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Post by pjotr on Apr 7, 2011 0:42:31 GMT 1
I watch German television a lot, saw a lot of German movies and talked to many young Germans. They are aware of their Nazi past, and do not hide it like the Ausrtrians or the Japanese, who have a differant way of dealing with the past. But stil like in the past and like in Russia a lot of Germans didn't coap with the past and have an uneasy, ambivalent and troublesome relation with their past and their ancesters who were responsable for the Holocaust. I witnessed that in a Dutch bus with German students who went to Auschwitz with their fellow Dutch and Polish students from the same art academy in Arnhem, where they were studying in 2004. They had difficulty in the horror of the moment and witnessing such large scale industrial destruction of human lives, to accept that they were connected to that fact, via the history of their country, and the collaboration of their family, neighbours, or just people from their village or town. It was as if they placed the brutality of the Holocaust out of their personal perimeter (human space). There were strange discussions in that bus and the atmosphere towards Auschwitz and after that back to Krakow was heavy and dense. These young Germans were trying to find a ballance. We were kicked out of Silesia and the Sudeten. The Russian treated us bad at the end of the war, and the Poles and the Czechs. I distantiated myself from the German girls when I went into Auschwitz, because my memories and emotions from the Dutch and especially Polish side were differant than my fellow German travelers. These young people weren't Nazis, they were tolerant, cosmopolitan, creative, artistic and liberal youngsters. They had had education in which the Holocaust was not neglected. The Holocaust is a black mark on the German society and the hearts and souls of Young Germans. Due to their grandfathers and great-grandfathers they were labeled, they are connected to a terrible truth they have great difficulty to understand, accept and realise. I didn't like the discussions in the bus and did not understand the difficulties of these young Germans. I as a Dutchman can say, I am ashamed of the Dutch role in the Slave trade, the Dutch element in the South-African Apartheid ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verwoerd ), our colonial role in Indonesia, Suriname and the Dutch Antilles. I can be ashamed about the Dutch collaboration with the German Nazi's in the carrying out of the Holocaust. There was something very German in these Young Germans back then. There was something deep genetical, ethnic-cultural, national loyalty and chauvinistic in these people. They could not betray Germany, accept criticism, or even accept the responsability of the German people for the Holocaust and the Second World War. The German people voted the Nazi party to power in 1933, they joyned the ranks of the Nazi organisations, they marched into Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, the SovjetUnion and etc. They deliberately killed and tortured millions of non-Germans. I think that there are two roads in Germany which goes to far; first the rejection of guilt and second the guilt which torments people and creates selfhatred, rejection of the German identity and an identity complex. This video clip is an extreme example of the latter: A radical anti-Nationalist and anti-fascist message of Anarchistic German musicians ( www.atari-teenage-riot.com/ ) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Teenage_Riot (English) pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Teenage_Riot (Polish) Pieter |
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Post by tufta on Apr 7, 2011 8:16:22 GMT 1
Pjotr, of course you make great points and you enrich them with personal experience. Which do confirm an impression formed in Poland, that 'war in the East, and atrocities in the Easr' for German society is war with Russia and atrocities against Jewish citizens. And - that atrocities were not performed by 'ordinary Germans' who served in Wehrmacht. On the opposite Wehrmacht is seen as noble, honourable soldiers. Which is not true, and which Poles always knew is not true seeing them 'in action'. Or am I wrong, Pieter?
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Post by pjotr on Apr 8, 2011 23:40:58 GMT 1
Pjotr, of course you make great points and you enrich them with personal experience. Which do confirm an impression formed in Poland, that 'war in the East, and atrocities in the Easr' for German society is war with Russia and atrocities against Jewish citizens. And - that atrocities were not performed by 'ordinary Germans' who served in Wehrmacht. On the opposite Wehrmacht is seen as noble, honourable soldiers. Which is not true, and which Poles always knew is not true seeing them 'in action'. Or am I wrong, Pieter? You are absolutely right Tufta. This exhebition stirred great controversy a few years back in Germany itself: |
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Post by tufta on Apr 9, 2011 7:59:31 GMT 1
German soldiers were aware of the atrocities committed by the Nazi German state, and committed atrocities themselves. This knowledge will hopefully permeat into German society, thanks to historians' work.  ''The myth that the Nazi-era German armed forces, the Wehrmacht, was not involved in war crimes persisted for decades after the war. Now two German researchers have destroyed it once and for all. Newly published conversations between German prisoners of war, secretly recorded by the Allies, reveal horrifying details of violence against civilians, rape and genocide.'' In World War II, 18 million men, or more than 40 percent of the male population of the German Reich, served with Germany's military, the Wehrmacht, and the Waffen-SS.  "It is March 6, 1943, and two German soldiers are talking about the war. Fighter pilot Budde and Corporal Bartels were captured by the British a few weeks earlier. The war is over for them, and it's time to share memories. Budde: "I flew two spoiling attacks. In other words, we shelled buildings." Bartels: "But not destructive attacks with a specific target, like what we did?" Budde: "No, just spoiling attacks. We encountered some of the nicest targets, like mansions on a mountain. When you flew at them from below and fired into them, you could see the windows rattling and then the roof going up in the air. There was the time we hit Ashford. There was an event on the market square, crowds of people, speeches being given. We really sprayed them! That was fun!" Two other pilots, Bäumer and Greim, also had their share of amusing experiences, which they described in a conversation with other soldiers. Bäumer: "We had a 2-centimeter gun installed on the front (of the aircraft). Then we flew down low over the streets, and when we saw cars coming from the other direction, we put on our headlights so that they would think another car was approaching them. Then we shot them with the gun. We had a lot of successes that way. It was great, and it was a lot of fun. We attacked trains and other stuff the same way." Greim: "We once flew a low-altitude attack near Eastbourne . When we got there we saw a big castle where there was apparently a ball or something like that being held. In any case, there were lots of women in nice clothes and a band. We flew past the first time, but then we attacked and really stuck it to them. Now that, my dear friend, was a lot of fun." It is an unfamiliar and disconcerting tone that soldiers Budde, Bartels, Bäumer and Greim use in these conversations. It has little to do with the tone one encounters in television documentaries or memoirs about the war. But it's the way soldiers talk when they are together and chatting about their experiences." continue: www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,755385,00.html P.S. To present day Germany haters out there. Please do note the book and the journalists' work presented come from German nationals, and are published in Germany. |
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 9, 2011 20:03:23 GMT 1
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_of_the_WehrmachtInvasion of Poland
Wehrmacht attitudes towards Poles were a combination of contempt, fear and a belief that violence was the best way to deal with them.[9]
Wehrmacht units killed thousands of Polish civilians during the September 1939 campaign through executions and the terror bombing of cities. Any act of defiance was met with the most ruthless violence, although the Army leadership did seek to discourage so-called "wild" shootings" where Wehrmact troops would indiscriminately shoot all Poles on their own initiative.[9] Court martial proceedings were begun against some of the junior officers who had led these shootings, but this was nullified on October 4, 1939 when Hitler pardoned all military personnel who had been involved in war crimes in Poland.[9] After the end of hostilities, during the Wehrmacht's administration of Poland, which went on until October 25, 1939, 531 towns and villages were burned; the Wehrmacht carried out 714 mass executions, alongside many incidents of plunder, banditry and murder. Altogether, it is estimated that 16,376 Poles fell victim to these atrocities. Approximately 60% of these crimes were committed by the Wehrmacht.[10] Wehrmacht soldiers frequently engaged in the massacre of Jews on their own rather than just assisting in rounding them up for the SS.[11]
In the summer of 1940, Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of the Reich Main Security Office (including the Gestapo), noted that: "compared to the crimes, robberies and excesses committed by the army [part of the Wehrmacht], the SS and the police don't look all that bad".[12] Even when the German Army was not involved in war crimes, all of the top military leaders were aware of what was happening in Poland.[9] None made any objection on moral principles, the few who did object did so because of concerns about discipline.[9] Moroever, the general who objected the loudest to war crimes in Poland, General Johannes von Blaskowitz was opposed to the Army committing war crimes with the SS, not the idea of atrocities against Poland.[13] The Israeli historian Omer Bartov wrote that Blaskowitiz was actually "legitimizing murder" by expressing approval of SS massacres while demanding that the Army be kept out of the massacres as damaging to discipline.[14] Bartov wrote that once officers and troops saw that murder was "legitimate" in Poland, the effect was that the Army tended to copy the SS.
Numerous examples exist in which Polish soldiers were killed after capture, for instance at Śladów where 252 prisoners of war (POW)s were shot or drowned, at Ciepielów, where some 300 POWs were killed and at Zambrów where a further 300 were killed. Polish POWs of Jewish origin were routinely selected and shot on the spot.[15] The prisoners of the POW camp in Żyrardów, captured after the Battle of the Bzura were denied any food and starved for ten days.[16] In many cases Polish POWs were burned alive.[11][17] Units of the Polish 7th Infantry Division were massacred after being captured in several individual acts of revenge for their defense in combat. On September 11, Wehrmacht soldiers threw hand grenades into a school building where they kept Polish POWs.[11]
Mass rapes during the invasion of Poland
Rapes were committed by Wehrmacht forces against women and girls during the Invasion of Poland.[11]
Rapes were also committed against Polish women and girls during mass executions carried out primarily by the Selbstschutz, which were accompanied by Wehrmacht soldiers and on territory under the administration of the German military; the rapes were carried-out before shooting the female captives.[18]
During World War II 85% of buildings in Warsaw were destroyed by German troops.
Only one case of rape was prosecuted by a German court during the military campaign in Poland, the case of mass rape committed by three soldiers against the Jewish Kaufmann family in Busko-Zdrój; however the German judge sentenced the guilty for Rassenschande - shame against the [German] race as defined by the racial policy of Nazi Germany and not rape.
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 9, 2011 20:41:10 GMT 1
Massacre in Ciepielów on 8 September 1939 was one of the largest and best documented war crimes of the Wehrmacht during its Invasion of Poland.
On September 8, 1939, after the Invasion of Poland, the village of Dąbrowa (near Ciepielów) was the site of a mass murder of approximately 300 Polish prisoners of war from the Polish 74th Infantry Regiment of Upper Silesia commanded by Major Józef Pelc. They were ordered to be shot as partisans by Oberst Walter Wessel, commander of the German 15th Motorized Infantry Regiment, 29th Motorized Infantry Division, after the commanding officer of the 11th Company was killed by a sniper.
1. Kompanie of our Bataillon was on the spearhead in Ciepielow woods near Zwoleń. We were moving ahead just behind it. I hear MGs playing. The spearhead is under fire. Dismount!... Ricochets buzz all around. Now I see that Poles are shooting as well... Suddenly hptm. Lewinsky falls to the ground. Headshot from above. So there are marksmen on the trees. I admire their courage... After an hours time we all gather on the road. Kompanie has 14 KIA, including hptm. Lewinsky. Regiment commander Oberst Wessel (from Kassel) is raging mad. 'What an insolence, they tried to stop us and even shot my Lewinsky dead!'. ...[Oberst Wessel] made an assertion that he had to deal with guerillas, although each and every Polish soldier wore uniform. He forces them to take off their blouses. They seem to look more like guerillas now. He also cuts his braces, apparently to be sure they won't run away. Next he orders the POWs to walk in a single line beside the road. A question appears - where are they being taken? To the back, to Tross that will soon hand them over to POW gathering point?
5 minutes later I heard rattle of dozen automatic weapons. I hurried in its direction and 100 m farther I saw executed 300 Polish POWs laying in roadside ditch. I risked and took 2 photos, when suddenly one of those Kradschutzen, that had been ordered to shoot POWs by Oberst Wessel, emerged just before my camera and stood proudly.
Translated from already mentioned account (Henryk posted it in Polish), that was quoted in Sz. Datner's Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu na jeńcach wojennych w II Wojnie Światowej, Wydawnictwo MON, Warszawa 1961 pp. 50-51.
In August 1950 Polish Military Mission in Berlin received, via Polish Consulate in Munich, 5 photos and 2 pages of typed text describing this incident. This document, titled Unser erstes Gefecht in Polen, didn't bear any date nor autograph, but seemed to be personal diary or 'Kriegstagebuch'-like document written by soldier of III./IR. 15. The person that sent text and photos remained unknown.forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=132859&start=0    
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Post by valpomike on Apr 11, 2011 2:33:39 GMT 1
This is very hard to see, and remember. Those dam German's. We can't ever forget.
Mike
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Post by pjotr on Apr 14, 2011 16:38:06 GMT 1
And those damn Ukrainian and Russian SS, and West-European nazis, the non-Germans amongst them.
Pieter
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 14, 2011 16:40:25 GMT 1
And those damn Ukrainian and Russian SS, and West-European nazis, the non-Germans amongst them. Pieter There were nearly 1 million of them, I read. |
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Post by pjotr on Apr 14, 2011 21:49:16 GMT 1
And those damn Ukrainian and Russian SS, and West-European nazis, the non-Germans amongst them. Pieter There were nearly 1 million of them, I read. You are probably right. Nazism was popular in the Netherlands, Flanders (Belgium), Wallonia (Belgium), France, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Croatia, Slovakia, Hungary, the Baltic states, Ukrainian nationalists and fascists (killers of Poles and jews), the Bosnian and Albanian SS. Next to that a lot of regular police was collaborating with the Nazi's. Dutch jews ofdten were rounded up by Dutch Police, not the SS, Wehrmacht or SD, but ordinairy police, who simply carried out their orders, you klnow the sentance " Befehl ist ein Befehl!" (An order is an order!). Vichy France, Ustaše Croatia, and other countries handed their own deportation of jews and mistreated them in their ow concentrationcamps. Pieter |
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Post by Bonobo on Jan 12, 2020 13:13:08 GMT 1
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi%C4%85tek,_%C5%81%C3%B3d%C5%BA_Voivodeship World War II history
During the German Invasion of Poland in 1939, Wehrmacht soldiers on 13 September mass murdered 50 people of which 43 were Poles and 7 Jews. The victims were murdered without any reason given. After Germans entered the town males were forcibly taken out of homes and ordered to repair a damaged bridge. After the work was completed the German soldiers shot all of them. Another massacre took place later in which 50 Jews were executed.[1]
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Post by naukowiec on Jan 15, 2020 21:17:54 GMT 1
That's terrible  Your wikipedia link is to something else though. |
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Post by Bonobo on Jan 18, 2020 22:26:01 GMT 1
Your wikipedia link is to something else though. No, it is correct but Polish fonts make it impossible to open the link directly - when linked, you need to click another highlighted link to Piątek village in Łódź voivodeship. But there is the same info that I copied and pasted here. |
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Post by naukowiec on Jan 19, 2020 10:43:44 GMT 1
Ah, Ok, sorry about that.
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