My father was a Staff Sergeant, he didn’t talk much of the war except the funny stories. One day he got into a dark mood and told me about rescuing German soldiers crossing the river to surrender. Russians were on other side shooting Germans in the water. Americans fired on the Russians to get them to pull back. When Dad regained his composure he stopped talking.
The German regime killed over 3mm Soviet POWs, intentionally starving them and leaving them without shelter. The Soviets didn't treat German POWs very well, but they were far less lethal to Germans than the Germans were to Soviet POWs.
As I putter around my place, I would find on RUclips a video that is narrated and listen to it. Lately, I've listened to stories told by the people who experienced World War II and their stories help fill in the gaps left by the histories we learned in school. Helps to keep my brain active, I suppose.
The adage "War is Hell" is told in all of your narratives of WW2 episodes. I've been listening to these uploads, and I must admit a sadness to what each of these men experienced. I wish we could just learn!
These tales are totally engrossing, I really love the personal histories, I just with the printed narration was a LITTLE bit more accurate. If a deaf person were to try to follow these stories they would go crazy in the first five minutes !
I really love your videos, whenever im about to go to bed, ill lay down and listen to them. I really do appreciate that you upload a video daily, this is very rare and you are awesome for the work you do.
At the time this captivity period was going tens of thousands of Americans, maybe far more, including some generals, colonels, majors captains and Lieutenants plus noncoms were itching to pay the Germans back, first for the death camps and then, and especially, for the way American POWs had to endure the final stages of the war when rations were very scarce and men were living on starvation rations. This took place not only in liberated Europe but also in many of the POW camps for Germans. In Camp Clinton, Mississippi, not far from where I live, the commander of Camp Clinton suddenly took all rights and privileges away from the Germans and this camp was the first one established for high ranking officers, and they were deprived, just like the men were. No showers, starvation rations, no mail, no new papers, the list goes on and on. One POW was General Hermann-Bernhard Ramcke who had been captured at the fall of Brest in France. Ramcke was famous world wide for some of the impossible things he and his men did. They did not surrender with the entirety of German forces in North Africa. Instead, Ramcke took his men on a forced march through deserts in order to get back and into the war again. Ramcke was famous before the Americans entered the war and when he surrendered Brest, there were a great many American generals who had to have their photos taken with him and he was treated like a popular movie star or big band leader. He had been sent to England first and as the war looked like it would end soon, the British decided that they should send some of the high officers to America. Ramcke first went to Washington, D.C. and was feted by a number of US congressmen. One from Mississippi named James O. Eastland, and another congressman befriended Ramcke. The two elected officials gave Ramcke their addresses and promised him that if he ever needed anything, to write to them. When Ramcke saw that the POWs in Camp Clinton suddenly had everything taken away from them, it was in late December, 1945, so Ramcke decided to do something about it. He told no-one except his aide and planned an escape from the camp on New Year's Eve. He wrote a letter to each of the two congressmen, took some money, dressed like a worker, and went out through a hole in the fence at a drainage ditch, all while there was much celebrating by the guards and others as well as people who lived close by were setting off fireworks. He then went to a nearby road and got a ride into Jackson, five mile from Clinton. He was able to pose as a Dutch worker because in 1942 the Dutch established a huge RNAF presence at an Army Air Corps airfield in Jackson, and along with the flyers there came entire families because most of the Dutch had escaped the Japanese when they invaded the Dutch East Indies. The driver took him to downtown Jackson, which is the capitol of the state. Ramcke went to the downtown post office (Ironically now named the James O. Eastland Federal Building) and bought stamps and sent both letters. Then he went to the east where there was a Walgreens drug store which served food. He both a sandwich and asked for the receipt and then left, going back to the camp. He broke back in and found that no one had known he was gone other than the aide. He produced the receipt which had the date on it as well as other information, as proof, and later, when word got out among the German officers, they came to him to find out if it was true or just a rumor. He would show them the receipt. A few weeks later Army cars arrived at the camp, the commander was relieved of duty and another was installed and the POWs received all their rights and privileges back. The official Army announcement of this was released saying that Americans should not act as the Germans did, and the United State of America was deadly serious about upholding the Genieva Convention.
I fear that the general humanitarianism inherent to the American population in the first half of the 20th Century has been deeply degraded by decades of federally sanctioned counterfeiting and postmodernist indoctrination; ruling-class parasites have engineered a return to 1860…and WORSE.
What a great piece of lost history! I will add that my mother Beverly and her girlfriends went to see the German Afrika Corps prisoners marched through the streets in her Oklahoma town. She said, "They were so tall and handsome!" Plus she said the prisoners were lent to the local farmers and ranchers and not only were they unguarded but they were actually moved into their homes and became part of their families for the duration of WWII.
Ss guy worried over Geneva? 20/20 hindsight My grand uncle was Waffen ss And when he was captured about a week into the Bulge He was beaten and barely survived He was dragged though the woods by his feet as the Americans kicked him Once back , they tore off his blouse and stole his iron cross ribbon , his assault badge and his silver wound badge Then interrogated Then beaten again Before being shoved into make shift holding pen It was snowing He surprisingly didn’t complain about the treatment very much - considering he was almost captured by Russians in 43 But he didn’t eat for 4 days , he ate snow and dug for worms in the mud. His horrible experience as a conscript in the Waffen SS was bitter He remembers as a infantryman in Russia during the cold winter He and a few others was ordered to drag dead Russian bodies back to the motor pool They was instructed to stuff the frozen corpses under the panzer treads to help get them moving from the hard snow. Gruesome task was everyday as they received orders for a engagement He was in the 5th SS before being wounded and returned to France for a lengthy recovery. As a young Nco he was later transferred to the 12th SS and fought in Normandy and later the Bulge It was 4 days before he got some base rations His swollen face began to heal , his nose healed crooked and his eyes was red. After a few more days he was sent further back into PoW camp. After further interrogation he was given a number He went from a 180 lbs man to a 130 lbs shell. He hoped to escape or get shot. Neither happened After a few more months he semi recovered and was shipped to Canada in a pow camp. He was released in 1947 and decided to work as a taxi driver - his English was very good He saved his money - and married in 1959 - he was cleared of any and all wrongdoing from the war He built a taxi service and a gas station He finally received his Canada citizenship and later moved to the US in 1965 to work on his brother’s farm in South Dakota I met the man many times in the 80’s and 90’s as he told his story He died some years later peacefully in his bed
I guess they were made to pay for everything Hitler did and I,m glad he was able to have a good rest of his life,In the past few years I have learned a lot about the war and have realized that it was not as black and white as they claimed yes what Hitler did was unbelievably evil but our intelligence knew and not very many people mention that there was also a Resistance movement in Germany.
Thank you for sharing this, I'd loved to have met him myself , thou I did get to make great friends with a former SS , man , who fought in Russia , very interesting man , RIP ,MY friend ,
Good god Humans can be totally savage. I can’t imagine the madness of what went on. The SS waffen or any other SS such as einzeitsguppre were insane soldiers. They were all politically indoctrinated and I suppose they deserved what happened to them in the end. No way they can be sympathised with. They were killers and murderers. No person can be party to such a thing if they live in the world. You simply cannot hate other people for who they are (Jews) it wasn’t their fault the war was lost in WW1.
I met an old U.S. GI in 1999 who literally ran across his house to show me an old worn box that he then dumped on the table. I was aghast as he beamed at all the scraps of black 12th SS Hitler Youth Panzer Division uniforms that he had cut from their corpses. "We got them good!", he laughed. Your relative was very lucky to survive that battle!
Interesting and informative. Excellent photography job enabling viewers to better understand what the orator was describing. Class A research project!!! Special thanks to the veterans who shared their personal combat experiences making the documentary more authentic and possible.
For a long time I would not listen to the stories of the enemies of the us . But after listening to man of honor I have been able to listen to history from the other side’s perspective
These are just great insights into the differing ways the vanquished were treated by the British/American forces and the Soviets following WWII. Having listened to six different podcasts I can honestly say that I can well understand why those Whermacht Soldaten didn't wish to be taken alive by the Red Army. Following the ruination of much of the USSR following WWII I can well understand their anger with those Whermacht Soldaten who fell into their grasp but the fact remains that the German soldiers who laid waste to their land and people were pretty much long dead by 1944/5 and those young soldiers captured by the red army pretty much paid the pipers bill for their long dead forebears from 1941-. War is hell and there was no love lost between the Whermact and the USSR.
I am so, so, so grateful for the Russian people and of course the Red Army. Where would we be now without the fearlessness, determination and bravery amidst incomprehensible loss inflicted on our Russian allies. Thankyou, eternally for everything every Russian did to save the Motherland and everyone in the world. Thanks, eternally, for liberating the camps, and helping to save the people who could have all been killed one way or another. Thankyou Russians. You had every moral right to rape and kill any number at all from the inhumane, retarded, brainwashed country of Germany. Nothing is fair in war. But the German people and especially theur Nazis gof off very, very lightly, in my view. The people of my country, and the descendants of a persecuted, scapegoated People still live with the trauma from the war every day of their lives. Thankyou, Red Army!!! Lest we Forget. To have inherited the mentality, language or culture of German people would be the most sickening thing possible.
The only people Stalin put in the Gulags MORE than German soldiers..... Russian soldiers. Returning Red Army soldiers had to be RE-EDUCATED for having made the sin of having contact with Western thought of any kind. But then, hundreds of thousands of Gernan women were raped by the Red occupation forces. Communists are just less in every conceivable way.
It’s all about nazi racism. They didn’t consider their victims human. They were untermenschen, subhuman. This kind of thing always happens in two steps: 1. Dehumanization 2. Holocaust
@@davidtrindle6473 we have to remember that from 1933 onwards the nazis controlled radio, newspapers and the schools. Any young soldier even at the end of the war all those young men had been subject to over a decade of indoctrination. On top of that SS soldiers were subject to political indoctrination in addition to military training. If you think you would be immune to this level of indoctrination you are kidding yourself. Look how successful fox news is at turning people into zombies. Propaganda works. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu stared that those who are subject to the indoctrination of a corrupt regime are themselves victims of that regime.
My father wrote a small autobiography, distributing a copy to each of his children. It includes his time during WW2. He never saw an enemy, never took fire, and never fired in anger. His experience was much as a grand tour of Europe during the recent unpleasantries.
My Grandad Frank Butterworth was interviewed about his time in the war. I would love to hear what he said as he never really told us anything. I know he was a rear machine gunner at Dunkirk and took part in D-Day.
My father was a sergeant Waffen SS paratrooper corp. 11 jumps into the Russian front. Wounded, sent home for recurperation a 6 day pass was shortened to jump in Crete. He joined the army to get fed. Didn't work too well according to him. He was captured in 1943 sent to England and worked farms and translated. It all got him better treatment and even a night at the cinema. He was also transported to the USA and picked cotton. He was well treated there as well I am so sorry he died before all this came to my attention. I do have some of his written words but nowhere near enough. To any soldier in any prison camp my dad was in thank you for treating him humanely, with out that I may not be here in Australia. Yes he made it as one 5 immigrants to work his passage on Kangaroo Island 1948.
I chanced on this and had no idea of the content, how strange it was to find out that at the end he was held prisoner in the Village Aberlady where I grew up and Gosford an estate I used to play in as a child.
Hearing the stories of how regular German soldiers were treated by Americans, vs those of the SS. I can see who was seen as complicit in the horrors of the regime. Rightly so.
... its a bit more complicated. Waffen SS was full of fanatical nazis in the beginning of the WW2, thats for sure. But over time, they got many soldiers through conscription. In the end, these were not different to any wehrmacht soldiers...
The SS divisions were better equipped then the regular army. They were good fighters. The downside was the regular army disliked them. Because they were not under regular army leadership. You could not expect mercy and often none was given. The general could of just ordered the use of the boat but he knew he was dealing with fanatics.
The general _did_ order the use of the boat. But both sides knew that the Hauptsturmführer had nothing to fear from a charge of insubordination, and was trying to get his men to safety. The general had a difficult decision to make.
Not only that, they acted as enforcers for the NaziParty, making sure that the Heer followed the commands of Hitler and the high ranking officers of the SS, and could be seen throughout the war, shooting Heer and Luftwaffe ground troops who did not obey well enough.
The Waffen SS had a separate supply chain from the Heer, and had to cobble together weapons and supplies from wherever they could, so I would disagree with your assertion that they were better supplied. Also, for most of the war, they were subordinated to OKH and OKW command. Order did break down in the last months of the war, as this narrative describes.
The nerve of the German soldier to be agasth at the Russian treatment of German soldiers ,with the savage cruelty they meted out to civilians and soldiers😮
It is pretty common sentiment in diaries by German troops on the Eastern front. And several would alternate between describing stealing food from Russian civilians, killing them, burning villages if they thought Russian troops would hide in them and other crimes, then wondering “why are the Russian peasants so hostile to us?” Maybe the German propaganda told them that due to Stalin’s cruelty, the Russians would welcome them….but seems pretty obvious why the every day Russians would not be thrilled with the Nazis invading their country.
@@barryrammer7906 The majority the atrocities carried out in WW11 by the Germans were carried out by the ordinary German soldier - the SS were fewer in number but did carry out more than their fair share.
When I was about 7, our new neighbors who recently immigrated from Germany were invited to dinner. My mom had work most of the day preparing the meal. The last dish that she had she brought to the table was a bowl of corn. When the Father seen the corn, he stood up yelling in German and stormed out of the house. His wife apologized profusely as she collected their children. She told us that her husband said that it was an insult to serve them pig food and that they wouldn't be allowed to associate with our family any more. She and their children hurried out of the door. We all sat bumbfounded.
One of my favorite stories, Moffitt Burris 1/504/82nd ABN. He said he was shocked by the arrogance of the German officers they captured. He said if an officer gave them any lip. No one would say anything, but someone would walk over and kick them in the ass as hard as they could. He said that always took them down three or four notches!
From Russia to "Longniddry" and "Aberlady" Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! In their journey, to end up in East Lothian, on the South side of the Firth of Forth... I'm sure, there must be a...pleasant, humorous irony. PS. I wonder if he ever worked with my brother in law, Ralph Halliday...A Edinburgh baker? Now, that would be...A pleasant, humorous irony.
I WORKED WITH A FEW GERMAN VETERANS,GOOD TRADESMEN,SOME AARROGANT , EVERYONE DENIED ANY WRONGDOING DURING THE WAR! MOST WERE GRATEFUL TO BE IN AMERICA!
I was one told a very strange story. A lady once told me her grandmother was a refugee in Hamburg with her son's and no food. It did not make much sense until there were a showing the Extermination Camps been entered by the allies. It took me until this was rerun to think more about the refugees, were they the family of a German soldier involved in the death camps.
#joan5856 Thankyou, deeply, for sharing your crucial insight. I live in a country where a tenth of our population went to the slaughter at Gallipoli and France. War monuments and graves cover my country as remembrance of my People's sacrifice. This Incomprehensible loss is the foundation of my culture of New Zealand today. I have heard myself, about the effects on mates and relations from gas and from injuries from the brutal weapons created for that slaughter. Why were Germans always so egotistical about what they could do, and so seriously underestimate the skill, determination and spirit of all the rest of us! (Narcissistic nation). It seems the German people again suffered from tremendous overconfidence with no personal accountability all over again, just a fes years later. So in 1937, their aggressive slaughter started up again in Spain with the appalling weaponry they were again stockpiling for their next ridiculous plan. A lot, lot more monuments were erected in my tiny, paradise country after the 2nd World War. I am very unusual in that none of my close relations served in either war. But I have definitely met and talked to thousands of men and sons who did. I have walked through the rows at expansive RSA cemetries in New Zealand. All my friends, now and in the past have been seriously affected by these wars. Soldiers from both wars who became fathers affected upbringings very drastically. Brian & Patrick had verh very hard fathers. One barely ever spoke to my friend. Alcohol has been a huge problem over the decades. In WW2, Joan's husband went missing at Dunkirk. So great was her grief, that 50 years later... on ANZAC day, she died from a heart attack. My friend Mae grew up in an orphanage. Her father came back from the war and broke her mother's leg and the children were then scattered around. John didn't meet hus father until he was 5. The next generation had their share of suffering too. I have known men of the Maorj Battalian, who flew in the Batld of Britain, fought in Egypt, at Tubruk, and every place I could think of. I haven't yet mentioned my Jewish people, and my distant relatons. The survivors I knew or knew if here in New Zealand were all lucky to get out(Bob in 1938) or escaped (Rose while a child, while being shot at). I am dismayed that so many people have no knowledge of the Holocaust. Why ard we forgetting our History???? I am grateful fof ouf Maori people who never lose their connection and the spirit of their ancestors. I also reconnect, and it is very powerful. Holocaust survivors havd transformed my life- even more than my fallen heroes. Thankyou for remembering these millionsof people who were tortured, starved and killed in thousands of camps, by German individuals. I read comments written by Germans, too, who I thought had been well educated. I see a huge focus on WW2 and the holocaust. Many people actually blame one man entirely. Bystanders, neighbours, personal responsibility, cultural mentality, judgement, superiority, national aggression, brutality and pigheadedness is never mentioned. Why was Germany so aggressive in the early 1900's, and in the '30's. Why didn't they cut their losses, especially in 1918, 1944 and 1945? Why were people so malicious in their every day lives? Why are they like that, why do they follow rules without caring about people? I recently read a commenf frkm someone who though a German lady had been "raped to death" and mentione homeless German kids. There seemed to be no insight into the bigger picture. Anothed German seemed to bd skitjng about her German grandfather "artist". Agajn, when quotjng him, seemed completelg oblivious to the nazj mentality, and the sick, brutal, murderous, revengeful attitude that was his. Totally blind to the suffering, to history, or to the sick, inhuman mentality od her brainwashed grandfather. I travel for 90 minutes quite often I pass the beautiful huge Memorial Parks, gateways, monuments, bridges, several of which were placed in remembrance if our fallen. There are 8 that are on or extremel closeby on my trip. We are on the opposite side of the world but the incomprehensible evil in Europe touched this place, badly though not nearly as seriously. Lest we forget. Thankyou for speaking up!
I see what you were thinking about... The fact is, all Germans were involved with the concentration camps, really. Germans were aware that disabled children had been taken from families. It was doctors and nurses who killed the kids. They were also aware that Jews were being demonized. These were classmates, work colleagues, neighbours. Their acquaitances all lost their jobs...were bejng beaten up in streets... had their brilliant writer's books burned.... then all their businesses smashed up. There were ridiculous signs and daily rants all about Juden- their neighbours and associates. They turned away right from the begjnning! Where were their consciences? And personal responsibility? Who rounded up all the Jews, Roma, Gays, and JW's? Has many thousands saw if happening? How was it okag for them to lose their homes, possessions, livelihoods, commities, freedoms? How was it okay fof Germans to gather around and steal all the possessions. How was if ok to dob people in and have others hunted and taken? German bombed the fuck out of Poland... took control in Czechoslavakia, Austria, France, Denmark, Belgium, bombed key places jn Britain, then London. Of COURSE we would have to bomb Colgn, Hamburg etc!!! Of course thousands of people- millions were homeless!!!! That's what happens when people think they can destroy a country and take over. It happens all the time. Right now if is Ukraine. Homeless women & children? Of course! Dad might have been slaughtering in Russia, or any number of countries... killing Poles, the French, Greeks, Indians, Englush, Americans, Aussies, Kiwis, Pacific people, Canadians, the Irish, Scots, Greeks, Scandinavians. I know Kiwis who bombed places like Cologne. What would the alternative have been?? Millions of people lost their homes! Enterjng into camps... the stench, the skeletons, piles of bodies, piles of shoes, the ovens... Battlehardened soldiers, threw up, cried, skme took revenge. NONE could ever have imagined such indescribable torture.
@@barbsmart7373Exactly! One can be at war and still be moral. But the Germans did have a crazy obsession with being the leaders of Europe at any cost. Still, Hitler was just part of the sick World view that Jews were all evil. Sadly many still believe that but thankfully we put the majority of those thinkers to rest in WWII.
So,mes amis, did the narrator EVER return those trousers that he borrowed...at the SS-hospital !? Did the true owner live out his life, stuck there...trouserless ?
LOL, I was thinking the same damn thing! I kept waiting for him to say something about those pant's, but he did mention making a wallet from them. No doubt he did like them, but if we are honest with ourselves, the SS were never known for feeling remorse or guilt.
This is one of my favourite episodes. This guy was lucky, I've heard that some Americans didn't let SS soldiers surrender. Especially after finding out that the SS ran the concentration camps.
Being human, its difficult to not feel sympathy towards these nazi soldiers during the hour of their utter decimation. However, these diaries hardly portray the brutal nazi actions while they were on top of the lowly bolshevicks... who were "unter menshen" - lowly beings in their eyes and therefore not worthy of their higher aryan sympathies. Therefore, my sympathy is going to be reserved for people who didnt inflict the exact same horrors that they are now themselves suffering
you not understand german history ! you not read anithing , it all propaganda ! you cannot put together all german soldiers and say they all was nazi coas it wasnt like that at all ! and not every german soldier was bad and did atrocities ! whan england bonbed stutgard complitly all and in stutgard wasnt military objects at all just civilan houses even factory wasnt in stutgard at that time ! from militar stand point it was just war crime and just to scare germans ! i had luck to talk with my grandpa who lived in time whan germans invade my country and he telled about tham ! they lived in our village ! and they helped alot coas alot of people was even starving and they helped with food and medicin !
I’m glad you said that, though it’s a very unpopular point of you. No man is an island. We are a product of our community and our environment. These boys and young men were Subject to relentless propaganda whole lives. They thought what they were doing was right. Once you believe that another human being is inferior or subhuman, You don’t believe that you’re murdering raping and torturing fellow human beings, just dangerous enemies. What can we learn from this? You can only stop a holocaust during the first step, i.e. the de-humanization. Because once that’s been accomplished violence and atrocities are right around the corner. In our country some are now dehumanizing blacks, indigenous, gays, trans, muslims, jews and even liberals. This doesn’t bode well for the future.
@@davidtrindle6473 With all due respect David, I agree with your insightful and thoughtful commentary on the divisive and inflammatory rhetoric tearing this country apart. It is my opinion that your *point of view (not *point of you) is a result of a propaganda campaign no less aggressive and indeed, successful than what was deployed over the German people throughout the 30's. You believe yourself so virtuous only because you are told that every single day. Have you ever asked yourself what you may have done to deserve this warm feeling of supremacy? You are told that while you vote one way - you can consider yourself a caring person, a virtuous person. You are right to think that I (a conservative) do not "care" about "blacks, Jews, gays, liberal, conservative... no David, I don't know about you, however, I am fully ensconced and busy in "caring" about my immediate family. My efforts are fully expended on this front. This, while I fully respect every human being and give to charity as much as possible. You "care"? How? Aside from voting for "the party that cares" (while they actively undermine and destroy the lives of the "minorities" under their spell) exactly what do you do? You really need to examine where this feeling of superiority stems from. I humbly believe that you are as much indoctrinated into a truly evil and destructive state of mind - as Germans during WWII. Think of the magnitude of the comment just made and ask yourself if a respectful and thoughtful person would make a comment like that, without cause?
You can get an idea of how the Soviets treated captured Germans by the fact that large numbers of women in Soviet-held German territory were raped by Red Army soldiers. When informed of this, Stalin reportedly said, "Let the soldiers have their fun."
I wish the auto-correct was not on and you had someone review this before putting it on the net. I loved the story, just the constant misspelled or inaccurate words drove me crazy.
The death head ring was a big deal , less than a couple thousand were issued , soldiers died in operations to receive the rings from dead SS troops , they would sacrifice there lives to avoid the enemy getting one as a trophy.
The part about the "fat former Dachau prisonners" was quite surreal. Especially coming from a Waffenb SS member. And all the moaning about the lack of food and poor treatment. And being only 8 in 1933, he had no responsibility in Hitler's criminal enterprise, while the mere fact he was a SS said otherwise. Hopeless.
Eight years old in 1933 means twenty years old in 1945. Plenty old enough to be conscripted into the Waffen SS. Lots of fifteen year old boys were conscripted in late 1944 and 1945.
In the German concentration camps there were well-fed prisoners... they were people with different functions... for example, kitchen staff and so on. The rest were starved to death. I recommend the book "Five years of concentration camp" by the Polish writer Stranisław Grzesiuk. He was a prisoner of several camps... including Dachau.
@@veritaspk maybe it was that way with POWs. But there were no fat Jews walking out of the concentration camp I don’t care what book you read it in, in my family, they died from starvation, typhus, being worked to death, and the gas chambers. Everybody was hungry, and the death camps, nobody was well fed, other than the guards. And yes, Polish prisoners that were put in control which one of the worst.
@@HowlingWo1f Just read the book I recommended. The Germans locked up the entire cross-section of society in the camps, it is true that the Jews were at the very bottom of the camp hierarchy... but they were not alone there.
Thankfully there was more than one kind of talent back home to be hidden in the ground that somehow had managed to be working together in order to survive. Otherwise there may not have been any adults left with the good sense to not be prefering the dark whenever not hiding talents in the ground called land mines instead up more near the surface of the ground too. Instead of doing a lot more sensible and practical things like putting money in the bank while taking some out to be planting cucumber or bean seeds in hills or whatever.
Yes. They should all have received the punishment given to innocent families in their Death Camps. I’m not sure if I would ever have taken any German prisoners. They deserved no one’s pity.
To bad they surrendered so soon . If they held out 3 months longer they could have witnessed the sun rise twice in one day in August like the Japanese did .
Very interesting, but it would be more informative if the captions didn't make so many mistakes. Wehrmacht not vermarked, obersturmführer not oberstorm fuhrer, hauptsturmführer not helped stormfurer. It's not difficult to look these things up.
When we are in power, we treat others as if they are not human being, but when we fall into the hands of the adversary, we complain against injustice meted out. A bit of humane touch could make a big difference in someone's life.
Fur volk and fuher, I think, 1st SS panzer division. I go through so many that it’s hard to pin down where you’ve heard it, it just goes together with the whole madness of the 2nd world war. There are stories of brave men that did impossible feats but died too early to record it.
Erwin Bartmann - Fur Volk and Fuhrer: The Memoir of a Veteran of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler - the full audiobook is 8 hours & 50 mins
Investigated for war crimes, processed home and carried out labour. We had an accident in 1947 near my house in england. A group of former luftwaffe mens truck got stuck on a railway crossing while driving to work and they were hit by a train.
The Thomson Submachine gun held by the US soldier on the photo is interesting - it has the cocking lever on the side and not on the top plane of the action. It must have been a special WWII variant designed to keep debris out of the action. Either that or it is a spare ammo clip... ??
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My father was a Staff Sergeant, he didn’t talk much of the war except the funny stories. One day he got into a dark mood and told me about rescuing German soldiers crossing the river to surrender. Russians were on other side shooting Germans in the water. Americans fired on the Russians to get them to pull back. When Dad regained his composure he stopped talking.
The German regime killed over 3mm Soviet POWs, intentionally starving them and leaving them without shelter.
The Soviets didn't treat German POWs very well, but they were far less lethal to Germans than the Germans were to Soviet POWs.
It's widely thought we fought the wrong side.
@@daddyrabbit835no but it’s surprisingly common to believe we shouldn’t have stopped at Munich.
@@daddyrabbit835widely thought? By whom, notzis?
@@jeffstorey9147 , Many thought the US should have attacked Russia while we had a Army in Europe. Personally I don’t agree.
These stories are so fascinating, every time I hear one I can't help but visualize it in my head like a movie
Does anyone else notice the irony of an SS man complaining about the treatment of prisoners?
They acted honorably, troll.
@@clovergrass9439 no they very much did not. try reading some of hitlers literature sometime
@@clovergrass9439 who acted honorable? The ss? Either you are a fool, or a neonazi.
@@clovergrass9439 😂😂😂😂 No, no they did not. Cope harder fascist, it's hilarious to watch your triggered denialism of the facts 😂😂😂😂
@@clovergrass9439 Acted honorably? According to whom? The story teller?
As I putter around my place, I would find on RUclips a video that is narrated and listen to it.
Lately, I've listened to stories told by the people who experienced World War II and their stories help fill in the gaps left by the histories we learned in school. Helps to keep my brain active, I suppose.
The adage "War is Hell" is told in all of your narratives of WW2 episodes. I've been listening to these uploads, and I must admit a sadness to what each of these men experienced. I wish we could just learn!
We're just suckers for group acceptance, and cult of personality figures.
It's not the men on the front lines. It's the armchair general and their staff. And the politicians that fund said engagements.
These tales are totally engrossing, I really love the personal histories, I just with the printed narration was a LITTLE bit more accurate. If a deaf person were to try to follow these stories they would go crazy in the first five minutes !
Yes, they show what sleazy little bastards German soldiers were, when they weren't busy being sadistic murdering racist monsters.
🤣
I really love your videos, whenever im about to go to bed, ill lay down and listen to them. I really do appreciate that you upload a video daily, this is very rare and you are awesome for the work you do.
At the time this captivity period was going tens of thousands of Americans, maybe far more, including some generals, colonels, majors captains and Lieutenants plus noncoms were itching to pay the Germans back, first for the death camps and then, and especially, for the way American POWs had to endure the final stages of the war when rations were very scarce and men were living on starvation rations. This took place not only in liberated Europe but also in many of the POW camps for Germans. In Camp Clinton, Mississippi, not far from where I live, the commander of Camp Clinton suddenly took all rights and privileges away from the Germans and this camp was the first one established for high ranking officers, and they were deprived, just like the men were. No showers, starvation rations, no mail, no new papers, the list goes on and on. One POW was General Hermann-Bernhard Ramcke who had been captured at the fall of Brest in France. Ramcke was famous world wide for some of the impossible things he and his men did. They did not surrender with the entirety of German forces in North Africa. Instead, Ramcke took his men on a forced march through deserts in order to get back and into the war again. Ramcke was famous before the Americans entered the war and when he surrendered Brest, there were a great many American generals who had to have their photos taken with him and he was treated like a popular movie star or big band leader. He had been sent to England first and as the war looked like it would end soon, the British decided that they should send some of the high officers to America.
Ramcke first went to Washington, D.C. and was feted by a number of US congressmen. One from Mississippi named James O. Eastland, and another congressman befriended Ramcke. The two elected officials gave Ramcke their addresses and promised him that if he ever needed anything, to write to them.
When Ramcke saw that the POWs in Camp Clinton suddenly had everything taken away from them, it was in late December, 1945, so Ramcke decided to do something about it. He told no-one except his aide and planned an escape from the camp on New Year's Eve. He wrote a letter to each of the two congressmen, took some money, dressed like a worker, and went out through a hole in the fence at a drainage ditch, all while there was much celebrating by the guards and others as well as people who lived close by were setting off fireworks.
He then went to a nearby road and got a ride into Jackson, five mile from Clinton. He was able to pose as a Dutch worker because in 1942 the Dutch established a huge RNAF presence at an Army Air Corps airfield in Jackson, and along with the flyers there came entire families because most of the Dutch had escaped the Japanese when they invaded the Dutch East Indies. The driver took him to downtown Jackson, which is the capitol of the state. Ramcke went to the downtown post office (Ironically now named the James O. Eastland Federal Building) and bought stamps and sent both letters. Then he went to the east where there was a Walgreens drug store which served food. He both a sandwich and asked for the receipt and then left, going back to the camp. He broke back in and found that no one had known he was gone other than the aide. He produced the receipt which had the date on it as well as other information, as proof, and later, when word got out among the German officers, they came to him to find out if it was true or just a rumor. He would show them the receipt.
A few weeks later Army cars arrived at the camp, the commander was relieved of duty and another was installed and the POWs received all their rights and privileges back. The official Army announcement of this was released saying that Americans should not act as the Germans did, and the United State of America was deadly serious about upholding the Genieva Convention.
I fear that the general humanitarianism inherent to the American population in the first half of the 20th Century has been deeply degraded by decades of federally sanctioned counterfeiting and postmodernist indoctrination; ruling-class parasites have engineered a return to 1860…and WORSE.
What a great piece of lost history! I will add that my mother Beverly and her girlfriends went to see the German Afrika Corps prisoners marched through the streets in her Oklahoma town. She said, "They were so tall and handsome!" Plus she said the prisoners were lent to the local farmers and ranchers and not only were they unguarded but they were actually moved into their homes and became part of their families for the duration of WWII.
Ironic how SS themselves ended up as asylum seekers.
not only that, before they surrenderd they shot everybody who fled the scene.
Ss guy worried over Geneva?
20/20 hindsight
My grand uncle was Waffen ss
And when he was captured about a week into the Bulge
He was beaten and barely survived
He was dragged though the woods by his feet as the Americans kicked him
Once back , they tore off his blouse and stole his iron cross ribbon , his assault badge and his silver wound badge
Then interrogated
Then beaten again
Before being shoved into make shift holding pen
It was snowing
He surprisingly didn’t complain about the treatment very much - considering he was almost captured by Russians in 43
But he didn’t eat for 4 days , he ate snow and dug for worms in the mud.
His horrible experience as a conscript in the Waffen SS was bitter
He remembers as a infantryman in Russia during the cold winter
He and a few others was ordered to drag dead Russian bodies back to the motor pool
They was instructed to stuff the frozen corpses under the panzer treads to help get them moving from the hard snow.
Gruesome task was everyday as they received orders for a engagement
He was in the 5th SS before being wounded and returned to France for a lengthy recovery. As a young Nco he was later transferred to the 12th SS and fought in Normandy and later the Bulge
It was 4 days before he got some base rations
His swollen face began to heal , his nose healed crooked and his eyes was red.
After a few more days he was sent further back into PoW camp.
After further interrogation he was given a number
He went from a 180 lbs man to a 130 lbs shell.
He hoped to escape or get shot.
Neither happened
After a few more months he semi recovered and was shipped to Canada in a pow camp.
He was released in 1947 and decided to work as a taxi driver - his English was very good
He saved his money - and married in 1959 - he was cleared of any and all wrongdoing from the war
He built a taxi service and a gas station
He finally received his Canada citizenship and later moved to the US in 1965 to work on his brother’s farm in South Dakota
I met the man many times in the 80’s and 90’s as he told his story
He died some years later peacefully in his bed
I guess they were made to pay for everything Hitler did and
I,m glad he was able to have a good rest of his life,In the past few years I have learned a lot about the war and have realized that it was not as black and white as they claimed yes what Hitler did was unbelievably evil but our intelligence knew and not very many people mention that there was also a Resistance movement in Germany.
Thanks for sharing the account of your grand uncle!
Thank you for sharing this, I'd loved to have met him myself , thou I did get to make great friends with a former SS , man , who fought in Russia , very interesting man , RIP ,MY friend ,
Good god
Humans can be totally savage.
I can’t imagine the madness of what went on.
The SS waffen or any other SS such as einzeitsguppre were insane soldiers. They were all politically indoctrinated and I suppose they deserved what happened to them in the end.
No way they can be sympathised with.
They were killers and murderers.
No person can be party to such a thing if they live in the world.
You simply cannot hate other people for who they are (Jews) it wasn’t their fault the war was lost in WW1.
I met an old U.S. GI in 1999 who literally ran across his house to show me an old worn box that he then dumped on the table. I was aghast as he beamed at all the scraps of black 12th SS Hitler Youth Panzer Division uniforms that he had cut from their corpses. "We got them good!", he laughed. Your relative was very lucky to survive that battle!
Interesting and informative. Excellent photography job enabling viewers to better understand what the orator was describing. Class A research project!!! Special thanks to the veterans who shared their personal combat experiences making the documentary more authentic and possible.
There is one photo. What are you describing? Did you listen to this narration?
For a long time I would not listen to the stories of the enemies of the us . But after listening to man of honor I have been able to listen to history from the other side’s perspective
These are just great insights into the differing ways the vanquished were treated by the British/American forces and the Soviets following WWII. Having listened to six different podcasts I can honestly say that I can well understand why those Whermacht Soldaten didn't wish to be taken alive by the Red Army. Following the ruination of much of the USSR following WWII I can well understand their anger with those Whermacht Soldaten who fell into their grasp but the fact remains that the German soldiers who laid waste to their land and people were pretty much long dead by 1944/5 and those young soldiers captured by the red army pretty much paid the pipers bill for their long dead forebears from 1941-. War is hell and there was no love lost between the Whermact and the USSR.
and yet the russians and germans are fighting again right now.
I am so, so, so grateful for the Russian people and of course the Red Army.
Where would we be now without the fearlessness, determination and bravery amidst incomprehensible loss inflicted on our Russian allies.
Thankyou, eternally for everything every Russian did to save the
Motherland and everyone in the world.
Thanks, eternally, for liberating the camps, and helping to save the people who could have all been killed one way or another.
Thankyou Russians. You had every moral right to rape and kill any number at all from the inhumane, retarded, brainwashed country of Germany.
Nothing is fair in war.
But the German people and especially theur Nazis gof off very, very lightly, in my view.
The people of my country, and the descendants of a persecuted, scapegoated People still live with the trauma from the war every day of their lives.
Thankyou, Red Army!!! Lest we Forget.
To have inherited the mentality, language or culture of German people would be the most sickening thing possible.
The only people Stalin put in the Gulags MORE than German soldiers..... Russian soldiers.
Returning Red Army soldiers had to be RE-EDUCATED for having made the sin of having contact with Western thought of any kind.
But then, hundreds of thousands of Gernan women were raped by the Red occupation forces.
Communists are just less in every conceivable way.
My father was a 17 year old Leibstandarte Falke soldier.POW ended up in England and stayed.
The indignation of the POWs at their treatment is somewhat ironic, considering their earlier treatment of others.
It’s all about nazi racism. They didn’t consider their victims human. They were untermenschen, subhuman. This kind of thing always happens in two steps:
1. Dehumanization
2. Holocaust
@@davidtrindle6473 we have to remember that from 1933 onwards the nazis controlled radio, newspapers and the schools. Any young soldier even at the end of the war all those young men had been subject to over a decade of indoctrination. On top of that SS soldiers were subject to political indoctrination in addition to military training. If you think you would be immune to this level of indoctrination you are kidding yourself. Look how successful fox news is at turning people into zombies. Propaganda works. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu stared that those who are subject to the indoctrination of a corrupt regime are themselves victims of that regime.
Just posted the same comment, 5 hours after you!
@@davidtrindle6473 Where in the 25 NSDAP points do they condone racism? The alleged extermination is easily refuted.
@@clovergrass9439 you cannot seriously believe that. Racial theory was the keystone in Nazi ideology. Enough of your nonsense.
My father wrote a small autobiography, distributing a copy to each of his children. It includes his time during WW2. He never saw an enemy, never took fire, and never fired in anger. His experience was much as a grand tour of Europe during the recent unpleasantries.
That's nice to hear. And it doesn't diminish his service at all. He risked his life to serve his country.
My Grandad Frank Butterworth was interviewed about his time in the war. I would love to hear what he said as he never really told us anything. I know he was a rear machine gunner at Dunkirk and took part in D-Day.
My father was a sergeant Waffen SS paratrooper corp. 11 jumps into the Russian front. Wounded, sent home for recurperation a 6 day pass was shortened to jump in Crete.
He joined the army to get fed. Didn't work too well according to him. He was captured in 1943 sent to England and worked farms and translated. It all got him better treatment and even a night at the cinema.
He was also transported to the USA and picked cotton. He was well treated there as well
I am so sorry he died before all this came to my attention.
I do have some of his written words but nowhere near enough.
To any soldier in any prison camp my dad was in thank you for treating him humanely, with out that I may not be here in Australia.
Yes he made it as one 5 immigrants to work his passage on Kangaroo Island 1948.
Excellent morning listening with my coffee.thank you
They were all fighting for the same people all along War is a racket and nobody wins except money
Hmmm. A US POW or a russian POW? I would have taken my chances for the US POW
I chanced on this and had no idea of the content, how strange it was to find out that at the end he was held prisoner in the Village Aberlady where I grew up and Gosford an estate I used to play in as a child.
Hearing the stories of how regular German soldiers were treated by Americans, vs those of the SS. I can see who was seen as complicit in the horrors of the regime. Rightly so.
... its a bit more complicated. Waffen SS was full of fanatical nazis in the beginning of the WW2, thats for sure. But over time, they got many soldiers through conscription. In the end, these were not different to any wehrmacht soldiers...
The SS divisions were better equipped then the regular army. They were good fighters. The downside was the regular army disliked them. Because they were not under regular army leadership. You could not expect mercy and often none was given. The general could of just ordered the use of the boat but he knew he was dealing with fanatics.
The general _did_ order the use of the boat. But both sides knew that the Hauptsturmführer had nothing to fear from a charge of insubordination, and was trying to get his men to safety. The general had a difficult decision to make.
You mean the SS murderers? Tell us.
Not only that, they acted as enforcers for the NaziParty, making sure that the Heer followed the commands of Hitler and the high ranking officers of the SS, and could be seen throughout the war, shooting Heer and Luftwaffe ground troops who did not obey well enough.
@@VidkunQL At the end of the war the regular army and the citizenry were shooting SS members if they could get away with it.
The Waffen SS had a separate supply chain from the Heer, and had to cobble together weapons and supplies from wherever they could, so I would disagree with your assertion that they were better supplied. Also, for most of the war, they were subordinated to OKH and OKW command.
Order did break down in the last months of the war, as this narrative describes.
The nerve of the German soldier to be agasth at the Russian treatment of German soldiers ,with the savage cruelty they meted out to civilians and soldiers😮
No they didnt.
Especially ss I hope they get what they did. Not Regular German soldiers. Most were good men.
Someone has been watching the History Channel.
It is pretty common sentiment in diaries by German troops on the Eastern front. And several would alternate between describing stealing food from Russian civilians, killing them, burning villages if they thought Russian troops would hide in them and other crimes, then wondering “why are the Russian peasants so hostile to us?” Maybe the German propaganda told them that due to Stalin’s cruelty, the Russians would welcome them….but seems pretty obvious why the every day Russians would not be thrilled with the Nazis invading their country.
@@barryrammer7906 The majority the atrocities carried out in WW11 by the Germans were carried out by the ordinary German soldier - the SS were fewer in number but did carry out more than their fair share.
Excellent story. Just à straight up narration
When I was about 7, our new neighbors who recently immigrated from Germany were invited to dinner. My mom had work most of the day preparing the meal. The last dish that she had she brought to the table was a bowl of corn. When the Father seen the corn, he stood up yelling in German and stormed out of the house. His wife apologized profusely as she collected their children. She told us that her husband said that it was an insult to serve them pig food and that they wouldn't be allowed to associate with our family any more. She and their children hurried out of the door. We all sat bumbfounded.
Awesome thank you!
I liked the narrative in well spoken English.
Seconded. So much of the narration on RUclips is just dreadful. Really good work here.
@@davidabbott1951It's AI
The book "Through Hell for Hitler" by Henry Mittelman is also a very good source for the German soldier's experience after the war.
The Nazis starved a city of 4 million people Leningrad in Russia.
Will we hear the end of Bartmans story ? Was he ever able to contact his family in Germany ?
One of my favorite stories, Moffitt Burris 1/504/82nd ABN. He said he was shocked by the arrogance of the German officers they captured. He said if an officer gave them any lip. No one would say anything, but someone would walk over and kick them in the ass as hard as they could. He said that always took them down three or four notches!
That my daddy's group. 504th 82 Airborne.
@@robertbarlow6715 I was assigned C/1-504/82ABN 80-84
Wow, abusing fellow warriors in peacetime after surrender, how stunning, how brave....
@@robertbarlow6715 Did your daddy ever apologize for making half the planet slaves to Bolshevism?
@@bc2578Are you a Nazi?
No cc need be posted.
It would be [most instructive] for you to reveal the context/source of this monologue in your description.
Agreed. Without context or attribution, it's just a "good war story". Could be a work of fiction.
From Russia to "Longniddry" and "Aberlady" Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! In their journey, to end up in East Lothian, on the South side of the Firth of Forth... I'm sure, there must be a...pleasant, humorous irony. PS.
I wonder if he ever worked with my brother in law, Ralph Halliday...A Edinburgh baker? Now, that would be...A pleasant, humorous irony.
Freaky. I use to line in Longniddry.
I WORKED WITH A FEW GERMAN VETERANS,GOOD TRADESMEN,SOME AARROGANT , EVERYONE DENIED ANY WRONGDOING DURING THE WAR! MOST WERE GRATEFUL TO BE IN AMERICA!
His dude never got his pants
Leather pants too.
I NEED to hear the three years before this event - what does this man deserve ? There is no context.
Amazing story.
I enjoyed listening to this, very captivating, 👍
I was one told a very strange story. A lady once told me her grandmother was a refugee in Hamburg with her son's and no food. It did not make much sense until there were a showing the Extermination Camps been entered by the allies. It took me until this was rerun to think more about the refugees, were they the family of a German soldier involved in the death camps.
#joan5856
Thankyou, deeply, for sharing your crucial insight.
I live in a country where a tenth of our population went to the slaughter at Gallipoli and France.
War monuments and graves cover my country as remembrance of my People's sacrifice. This
Incomprehensible loss is the foundation of my culture of New Zealand today.
I have heard myself, about the effects on mates and relations from gas and from injuries from the brutal
weapons created for that slaughter.
Why were Germans always so egotistical about what they could do, and so seriously underestimate the skill, determination and spirit of all the rest of us! (Narcissistic nation).
It seems the German people again suffered from tremendous overconfidence with no personal accountability all over again, just a fes years later. So in 1937, their aggressive slaughter started up again in Spain with the appalling weaponry they were again stockpiling for their next ridiculous plan.
A lot, lot more monuments were erected in my tiny, paradise country after the 2nd World War.
I am very unusual in that none of my close relations served in either war.
But I have definitely met and talked to thousands of men and sons who did.
I have walked through the rows at expansive RSA cemetries in New Zealand.
All my friends, now and in the past have been seriously affected by these wars.
Soldiers from both wars who became fathers affected upbringings very drastically.
Brian & Patrick had verh very hard fathers. One barely ever spoke to my friend.
Alcohol has been a huge problem over the decades.
In WW2, Joan's husband went missing at Dunkirk.
So great was her grief, that 50 years later... on ANZAC day, she died from a heart attack.
My friend Mae grew up in an orphanage.
Her father came back from the war and broke her mother's leg and the children were then scattered around.
John didn't meet hus father until he was 5.
The next generation had their share of suffering too.
I have known men of the Maorj Battalian, who flew in the Batld of Britain, fought in Egypt, at Tubruk, and every place I could think of.
I haven't yet mentioned my Jewish people, and my distant relatons.
The survivors I knew or knew if here in New Zealand were all lucky to get out(Bob in 1938) or escaped (Rose while a child, while being shot at).
I am dismayed that so many people have no knowledge of the Holocaust.
Why ard we forgetting our History????
I am grateful fof ouf Maori people who never lose their connection and the spirit of their ancestors. I also reconnect, and it is very powerful.
Holocaust survivors havd transformed my life- even more than my fallen heroes.
Thankyou for remembering these millionsof people who were tortured, starved and killed in thousands of camps, by German individuals.
I read comments written by Germans, too, who I thought had been well educated.
I see a huge focus on WW2 and the holocaust. Many people actually blame one man entirely. Bystanders, neighbours, personal responsibility, cultural mentality, judgement, superiority, national aggression, brutality and pigheadedness is never mentioned.
Why was Germany so aggressive in the early 1900's, and in the '30's.
Why didn't they cut their losses, especially in 1918, 1944 and 1945?
Why were people so malicious in their every day lives? Why are they like that, why do they follow rules without caring about people?
I recently read a commenf frkm someone who though a German lady had been "raped to death" and mentione homeless German kids. There seemed to be no insight into the bigger picture.
Anothed German seemed to bd skitjng about her German grandfather "artist". Agajn, when quotjng him, seemed completelg oblivious to the nazj mentality, and the sick, brutal, murderous, revengeful attitude that was his.
Totally blind to the suffering, to history, or to the sick, inhuman mentality od her brainwashed grandfather.
I travel for 90 minutes quite often
I pass the beautiful huge Memorial Parks, gateways, monuments, bridges, several of which were placed in remembrance if our fallen.
There are 8 that are on or extremel closeby on my trip.
We are on the opposite side of the world but the incomprehensible evil in Europe touched this place, badly though not nearly as seriously.
Lest we forget.
Thankyou for speaking up!
I see what you were thinking about...
The fact is, all Germans were involved with the concentration camps, really.
Germans were aware that disabled children had been taken from families. It was doctors and nurses who killed the kids.
They were also aware that Jews were being demonized. These were classmates, work colleagues, neighbours. Their acquaitances all lost their jobs...were bejng beaten up in streets... had their brilliant writer's books burned.... then all their businesses smashed up. There were ridiculous signs and daily rants all about Juden- their neighbours and associates.
They turned away right from the begjnning! Where were their consciences? And personal responsibility?
Who rounded up all the Jews, Roma, Gays, and JW's? Has many thousands saw if happening? How was it okag for them to lose their homes, possessions, livelihoods, commities, freedoms?
How was it okay fof Germans to gather around and steal all the possessions. How was if ok to dob people in and have others hunted and taken?
German bombed the fuck out of Poland... took control in Czechoslavakia, Austria, France, Denmark, Belgium, bombed key places jn Britain, then London.
Of COURSE we would have to bomb Colgn, Hamburg etc!!! Of course thousands of people- millions were homeless!!!! That's what happens when people think they can destroy a country and take over. It happens all the time. Right now if is Ukraine.
Homeless women & children? Of course!
Dad might have been slaughtering in Russia, or any number of countries... killing Poles, the French, Greeks, Indians, Englush, Americans, Aussies, Kiwis, Pacific people, Canadians, the Irish, Scots, Greeks, Scandinavians.
I know Kiwis who bombed places like Cologne. What would the alternative have been??
Millions of people lost their homes!
Enterjng into camps... the stench, the skeletons, piles of bodies, piles of shoes, the ovens...
Battlehardened soldiers, threw up, cried, skme took revenge.
NONE could ever have imagined such indescribable torture.
@@barbsmart7373Exactly! One can be at war and still be moral. But the Germans did have a crazy obsession with being the leaders of Europe at any cost. Still, Hitler was just part of the sick World view that Jews were all evil. Sadly many still believe that but thankfully we put the majority of those thinkers to rest in WWII.
So,mes amis, did the narrator EVER return those trousers that he borrowed...at the SS-hospital !? Did the true owner live out his life, stuck there...trouserless ?
I too pictured his officer friend back at the SS Hospital, waiting forlornly for his trousers...
Non, mon vieux. Il a dit que il a fait une billetaire avec les pantalon
@@spud-from-Nam C'est dommage !
@@NigelJackson "Forlorn and cussing-up a storm." 💋
@@NigelJackson Rumor has it he is still waiting.
We had an Italian POW as a visitor at my family house in Hawaii during WWII. I don't know how he got there. I was just a kid.
Quite a few Italian POWs were sent all the way to Australia. Many of them were sponsored by Australians to settle here after the war.
I wonder how his buddy managed without his pants
LOL, I was thinking the same damn thing! I kept waiting for him to say something about those pant's, but he did mention making a wallet from them. No doubt he did like them, but if we are honest with ourselves, the SS were never known for feeling remorse or guilt.
Diary of the Traveling Pants
This is one of my favourite episodes. This guy was lucky, I've heard that some Americans didn't let SS soldiers surrender. Especially after finding out that the SS ran the concentration camps.
Being human, its difficult to not feel sympathy towards these nazi soldiers during the hour of their utter decimation. However, these diaries hardly portray the brutal nazi actions while they were on top of the lowly bolshevicks... who were "unter menshen" - lowly beings in their eyes and therefore not worthy of their higher aryan sympathies.
Therefore, my sympathy is going to be reserved for people who didnt inflict the exact same horrors that they are now themselves suffering
you not understand german history ! you not read anithing , it all propaganda ! you cannot put together all german soldiers and say they all was nazi coas it wasnt like that at all ! and not every german soldier was bad and did atrocities ! whan england bonbed stutgard complitly all and in stutgard wasnt military objects at all just civilan houses even factory wasnt in stutgard at that time ! from militar stand point it was just war crime and just to scare germans !
i had luck to talk with my grandpa who lived in time whan germans invade my country and he telled about tham ! they lived in our village ! and they helped alot coas alot of people was even starving and they helped with food and medicin !
Bolsheviks were untermenschen and are still untermenschen.
I’m glad you said that, though it’s a very unpopular point of you.
No man is an island. We are a product of our community and our environment. These boys and young men were Subject to relentless propaganda whole lives. They thought what they were doing was right. Once you believe that another human being is inferior or subhuman, You don’t believe that you’re murdering raping and torturing fellow human beings, just dangerous enemies.
What can we learn from this? You can only stop a holocaust during the first step, i.e. the de-humanization. Because once that’s been accomplished violence and atrocities are right around the corner.
In our country some are now dehumanizing blacks, indigenous, gays, trans, muslims, jews and even liberals. This doesn’t bode well for the future.
@@davidtrindle6473 Indeed it does . Luke 21:28
@@davidtrindle6473 With all due respect David, I agree with your insightful and thoughtful commentary on the divisive and inflammatory rhetoric tearing this country apart. It is my opinion that your *point of view (not *point of you) is a result of a propaganda campaign no less aggressive and indeed, successful than what was deployed over the German people throughout the 30's. You believe yourself so virtuous only because you are told that every single day. Have you ever asked yourself what you may have done to deserve this warm feeling of supremacy? You are told that while you vote one way - you can consider yourself a caring person, a virtuous person. You are right to think that I (a conservative) do not "care" about "blacks, Jews, gays, liberal, conservative... no David, I don't know about you, however, I am fully ensconced and busy in "caring" about my immediate family. My efforts are fully expended on this front. This, while I fully respect every human being and give to charity as much as possible. You "care"? How? Aside from voting for "the party that cares" (while they actively undermine and destroy the lives of the "minorities" under their spell) exactly what do you do? You really need to examine where this feeling of superiority stems from.
I humbly believe that you are as much indoctrinated into a truly evil and destructive state of mind - as Germans during WWII.
Think of the magnitude of the comment just made and ask yourself if a respectful and thoughtful person would make a comment like that, without cause?
You can get an idea of how the Soviets treated captured Germans by the fact that large numbers of women in Soviet-held German territory were raped by Red Army soldiers. When informed of this, Stalin reportedly said, "Let the soldiers have their fun."
I wish the auto-correct was not on and you had someone review this before putting it on the net. I loved the story, just the constant misspelled or inaccurate words drove me crazy.
The death head ring was a big deal , less than a couple thousand were issued , soldiers died in operations to receive the rings from dead SS troops , they would sacrifice there lives to avoid the enemy getting one as a trophy.
Yea theres a story on a whole box of rings missing to this day
One ring to rule them all
@@joem3999 there may be a SS ring in Hastings City- new zealand SS Kapitan Kurt Von Konrat died there in 2007.
That ring sighed a murderer fuck that guy!
14,500 were issued
What is the source material?
Think he meant 'unslung' the weapons. Slinging means putting the sling over your shoulder, and not using.
00:59 "We had witnessed too often the cruel fate that awaited Waffen SS that fell into their hands." Oh, those pitiable German SS!
From which book or books do these stories come? What's the source?
This one was rather comical:
"The Incredible Journey of Untersturmfuehrer Schenk's Leather Trousers".
"Your Luger or your life!"
"Go away. I don't want a life".
The part about the "fat former Dachau prisonners" was quite surreal. Especially coming from a Waffenb SS member. And all the moaning about the lack of food and poor treatment. And being only 8 in 1933, he had no responsibility in Hitler's criminal enterprise, while the mere fact he was a SS said otherwise. Hopeless.
Eight years old in 1933 means twenty years old in 1945. Plenty old enough to be conscripted into the Waffen SS. Lots of fifteen year old boys were conscripted in late 1944 and 1945.
It's FICTION !!!!
In the German concentration camps there were well-fed prisoners... they were people with different functions... for example, kitchen staff and so on. The rest were starved to death. I recommend the book "Five years of concentration camp" by the Polish writer Stranisław Grzesiuk. He was a prisoner of several camps... including Dachau.
@@veritaspk maybe it was that way with POWs. But there were no fat Jews walking out of the concentration camp I don’t care what book you read it in, in my family, they died from starvation, typhus, being worked to death, and the gas chambers. Everybody was hungry, and the death camps, nobody was well fed, other than the guards. And yes, Polish prisoners that were put in control which one of the worst.
@@HowlingWo1f Just read the book I recommended. The Germans locked up the entire cross-section of society in the camps, it is true that the Jews were at the very bottom of the camp hierarchy... but they were not alone there.
You can understand. Why they wanted to fall into American. Hands and not Russian. A chance to survive a little longer. Perhaps
Nah. Millions died in the Rhine Meadows camps. The US just put them in big caged areas and left them there.
From what is this taken? Who is the author?
These boys got off easy.
Is this a book that I can read or audio book. For some reason I'm having a hard time finding them in order. Now I'm invested.
Thankfully there was more than one kind of talent back home to be hidden in the ground that somehow had managed to be working together in order to survive. Otherwise there may not have been any adults left with the good sense to not be prefering the dark whenever not hiding talents in the ground called land mines instead up more near the surface of the ground too. Instead of doing a lot more sensible and practical things like putting money in the bank while taking some out to be planting cucumber or bean seeds in hills or whatever.
"it will be the world we must learn to live in, if we survive...."
Fur folk unt fatherland by Eric Bateman, amazing book
I've searched for that book on the internet, tried replacing folk with volk - no results
Thankyou. It's amazing
It is funny for the captain to complain about inhuman treatment at 33 min.
Remember all the money, jewelry, art, etc, that they took off of the Jews and citizens of towns they conquered.
I notice the SS talking about poor treatment???
Cruel fate that awaited the Waffen SS .he's got to be joking what they had done since 1939 .
Couldn’t help but wonder where doctors had learned advanced skin grafting. Such evil.
Yes. They should all have received the punishment given to innocent families in their Death Camps. I’m not sure if I would ever have taken any German prisoners. They deserved no one’s pity.
Interesting coments on the SS being treated badly.
Well I guess dude didn't get his Pants back!!!!
More Normandy stories please
Ironic this SS guy, once a prisoner himself, complained about the bunks in the concentration camp.
To bad they surrendered so soon . If they held out 3 months longer they could have witnessed the sun rise twice in one day in August like the Japanese did .
When he speaks about his military book, i believe he said "salt" book. Can someone clarify this for me with proper spelling would be great. Ty
I'm from Edinburgh, and know Longniddry and Aberlady, there still is a station there
The written translation is BLOODY AWFUL. Why not do it properly for such a good upload?
the 48 minutes felt like 5 while listening
an amazing story
The narrator said Wehrmacht, however, the rankings mentioned were of the SS.
His name was Cohen. SS-officer: "He's probably a Jew" - you think?
Why is there never any details of where these stories come from?
These are the memoirs of Erwin Bartmann
Cruelty knows no uniform
Very interesting, but it would be more informative if the captions didn't make so many mistakes. Wehrmacht not vermarked, obersturmführer not oberstorm fuhrer, hauptsturmführer not helped stormfurer. It's not difficult to look these things up.
It's Hauptsturmfuhrer, not helpstrom fuhrer 😂😂
Riiiijight. You were saving Europe from Bolshevism.....Riiiijight. Thanks for clearing that up.
the subtitles are nice. i know that’s a lot of tedious work. thanks
Nazis crying about "prisoner conditions" and "inhumane treatment" 😂
When we are in power, we treat others as if they are not human being, but when we fall into the hands of the adversary, we complain against injustice meted out.
A bit of humane touch could make a big difference in someone's life.
I know war is heck....and Germans had caused so much suffering....but i hate that Americans were so rough with a POW.
What book is this?
Fur volk and fuher, I think, 1st SS panzer division. I go through so many that it’s hard to pin down where you’ve heard it, it just goes together with the whole madness of the 2nd world war. There are stories of brave men that did impossible feats but died too early to record it.
Diary of the Traveling Pants
Erwin Bartmann - Fur Volk and Fuhrer: The Memoir of a Veteran of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler - the full audiobook is 8 hours & 50 mins
Nothing worse than the narrator not getting familiar with pronunciations of foreign words, names, places.
A Nazi SS Soldier became a baker in Edinburg. How can anyone imagine that at the beginning of war?
The fkn gall of the SS
Why were German POWs, at the war's end, taken to Scotland?
German PWs were farmed out to many countries for use as slave labor to rebuild the nation. Scotland suffered intense bombing.
Investigated for war crimes, processed home and carried out labour. We had an accident in 1947 near my house in england. A group of former luftwaffe mens truck got stuck on a railway crossing while driving to work and they were hit by a train.
enjoy!
You should shut off the comments. I dont know who is worse -the SS apologists or the left sycophants that feel they must "never forget".
' " ❤
Where does this story begin? Why aren't there numbers to keep these in order?
Great story, sloppy presentation.
You’re in luck. The poster has created convenient playlists for us. This is the 4th video under diary of an SS Soldier.
The Thomson Submachine gun held by the US soldier on the photo is interesting - it has the cocking lever on the side and not on the top plane of the action. It must have been a special WWII variant designed to keep debris out of the action. Either that or it is a spare ammo clip... ??
Incredible story