The Wehrmacht had nice times in countries like Holland or France...
Common joke in Holland about the War is: in 1940 we invited a German friend over - he took 100,000's of them with him and overstayed his visit with about 5 years. Never again we will invite German friends over.
Ja! Anyway, Greece was swarming with Germans too in WW2. By logic, I should be angry at Germans too. Bratwurst, isn't that so? Did Germans respect Greece? Is that why much of the country was not destroyed?
That must be why they murdered millions of defenseless women and children.
This is the truth, Darius. But it is well known that the actual military units of the Army, of the Wermacht, rarely killed unarmed soldiers or civilians, and usually took them captive. These were the laymen, who really weren't as hypnotized as the SS units (who murdered in the concentration camps)
True, the Wehrmacht were just ordinairy German boys who were drafted and had nothing to do with the SS and extermination and so on. They were even disgusted by the SS. Hitler ordered the Einzatsgruppen to operate covertly as he feared the army would revolt against them. And there were questions about those practises on the highest levels within the Wehrmacht.
But it is well known that the actual military units of the Army, of the Wermacht, rarely killed unarmed soldiers or civilians, and usually took them captive.
Hey, there were even fairly nice fellas within Gestapo and SS, but I wouldn't be so romantic about Wehrmacht.
True, the Wehrmacht were just ordinairy German boys who were drafted and had nothing to do with the SS and extermination and so on
Yes. I mean, you cannot overlook the fact that many of them were just as blind in their following, if not more, than the other divisions. But to paint them all with the same brush as the SS is not fair, I think. Many of the Wehrmacht draftees, especially late in the war, were very young and not willing to fight for Hitler, but were forced to because of the penalties that faced them. If you did not agree, I believe many of them were thrown into camps, just like the Jews and treated as traitors.
The SS units on the other hand, you really had to have been a sick, demented man/woman to serve there... Just thinking about gets my blood boiling.
Yep Darius, they did not resemble humans with human behaviour, those Germans in Poland...I can understand why so many older Polish ppl deeply resent anything German...This is a crime and shame which cannot be undone, at least not for the first 200 years. Ok, it will become less when the last one who lived at the time dies, but still, the monuments are there: Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor. Monuments that have perverted the Polish nation with the biggest burden one country can ever bear and it has been inflicted upon them by another country.
Filios: Pls watch the Dutch movie "Twins", which exists in an English version also, and you will know that not all SS-soldiers were perverted and sick swines.
Be fair about the Wehrmacht...they were in a war for 6 years spanning Europe and even Africa. Crimes and Atrocities are bound to happen. It's only that the german arms are possibly the most researched army ever...they could hardly have taken a **** that won't show up in a book somewhere.
Every army in a conflict does bad things...but the Wehrmacht was neither better nor worse than others.
And an important point is that the armies of the victors rarely if at all got scrutinized of war crimes and atrocities...so it looks to an uneducated observer as if the germans did all the bad things and everybody else was peachy clean...that's not true either!
Hey, there were even fairly nice fellas within Gestapo and SS, but I wouldn't be so romantic about Wehrmacht
I was not being romantic, I was simply being fair to some of these men serving there. I knew about these crimes from the Wehrmacht as well... some of them very revolting indeed.
I hope you are not referring to the Holocaust? And: being Jewish does not automatically mean I condone everything Israël does - in fact I strongly disagree with them for over 10 years now.
Every army in a conflict does bad things...but the Wehrmacht was neither better nor worse than others.
There is a difference between bad things happening and bad things being a result of a policy and orders. German soldiers have been always undoubtedly subordinate so they followed the Fuhrer's words:
"Kill without mercy every man, woman, and child of Polish extraction."
