goons attack our Capitol like Communist thugs --- it makes your stomach turn if you love America
My great grandfather was part of the second hungarian army that were forced in battle by the germans. He told my grandpa that all of the armies struggled there and no people could eat properly. He never made it back home, but I am proud to be a descendant of a soldier who fought only for his family, and to get back to them
Forced in battle. Lol. Hungary was part of the Axis and fought beside the Germans. Hungary made large land gains and eagerly joined on the USSR invasion after the Russian Kisoce air raid. No need to be ashamed of being a German ally, don't lie about the past.
@noimnotnice Hungarians are well known for this in surrounding countries. Their "historians" are like that as well, trying to rewrite the history all the time... And then the common people simply copy the pattern.
Unbelievable! 12 million watched these German propaganda lies! This propaganda is intended to give the impression that the Nazi soldiers were ordinary soldiers. But that's a lie, because these were soldiers of a criminal Nazi army. By the way, no German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The massacre of Józefów in Poland, in which 1,500 civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht, made it clear that there was no compulsion to obey orders when shootings were carried out. Because only volunteers took part in the shootings and there were always enough of them. It is known that during this massacre the German battalion commander Trapp offered that those who did not feel up to the task did not have to take part in the shooting of civilians . A few did not want to take part, but the vast majority had no problem taking part in the shooting. From this overwhelming majority, soldiers were then ordered to the shooting. This meant that no soldier who refused to take part in the shootings could invoke compulsion to obey orders, because the possibility of freedom of decision without consequences was given. The Wehrmacht and their generals were willing tools of the German Nazi government and participated in countless crimes. Their criminal brutality proves the fact that during the German raid on Poland, soldiers of the Wehrmacht carried out about 60 percent of the mass murders of Polish civilians. 60%!!! Polish civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht but also Polish Prisoners of war (POWs) were murdered by the Wehrmacht. These were not just a few massacres by the Wehrmacht on Polish POWs and civilians. There were a great number of massacres by the Wehrmacht on Polish civilians and on Polish POWs! Because that had a method and was part of the war of extermination against the Gypsies, Slavs and Jews in the occupied areas in the east. The Wehrmacht not only murdered in occupied Poland, but in fact in all occupied countries. Polish soldiers which had put up a stiff fight were penalized for their ‘impudence’ by being punished by being murdered with flame-throwers. The resistance by Polish ‘sub-humans’ was not considered military virtue for Wehrmacht soldiers but just insolence. This example also shows illustrates that this army was completely megalomaniac, mad, criminal, amoral and degenerated like the entire Nazi nation! By the way, Nazi party member was certainly not the definition of a Nazi. That is the definition of Nazi! Supporter and follower of the German Nazi government! By the way, the vast majority of the German army (Wehrmacht) were since 1935 at the latest followers and supporters of the German Nazi government thus they were Nazis! Incidentally, the vast majority of Germans since 1935 at the latest were also followers and supporters of the German Nazi government thus they were Nazis! In fact, the rush for Nazi party membership was so great that the party froze admission of new members. The German army like the the whole nation was a willing tools of the German Nazi government. This army fought with most of Germans doggedly and fanatically to win the war together with the German Nazi government. Because this army was able to avoid defeat for so long, there was so much time to murder so many people behind the front lines.
Knowing what happened in Stalingrad, I couldn't help but think that those being shot were actually the most fortunate, and to feel more sorry for those who would have to keep living in misery, many of them destined to die a slow death from frostbite, starvation, disease, and possibly after being imprisoned in some god-forsaken Russian prison camp.
So MP had higher authority regarding military protocol regardless of the rank? I didnt know that. I thought the MP were with the Captain because they were so compliant with him
Keep in mind, that the germany army , the Bundeswehr, is right now one of the few, if not the only army, where soldiers are allowed to refuse orders, if they think they are a violation of human rights.
Not true at all. In most militaries you are allowed to refuse an order that goes against human rights simply because any order given that disputes human rights is an unlawful one.
I am pretty sure that there aren't many militarys where it is your right to refuse such orders. And that's what I am talking about. Also, as long as your country does not acknowledge the geniva convention, a order against human rights is not unlawful. And you would be surprised how many country's have done that during wartimes.
@corey brooks First of all. You can't tell me what the theme I came up with is about. Second, I never stated, that soldiers couldn't refuse orders but that they are allowed by law to do so in Germany. And that is still not that common. Also, I never made this conversation about country's doing terrible things. I just gave an example why the geniva conventions is not in it self a law basis that allows soldiers to refuse orders. Oh and by the way. German soldiers aren't just allowed to refuse orders that violet human rights, they are obligated to do so.
My grandpa joined the German Wehrmacht in 1939, just in time for Poland. He fought there as a common infantry soldier. Later, he decided he wanted to be a Panzerman. He wanted to be a driver, so he started training in a Panzer III for the Russian invasion. In 1942, after the beginning of operation Barbarossa, he later decided to be a gunner in a sdkfz half track. He was apparently very brave, but also ruthless. He shamefully admitted he killed a surrendering Soviet officer out of sheer anger, after witnessing his friend and one of the troopers in the half track get killed by this officer's troops(he says that this wasn't the officer's fault, but he was being an idiot for committing war crime). But, when he saw the treatment of Soviet POWs in German camps, he felt sorry for them, and started to detest the SS. "The SS were young men, who would waste ammunition, supplies and men for very little accomplishment. They are filthy sons of bitches who show no mercy to little kids, animals and women, though not all of them were monsters" is what my grandpa had to say about them. In 1944, my grandpa rose the ranks to become a panzergrenadier major, and was war-hardened. He would plan out attacks, but the low morale and the lack of supplies would result in constant loss. In late 1944, he'd come back to Germany, and by then, he heard what happened to Germans who surrendered to Soviets. He wanted to surrender to the US or British. He, 3 or 4 panzergrenadier men, a motorcyclist, a handful common landser, a wehrmacht officer and a FLAK NCO surrendered to a group of US patrol men on bikes. He had to stay in USA until 1949 when he was brought back. He sold his panzer wrap and beret for 600 buck to a Japanese collector in the late 60s, but kept his luger, and his panzergrenadier officer uniform and gears. He still has it now, and sometimes he would wear his hat for fun and for old time's sake, and watches Hogan's Heroes frequently.
I know of some SS veterans who are now dead who would strongly disagree with your grandfather. If you want to win a war you cant show compassion for enemy soldiers, this is why Patton was the greatest commander who literally teached his soldiers to gut and kill every german soldier they encountered. Showing compassion to the enemy decreases your whole motivation to fight (kill the enemy).
@@Hn-gz5iw Well, he did show no mercy lol. He was a ruthless officer, who only cared about winning a battle, and to save as much men in his company as possible. I think he is hiding a bit more than he is telling me, so ppl don't antagonize him. As far as I know, his tactics were more stealthy while outside and guns blazing once entering enemy building, meaning in close combat, there would be a lot of bloodshed. He just says that the some SS men were responsible for unnecessary bloodshed towards locals and surrendered red army soldiers, and SS who freshly graduated from Hitlerjugend sacrificed their lives for very little to no reasons(for example, he saw a teen SS boy, once out of ammo in his mp40 running out of the foxholes, with several stick grenades tied to him and jumped in the enemy foxhole without being blown apart or shot. He managed to kill 2 soviet soldiers, and waste 5 stick grenades. This is not the only case of these suicides).
I can’t believe these things happened only 80 or so years ago. My father is 80. He grew up in a small village in Italy. My grandparents told me stories about when the German soldiers marched through their small insignificant village they treated my ancestors like shit. They destroyed everything in their path. I feel for those families who had family members assassinated like this. It is so much worse than our experience. It is so sad.
My Polish grandma was shot in front of her building together with her neighbors in a similar fashion in Warsaw during the war. She was a kid and fainted from the shot that went through her. She was later rescued by other neighbors after the soldiers left. Luckily the shot didn't hit any organs and she lived a happy life up until 4 years ago, when she passed away in her sleep.
Didn’t ask
@@smashb3766 rat
@@smashb3766 go back to the sewer
@@smashb3766 bruh what
@@kotka4877 what? he said that she died 4 years ago, go and learn english and then come back here to youtube comments
As a German i can tell you that the subtitles don't even come close to portraying the true intensity and meaning of the dialogue.
Powerful Scene
Glad to see that you have 18 likes in 9 days. War is crazy and I feel like everyone forgot. Much love
nobody said it did. That doesn't change the fact that the dialogue is different (more powerful) in German compared to the subtitles.
As a Norwegian I miss the finer details. But I understand what Germans say.
@@Seyil_Meyil It did more times over 😞
I don't even speak German but still... is it just me or they all speak with some odd accent? This doesn't sound right to me.
Damn,the cinematography and the quality are amazing for 1993
Jurassic park is 1993 movie too. And imo its the best looking one of the bunch.
Thats the power of film.
If you appreciate cinematography, watch Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. Cinematography is not an art form in its infancy, it’s already had its golden age. CGI has replaced it.
@@chip9649 You missed his point. In 1993, film quality was not exactly top notch.
DO you think 1993 was the stone age? lol You must be like an 18 year old millennial who thinks cgi is the way to go.....CGI was brought in because it is cheaper...not better...cheaper...that is all
3:57 This scene works so well, because even after engaging in an argument with the commanding officer, and even after showing signs of hesitation, remorse, guilt, when the firing order comes, it pretty much sounds like one single shot, as they shoot their rifles in unison. So even though they were neither robots, nor soulless killing machines, they did function as such.
Unbelievable! 12 million watched these German propaganda lies! This propaganda is intended to give the impression that the Nazi soldiers were ordinary soldiers. But that's a lie, because these were soldiers of a criminal Nazi army. By the way, no German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The massacre of Józefów in Poland, in which 1,500 civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht, made it clear that there was no compulsion to obey orders when shootings were carried out. Because only volunteers took part in the shootings and there were always enough of them. It is known that during this massacre the German battalion commander Trapp offered that those who did not feel up to the task did not have to take part in the shooting of civilians . A few did not want to take part, but the vast majority had no problem taking part in the shooting. From this overwhelming majority, soldiers were then ordered to the shooting. This meant that no soldier who refused to take part in the shootings could invoke compulsion to obey orders, because the possibility of freedom of decision without consequences was given.
They knew that if they did not do as ordered, that it would be their turn next.
It is the same for the dudes on the other side, i.e the allies. don't believe propaganda.
for example the US general Patton told his men before invading Sicily to "take no hostages"
and they literally didn't, they killed over 70 italian war prisoners, simply because they were ordered to. yet they were given a slap on the shoulders and let go, but when a German soldier says "I was ordered to" he is deemed a warcriminal worthy of the worst of fates.
Als fuer die seite die gewinnet, dann sie immer Recht haben, als fuer die Versagren, dann die liegen in Falsse.
@@unsrescyldas9745 You are obviously a German. Because you wash the Nazi nation white and also use the in Germany very popular tactic of pointing with the finger at others Nations. In fact, this is a widespread tactic in Germany, in order not to make their own Nations history look so criminal and barbaric. The motivation is to spread the lie that Germans are actually equals among equals, nothing special with their history. As you pointing with your finger at the Americans here. I have experience with it! That's just a kind of falsification of history that this crimes were equal. But your tactic does not work anyway because there is a big difference between the Germans and the Americans. Because the Nazi nation committed various genocides and not "only" a few massacres. Millions of children were murdered in these genocides too! Because of this various genocides using industrial means in a very short time also with millions of murdered children which is unique in human history. So the mendacious equation of Americans with the Nazi nation does not work! The Nazi nation is responsible for around 50 million deaths in Europe! Responsible for the dead in the various wars of aggression in Europe and for the dead in the various genocides. Add to that the catastrophic economic effects of the many wars. What kind of megalomania because that was a war consisting of various wars against various nations in which various cities were turned into ruins, including the Polish capital, which was deliberately systematically destroyed. The economic damages were incredible. The Nazi nation also conducted human experiments on a large scale! Murder of millions of prisoners of war. That was unique in world history. This all is unique! UNIQUE! This completely megalomaniac, mad, criminal, amoral and degenerated Nazi nation with pure, insane, megalomaniac and utterly amoral barbarism was totally unique in all of world history. This is why your finger pointing on Americans is so very impertinent.
@@GreatPolishWingedHussars
Lmao classic pole playing the victim, conveniently forgetting the terror the Poles struck into the heart of their neighbors after WW1, infact, not a single one of your neighbors were not at war with your nation after WW1.
1- Lithuania (Poles occupied Wilnus)
2-Czechoslovakia (War over coal-rich territories)
3-Ukraine (War over Western Galicia)
4- Germany (War over Silesia)
5- Russia (War over Belarus)
At least the Germans (I am not one buddy, unlike your German Slavicized ancestors) can fully claim that they were never at war with all of their neighbors (Austria)
had you left a single one of your neighbors that you did not bully whilst having the backing of the French and Saxons to rein in this terror upon people that were so weary of war? and then you dare to cry about your beloved Warsaw, yet to all observant students of history, there was no other way to deal with an insolent people but as what happened to Warsaw. vengeful and filled with spite, that is literally the entire history of your people after being partitioned between Prussia, Austria and Russia.
And so you carried this spitefulness with you into the 20th century, fully thinking you will come out of it victorious,
and up until that fateful day when Hitler demanded Danzig back, and even offered you an Alliance against the Soviets, yet just as before, the French and the Anglos smirking from behind the seas told you that you have their backing, but this time their backing meant nothing, and you suffered for your ignorance, and arrogance.
So do not go around blaming the "Nemetskaya" for your people's crimes you pathetic man, who does not face up to the crimes of his people yet has all the fun pointing fingers at others, you truly have no honour, lmao "Hussar" what a joke.
50 Million people died because of the Nazis, or because of your foolishness for holding onto Danzig, a land that was always German since the first ever settlement there? (Literally was always German even before the Slavs came out of the Swamps in Ukraine) what a pathetic thing you set your people back for a hundred of years, and now you have the lowest of birth rates of all European countries, good luck, there won't even be a thing as a "Pole" in but years, sidelined to the books of history as you are replaced by a more faithful people.
Regardless, regarding what you said about Genocides, that too is not unique or special.
just a list of genocides for you committed by the allies
1-The Native Indians (Americans, lmao do we need to state numbers?)
2-The Bengali (British, 7M forced starved to death, more than your "6" gorrilion Jews)
3-The Boers (British, hundreds of thousands died, mostly women and children, lack of food, disease after being rounded up in the 2nd Boers war, none teared for them though, because they didn't have wealthy Jews in the press backing them)
The Algerians (French, over a million dead, not to mention the raped, tortured and exiled)
and I am sure more learned men can find other examples, and you as a Pole, I do not need to remind you perhaps of the Holodomor or other events that would be genocide on the Russian part.
so no buddy it wasn't unique, industrialised slaughter had been common since the Victorian Era and continues to be so, if anything the Nazis were less cruel as they killed efficiently as opposed to the Allies who'd just leave their enemies to starve to death out of utter carelessness for human life that was not important to their interests.
So keep seething, your victories will be, have to be, short lived, because God is against the oppressive people, and whatever enjoyment you enjoy as of yet will fleet, so you wait, we too are waiting.
My Father and his brother’s life’s were saved by a German soldier who said ( probably - nobody spoke German) that in the hole in the ground were they were hiding there was nobody: he lifted the wood that covered the hole ( there was in there 6 children - my dad and my uncles) , he had eye contact with them and then the officer yelled something at him. He said “ no “ also shaking his head, left the wood that went back to cover the hole… , and he left.
@Nashiuz Nashiuz Would that absolve them of all the other killing they probably did?
@Nashiuz Nashiuz Instead of wondering about mystical, you could honor him by Learning from his example in your life.
I believe that’s what he would want.
Isn't that crazy, that this act is one of the main reasons you're alive today.
That is just mind blowing, god bless that soldier man
@@adreamingwolf it would
The lone soldier doing the right thing is a miracle, but how do we deal with the mentality that still exists today that killing them is "what needed to be done"?
great and depressing scene that shows some serious personality in these soldiers rather than just making them evil monsters im going to give this movie a try
do it this movie is great!
@@leoshteynberg3013 you speak of germans i the same way the nazis spoke of jews, you fucking blind tool
Me too.
@@leoshteynberg3013 Weren't the SS the ones in charge of carrying out those extermination orders?
@@deutscherpatriot4370 The SS was usually the group that carried out out the mass murders.
Originally, it was a small group of eight men who were essentially bodyguards, but slowly, their importance within the party grew. As their power and numbers swelled, so did their brutality. By the end of World War II, when the SS was more than 580,000 strong, they were killing thousands of people daily
listverse.com/2015/05/25/10-horrible-atrocities-committed-by-the-ss/
My grandfather was part of a truck division that carried medical supplies, he was ambushed by some Wehrmacht youth. He thought he was going to die, but they just wanted to eat his chocolate. Then they waved him through. He carried Hersey kisses for passengers in his glove box as an homage until he died 40 years later.
So there was already chocolate existing back in the 40s?
@@kazarmageddon I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not
@@kazarmageddon are...are you serious my guy?
@@exhoost_fume4646 Is it sarcasm or not..
@@TheRedditKing1 you're asking the wrong person, I'm not sure either
The actor that played the Officer was absolutely magnificent. Pure evil. He stole the scene.
My hat is off to you Sir.
Right from the first scene he was in you could tell he wasn't a very nice man. The directors purposely made him a hate sink for the audience to despise, and the actor did a great job at that. However I'm sure there were many uptight, unpleasant and downright sadistic pro-Nazi officers like him in the Wehrmacht who didn't think twice about murdering innocent civilians (especially Jews, Russians and other Slavs).
great job! loved it!
may be he didn't play?)
@@heybeachMINThat is an interesting observation.
That's a General not an Officer
My grandfather told me a story a lot of times of how his family was nearly killed by firing squad when he was just a kid.
His village in Poland was occupied by the Germans. One morning the whole family (my grandpa was around 7-8 years old then, his parents and grandparents) gets dragged out from the house by a troop of soldiers and lined up against the house wall. A German officer with the aid of a translator proclaimed the village was accused of harboring resistance fighters and they will be executed as an example what happens if you help the resistance.
This was true, the whole village including grandpa's family did frequently feed resistance fighters and couriers and let them sleep in the barn; however, this was not solely from patriotic duty - if you did not help the resistance, your barn and house got burned down in the night.
As the Germans waited for a crowd of onlookers from the village to gather for the execution, the leader of the German colonists ran over and started shouting and arguing with the commanding officer. The village chief vouched for my great-grandfather’s honesty, argued that the Germans were here to colonize not terrorize and needed honest hard working Polish farmers. He also threatened the officer with some family connections high in the Nazi party. The officer finally angrily gave up, but took out his frustration on my great-grandfather, beating him unconscious with a rifle butt. My great-grandpa lost his hearing in one of his ears, but lived long past the war.
As an added twist - it later turned out the accusation of harboring resistance fighters came from a Polish collaborator from another village, who got rejected by a girl from my grandfather's village and wanted to take vengeance. Resistance fighters beat him and burned his farm to the ground.
The story really shows the confusing morality of war. Grandpa was saved from a bad German by a good German, with both good and bad Poles contributing to the situation.
What a powerful story, thank you for sharing.
My American grandfather spent the war (unknowingly) bombing my German grandmother in Berlin. After the war, she married a British Royal Navy veteran and had my mother. Grandpa married an Italian girl and had my father. I grew up hearing harrowing stories like yours too. It taught me to learn history through the lens of _humanity_ instead of nationality or ideology. I learned to study history as objectively as possible. I don't "take sides" when it comes to war. It sounds like you were left with a very similar impression.
Excatly the same story my grandfather went through in Croatia.
@@dreamworlddd308 Jesi li ti hrvat? Are you Croatian?
There is no sides nor unity in war, the cruel will take advantage of it while the honest suffers
I am Russian.
My grandfather fought and I know this story from him.
He was wounded in battle, the battle was won by the germans and he lay wounded, unable to move and watched as a German officer walked across the battlefield and finished off russians wounded by last shoot from his pistol.
My grandfather's turn came, a german officer approached him and they looked into each other's eyes. The officer did not shoot and went on.
So my grandfather stayed to live, then he was a prisoner in Poland. Came back home.
And no one can explain why the officer didn't shoot him.
Even in the most dire moments, when man is consumed by the deepest evil, they do not let their humanity fully go away. Because, well, they’re men. Sometimes even a little good shines in the worst of people
Жаль, что история повторяется но теперь мы враги народа и никто не знает правды. Жаль.
@@alexh1897 Мне не понятен ваш комментарий. Кто враги и какого народа?
@@andreik8996 your home country. look at what you have started with ukraine.
@Stronso "Look at what you have started" are you that fucking dense that you'll blame the Russian people for the war? Most if not all of their citizens are against Putin in his decision.
One thing that's very underestimated in this scene is how the actual Wehrmacht are all wearing ragged clothes, had to be handed new rifles, are suffering from some frostbite, and have clearly been fighting hard. Whereas the Military Police and SS are all dressed in perfect uniforms without as much as a scratch on their helmets, some of the Wehrmacht don't even have helmets.
@@space4166 SS is a mere weakling to the chad Wehrmacht
But they make them participate to share in the responsibility. Much like the in the movie 'Downfall' where Goebbels explains "We let everyone know just enough what was going on so everyone shares in the responsibility".
There is no SS in this scene.
@@artificialintelligence8328 can't really tell, you can't see the skull emblem on his hat or his armband.
@@Tanzenergise It is the eagle and german cockade on his cap.
This comment thread is a goldmine for amazing war stories. Obviously they describe horrifying things but I am fascinated by them. Thank you all for sharing. My only war story is this: my grandfather lived in the occupied Netherlands. He was conscripted to work in a factory in Germany. He avoided deportation by hiding in a wheat field. The story goes that before he left the house to go hide, his mother gave him a kitchen knife and said "don't be afraid to use it". These are basically gentle peace-loving Christian peasants we are talking about. It just goes to show how brutal the war was, that a mother has to give her son instructions like that. And this story is nothing compared to many in this thread.
Unbelievable! 12 million watched these German propaganda lies! This propaganda is intended to give the impression that the Nazi soldiers were ordinary soldiers. But that's a lie, because these were soldiers of a criminal Nazi army. By the way, no German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The massacre of Józefów in Poland, in which 1,500 civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht, made it clear that there was no compulsion to obey orders when shootings were carried out. Because only volunteers took part in the shootings and there were always enough of them. It is known that during this massacre the German battalion commander Trapp offered that those who did not feel up to the task did not have to take part in the shooting of civilians . A few did not want to take part, but the vast majority had no problem taking part in the shooting. From this overwhelming majority, soldiers were then ordered to the shooting. This meant that no soldier who refused to take part in the shootings could invoke compulsion to obey orders, because the possibility of freedom of decision without consequences was given.
70% of the stories told in the comments are most likely not true lmao
@@simoli516 they are. All of my grandparents and great-grandparents had similar stories in Central/Eastern Europe
I can confirm they are all true, I was the snowstorm from 1939-1945.
My grandfather was the son of a contractor in Brabant, he hid from the Germans in one of those small houses where the street electrical stuff used to be, my grandma brought him food. He was called up by the Germans to perform labor in Germany and he didn't want to so he hid for about 2 years. My grandparents never said anything bad about the Germans. Later he took over the business and became quite successful, fun story he had the first telephone in the town. His phone number for decades was : 1234 My grandma for some reason didn't like it and called it twelvethirtyfour or twaalfvierendertig in Dutch.
My Great Grandfather was harboring a small jewish family in his attic in Amsterdam during the 2nd world war, when germany invaded they searched every single house in all the neighborhoods, one young german soldier was sent by his officer up in the attic to search it and actually saw one of the kids up there.
The officer asked what was taking so long and the young soldier lied, saying there was nothing and he just wanted to get a good look. He whispered to my great grandfather's ear when they were leaving to better hide the children next time...
If it weren't for that soldier i probably wouldn't be here today.
Damn! Did you guys find the name of the soldier?
@@netherwolves3412 The thrill of legends is that they mustn't be known, yet their efforts will always be.
@@Exalta101 what do you mean by that
@@Exalta101 Lol cringe cuckservative, you're just as bad as the demorats. Remember the German Fascists were anti-vax, conspiracy theorists, hated big banks and big corporations, and never mandated anything for their people.
Is it true that dutch police gave to german officials the whole Jewish registry, just after the nazi troops took the Netherlands?
00:47, "If you don't, GG" they were speaking in keyboard slang even back in these days.
Gg ez
GG is the guy's name lel
GG was the Nickname of this young Soldier, he was called Müller.
Der gemein Gefährliche Müller.
Means Common Dangerous Müller-
Greetings from Germany
Lmao
@@theshermantanker7043 Gustav gustav?
I am Russian. My grandmother was a child during the war, and she was saved by a Wehrmacht soldier. He hid her, when they were executing the whole village, by burning people alive in the barn. Some people too strong to be forced to kill their humanity, and it saving lives.
Just hope that that soldier got to see the end of the war.
May that jerry be liberated by the American or British troops.
And let's hope in this cruel world, small kindness prevails and ripples far till what's left of humanity.
@@ddadrden unfortunately, this kind of cruelty is a very common story in WWII. My grandfather and his family had to hide from soldiers who would’ve either sent them to labour camps or shot them.
@@ddadrden not every german was evil. Some where soldiers who did as they where told to out of fear. Propaganda makes people feel alone when almost nobody wants to do as they are told to but they believe everyone else wants to. A soldier acts as a piece of shit? He wanted to do this but you can't compare him to another who was scared but had enough strength to do something behind the kommadant"s back.
My great uncle fought in this battle.
He was born in 1923 and just 18 years old when he and his friends were sent to Stalingrad in the Summer of 1942.
He would always tell my dad that one time they had orders to attack a factory, which was being held by the Soviets. He would always say that that was the day he saw all of his best friends die right in front of him. He would also talk about the situations were he was engaged in hand to hand combat, telling my dad about the struggle and the slowly appearing white shimmer in the eyes of your enemy, once you take his life.
He also talked about a war crime he and his comrades committed, when they shot and killed their commanding officer. Because that officer didn’t care about the lives of his men, constantly forcing them to attack strongly fortified positions.
He also was awarded his iron cross there for shooting down an enemy plane, which then crashed right into the position of the Soviets.
The one thing that always gets me is when I hear the stories about the winter inside the city. My great uncle said that they didn’t have warm clothing, there was no food. It was so cold the young soldiers would not even notice the tears running down their cheeks from crying, praying, yearning for their mothers.
When new casualties were suffered, they would go out dragging the stiff-frozen bodies of their own comrades into their position and use them as sandbags. When a firefight erupted those bodies would thaw and pervade the air with a foul smell.
In January 1943, he went out of his position, when 4-5 bullets penetrated his legs. His friends took him to the last available airfield and he was fortunate and got flown out of Stalingrad in one of the last airplanes.
Neither his friends, who got him on the plane nor one of his other comrades made it out of there alive. They were all between 19-21 years old.
After his recovery he was sent to France, where he fought in Normandy, Falaise and the Battle of the Bulge. During the latter he was taken prisoner by the Americans and returned to Germany in 1948.
He would never even look at gun again. He passed away at the age of 86 in 2009. He finally found his peace
What a man he seemed to be, I wish more saw the differences between the army and the SS. My own grandpa passed in 2009 aswell, he fought in the pacific especially in the Philippines. Never told a peep about it unless he was drunk.
That is why your way to young at 18 great uncle and his friends should of consciously objected as i certainly would of if i was alive during that time but i don't know what it was like for a german to object to being sent to fight but for me to be put in a situation where your literally watching your friends die and being in close quarters combat to the death with another young man you don't even know and would probably be ome friends with if not for the war all on the orders of old men who don't give a shit about there young lives really hurts me very deep in my soul that you can make youth do that to each other and ruin there lives as i certainly would not of been your uncle and if i went through what he went throuvh and survived i would most likely of taken my life from the guilt of losing my friends and taking lives of strangers
Shooting down a plane? Idk bout that man
@@yeetuscleetus3833 the myth of the clean Wehrmacht is just that, a myth. The German military committed countless war crimes during WW2. Some might say "they were forced to do it!" but this is again, a myth. There isn't a single documented instance of anyone being executed for not carrying out summary executions, massacres, deportations to camps etc. The ones who participated chose to.
This is not a war crime. A war crime is the destruction of civilians, prisoners of war, and so on. Everything that you are doing in Ukraine now.
My grandfather was part of the Greek resistance, during the war. He was one day given the order to move a German POW (a captured Wehrmacht soldier, I believe) from one village to the next, during the middle of the night when nobody would see them. So off they went, through the fields, in the middle of the darkness. However, after some time they came to a road, where there was some noise of engines and lights approaching, so my grandfather grabbed the German and held him down in the tall grass, but they were only a few metres away from the road. It was a German convoy of open trucks and armoured vehicles and stuff, passing by.
My grandfather immediately pulled out his pistol, held it to the German's head and whispered "if you yell, you die". This was however a known way that some of his fellow resistance fighters had been killed, as previous POWs in this kind of situation had been unafraid to yell out and sacrifice their own lives, just for the sake of the Reich and to have a resistance fighter killed (and perhaps they were done with living as POWs anyway). My grandfather was paralysed with fear because he knew that this German would probably also struggle and call out, despite my grandfather holding a gun to his head, and get them both killed. However, the German POW remained completely still and silent, until the convoy eventually fully passed. They continued their journey.
Once they were in some quieter fields, my grandfather asked him (he had a good level of German): "Why didn't you call out? All the other German POWs who saw troops did and got their captors killed." The German replied with something like: "I come from Bavaria, from a family of 5 sons. 2 of my brothers are dead in Stalingrad and another 2 are dead on the Western Front. I am all my parents have left, but now I have been missing for many months and they'll think I am dead. I hate this war, all it has done is destroy my family and I don't want to fight you. I want us to lose so I can go home and see my parents again.". My grandfather indeed did transfer the German POW to some resistance hideout in the next village.
My grandfather never saw that man again or found out what had happened to him. He accepts that he will now never know, but he hopes that he survived the rest of the war and then made it home. My grandfather has always told me that WWII movies that portray all Germans as evil killing robots are not so accurate; some Germans were terrible war criminals, while others were not. He says that the majority were radicalised with national socialism and followed the orders that they were given, but essentially behaved like professional soldiers. He also said that there were occasionally soldiers who tried to be helpful or kind. They were just human beings, coming in all shapes and sizes, ranging all across the morality spectrum. He also says that the real evil ones were the SS.
Out of 5 sons. 2 of my brothers are dead in Stalingrad and another 2 are dead in Western Front and I'm all my parents have left.
This words actually hit my heart, kind of brought tears in my eyes.. Even though that German soldier survived and returned home but still they would feel voids in their home and would feel there is suddenly lots of space in home..kind of relatable to me actually..
Just ignore some errors in my English..
Man those were some terrible times with 60 million people dead, the war crimes, soldiers forced into war, and the people who suffer from it. War truly is hell
@@obingkago9740 Saving Private Fritz?
@@Warcodered01 no, it's "Saving Private Hans" 😁
Δυστυχώς οι περισσότεροι στρατιώτες μπορούν να πουν το ίδιο πράγμα με τον Γερμανό. Επίσης, απλα από περιέργεια, ΕΑΜ ή ΕΔΕΣ ο παππούς σου?
My great grandfather was apart of the German army and despised of the SS an fled here in 1941. He was forced to eat sparrows for months because they could not feed the troops in his squadron. When he found the opportunity to he escaped and fled to the US. He hated the Nazis, SS, and Hitler himself. He was a loyal German but not a sheep. Don’t think they all were from what you see or read.
Really? I beg to differ.
ButtHeDinduNuffin
How you managed to get a minimum of two people to like your comment is beyond me, because that might be the most idiotic thing I’ve read this week.
I would say that a bigger embarrassment to the German people was the myriad of atrocities and crimes against humanity committed at the command of the Nazi party, and fuckwits like you that convince themselves that these atrocities aren’t a dark stain on the history of our species.
You’re either a Nazi sympathizer or an ignoramus. Either way, you’re willfully stupid.
@ButtHeDinduNuffin There's a difference between being a coward, and choosing to have good fucking morales. What the germans fought was not for courage, honour, or anything. It was for one mans sick ideology. Men like him were stronger, choosing not to follow for what they knew was wrong. The german army hung unarmed civilians in Poland and Belgium!, and that is not more embarrassing??!!!. I find it funny how you don't even mentioned the shit the Germans put people through. Even if his grandfather did it or not, it would not of made him a coward.
@ButtHeDinduNuffin You disgusting piece of shit would've been the first to give up and escape. War is not a game, you dumb fuck.
Mine was as well. Served on the russian front as a medic.
This company never seen action on Eastern Front before Stalingrad. They were fighting in North Africa. That makes it even more difficult for them.
@Kabuki Kitsune I believe it was because Erwin Rommel didn't allow his soldiers to kill innocent civilians and Jews and to help the p.o.w's by giving them water and food.
If they were from the afrika korp.
@@hemaneatspizza9111
I doubt there were very many situations to kill innocent civilians and Jews in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts either way. Nowhere as many as in Russia.
@@artificialintelligence8328
German situation in the eastern front are far more brutal than any front, I bet leniency is second to none there. For both sides.
@@Iwanwahid1969
I was talking about the North African front?
This comment section is a living, breathing history tour de force.
So refreshing to see you all keeping your grand-relatives memories alive with their incredible tales, they'd be proud of you.
exactly it gave me chills by only reading them as I am from India never knew these horrific details
In my opinion, Stalingrad (1993) is the second best WW2 movie after Das Boot. It has a few more minor flaws, like some weird cuts and some dialogues that feel a little bit too scripted, but captures the reality of war almost perfectly.
Das Boot 8.3 Internet movie database
Stalingrad 7.5...
Is there some reason you wouldn't like saving private Ryan more than Stalingrad?
8.6
@@mickeydrago9401 Saving Private Ryan (SVP) is really good, especially the beach landing scene gives a very good impression of how it must have felt to be a soldier in such a situation. SVP had a much bigger budget, so the battle scenes are more impressive from a pure cinematic/production point of view, while the Stalingrad ones are good enough (they saved a bit for example in the amount of background actors/soldiers)
But SVP develops more into telling a story, it's not so much about the horrors of war (apart from the battle scenes), about the desperation of the soldiers, about their inner conflicts. Of course war at the Eastern Front was much worse, so SPR couldn't really show for example big war crimes without being historically incorrect.
From pure entertainment value, SVP is the better movie for the mainstream, hence the higher imdb rating, but for showing how devastating war is to those involved, civilians and soldiers, Stalingrad does a better job.
@@mickeydrago9401 popularity does not equal quality
Come and See
Why would an Officer order this to his men? It heavily lowers morale.
They are soldiers of an Unit made out of convicts. Strafkompanie
Led by military Police.
LSSJ imagine defending nazis on RUclips lmaoooo. And he has the anime profile pic OH NO NO NO NO NO NO
@LSSJ Defending Nazis on YT is indeed poor.
Heavily
@Deutsches Vaterland. you're too redpilled for me bro
I know this is a sad scene but why why why why why why
White subtitles on snow
The snow's not even obstructing the text?
Good question
One word: Black outlines
Glad I speak Geerman
They are pretty dodgy anyway.
I know it isn't related to the eastern front. But my great grandfather was in the 2nd polish corps he fought for monte cassino and ancona where i live now he got alot of medals for his bravery. He died last year in his sleep i love you grandpa.
Mine too
My Aussie Great-Grandfather was relieved at Tobruk by the Polish Free Forces. Glad your Grandfather survived and lived a long life.
There is so much value in movies like this one. They convey how war is. My grandpas, both conscripted into the Wehrmacht, one on the Eastern Front all the way back to Berlin, described the horrors in line with that clip.
They both made it out of this horror alive ? Wow.
My direct relatives where luckily either too young or too old to get conscripted. But my great uncle served on the eastern front. He also survived because he ate the rotten bread they gave him in the prisoner camp. Many of those who couldnt swallow it died of hunger and exhaustion. And the big love of my great aunt fell at Charkov in 43. She was single for her whole life afterwards, like many german women of this generation. She died in 2017 at the age of 92. I am thankfull to her that she talked about these hard years to me and my generation. My granpa and both grandmas didnt like to talk about it.
Maybe my paternal granma will one day, she is still healthy for her age at almost 90 and the last of her generation in my family. She is such a kind and lovely human being. We still can learn alot from them. If you have relatives who lived during this time, share as many hours as possible with them. They wont be around for much longer. And with them dies a real appreciation for peace.
@@gothia6515 Indeed, one shall learn from them while they are still around. My grandparents are not anymore. They were incredibly kind, just as you are describing your relatives. They were also incredibly hardened. The plight of the women during and after the war would deserve more mentioning. My grandma e.g. was a farm girl in Lower Austria, and remembered how marauding escort fighters, "Tiefflieger" as the were called, shot at everything that moved. Trains, horses, people digging up potatoes. Then, the Russians came. Then, the hunger years.
Wow, our grandpas ended up with a pretty similar ending, except that mine were with the Red Army. One was injured in the leg on the outskirts of Moscow and sent back home, the other made it through the whole war. None of them talked about it in detail, which I assume is because of the horrors they witnessed
@@turmoilbreaker9301 we shall call ourselves lucky they survived, injured and forever scarred, to share what little they were willing to. At school, I had quite a few class mates whose grandpas fell in the war. Presume you had those too.
It's also important to remember that these so called innocents were actually Soviet partisans who were responsible for the deaths of thousands of German troops.
The camera angles, editing pace, color grading, post production makes it look like a mid 2000’s film
There was no color grading back then. They achieved this look in camera
The sound is awful though.
@@eEmm1 the sound is fine, pretty clear, decent depth
@@osiris654 not really. It's unsynchronised. It almost looks like a dub from asian films.
@@eEmm1 well back then they didn't have recording, microphones, etc. Than today 2022
My grandpa fought throughout the whole war for the Wehrmacht. Started with the invasion of France, then later pushed through Belarus. His unit was also tasked with protecting Schwerer Gustav from partisans as it was transported from Sevastopol north to Leningrad. He lived till 96 in Australia, and had what could only be described as severe PTSD for his entire life. I recently watched a documentary on what the Germans did in Belarus (the Bullet Holocaust) and I have pretty strong suspicions that he was involved. My dad was an avid hunter, and would try to get my grandpa to come out with him. My grandpa refused to touch a gun for the remainder of his life, and would have really bad reactions when they were in his presence. He only ever talked about the war once, it was his 80th birthday and he was super drunk, I still remember it even though I was a kid. He said that the most terrifying thing on the Eastern Front was heavy fog. Because heavy fog often meant that the Russians would fix bayonets and he'd probably have to fight up close.
In Russia, veterans (those who actually fought, and not clerks with commemorative medals), as a rule, also did not particularly tell anything even to their relatives. It's not a thing to brag about, these scars will never heal. I'm interested in war dramas and have watched a lot of movies and a lot of books on the subject, good and bad. A revelation for me was the book "War Does Not Have a Woman's Face". This should be translated into all the languages of the world, and hammered into the heads of brainless boys before they take up arms and go to the next "fun war".
My Opa too rarely discussed the war but I’d always see him sitting in his chair in the afternoon before dinner with a shaky leg and staring into space clearly remembering
He was a very kindly man who did woodworking with me as a small child and taught me to solder circuits to learn about electricity and taught me German and Spanish
I miss him very much
South Australia
That's true about veterans attitude towards weapons, shooting etc. My grandfather got a hunting gun as a gift but never used it, it was laying on the shelf without ammos. And when they were to move to another city, he just disassembled it and thrown the parts away on his way to that another city. Red Army infantry, since 1942 - Stalingrad, Kursk, Dnieper, Budapest, Vienna.
@@zloymyx2486 Indeed. Same goes for my granddad who was part of the Wehrmacht and survived the battle of Stalingrad. He would never go into details of what happened and only said once that Stalingrad was a place far worse than anyone could ever imagine hell to be
My dad was 16 when the Russians invaded Latvia in 1939, he came to Canada at , 18. I remember when he would get drunk with polish, Ukrainian and German neighbors. They would argue, drink, swear, and sing their lungs out. This was in the 80s in Toronto canada
man the dialogue in this scene is absolutely amazing you can feel everything in their words its crazy!
That moment when you read the captions to understand what's being said but then remember that you are a German native speaker
Thank you, Kim Jong-un.
The truth comes out, Kim Jong-un is German...
@@mountainguyed67 Oh yeah, it's all coming together
But of course you do, dear leader!
@@mountainguyed67 Hitler never died, he just got plastic surgery.
In this Scene, If you were either German or Russian, you would have the same amount of fear. Depending how human you are.
Soviet*
Millions of Russians fought against Communism.
@@levvy3006 you mean soviet* ussr was a vast country composed of 14 states that why it named union of socialist soviet republic not "Russia"
(sorry if my english bad im french)
@@TheTasberry No, it’s Russia as at that point there were still groups in Russia that opposed the Soviets. Such as the Cossacks for example.
@@sharkboi6164 yes what you say is true but it did not only have in Russia but in all the Old Russian Empire for example in Ukraine during that short period of independence and afterwards with the "black army" for example
I made a mistake in my first comment totaly missing the point of "non-communist"
I'm Russian, and my grandpa was a very young boy when the Germans invaded USSR, and he remembered how some Wehrmacht detachment arrived in their village, and one particular soldier was very kind to him and gifted him a bar of chocolate, which was a really nice present, before the Germans left.
However the great grandfather served in the army and went through the whole war almost up to Berlin (he was wounded in Germany), and he apparently witnessed a lot of evidence of atrocities committed by the German army in Belarus, and it was a very grievous and traumatic experience for him. So he never talked about what the Germans had done when others asked him, because he did not want to remember probably.
War, in the end, is carried out by humans. Some people have a great strength within them to be kind and empathetic even in awful times. Some people use it as an opportunity to let the darkness in their hearts come out freely. Most people, just try and survive and do their job, and what they do comes down to the hearts of the people that give them orders.
That's interesting. I'm Ukrainian and my grandmother talked about how there was German artillery stationed near her house in a village. The soldiers came to her house and also gave her chocolate, which was a real luxury in the USSR at the time.
Ask your grandpa why USSR red army raped 2 million german women during their trip to germany in 1944-1945, also ask why Stalin killed 30 million ussr citizens, also ask why did Stalin ally with national socialists, also ask why russia invaded Finland, and whole of eastern europe. Also, ask about the forests of Katyn in Poland, ask what the red army animals did
@@rallyycar6750 oh really?.. OUR SOLDIERS HAD MORAL RIGHTS TO DESTROY TO ASHES WHOLE GERMANY!! DON'T U THINK OF THAT? DO U KNOW WHAT HITLER WITH HIS ARMIES AND WITH ARMIES OF HIS ALLIES DID IN BELARUS AND UKRAINE? LEARN IT, AND SHUT UP! DO U KNOW HOW MANY ATROCITIES GERMAN ARMIES DID IN THOSE COUNTRIES? MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WERE TORTURED TO DEATH! WOMEN, CHILDREN, OLD PEOPLE...GERMANS CAME TO OUR LANDS, NOT US....SHUT THE FUCK UP! Your Finland is not innocent too...Do u know that they had concentration camps?
@@rallyycar6750 ask yours why Germany exterminated 25% of the Belarus population, 16% of the Polish Population, 14% of the Russian population, 12% of the Ukrainian population, Yougoslavia, Greece, and much more in eastern europe, in total, more than 20 million civilians, and 4 million PoW. Ask him what happened to the women accross eastern europe, the villages where people were put into one house and burned down with flamethrowers, kids, women, and elderly alike. Ask him that
I hope this explains the difference in scale of what was done. I do not say that it wasn't wrong. I say, it is a revenge. Revenge isn't right, but it is understandable. Not like an initial will to genocide like the germans did
One of the best war movie of all time, it's really show you how horrible the war can be. When men said "war is hell" they aren't exaggerated even a tiny bit.
War is worst than hell, because innocent people fight in it.
@@shipsabilityAgreed, no innocence in hell.
@@shipsabilitywar is worse than hell because war is real
This movie is underrated, only true war movie fans usually get to see it
Fun fact:
The Captain at 3:30 is actually the dubbing voice for drill instructor Hartman in the German version of Full Metal Jacket.
Oh jeeez, I didn't recognize until you told me. Ironically this guy sounds a lot more fun as Hartman, though.
3:56 the guy last in line just takes a seat after taking a bullet
@ur mom real shitty attempt
Oh SHIT he does!!! LMAO!
High-power rifle shot at close range hammers the spinal cord through hydrostatic shock.
Person might rag-doll, stiffen up, slowly topple, jump or just sit down.
They might not die in an instant, but bodily control is lost in a millisecond.
That's how a hunter can drop a deer, only to have the creature 'recover' 5 minutes later.
Spine-shock wore off.
@@pirobot668beta Dude, no. It was just bad acting.
@@kobetiu8628 He's right. Human bodies don't act like they just lost all muscle control in a split second.
I like how the scene is set you really get a sense just of frigid it was, just no escape from the cold, they used to say that the Russian Work camps in the north didn’t need guards or fences, you could run if you wanted but…you would die before you got anywhere
it was common practice to take a fat prisoner with you on the escape, and eat them during the voyage through the taiga or tundra
@@Max_Janszen lol "fat prisoner" in work camp. Are you brain damaged or smth?
@@Max_Janszen lmfao
Japanese soldiers captured by the Soviets in Manchuria were sent to Siberian labor camps where they were tortured , beaten, starved and worked to death.
Only a few lived to be repatriated back to Japan after almost a decade of captivity.
@@reynaldoflores4522 sounds like the Russians gave them a taste of what the Japanese handed out to the Chinese in Nanking.
The howling of the winter in the background is so chilling.. it sounds like souls going to hell..
3:56 - the look of guilt and sadness on the face of Witzland watching his own squad being taken over by a ruthless Officer and ordered to kill the innocent, is just heartbreaking.
I can't beleive I've never heard of this movie until just now. It looks incredible.
It is incredible.
i've got the DVD watched it many times. it's a good movie.
@Fred Elstir try Generation War from 2013
What about from the Soviet perspective? Sad that we never see that, considering they were the ones heroically defending. We always see the perspective only of the aggressor, and in such a way to whitewash the aggression by focussing on individuals.
@@Chromewolf187 No where as good as Stalingrad
I watched german Stalingrad documentary from 2003, mostly veterans from both sides talking about their experience and after that I watched this movie.
It was like their stories came alive right there on the screen, the similarity of the movie and their experience was unbelievable.
Hats down to the whole film crew of the 1993 Stalingrad - true gem among war movies.
I believe that movie was quite realistic,only that in reality there were many more dead bodies of starved and froze to death around than shown in the movie. Both Russian and German. Some stacked like cordwood.
Also the movie doesn't get in to depicting the cannibalism that occurred. Although,like our heroes,most did not engage in it.
Unbelievable! 12 million watched these German propaganda lies! This propaganda is intended to give the impression that the Nazi soldiers were ordinary soldiers. But that's a lie, because these were soldiers of a criminal Nazi army. By the way, no German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The massacre of Józefów in Poland, in which 1,500 civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht, made it clear that there was no compulsion to obey orders when shootings were carried out. Because only volunteers took part in the shootings and there were always enough of them. It is known that during this massacre the German battalion commander Trapp offered that those who did not feel up to the task did not have to take part in the shooting of civilians . A few did not want to take part, but the vast majority had no problem taking part in the shooting. From this overwhelming majority, soldiers were then ordered to the shooting. This meant that no soldier who refused to take part in the shootings could invoke compulsion to obey orders, because the possibility of freedom of decision without consequences was given.
I highly recommend Downfall 2003 forget the memes and jokes that movie has the balls to show Adolf as a human love him or despise him he still had emotions and wasn't a cartoon
As a German, I would also like to say something. My great uncle served in the war but never talked about what he did. His sister, my grandmother, often talked about how her parents helped hide Jewish people in the basement of their barn and bring them to safety. It is a bizarre situation, the great uncle on one side at the front and on the other side his family helping the other side as much as they could.
My great uncle received several awards, hid them and showed them to no one. We found them in a box when we cleaned out his house after his death. The only one he told about the war was my uncle. He told how he had to kill. He had to kill because he was afraid. My uncle was homosexual and was very afraid that it would be found out. He was an ordinary man who had handled the war well at first glance, but my uncle showed me that it was nothing but a facade. When I visited my great uncle once, he gave me a big stuffed lion that still sits around in my bedroom. My great uncle looked so unimpressive, hiding everything from me even though he went through hell. The second world war brings with it endless guilt and I want everyone to know how much Germany is trying to remember the terrible deeds of the second world war and to create a conscience that such a thing will never happen again.
Thank you for this. May he rest in peace.
I honestly believe 99% of German soldiers probably acted just like your great uncle did. There was no "PTSD counseling" back then so they were pretty much forced to suppress their memories and feelings and just try to carry on with life the best they could. But it was obvious they suffered a LOT on the inside. So it's admirable that a nation like Germany can still learn powerful lessons from people like your great uncle. I just wish these Trumpers in America would learn the same lessons. They honestly remind me of the Nazi mindset so much and it sickens me to my core.
@@JoeZaccaris What's wrong with Trumpers?
I mean I'm not sure what Trump is promoting in general, but the LGBT agenda and the worship of African Americans really won't lead to anything good. They are already spoiling wonderful films and TV series with this agenda.
So if Trump is trying to reduce the worship of all this minority - that 's right !
@@JoeZaccaris SS were literally demons. And Croatian Ustashe were even worse by comparison. Those were not normal soldiers. The way they killed innocent people, especially babies, would make your skin crawl. For example, they would throw babies into the air and hold a knife upright and position it so that the baby falls directly on top of it, in front of their mothers. Or just throw them against the wall/stomp on them. You cannot tell me that the entire country of people is 'unlocked' to do those sorts of things. Yes, people are capable of doing those things, but on that scale and with that much enjoyment? Nope. You had to be a special kind of fuсked up. But every country has people like this. Also, you likening Trump supporters to these types of people shows me i pretty much wasted my time writing this comment, since you are either A: clueless beyond belief, or B: a total fuсkin idiot. You don't know what the Nazi mindset is brother. And for your sake, I pray you never have to find out or experience it.
Despite his experiences, he seemed like a sweet uncle to you. Tough how he had to carry through given his sexuality.
“If you don’t, GG, you’re next...”
I didn’t know Germans could... you know what nevermind.
CommanderShimi yes we can 😂😂
Jan Schäfer I guess gaming slang has been used longer than I thought lol.
CommanderShimi 😂👌
The name is actually Gigi or an abreviation. You know... Like a nickname for somebody.
No shit?
I've never got round to watching this film, the clip has made me realise I probably should. I could feel the tension and a bitter chill in the air just watching this little scene.
You should definitely watch it! One of the best war movies out there. Unfortunately it kinda flew under the radar when released and was criticized for being too kind an interpretation of the German soldier. Hollywood prefers mindless soldier robots depicted instead of real people.
Good movie. Worth to watch. Somewhat depressing. It portraits the desperateness of both sides very intensively.
Theyre all gone popsicle
Did you watch it? How was it?
@@bellicose4653 yes long time ago. Its quite depressing but thats war movies. But this is way greater than shitmade one Stalingrad 2013 film. You can watch this in youtube if your geography allows it.
ruclips.net/video/VnJJQxZ0hu8/видео.html
Post Edit: OMG, you cringe people didn't get the joke. Why are you still fighting even after 2 years? I'm editing the comment now so there`s no point in continuing fighting.
Wehr Macht r/whooosh
It was because they were overstretched, fighting on multiple fronts and the disaster at Stalingrad.
@Hungary #1 methylene5
I'd say both are valid reasons, they both make sense
Of course, the OP was making a joke about the white subtitles on snow background. But we all knew that.
Unfortunately, that's not how they encoded Enigma
I’m Italian American and my grandfather was stationed in Greece after Mussolini rolled over. There were refugees fleeing across a valley below his sentry, and his commanding officer commanded that he shoot said refugees in a similar fashion depicted in this video. He was insubordinate, and ended up being thrown into an East German concentration camp for many years. He was ultimately liberated by Russians and eventually immigrated with his remaining family to America in the 60s. For all of the years that he was in that camp, he shared very little and took the nightmares to the grave.
If you notice, at 1:01 the snow fall slows down when the kid is focused, as to create an effect of sadness and grief.
And then the snow is sped back up when the german soldiers are in focus.
My late Uncle from Nebraska was a foot soldier in the European Theatre for the entirety of the war. He told my Dad and I that somewhere in Germany they had taken quite a few German prisoners. The snow was coming down in a near-blizzard and they really had nowhere to stash these prisoners or hand them off for captivity. He said they were made to circle the entire German prisoners....then fire on and execute them. This was done on both sides of the war, and it bothered my Uncle for the rest of his life. He also said that he was on some motorcycle near the war's end and crashed in a field. Unable to move, a German soldier found him. He said he was sure he was going to be executed there as he lay in the field injured, but the German got him up and standing, then righted the motorcycle....got it started....and got my Uncle on it and off he went. My Uncle one way.....the German soldier another. Humanity was realized on both sides. True stories. jbeinarizona
One thing bothers me... who fires on anyone that they have "encircled"?
@@TimothyTakemoto maybe there were in a ditch
@@davidthehudson Thanks. Good place to stash them for a while too. Convinced.
Unbelievable! 12 million watched these German propaganda lies! This propaganda is intended to give the impression that the Nazi soldiers were ordinary soldiers. But that's a lie, because these were soldiers of a criminal Nazi army. By the way, no German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The massacre of Józefów in Poland, in which 1,500 civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht, made it clear that there was no compulsion to obey orders when shootings were carried out. Because only volunteers took part in the shootings and there were always enough of them. It is known that during this massacre the German battalion commander Trapp offered that those who did not feel up to the task did not have to take part in the shooting of civilians . A few did not want to take part, but the vast majority had no problem taking part in the shooting. From this overwhelming majority, soldiers were then ordered to the shooting. This meant that no soldier who refused to take part in the shootings could invoke compulsion to obey orders, because the possibility of freedom of decision without consequences was given.
I just trapped you with a cup of coffee.
My great grandfather was a conscripted soldier that fought for the defunct Japanese empire and he knew of certain units that were utilized for tasks that dealt with executions (he implied that it was both millitary and civilian groups). He and other conscripts were not usually trusted with those tasks because of lacking some sense of "honor" or some kind of spirit of a warrior, and it was explained to him that these executions were for responsible and honorable soldiers (of course pure Japanese). My great grandfather like many others knew it was just BS. It was blatant illegal and immoral acts which that regime wanted to bury deep.
This was actually really interesting to read
Thank you for that information.
Very interesting. I also had ancestors on my mother's side who served in the IJN during WWII. ( I am not pure Japanese ).
When I asked him why he served in the Navy all he said was " the Emperor commanded us to fight. So we fought. Later on he commanded us to surrender. We obeyed. "
That was all. No high faluting sense of honor or moral principles involved. Plain blind loyalty and obedience to the Emperor.
I'm Navajo, my grandfather fought in WWII to serve along side Americans, not for honor but a duty to defend our homeland as a newly recognized American Citizen.
How interesting to read it, guys....My great grandfather was HERO OF USSR. HE FOUGHT FROM 1943 TO 1945. He advanced to Berlin. Whole life he hated this war and sometimes cried...
My grandfather told me a story about his time in the Japanese-occupied Philippines during WWII. On both sides, he worked as a cook/kitchen helper. He would work in the US camp during the day and then return to the Japanese camp in the evening. When the Japanese discovered this, they imprisoned him in a small cage. My grandfather was probably between the ages of 12 and 15 at the time. He managed to flee, but the Japanese guards pursued him and shot at him. They missed, possibly on purpose.
what do you mean by possibly on purpose?
@@anuronguha0898 they didn't want to hurt him or kill him.. they got to know him
Your grandfather sounds like a hustler. Respect.
Well, shoot a cook in the middle of war sounds really bad idea.
Based on all the things I've heard about Japanese soldiers --- it's hard to believe they missed your grandfather on purpose, but maybe some of them actually had a soul
My grandfather was heavily wounded as a young civilian in 1944 in Slovakia by Red Army mortar fire. He was saved by a German medic who kept visiting him and treated his wounds.
My grandfather was the father of my father
@@σεα-ψ9ε no doubt
This must be a lie, this kind of people didn't exist, as all the russian comments say here all the time...
I like, when a comment is defending the germans, it has less like...shame on this "free" world.
One my grand-grandfather was captured during uprising in 1944 and another was fightning in East Front in 1941/42 and later he fought in Italy. Both of them came home after war
I'm a german and my heart really aches for our cruel history. My Dad used to be in the army for a short period. Thank God he never went to war. He told me some things though. And the most evil ones where those officers, the head guards. Most soldiers were just scared for their own lives. They would have gotten killed if they refused an order. Sickening to know how evil some people can be.
cruel hystory??digga ich erzähl dir was.allierte?usa:seit bestehen 7jahre ohne krieg!!!!!!das ist ne vergangenheit!!!england?die ganze welt unzerjocht,Kolonien usw.
frankreich?napolion?bis zum 1.wk war krieg fuhrennicht nur normal sondern gefordert!sonst galt der führer oderkönig als schwach!man musste seine grenzen erweitern.erst die vollkommen heuchlerischen nürnberger prozesse machten krieg zum verbrechen(was es immer ist für mich aber gut).leicht heute töne spucken.damals dachten die menschen anders.nur zur info
then be killed.......easy as that.you shoot???maybe in the air but i think mostpy the old maddafagga
My father was in the US Army during WWII and frequently interacted with German prisoners. Most of them were enlisted 'common' soldiers. He said that many of them were good people...as he said 'they were just like us, 19-20 years old...if we hadn't had orders to kill each other, we could have been drinking buddies." he actually liked most Germans better than most Englishmen
@@michaelengle9062 tzen ehy he shit them and not turn around ore be sanitäter ore some???
Only 6000 of the 90,000 Germans taken prisoner at Stalingrad ever returned home
Sent to gulags and outright killed
Atrocious war crimes by the soviets but all sides do that in war
My grand father was one of the ones who was captured in stalingrad, he survived on any rations he could find such as horse meat.
The Soviets sent him to a gulag, but he escaped by foot in 1949 from Eastern siberia, over Mongolia, through to Nepal, and then from India he caught a cargo ship to Germany. Then emigrated to Argentina.
He suffered alot during the war, his 3 brothers killed at stalingrad, france (1940), and Libya.
His father killed in the battle of Berlin for the volkstum.
Although he remained fiercely in the national socialist cause, he blamed Hitler in his diaries, he wrote how he wished Japan could attack Russia at the same time.
My grand father, worked as a car sales man In his own business.
Wait... OK as I'm hearing this I'm making the biggest mistake asking this but if he was captured by Soviets I have to assume he was German soldier right? A nazi? Please explain what you mean by that?
@@Killgore-ip2yq hi, yes a German solider, German national. He believed in national socialism, but was not a nazi.
He helped Argentina with their military tactics and training during the peron leadership , but eventually ran a successful car sales business.
He never returned to Germany.
@@Ewagg Ayo wtf
Ha Ha Ha
Worth a movie ngl
This movie made me feel i was there in stalingrad. The struggles and slaughter was just surreal.
Unbelievable! 12 million watched these German propaganda lies! This propaganda is intended to give the impression that the Nazi soldiers were ordinary soldiers. But that's a lie, because these were soldiers of a criminal Nazi army. By the way, no German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The massacre of Józefów in Poland, in which 1,500 civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht, made it clear that there was no compulsion to obey orders when shootings were carried out. Because only volunteers took part in the shootings and there were always enough of them. It is known that during this massacre the German battalion commander Trapp offered that those who did not feel up to the task did not have to take part in the shooting of civilians . A few did not want to take part, but the vast majority had no problem taking part in the shooting. From this overwhelming majority, soldiers were then ordered to the shooting. This meant that no soldier who refused to take part in the shootings could invoke compulsion to obey orders, because the possibility of freedom of decision without consequences was given.
I knew a man (he isn't alive anymore)
who was recruted to war as he was 18 years old.
One sunday he toll me: "We were send out to kill people....people we didn't know."
He was shaking when he told me this an then took a sip from his glas of wine.
It sent shivers down my spine.
Always when i see such movies i remember him.
God bless his soul.
Truly sad
My great Uncle was a Canadian Soldier In WW1. He lost his sight because of mustard gas. My dad once asked him if he was bitter with the Germans. Surprised by the question he said, “No, it was war”. He was a soldier and understood. Soldiers do not make policy, they obey orders. He was a man among men.
WHAT. a generation.
My Grandmother was Serbian. She spoke German as her mother was German and the soldiers gave her preferential treatment for that. Little did they know that she actually hid Broz Tito in a secret wall in her home during the occupation. Eventually someone had spoken up about her but for a different reason and she was sent to a concentration camp. She did survive through WWII until 2014. Tito would come visit her home every winter for a while and asked if she ever needed anything and had it delivered to her after he became Yugoslav leader.
Ja ja ja und mein Urgroßvater war T.G. Masaryk, mein Freund :-) Du bist unser H.Ch. Andersen
Unbelievable! 12 million watched these German propaganda lies! This propaganda is intended to give the impression that the Nazi soldiers were ordinary soldiers. But that's a lie, because these were soldiers of a criminal Nazi army. By the way, no German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The massacre of Józefów in Poland, in which 1,500 civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht, made it clear that there was no compulsion to obey orders when shootings were carried out. Because only volunteers took part in the shootings and there were always enough of them. It is known that during this massacre the German battalion commander Trapp offered that those who did not feel up to the task did not have to take part in the shooting of civilians . A few did not want to take part, but the vast majority had no problem taking part in the shooting. From this overwhelming majority, soldiers were then ordered to the shooting. This meant that no soldier who refused to take part in the shootings could invoke compulsion to obey orders, because the possibility of freedom of decision without consequences was given.
The Wehrmacht and their generals were willing tools of the German Nazi government and participated in countless crimes. Their criminal brutality proves the fact that during the German raid on Poland, soldiers of the Wehrmacht carried out about 60 percent of the mass murders of Polish civilians. 60%!!! Polish civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht but also Polish Prisoners of war (POWs) were murdered by the Wehrmacht. These were not just a few massacres by the Wehrmacht on Polish POWs and civilians. There were a great number of massacres by the Wehrmacht on Polish civilians and on Polish POWs! Because that had a method and was part of the war of extermination against the Gypsies, Slavs and Jews in the occupied areas in the east. The Wehrmacht not only murdered in occupied Poland, but in fact in all occupied countries. Polish soldiers which had put up a stiff fight were penalized for their ‘impudence’ by being punished by being murdered with flame-throwers. The resistance by Polish ‘sub-humans’ was not considered military virtue for Wehrmacht soldiers but just insolence. This example also shows illustrates that this army was completely megalomaniac, mad, criminal, amoral and degenerated like the entire Nazi nation!
By the way, Nazi party member was certainly not the definition of a Nazi. That is the definition of Nazi! Supporter and follower of the German Nazi government! By the way, the vast majority of the German army (Wehrmacht) were since 1935 at the latest followers and supporters of the German Nazi government thus they were Nazis! Incidentally, the vast majority of Germans since 1935 at the latest were also followers and supporters of the German Nazi government thus they were Nazis! In fact, the rush for Nazi party membership was so great that the party froze admission of new members. The German army like the the whole nation was a willing tools of the German Nazi government. This army fought with most of Germans doggedly and fanatically to win the war together with the German Nazi government. Because this army was able to avoid defeat for so long, there was so much time to murder so many people behind the front lines.
This was and is one of the most powerful films I have ever watched.
The hopelessness on both sides is stripped raw for all to see.
But it’s a very inaccurate scene german soldiers weren’t forced to commit war crimes and if a officer actually killed a soldier for not committing a war crime the officer would be court martialed
@@talanarsenault1400 You think this didn't happen on the Eastern front?
These were desperate times for the Germans, few supplies, the bitter russian winter all capped off by a bloody war that Hitler had mandated NO RETREAT.
As Russian i highly appreciate this film. One of the greatest films about WW2, its mostly about humanity and people but not about tanks/shooting/planes and other "boom-boom" staff that hollywood ( for instance ) is filming nowadays.
Now Russian soldiers will do the same in the Ukraine. WTF is wrong with Russia?
@@kikibro2011 how are you so sure ?
@@कुमारनिशित Watch the news comrade.
@@kikibro2011 stop believing ccn propaganda.
@@kikibro2011 No one wants things to get worse, not even Russia. It's the fucking old heads with power who want to reclaim past glories. There will be no future if we keep colliding like this.
3:56 Hans looked like he wanted to cry as he was about to witnessed Koyla been shot to death amongst the other Russians by Hauptmann Haller's command.
We like to think we’d act differently.
Chances are we’d be the mute extras in the background.
Parapets are not for sticking your head above. Keep quiet and try to survive, one day the nightmares end
"Just let me get through this alive" is the mantra going through each soldier's mind.
Not me. I love to challenge people and can defuse volatile situations. Armed ones included. That officer is harsh abd brutal. but he'll respect you if you challenge him. IF you can speak up and use good logic and reasoning. You saw the result of failing to do that when he asked "Do you want to be an officer?" That was a golden ticket. He was inviting you to challenge him.
The average person doesn't have that kind of skill/talent though. If someone doesn't have that experince then they're ill prepared. Only when you know pain and suffering to extremes, only when you have been that monster will you understand.
Monsters themselves aren't the problem. It's a matter of which monster can be trusted. Which is honest. Which is a liar that doesn't even know what they do?
To quote Batman: "We''re all monsters". Be wary of those that pretend otherwise. They're speaking from ignorance. That makes what they do worse. The devil you know at least makes you aware of the situation.
@@taramaforhaikido7272 Unfortunately most of us can't be fearless near-divine Übermenschen like yourself. We would frankly have no higher ideal than making it back home to be with our children again. This in fact is the more common reality of humanity.
@@taramaforhaikido7272 Treason was an executable offense, which is why the officer explicitly brought up refusing orders.
the sound that goes along with this scene somehow really enhances the palpable power of the intensity.
Wow that was intense. Terrible. It's nice to see WW2 German soldiers being portrayed as compassionate for once in film. I'm sure a lot of German soldiers were faced with this moral dilemma during the war. Very sad 😔
Мразями они все были, до одного. Без исключений.
@@Вселенная2.0-й6ь Nah not every German soldier was scum, most yes, but you can say the same about your own country men as well.
@@Alexander-zt9kz Мои соотечественники освободили пол-Европы от фашистских зверей. Про Ваших ничего сказать не могу, так как не знаю, какое вы имеете гражданство.
@@Вселенная2.0-й6ь They sure did, but in doing so, commit war crimes and massacres often worse than those of the Nazis. Every country has committed war crimes, the issue with the Soviets is that like the Nazis, the amount of war crimes commit was on a grand scale and the perpetrators often walked free. A great example of this is the Katyn Massacre.
Despite all this, I know that the majority of Soviet troops werent, as you put it, all scum because the war crimes of others. The same can be said about the Wehrmacht
The German soldiers thought they were superior and the Russians were peasants. This led to civillian massares in both Russia and other lNds they invaded.
Humanity level: *HELL*
Even Satan bow to human because they surpass him.
@SSJ Yeah, cause every Soviet citizen was a cold-hearted communist. They didn't have families and didn't defend their land from a foreign invader... Especially that boy. He must've been the most hardcore commie out there.
@ DarkImplement , He was
VESSZEN AZ EMBERISÉG!
We are the demons of our own making.
I've learned to embrace it. Only cowards make targets so easily. Only the weak. "Good" people can't challenge enough. Can't speak up enough. Can't do more then just judge or claim a moral high ground.
That is why the innocent died. Why they still do. Why they still will. Are you the monster or are you creating them without knowing? Just some food for thought.
This actually shows both perspectives and not one sided and it actually shows the cruelty and realism of war even children weren’t spared
A child got shot on TV. We see dead children on TV in other films. It shows how harsh the reality of war (and other events) is.
These days people turn a blind eye. Now the innocent suffer more so because of that blindness. People want to hide it.
Until it explodes.
@@taramaforhaikido7272 facts
@@taramaforhaikido7272 now just imagine Commie Trump putting kids into cages --- and you see why every American wants the entire Trump Crime Family DEAD
@@tommitchell7294 Oh you mean like the Commie boy obama who did it first, nice try. Research first before you open your mouth.
@@tommitchell7294 rent free.
_"Let me take his place."_ ... he a real one for that. 🤝👏
4:13 this man have true heart of a soldier
Everyones pissed at the white subtitles on the white snow, meanwhile I'm german and don't even need them
@Dwarfs Gaming And I tought I was the only one to have forgotten
@Non Political Wehrmacht Soldier you're the one who literally just asked by replying to this comment
@Drippy Fish and no one asking for ur ask
My grandfather was in WWII and saw much combat (he told me). In the early 70's a fire devastated many veteran records; miraculously, from what I ascertained some, all or, most of his records survived the devastating fire which bore out some of the stories he told me before his death at 88. Thinking the best way to describe it; such then his unit arrived at Berlin and was supposed to siege the remaining part of it [I deduced this]. He never made it far before being wounded with strict instructions to the Army not to tell his family that he was hospitalized. That one story I was never told. He is buried in a National Cemetery.
John, I knew the guy who ran the new records center in the 1980's. The rumor was that the fire was somehow related to covering up documents concerning people involved in Watergate.
@@screenwriter44 Ray, Could be. Am no expert on that, but studied the Cold War. Thanks for your unique comment.
Jesus for a 1993 film, I could be totally convinced that this released during the late 2000's
For anyone interested in the perspective of german participants in the war, and the internal struggles they dealt with, read the book “Ordinary Men” by Christopher Browning. It is about a reserve police battalion and their role in the Final Solution. It provides an interesting insight into the atrocities they were required to take part in.
Thanks!
Ordered the book today
Or Sven Hassel.
Was recommended by Dr Jordon Paterson in one if his lectures too...
@annonymous2223 wrong
I don't really like how it is in a sense correctly translated but not word for word. For instance at 2:41 he says: "Are we here on a cattle market? Now it is over with this jewing around!
You can't always translate literally, because such phrasing does not make sense to foreign ears. If i say "ich glaub ich dreh hier durch!" Then you can't phrase it "I think i twist here through" but "I think i'm going crazy"
"now it is finally enough" for example has a different emphasis, since finally is not used as a means of reaching a treshold but reaching a long awaited goal.
Teufer2, translation word-for-word often produces unnatural utterances in the target language. What sounds natural in German comes out weird in English. OK, it's not a perfect translation but it gives a good sense of what is said. I can't see how you'd translate "Jewing around" into natural English. Maybe they just edited it out for that reason.
@@Oprey22 Jewing around must be translated Jewing around.
I don't know where you are from but no Films need to be approved in Germany - it can be 18+ only or no Advertisement allowed and some rare Cases (Snuff for example) get banned.
@ElectroSalvo What the hell are you talking about, it's a movie about freaking Nazis do you expect them being nice and friendly with Jews? Are you drunk or out of your mind? And I really don't understand why you should insult me.
I love how the SS guy has this giant warm leather coat with a fur lined collar while the infantry have just have their worn out uniforms. Great visual story telling.
I HAVENT SEEN THIS MOVIE I ASSUME THE ALL THE GUYS IN FANCY COATS ARE SS STOP CORRECTING MY YEAR OLD COMMENT
theres no ss in this scene
he's a wehrmacht officer, the guys with the metal plates on the chest are Feldgendarmerie (Military Police).
Yeah, the Germans didn't prepare for a winter war, partly because they knew that if they didn't win by the first winter, it was over. Also because Germany had trouble with supply by that point.
When the government started asking citizens to donate winter clothing to the army, they knew that the beginning of the end was nigh.
@@jameswells9403 It was more that the plan was to win before the winter because the first plan was set to start sooner, before then the balkan war came which was not planed earlyer
@@Tarnatos14 If they had started the war sooner, they would have been delayed by the spring mud and thaw rather than snow.
My Grandma was a 15 year old girl in East Prussia in 1945 who fled with her family from her home because of the advancing russians.
Her Dad was taken by the russians and never seen again.
Her mom died of starvation on the fleight.
She is still alive.
Die Trecks...
That’s crazy what does she think of modern Germany ?
@@NoName-fv5oo i think shes fine with it
shes not very political
obviously more conservative xD
No way a friend of mine german ancestors got almost their entire family killed by russians in prussia
My grandfather was in General Patton's tank division. He never spoke about the war, which is common. After he died, I found his WWII wool trench coat up in his attic. It was the only thing up there, in perfect condition hanging from a rafter on a wire hanger. I still have it.
Hello, my warmest regards to the memory of your grandfather 🙏 (General Patton's troops liberated my town in Britanny, France) ✌ This movie is a masterpiece 👏
@@mariehuguen4332 Yes, my Grandfather was in France on V-Day. They even sold off all of the war equipment under the Eiffel Tower. He took a photo of one of our bombers parked right under it.
@@theebigda May your grandfather be blessed ❣
@@theebigda That's amazing, my great grandfather was a paratrooper for d day. He was probably there with your grandfather.
My Grandfather was a medic in the U.S. Army 6th infantry division during WWII and served in the pacific islands.
In short, this is his story:
When U.S. had the draft, his younger brother had polio and was not eligible. His older brother had just gotten married but WAS eligible to be drafted.
My grandfather and met my grandmother already at that time, but instead of marrying her, he volunteered to enter military service, as he didn't want his older, married brother to get drafted.
During training he refused firearms/combat training, and informed his officers that he refused to kill anyone.
He was instead enlisted as a Medical Technician. His medical kit consisted of surgical scissor and pliers, stitching thread, needles, gauze, bandages, iodine swabs, tourniquets, boric acid ointment for burns, several straps and strings, a pencil and small booklet of medical tags. He also carried a pocket knife and a canteen.
The division he was placed in, the "Sightseeing Sixth" faced a total of 306 days of combat during WWII; 219 of those were consecutive days of combat, a historical statistic that still holds the record to this day. The men in his division were briefed that the Japanese did not obey the Geneva Convention. A Red Cross was a target for the Japanese. No medic wore a Red Cross in their division and no man was to cry "medic!". Instead they used code names.
Japan at that time had conscription, basically if you could operate a weapon or help the war effort in any way, you were forced into military service.
After a battle, while clearing the field of dead and wounded, his platoon came across a 14 year old Japanese boy who had been shot in the leg and was bleeding out fast.
My grandfather operated on his leg and likely saved his life. They took him in as a P.O.W. and treated him kindly.
My grandfather took a special liking to him and did what he could to teach him English.
Eventually the war ended, the boy was released and lived his life in Japan.
My grandfather returned to the U.S. married my grandmother and the rest is, as they say, history.
At some point in his life (before I was born) my grandfather re-connected with the Japanese boy and they became lifelong friends, communicating mostly through letters in the mail.
Every Christmas my grandfather would be excited to open his card from Shinichi.
At the 50 year anniversary of WWII ending Shinichi came to visit the U.S. and met with my grandfather.
Shinichi later also sent his grandaughter to the U.S. state where my grandfather lived to attend university.
Growing up it was rare to be around my grandfather and NOT hear him talk about that time of his life.
He never talked about the horrible things that I'm certain he went through. He always talked about traveling the world, the people he met and the things he saw.
He had a "den" room at their house FULL of books of all of the coins, paper money, stamps, postcards that he collected, as well as all of his personal effects from that time.
He also had two Japanese officer's katanas as well as an Arisaka Type 99 rifle with bayonet.
He saved everything and kept it immaculate.
As a child I always took his story time for granted.
"Oh great I have to hear about Ichi again..."
But now as I type this I would give anything to be able to hear him tell me his stories just one more time.
I guess now at 28 I look at the life he lived in awe and try to take some kind of lesson from it.
Compassion regardless of one's circumstances is the human choice.
beautiful
thank you for sharing. at the end of the day, soldiers from both sides are humans, and have much more in common than we have differences. To be able to live on and share those stories together is such a beautiful thing.
Was your Granddad Desmond T. Doss?. Sounds pretty like his story.
@@sebastianmacario76 negative
@@bozmania Question, your grandfather's story with the 14-year-old Japanese soldier happened in the Battle of Okinawa right? Because I think it's the only instance in the entire Pacific War where Japan actually used child soldiers.
This scene is depressing just look at Fritz face.
This film is depressing.
@@mateuszgigon3724 all of ww2 was depressing.
For people who do not understand this scene.
These soldiers do not want to kill the girl because they just knew him from the beginning of their service in Stalingrad. This is not purging the Germans, it is simply humanizing them. The Germans were people too, and this movie reminds it. Here the problem is not about all these people and the fact of this order, in shock, and naturally, is young Muller, the rest don't even feel emotions anymore, after all they've experienced, but in this group there was a girl whom they saved in a sense and which was for some time in the building where they were stationing.
It was a girl,not a boy
@@ТирионЛаннистер-п4к ohhh fuck, ty
They worked for, and actively helped keep together, an inhuman regime that killed millions of innocent people industrially. They killed a child and you call them human? Stupid.
@@panzerwaffel5281 i guess you should change " him" to "her" )
its a girl???
My grandfather was MIA in the battle for Stalingrad … he was Soviet soldier .. it was a real meat-grounder .
He was 24 at that time and ll remain to us forever young …
If I was being made to execute unarmed people I'd probably desert and live in the wild.
If that's "civilization" then have it.
and im sure a few years later he wouldve been in the same situation as those germans. in germany or poland or anyother place the soviets slaughtered civilians
If you're Russian, just months from now, you'll be conscripted to the frontline by your president..
My great Uncle was a panzergenadier in 2nd SS Panzer Div Das Reich, and his war diary documents moments exactly like this on the Eastern Front, notably during counter-offensives like the efforts during the 3rd battle of Kharkov and the major push of the subsequent offensive at Kursk. The journal he left for us is both chilling and captivating at the same time. Many entries defy all imagination of what the horrors of war truly are.
Why not donate that diary to a museum or publish it online so it can be saved for history? It’s important to keep these memories alive to remember this and upcoming generations how terrible war is.
@@moow950 true
We can say the war in general is a crime ,no matter which side there is a possibilities of doing bad things
My great-grandfather was a Soviet Partisan and after Nazis occupies his town and found out that his house belonged to a partisan there was an order to burn down the house. His wife, my great-grandmother, was locked in there to be burned alive along with two of her children. A Nazi officer broke the door and got them out before it was too late. She had to walk for 3 miles in 3 feet of snow to find a place to stay because no one would let her in because of fear of being associated with her. From the first time that I heard this story, I knew that the people fighting in wars are just people, some evil some good. Most of them just follow orders they would rather not.
First! It is wrong to speak of Nazis instead of Germans. That was a German occupation and not a Nazi occupation! The Soviets fought not against a political party but against the entire nation
and their army! By the way, what you are describing was the exception! It is a fact that they murdered many children! This Nazi nation was completely amoral and degenerate. By the way, this movie is German propaganda! No German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The Józefów massacre clearly demonstrates this. As part of the issuing of orders, Major Trapp explained the purpose of their task to the men. Since the Jewish population was in cahoots with partisans, those who were fit for work should be sent to concentration camps immediately, while the rest should be shot immediately. In the end, however, he offered who did not feel up to this task could step aside. A soldier from 3rd Company then accepted his offer. This meant that no soldier who did not refuse to take part in the shootings could plead to an emergency situation, because the possibility of freedom of choice without consequences was given.
By the way, these were not just a few massacres by the Wehrmacht. That had a method and was part of the war of extermination against the Slavs, Gypsies and Jews. During the German raid on Poland, soldiers of the Wehrmacht carried out about 60 % of the mass murders of Polish civilians. Also prisoners of war were systematically murdered. Polish soldiers who put up particularly bitter resistance were punished for being so insolent to fight hard with burning to death with flamethrowers after their capture. Which particularly makes it clear how completely degenerate and amoral these soldiers were.
The Wehrmacht and their generals were willing tools of the German Nazi government! Moreover, there was in fact no significant resistance in Wehmacht, with the exception of the attempted coup d'état including the assassination attempt in 1944 when it was obvious that the war was lost. Over the years there have been no masses of desertions and no German partisans who fought against the Nazi government. That did not exist because since 1936 at the latest vast majority of the German soldiers were supporters of the German Nazi government, as were the vast majority of all Germans.
@@GreatPolishWingedHussars that’s exactly why I said that some were good. You would be surprised how easy it is under orders to do horrible things. War turns everyday people into killers and brutal murderers and there is no forgiveness for those people unless God grants it himself. Humans are easily convinced when they don’t have a firm belief of something from the start. My family members have fought and some died because of the Nazi’s so you don’t have to tell me of the loss of life.
@@aprcuulestdude9076First! They died because of the Germans. In addition, these are the excuses that Germans used after the war! We only obeyed orders and are therefore innocent! Our superiors are responsible! But these are lies. For example nobody gave the order to the common German civilian who murdered my grandpa. He did it entirely of his own free will. My grandpa worked in a company in Poland confiscated by the Germans. The German was a civilian employee who oversaw the work of the Polish workers. He got mad at my grandpa about something and hit him until my grandpa was dead. My grandpa couldn't defend himself because if a Pole just raised his hand against a German it meant certain death. Such murders were not uncommon in Poland
during the German occupation.
It also happened that Wehrmacht soldiers shot Poles on on the sidewalk because they failed to greet the German soldier. Because every Pole was obliged to greet a German soldier on the street and to make room for him on the sidewalk too. If a Pole wore a hat or cap, he had to take it off when greeting. It always happened that German soldiers shot Poles as a punishment for not greeting. Such murders were not uncommon in Poland. It was open to the german soldiers whether they at all punished or how they punished. For these murders there were no orders that the Germans could "only" beat as a punishment. By the way, it could be a death sentence if a Pole just dared to cheeky grin at a German! That was part of the daily terror against Poles in addition to the abductions for slave labor or the massacres.
Speaking of slave labor! My other grandpa was forced into slave labor and told us how cruel the civilian workers were. If there were mistakes, they were beaten. Serious mistakes were punished by death for sabotage. Usually the mistakes were reported by civilian German workers. Not only the Wehrmacht and the SS and the special commandos took part in the crimes, but actually the entire nation. Also the civilians had enough opportunities to participate in the crimes and they did it with fanatical Nazi conviction.
This Nazi nation was completely megalomaniac, mad, criminal, amoral and degenerated!
If you're Russian, just months from now, you'll be conscripted to the frontline by your president..
Facts
Americans can´t make this kind of great war movies. This is a master piece.
My grandfather lost an eye to a headshot in Russia but survived. Back in Germany, he was supposed to work as a guard in a concentration camp, but he refused. I've always wondered why he wasn't arrested or killed for it himself. Maybe that shows that his direct superiors weren't brutes either, but that things got worse the higher up the hierarchy people got. That's how I understand the quote I read somewhere: "In war you see young men dying and you hear old men talking."
А ведь твой дед с друзьями из германии уничтожили 30 миллионов русских и двух моих прадедов в концлагерях и жалко, что Сталин стал милосердным, он должен был расстрелять всех жителей стран нацизма(Германии, Италии, УКРАИНЫ, Финляндии и тд.
You weren't forced to work in concentration camps, that's the only thing the Nazis didn't do. Probably to save Morale, but rules are different on the front...especially on gruesome ones like Stalingrad
I recently read Hannah Arendt's "A report on the banality of evil" (strongly recommended btw). She said, and this were her words, that you wouldn't be punished for refusing to work in a concentration camp, or in anything related to murder. It just didn't happen - it's a myth that it did. Now, refusing orders, is a different thing, but she also said that people weren't always punished for refusing to follow orders.
Is that true? I am in no position to say. But your story confirms hers.
The higher up in the hierarchy is where you find the true evil. Hitler wasn't in a camp pushing little kids into gas chambers, so it made it a lot easier for him to issue orders to execute millions of lives because he wasn't "knee deep in the muck" as the old timers said.
There are many recorded instances of soldiers of the Wehrmacht (and surprisingly, a few in the SS) that refused or expressed reluctance towards the execution of civilians (do not mistake this for advocacy of the Clean Wehrmacht myth. Remember: they are still brutalizing civilians). Some had absolutely no issue with it, having completely bought into the Nazi hierarchy of races and placing Russians at the lowest tier of slav ethnicity (also of note: the Nazi's weird racial cast included "good" slavs, such as Ukrainians and Slovaks). Many expressed some degree of discomfort, but kept their mouths shut and did their job, feeling guilty later. Some still outright refused or needed coercion/encouragement. This was not uncommon. SS troops were often given alchohol to help executions along. Those that put up too much reluctance were intimidated and mocked into compliance. There are rumors, but no confirmed reports of having been shot for refusing to execute someone (remember, this is a Germany facing a manpower shortage). Common punishments were demotion, transfer to undesireable postings, and penal duties. Heinrich Himmler himself was horrified to witness the execution of Jewish Poles, and was visibly sickened, ordering the men to quickly dispatch a woman who survived the first shot (Himmler being Himmler of course, this did nothing to dissuade him of the Holocaust)
More detail than I could ever write out myself, from a reddit thread:
it was well documented that many members of the SS Einsatzgruppen had issues carrying out orders to kill people. For those who are unaware, the SS Einsatzgruppen were mobile killing squads sent into occupied territory to kill the Jews and other non-Aryans. They were a precursor to the camps, and they were used before the camps were built.
Now the SS moved away from mass executions for two reasons, it was time consuming and wasteful, secondly many SS men refused to carry out orders. The men that did carry out the orders often required alcohol to get through with it. There aren't really any statistics for how many man refused on average, but it was significant enough to cause concern among the SS leadership. As Christopher Browning (author of the popular "Ordinary Men") put it, there were three types of SS men, those who had no issues carrying out the mass killings, those who had issues but used alcohol or other coping methods to carry them out anyways, and finally those who refused outright.
To give you an idea how brutal these killings were, and how much of a psychological toll they took, here is what happened when Heinrich Himmler went to his one and only mass execution:
"Himmler became very uncomfortable, very quickly. As the firing squad started, Himmler, was even more nervous. During every volley he looked to the ground. When two women could not die, Himmler yelled to the police sergeant not to torture them"
Himmler tried to address this problem by making commanders organize social events and other outreach programs to make the men feel better, yet they were largely ineffective. Here is what a local SS commander, named Eirc Von Dem Bach, said to Himmler about his men's psyche after participating in the mass killings.
"Look at the eyes of the men of this Kommando , how deeply shaken they are. These men are finished for the rest of their lives.What kind of followers are we training here? Either neurotics or savages!"
The refusal to participate in mass killings was not usually punished. The punishments for refusing to partake in the mass killings would be usually a minor slap on the wrist (a transfer back to Germany,reduction in pay,demotion, small things like that), and that's in the rare cases where was something was actually done. Now soldiers that refused would face criticism from their peers;in the form of people questioning their masculinity and their allegiances. They also wouldn't be looked upon favorably for promotions or any sort of commendation.
Now during the Belzec Trial, there were a few interesting stories that came out, many involving the head of the camp Christian Wirth. Wirth ruled with an iron fist and anyone who dissented was punished. There are multiple stories that came out of Belzec concentration camp. One is that an SS man refused to carry out an execution and Wirth pulled a pistol on him. Or another example, when SS Erich Fuchs was ordered by Wirth to fix shower heads in the newly erected gassing barracks, he questioned Wirth as to why there were showers with no water pipes, Wirth flew into a rage and beat Fuchs; he then ordered two SS guards to take him away and shoot him, they ended up talking Wirth out of it.
I think it often depended on who the commanding officer was. The "old-generation" who were taught in Prussian military tradition were often very admant of keeping their troops in line (not killing civilians or POW's as they knew it would break disciplin within their own ranks) Younger troops and many SS units were more in line with Nazi ideology and carried out their orders regardless how inhumane they were.
The Slovak government was basically a puppet government of the third reich so that makes sense. The ukraine had a history of being anti-polish and anti-Soviet (because of oppression, conquering, land grabs, and a history of wars) so that also makes sense. The Ukrainians viewed the germans as liberators until the war crimes started
Not enough of them tho. The majority were only too happy to indulge in atrocities.
Source for those recorded instances?
@@dezbiggs6363 Ukraines really complicated (And still is). There are parts that where very pro soviet, and parts very anti soviet. Although the betrayal of Machenko probably damaged the loyalty of the pro soviet faction.
My grandfather was conscripted into the wehrmacht, specifically the Kriegsmarine. He was from Holland. He felt incredible shame for working with the Nazis, but at the time there was mass starvation and he needed to feed his family. My father would tell me his shame was so bad he wouldn't even speak about the war. I'm glad there are movies that show that the common troops were often just following orders or trying to make a living.
Does america have no shame? for funding the same Nazi movement, in Ukraine, to fight with Russia.
It never ceases to amaze me how utterly barbaric humanity can be to each other-and for what!
Money and power usually does the trick unfortunately
Because you’re sheltered.
Attrition in the Ostfront was and remains incomprehensible, in
particular at Stalingrad and Leningrad but also across the entire
theater. The average lifespan of a junior officer in the Wehrmacht who
had reached the the front lines in Russia was weeks in 1942. Enlisted
personnel had days. As more than one German veteran noted, war in the
west was proper sport, while war in the east was unmitigated horror.
At Stalingrad, without exception, the rubble of every single building work
in the city had at least one corpse to be removed, and usually far more
than one. The inhabitants of Leningrad were enduring unthinkable
hardship and had by the end absolutely 100% had no choice but to engage in
cannibalism if they wished to survive. That lasted from 8 September
1941 - 27 January 1944, the longest siege in human history. After the
siege was lifted the NKVD executed thousands who partook in the
consumption of human flesh for both disgust but primarily to conceal that it even
occured. The battle of Stalingrad left over 10,000 orphans, of whom less
than 200 were documented to have been reunited with both living parents.
There isn't a comparison. It was Hell on Earth, literally.
"The longest siege in human history"
@@JohnsonTheSecond i think he meant in modern history
@@adilmohammed6897 well he said human history
Yeah, I screwed up my phrasing when I made this. Most likely I posted it in a state of drunkeness. This is the typical cause of errors like this when they come from me on a youtube comment that was actually serious in nature. I do not like to edit my comments, especially when it has received replies, even though it was long after in this case. To me it looks like an attempt to hide something embarrassing more often then to correct something small like a single erroneous word. Then no one has immediate proof as to what degree it was embarrassing (or wasn't.). I have no other explanation as to why that got screwed up. I really don't like this one in particular because an error so demonstrably incorrect undermines the other claims. It's hard enough to try and develop a neutral view of such a consequential war.
@@RocketPropelledGuy dont worry, I understood what you were telling...you write well for a drunkard
This is the first time I have ever felt positive towards German soldiers. In the past, I believed they were bad and evil due to the way they were portrayed by the Allies. However, after watching this movie, my perspective has shifted. I now understand that not all soldiers were bad and evil - they were simply following their orders and sometimes disagreed with what they were asked to do. This realization shows that no one is entirely good or bad, and we are all humans fighting against ourselves.
You have to think about that the germans how hagve the orders also where soldiers. (I'm not judging over others, I'm german myself)
Its just so: germans gave orders to germans.
I think true is: humans where fighting against ourselvs and not every german where bad, every allaied where bad.
But its also to easy just to say there was nothing like good or bad.
Many people did many bad things and when they did it they become bad people, on many occasions in the war and through the war. The war was a vehicle of many many bad things in the first place, and by starting it the germans did a great thing to start all that bad to happen... but truly then, they werent just all bad and all there enemys good, in these vehicle all could be both.
My grandpa got drafted into the last ditch effort, the Volkssturm. He just had his 15. birthday. A lot of the Wehrmacht have been assholes, but a lot have just been young people forced into this.
My great grandad was in the artillery and they deserted in 1944 and moved from the eastfront to the americans to surrender. He was travelling with some front infantry men which had seen enough. On their way home they run into an SS checkpoint which told them to return to the front. The Infantry men killed the SS Checkpoint crew and headed further west. Especially towards the end, most people didnt believed in the third reich anymore.
It is important to learn from history, otherwise you are doomed to repeat it.
I am from Latvia. My old folks lived in countryside and used to tell some stories. One of those is when Germans came, they politely asked a farmer if they could garrison the barn. They purchased some meat and grain now and then. They shared their candy with little kids and chocolate with farmers teenage daughter.
Then the Germans went away and warm heartedly recommended farmer to do the same. Farmer did not leave his farm. Well, then russians came, and farmer had to go to live in the barn. They killed all the farm animals and made a feast and shared their wood with farmers teenage daughter. Farmer went to the town for supplies and two russian soldiers went to escort him, because "bandits in the forest". Only the soldiers returned from the town, bandits attacked them and killed the farmer - good thing one of them soldiers managed to salvage farmers wristwatch he kept as nice memory of the nice farmer.
@@OffRoadRiderMan Latvian BS as usual. Russian soldiers would be shot for that. Even back then soldiers realizes latvians as USSR citizens.
That's because of how western media always portrayed its enemies as "sub humans", the same goes with arabs, if you look at it, us media and news usually potray arabs as terrorists, that's partially true but us media refuses to show the good side of the arabs, if you go to, for example Saudi Arabia or UAE, you will see the people there are so polite.
One of the best war movies in existence. It didn't get the accolades and exposure it deserved!
@Ivan Petrov What?
@Ivan Petrov Thanks for sharing your feelings with us Ivan.
@Ivan Petrov There are plenty of cases where this DID happen though, sure this may not be directly based on a true story but this stuff did happen. Like the movie 1917, that exact story did not happen, but events similar to it most certainly did
“If you don’t, gg. You’ll be up next” lol the new slang of gg made that funny
What makes this scene special is that according to the German soldiers' law, which also applied between 1933 and 1945, the refusing to carry out criminal orders was not only possible but mandatory. There have been cases where orders for such killings have been refused and there have been no consequences. Of course, far too few individual cases, officers who gave such orders were also prosecuted.
well for things like this the superior officers would pick the soldiers that were sick and twisted who likely enjoyed doing such things so thats likely why reports of soldiers speaking up are uncommon. as for superior officers who spoke up against these atrocities they didnt need to be killed or criminally punished as they would just relieve them of duty and replace them with somebody more "like-minded" to their agenda. also this was wartime so im sure many incidents just went unreported.
@Milan Kraguljac this shows that you have no idea what you are talking about. I was referring expressively to the "Soldatengesetz" which expressively forbid to execute illegal or criminal orders. That this was too often ignored I didn't deny. Get yourself educated before getting involved in grown up debates.
@Milan Kraguljac Serbian troll
@Milan Kraguljac juu had to do Manual labor😲😲.... Of course they cried about it
My father was a combat veteran. He said if an officer ordered you to shoot a woman or child, you should refuse. If the officer threatened you, he said you should shoot that officer. I told him "But you would then be killed." He said "Son, some things are worth dying for."
This was a very difficult film for me to watch, but I am glad I did. For the regular combat solider in that situation it was almost hopeless.
Did they ever kill the old guy?
Absolutely fantastic movie! Absolutely realistic, about the bloodiest battle of World War II! It conveys a lot of sensations. Honor to all the soldiers who died in the war!
Greetings from Italy
Unbelievable! 12 million watched these German propaganda lies! This propaganda is intended to give the impression that the Nazi soldiers were ordinary soldiers. But that's a lie, because these were soldiers of a criminal Nazi army. By the way, no German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The massacre of Józefów in Poland, in which 1,500 civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht, made it clear that there was no compulsion to obey orders when shootings were carried out. Because only volunteers took part in the shootings and there were always enough of them. It is known that during this massacre the German battalion commander Trapp offered that those who did not feel up to the task did not have to take part in the shooting of civilians . A few did not want to take part, but the vast majority had no problem taking part in the shooting. From this overwhelming majority, soldiers were then ordered to the shooting. This meant that no soldier who refused to take part in the shootings could invoke compulsion to obey orders, because the possibility of freedom of decision without consequences was given.
The Wehrmacht and their generals were willing tools of the German Nazi government and participated in countless crimes. Their criminal brutality proves the fact that during the German raid on Poland, soldiers of the Wehrmacht carried out about 60 percent of the mass murders of Polish civilians. 60%!!! Polish civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht but also Polish Prisoners of war (POWs) were murdered by the Wehrmacht. These were not just a few massacres by the Wehrmacht on Polish POWs and civilians. There were a great number of massacres by the Wehrmacht on Polish civilians and on Polish POWs! Because that had a method and was part of the war of extermination against the Gypsies, Slavs and Jews in the occupied areas in the east. The Wehrmacht not only murdered in occupied Poland, but in fact in all occupied countries. Polish soldiers which had put up a stiff fight were penalized for their ‘impudence’ by being punished by being murdered with flame-throwers. The resistance by Polish ‘sub-humans’ was not considered military virtue for Wehrmacht soldiers but just insolence. This example also shows illustrates that this army was completely megalomaniac, mad, criminal, amoral and degenerated like the entire Nazi nation!
By the way, Nazi party member was certainly not the definition of a Nazi. That is the definition of Nazi! Supporter and follower of the German Nazi government! By the way, the vast majority of the German army (Wehrmacht) were since 1935 at the latest followers and supporters of the German Nazi government thus they were Nazis! Incidentally, the vast majority of Germans since 1935 at the latest were also followers and supporters of the German Nazi government thus they were Nazis! In fact, the rush for Nazi party membership was so great that the party froze admission of new members. The German army like the the whole nation was a willing tools of the German Nazi government. This army fought with most of Germans doggedly and fanatically to win the war together with the German Nazi government. Because this army was able to avoid defeat for so long, there was so much time to murder so many people behind the front lines.
Are you a Nazi? What more honor to the Nazis? Think a little, they all burn in hell.
It's no wonder that when the tide turned against the Nazis - the Russians took few prisoners - those they did take ended up in Siberia and they didn't live long there either !!!
The Russians took many prisoners.
The Russians are generally the only side that did not use war crimes as a norm in warfare (including in our days).
My father was in the army in WWII, in Holland, France, and Belgium. He said one time that most of the German solders "were just scared kids like us." Obviously others had different experiences, but yeah, they weren't all soulless killing machines.
Like my german father
Sent to kill with age 14
Hitler and Trump were the most evil men of the past 200 years --- the ability to brainwash people into becoming pawns of murder and mayhem --- such a wicked trait
@@tommitchell7294please, putting Trump up there with dictators that killed millions or even hundreds of thousands is ridiculous.
@@tommitchell7294 As much as I despise Trump, a horrible human being, I have to say your comment is bullshit.
Learn some history! Start with Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Pinochet, Mussolini, Franco or Idi Amin.
@@gareth2736 not ridiculous at all --- go watch his violent goons attack our Capitol like Communist thugs --- it makes your stomach turn if you love America
My great grandfather was part of the second hungarian army that were forced in battle by the germans. He told my grandpa that all of the armies struggled there and no people could eat properly. He never made it back home, but I am proud to be a descendant of a soldier who fought only for his family, and to get back to them
Hungry was trying to stop a soviet take over. Am sure he wanted to save his country. Germany fought for a better world. Its very obv now.
@@antoneckhart6004 Better world ? I am sorry but i do not know what you mean
Forced in battle. Lol. Hungary was part of the Axis and fought beside the Germans. Hungary made large land gains and eagerly joined on the USSR invasion after the Russian Kisoce air raid. No need to be ashamed of being a German ally, don't lie about the past.
@noimnotnice
Hungarians are well known for this in surrounding countries. Their "historians" are like that as well, trying to rewrite the history all the time... And then the common people simply copy the pattern.
Unbelievable! 12 million watched these German propaganda lies! This propaganda is intended to give the impression that the Nazi soldiers were ordinary soldiers. But that's a lie, because these were soldiers of a criminal Nazi army. By the way, no German soldier was punished for not wanting to take part in shootings. By the way, there were always enough volunteers. There was no compulsion to obey orders behind which German soldiers were hiding after the war. The massacre of Józefów in Poland, in which 1,500 civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht, made it clear that there was no compulsion to obey orders when shootings were carried out. Because only volunteers took part in the shootings and there were always enough of them. It is known that during this massacre the German battalion commander Trapp offered that those who did not feel up to the task did not have to take part in the shooting of civilians . A few did not want to take part, but the vast majority had no problem taking part in the shooting. From this overwhelming majority, soldiers were then ordered to the shooting. This meant that no soldier who refused to take part in the shootings could invoke compulsion to obey orders, because the possibility of freedom of decision without consequences was given.
The Wehrmacht and their generals were willing tools of the German Nazi government and participated in countless crimes. Their criminal brutality proves the fact that during the German raid on Poland, soldiers of the Wehrmacht carried out about 60 percent of the mass murders of Polish civilians. 60%!!! Polish civilians were murdered by the Wehrmacht but also Polish Prisoners of war (POWs) were murdered by the Wehrmacht. These were not just a few massacres by the Wehrmacht on Polish POWs and civilians. There were a great number of massacres by the Wehrmacht on Polish civilians and on Polish POWs! Because that had a method and was part of the war of extermination against the Gypsies, Slavs and Jews in the occupied areas in the east. The Wehrmacht not only murdered in occupied Poland, but in fact in all occupied countries. Polish soldiers which had put up a stiff fight were penalized for their ‘impudence’ by being punished by being murdered with flame-throwers. The resistance by Polish ‘sub-humans’ was not considered military virtue for Wehrmacht soldiers but just insolence. This example also shows illustrates that this army was completely megalomaniac, mad, criminal, amoral and degenerated like the entire Nazi nation!
By the way, Nazi party member was certainly not the definition of a Nazi. That is the definition of Nazi! Supporter and follower of the German Nazi government! By the way, the vast majority of the German army (Wehrmacht) were since 1935 at the latest followers and supporters of the German Nazi government thus they were Nazis! Incidentally, the vast majority of Germans since 1935 at the latest were also followers and supporters of the German Nazi government thus they were Nazis! In fact, the rush for Nazi party membership was so great that the party froze admission of new members. The German army like the the whole nation was a willing tools of the German Nazi government. This army fought with most of Germans doggedly and fanatically to win the war together with the German Nazi government. Because this army was able to avoid defeat for so long, there was so much time to murder so many people behind the front lines.
Knowing what happened in Stalingrad, I couldn't help but think that those being shot were actually the most fortunate, and to feel more sorry for those who would have to keep living in misery, many of them destined to die a slow death from frostbite, starvation, disease, and possibly after being imprisoned in some god-forsaken Russian prison camp.
Problem is they arent fortunate to lose their lifes in any way. Those civilians didnt choose to be part of that war
They aren't the most fortunate. The civilians were in the deep level, nearly beneath the soldiers.
Terrible take. I doubt those killed by the Nazis would think like you.
By your logic war would have no survivors because dying is better.
Russian or German*
Despite being from the Wehrmacht, the firing squad officer looked like Heinrich Himmler.
MP just standing by as the superior threatens his subordinate with execution.
The Feldjager would've been all over that captain's ass.
@@remingtonarcher1335 But rreeeeee notseez baaaadddd
Or something like that. I don't give a damn.
They’re both bad, just ones breaking military regulation. Which would lead to the officer being either arrested or shot.
So MP had higher authority regarding military protocol regardless of the rank? I didnt know that. I thought the MP were with the Captain because they were so compliant with him
@@Fae-Fey MP's almost always have higher authority. They're literally just police for the military.
Keep in mind, that the germany army , the Bundeswehr, is right now one of the few, if not the only army, where soldiers are allowed to refuse orders, if they think they are a violation of human rights.
damn,that is kinda scary if you think about it
@@steampunklimbo Its not scary at all. The US military is the same.
Not true at all. In most militaries you are allowed to refuse an order that goes against human rights simply because any order given that disputes human rights is an unlawful one.
I am pretty sure that there aren't many militarys where it is your right to refuse such orders. And that's what I am talking about. Also, as long as your country does not acknowledge the geniva convention, a order against human rights is not unlawful. And you would be surprised how many country's have done that during wartimes.
@corey brooks First of all. You can't tell me what the theme I came up with is about. Second, I never stated, that soldiers couldn't refuse orders but that they are allowed by law to do so in Germany. And that is still not that common. Also, I never made this conversation about country's doing terrible things. I just gave an example why the geniva conventions is not in it self a law basis that allows soldiers to refuse orders. Oh and by the way. German soldiers aren't just allowed to refuse orders that violet human rights, they are obligated to do so.
My grandpa joined the German Wehrmacht in 1939, just in time for Poland. He fought there as a common infantry soldier. Later, he decided he wanted to be a Panzerman. He wanted to be a driver, so he started training in a Panzer III for the Russian invasion. In 1942, after the beginning of operation Barbarossa, he later decided to be a gunner in a sdkfz half track. He was apparently very brave, but also ruthless. He shamefully admitted he killed a surrendering Soviet officer out of sheer anger, after witnessing his friend and one of the troopers in the half track get killed by this officer's troops(he says that this wasn't the officer's fault, but he was being an idiot for committing war crime). But, when he saw the treatment of Soviet POWs in German camps, he felt sorry for them, and started to detest the SS. "The SS were young men, who would waste ammunition, supplies and men for very little accomplishment. They are filthy sons of bitches who show no mercy to little kids, animals and women, though not all of them were monsters" is what my grandpa had to say about them. In 1944, my grandpa rose the ranks to become a panzergrenadier major, and was war-hardened. He would plan out attacks, but the low morale and the lack of supplies would result in constant loss. In late 1944, he'd come back to Germany, and by then, he heard what happened to Germans who surrendered to Soviets. He wanted to surrender to the US or British. He, 3 or 4 panzergrenadier men, a motorcyclist, a handful common landser, a wehrmacht officer and a FLAK NCO surrendered to a group of US patrol men on bikes. He had to stay in USA until 1949 when he was brought back. He sold his panzer wrap and beret for 600 buck to a Japanese collector in the late 60s, but kept his luger, and his panzergrenadier officer uniform and gears. He still has it now, and sometimes he would wear his hat for fun and for old time's sake, and watches Hogan's Heroes frequently.
thanks for the story, very interesting
Your grandfather sounds like a very interesting man
I know of some SS veterans who are now dead who would strongly disagree with your grandfather. If you want to win a war you cant show compassion for enemy soldiers, this is why Patton was the greatest commander who literally teached his soldiers to gut and kill every german soldier they encountered. Showing compassion to the enemy decreases your whole motivation to fight (kill the enemy).
@@Hn-gz5iw Patton? Greatest commander?
@@Hn-gz5iw Well, he did show no mercy lol. He was a ruthless officer, who only cared about winning a battle, and to save as much men in his company as possible. I think he is hiding a bit more than he is telling me, so ppl don't antagonize him. As far as I know, his tactics were more stealthy while outside and guns blazing once entering enemy building, meaning in close combat, there would be a lot of bloodshed. He just says that the some SS men were responsible for unnecessary bloodshed towards locals and surrendered red army soldiers, and SS who freshly graduated from Hitlerjugend sacrificed their lives for very little to no reasons(for example, he saw a teen SS boy, once out of ammo in his mp40 running out of the foxholes, with several stick grenades tied to him and jumped in the enemy foxhole without being blown apart or shot. He managed to kill 2 soviet soldiers, and waste 5 stick grenades. This is not the only case of these suicides).
I can’t believe these things happened only 80 or so years ago. My father is 80. He grew up in a small village in Italy. My grandparents told me stories about when the German soldiers marched through their small insignificant village they treated my ancestors like shit. They destroyed everything in their path.
I feel for those families who had family members assassinated like this. It is so much worse than our experience. It is so sad.