The Red Army stumbles upon Auschwitz this week. Sparty covered the Auschwitz Uprising and the fate of camp prisoners forced on death marches across the Reich in a recent episode of War Against Humanity: th-cam.com/video/2K1nY1pfZRU/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ZH6MQia558SQZqt8.
Let us also remember that today, January 27th and the Soviet Red Army's liberation of Auschwitz also marks the current International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Never Forget. Never Again.
@alexamerling79 What happened during the holocaust should never be forgotten. The youth of today must learn from the ghastly, brutal errors of our grandparents.... or be doomed to repeat it
I know right. If you're a German male, and you haven't yet been called up to go die on the Eastern front, I don't see how you don't just do whatever it takes to go find an American or British unit somewhere to go surrender to. It's gotta be pretty evident by now that your leaders couldn't care less about your life.
@victorm3237 and the ones out on the weather station on the island were counting their blessings. The were the last German troops to be rounded up in Europe, afair.
The notion that German troops in Norway quietly sat out until the end of war is very misleading, especially when it comes to the _Heer_ and _Waffen-SS_ ground combat formations. Unlike ancient armies, WW2 forces were not constantly deployed on a well-defined piece of territory and (or) fought for a single day. Therefore, the forces committed in a particular theater of war can vary tremendously from week to week, from month to month and so on. The same applies to the Germans in Norway. The difficult German situation on the Western and Eastern Fronts in late 1944-45 meant that the _20. Gebirgsarmee_ in Norway served as an important reservoir of available divisions. Thus from late 1944 to March 1945, the following formations were transferred from Norway to other fronts, where they were bloodied. To the Eastern Front: - 163. Infanterie-Division (February 1945); - 169. Infanterie-Division (March 1945); - 199. Infanterie-Division (March 1945). To the Western Front: - 269. Infanterie-Division (November 1944); - 2. Gebirgs-Division (February 1945); - 6. SS-Gebirgs-Division "Nord" (January 1945); To the Italian Front, then shortly later to the Eastern Front (Hungary): - 710. Infanterie-Division. The 169. and 199. Infanterie-Divisionen were transfered to the Eastern Front in Berlin area in March 1945, just in time to be crushed during the Soviet Berlin Offensive. Remnants of both divisions were taken prisoner by the Soviets, parts of the 199. broke out west and surrendered to the U.S. forces. So they were certainly not 'super lucky' at all. Meanwhile the 163. Infanterie-Division was destroyed in Pomerania in March 1945. The formations transferred to the Western Front, with the exception of the 269., were heavily damaged and then surrendered to the Allied forces in April-May 1945. The 269. Infanterie-Division, however, was transferred to the Eastern Front in late January 1945, where it was destroyed in the Breslau and Ohlau areas soon after- once again, this division was complete opposite of 'super lucky'. Meanwhile, the 710. Infanterie-Division, which after the transfer from the Arendal area in southern Norway had a short stay in Denmark, was sent to the Italian Front. Barely half a month later, it was sent to the East in Hungary, where it fought in hard and costly battles. In May 1945, survivors of the division managed to reach U.S. lines in Austria and surrendered there.
I had an uncle that was in 'Graves Registration' and had to process one of the extermination camps. He was never right in the head again, and in the end, was placed in a home where all he did was pray. He never told anyone what he saw or what he had to do. He lived for decades after that war. Decades of the dammed.
US Army graves registration unit members were sometimes unpopular with front-line soldiers who considered them callous. There were cases where soldiers threatened to shoot them if they thought they were not showing enough respect to their dead comrades. Many graves registration unit members were heavy drinkers - alcohol helped them cope with the nature of their work.
@@stevekaczynski3793 Yes, it is cruel and unfortunate. They had to deal with bodies mutilated beyond any human comprehension. To do this they had to desensitize themselves which appeared inhuman to others. The only alternative to this coping mechanism is insanity, medications or death. War does not just destroy bodies.
OMFG. That just breaks you if you have any emotions at all. I am researching war history in general and WW2 specifically for 30 years now. I know (thankfully just from observing, not experiencing) all horrors of war, I think. But Graves Registration in a death camp is the most soul-crushing I have ever heard. In fact I wondered how the Allies dealt with those places. You just can't blame his poor soul for breaking. May he rest in peace. 😢
@@vladimpaler3498 In the film "A Midnight Clear" (1992), based on the William Wharton novel of the same name, surviving members of an American squad in the Ardennes struggle back with the corpse of one of their comrades after being forced to retreat from the German attack. They lose their jeeps and in the end are carrying the dead body themselves. They get him to a graves registration unit, and the soldier in charge puts one of his dog tags in a bag, then places the other in the corpse's slightly open mouth and then hits the dead man's jaw with a mallet to close the mouth. Possibly standard operating procedure but the scene illustrates in its subtle way the dehumanising effect of war. In the original novel, the mallet detail is not mentioned when the dead body is brought to the graves registration members.
Always so impressed with the team behind the animated maps. A lot of work must go into getting each detail correct and moving at the proper pace, so hats off to them once again!
Great point. That is arguably one of the best features of this weekly series. The animated maps showing deployments are incredible. I cannot imagine the amount of work that goes into the Eastern Front, specifically.
I second that - sooo many historical publications of any type are lacking in the map department, whilst teh Tiem Ghost Army just excels! I mean, EVERY freaking Division is there! Do you know how deep you have to dig to get their positions pinned down like that!?!? Even with some interpretation ( I bet there is, because the research would otherwise be MONUMENTAL) it still is outstanding.
@@WorldWarTwo Is there a video or such showing how they make them? I'm very interested in how they do it. Makes the maps on network TV look amateurish in comparison.
At the end of this installment, Indy asks the question, "if you had witnessed any of the atrocities you may would you want to talk about ?" My father was a 17 year old fresh out of basic training when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He was one of the thousands of sailors tasked with salvaging what remained of the US Navy fleet which sat in the mud of Pearl Harbor. He did talk to me about his experiences a few years before he passed. When the ammunition stores on the Arizona exploded the heat blast vaporized everything within a 100 yards or more, men of other ships no longer existed. He was assigned at one point, after raising those ships from the depths, to "clean the teak wood decks." This haunted him the rest of his life. Every man who perished from the explosion left a "grease spot" imbedded in the wooden deck, and he said you could tell which of those men had been barefoot or which had shoes by the hobnails which were melted into the greasy remains of what once were his fellow sailors and it changed him forever. Never Forget!
Following the war, millions of men returned from war. They set about rebuilding their nations, their families, and their own lives, many succeeded, some failed. But out of this rebuilding came a system of support, the veterans clubs, places where men could sit and not talk about terrible things, but understand that every man there KNEW about those terrible things they weren't talking about. Women went to church, formed church groups and book clubs for the same reason, to not talk about the terrible things they had endured, or heard from their husbands on cold dark nights where the wailing of wind provoked the men. And the working world grew around these men, they became places where if they wanted to be in the office with the bottle of booze everyone pretended they didn't have, then their bosses would let them. Friday nights became bar nights, either drinks at the office with old war buddies, or a night at the bar with staff, because the weekends were quiet and lonely and they had little to distract them from dreams. I am sure a million men were killed by the war long after the fighting had finished. They endured a terrible thing and spawned a world fit for a generation of happy, spoiled children who they hoped would never again feel a shred of discomfort or see a moment of horror in their lives. They took a ruined world and made it a sweeter place for their families. Their bravery and fortitude can never be forgotten.
I've had the honor of knowing many WW2 vets. In time some shared some of the horrors they had seen but many didn't. One of those had been a Medic on Utah beach; what he went through had to be far beyond unimaginable. He never spoke of the experience, those who knew him and knew what he'd done in the war didn't need to be told why. He taught all of his sons the importance of honor, duty, and in always carrying your own burdens by yourself. But there were times when the subject was brought up around him, and I then saw in his eyes the horrors he held within somehow, I have no words to describe that beyond it being like a camera shutter opening for a moment with the lens focused into the depths of Hell itself, and then with great effort he closed the shutter once again. Wars do not end at the cease of hostilities but resides in the depths of the souls of the men who fought them until they too leave this world behind. Honor them in the way that they want, for they have seen Hell first hand and do not want you or anyone else to ever have to follow in their footsteps ever again.
@@mynameismynameis666 Are you feeling sorry for the Japanese because two of their cities were obliterated by atomic, not nuclear, bombs? Many others were saturation bombed with fire creating phosphorous bombs. Those killed far more than the two atomic bombs. All told 3 million Japanese were killed in WW2. Yet in China alone the Japanese killed about 14 million innocent people. After the US Doolittle raid in 1942 the Japanese killed around 200,000 Chinese civilians simply because the US bombers landed there. If you want to feel sorry for some country in WW2 then at least pick one that wasn't composed of monsters because that is precisely what Japanese society at that time was. Many Japanese vets never felt any regret for the atrocities they committed during the war and would have done it all over again because they served their immortal god the emperor Hirohito, and people everywhere else were lesser beings than they were. Seriously. 🤔🤨
Drachinifel has a good 3 part video series on the salvage of Pearl Harbor th-cam.com/video/bB-V9cCSC8o/w-d-xo.html. Navy Ships are death traps. Once the ship gets hit you're pretty much screwed. It's not going to be a pleasant death either. To this day the Navy doesn't design their ships so that people can survive it. There's no way a crew is going to survive if the ship rolls over or getting off the ship to life boats in under 10 minutes. Even in most Births there's only one exit.
I met a U.S. veteran who had been one of those who liberated a death camp. Even decades later what he saw was literally unspeakable, as he had a miserable time trying to put what he had seen into words. His expression told how much the experience still haunted him even as his tongue failed him.
My great grandfather was on one of the last trains that made it out of Breslau. He was very lucky because he was wounded but not allowed to leave the city. But at the train station they didn't turn around the paper so they didn't realize he wasn't allowed to leave, which meant he didn't get trapped there.
The only reason you exist is because a guard didn’t turn over a piece of paper for your ancestor. The line between begin born or not existing can be very thin.
@@excrono My grandmother was already born by the time, but who knows how things would have gone for my family. So most likely yes. And that is far from the only crazy story from the madness of the eastern front I have. Everyone who survived had a dozen of lucky breaks.
I currently live in Wroclaw and just a few meters from where I'm writing is an old building with German encryptions on one of its walls. Passing by always makes me thing of what became of the people living here before 1945...
Speaking of close calls. My father flew with the Desert Air Force from 1942-1943. On a Friday 13th in 1943 he caught malaria, which then caused him to get jaundice. After a month in hospital and recuperating in Sicily, he was mustered out. During the time he was convalescing his entire squadron, bar three other people, were all shot down and killed. As he said in later life, Friday the 13th was his lucky day. A co-worker's grandfather was Ukrainian, and ended up walking, on foot, all the way from Odessa to western Europe ahead of the Soviet advance. Another fortuitous escape.
It's incredible to think how something as simple as a paper not being turned over made such a huge difference for him, thank you very much for sharing and thank you for watching.
My grandma was one of those Germans who fled west during the fighting of WWII. Her and the rest of my family orignally lived in the German of Stettin. As the Russians advanced fearing the reprisals and retributions they fled taking only the stuff they could carry and headed towards the Stuttgart Area. The journey they faced was a long and hard with the train they were taking coming under attack by Russian strafing runs and my family falling in ill a refugee camp more then once. I share this not to take away from the sufferring that the russians felt but to also show the Sufferring truly innocent germans went through at the time. My grandma was 11 at that point in history. It was a very special moment when in 2016 we went to what Is now poland to see where her house had once stood and where she had grown up. It was the last trip we would do as a large family. Furthermore, My grandma would always show the scars from her life as a refugee. While she was by no means a hoarder to say my grandparents' house was full was an understatement. So long as it had value, so long as something still functioned fine it would be carefully stored away.
My dad was an RCAF bomber pilot stationed in England. The only time I saw him break down in tears was when he recalled the crash of a plane at the airfield, and running over to help pull out the flight crew, who were engulfed in flames. He would have been about 21 at the time. He never made the mistake of talking about the war again...unless it was amusing anecdotes about being on leave.
I found basically the same experience being around any WW2 vets in Regina. Unless it was funny, they did not talk about it around kids or teens. Virtually nothing. A different generation, that is for sure. I remember one vet who hung around the service station for the "drinking hour," roughly 6 pm to 10 pm, when all the men who worked at the service station and the neighbourhood vets would go in the back room and get half obliterated. Then a few stories would get told. This RCAF vet laughed as he recalled strafing German forces in North Africa with his machine guns on the front of a B-25 bomber. He delighted in how they fled on foot for all they were worth, though he doubted he managed to kill anyone. It was just a spray of bullets as they flew past at a low level.
A shame you didn't mention Operation Meridian, the British raids on the Japanese held Palembang oil refineries. Sure in the grand course of the war it's relatively minor but this was thus far the largest concentrated British carrier attack of the war, and cut production by 75%.
My grandfather was among those Wehrmacht soldiers, retreating from East Prussia. He did talk about it, but not much of the train of refugees, that must have accompanied the soldiers. He would rather mention the dead horses or the bitter cold. He did tell stories from the war, but I guess a lot more stayed untold. But it must have haunted him for the rest of his life, he had frequent nightmares and once almost strangled my grandmother in his sleep during one. But the good news of the day is that Auschwitz is finally liberated, millions of deaths too late and the system of concentration camps will only be dismantled in early May, when Mauthausen is finally liberated.
There's books by German journalist Sabine Bode, born 1947. She write about (trans)generational traumata and talked to many children of Germans who lived through the last days of the war, including many Prussians and Silesians who had to flee, trying to learn about the stories their parents told and trying to unravel the trauma. Stories about dead infants laying by the roadside in a long trail from Silesia, about violence breaking out from the side of supressed Poles against German refugees, about rivers filled with corpses. It's memories that stay with you even when reading about them and only getting their essence from "third hand experience".
I wouldn't even know what to say to your grandfather, because the borders were being changed to fix some problems so now those people were refugees. 'East' Prussia was the 'arm' of the Prussian Kingdoms and the German Empire for 200+ years so that had been a home for many people until this war. Poland had never had well defined territory until the League of Nations decided that it should exist after all and what those borders should be.
My grandfather was a bombardier in a B-17 that was involved in the Battle of the Bulge once the weather cleared. He was shot down over the Netherlands and rescued with his pilot and a waist gunner by a farmer's family. Luckily the Allied lines caught up rather quickly and he was able to make it back to the UK for treatment and recovery. He spent the rest of the war training to man B-29s in the pacific, but everything ended before he shipped out again. He stayed in touch with the Dutch family, exchanging Christmas cards every year. That stack of Christmas cards is one of my prized possessions.
A very stirring speech to end this episode Indy. It seemed as if you were trying to keep your emotions in check when summarizing the inconceivable barbarism of this chapter of humanity's history. The entire Time Ghost team are providing a great service by reporting and preserving this information. Thank you for all that you do!
My grandfather was one of the many Japanese Americans serving in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, Company K. In one particular battle they participated in, they entered in with 150 men. Only nineteen survived, and he just so happened to be one of them. I was only able to learn about all this and his Bronze Star award after he passed away. I suppose were I in his shoes, and survived such a battle only to learn that many of friends did not, I wouldn't want to talk about it with anyone.
Thank you again, Indy. Especially for that last bit. I still want to know what my dad saw... and did... when the 157th reached Dachau. He mentioned, briefly, the railroad cars filled with the cord-wood of humanity, and the huddles masses of walking dead. He had the few pictures he took. But again, he was silent about how he, a young man from Buhl, Idaho, reacted when others he was with let their anger loose on the remaining Germans in that place. You are right... I would not talk about it either.
My mother's brother, my uncle, was an infantry scout who was now of the first to encounter Dachau. He would acknowledge that he was there, but would never speak of what he saw. He was a quiet and patient man who attended church. My cousins said that sometimes he would start to yell at them but then get a faraway look and then approach the issue gently.
Amazing and heavy ending. I haven't seen The Great War yet but started watching you guys and joined the Time Ghost Army in late 1942/early 1943 and have been a huge fan since. That ending about what the experiences were like and how "this is modern war" was stellar and I think really drove home the emotions of that war and everything in it. Absolutely awesome and impactful, thank you so much Time Ghost Team for providing such knowledge and perspective.
My grandfather was on Guadalcanal and he very rarely spoke of the war. It seems to have been a common element of many of the veterans who saw the horrors humanity is capable of
Soviet General Zhukov was as tough as any man could ever be. He had seen countless thousands of people killed in the war and yet somehow managed. But at the liberation of the first death camp there was a huge pile of baby shoes and he lost it. It made him even more resolute to defeat that great evil as thoroughly and quickly as he could.
Losing Tannenberg was a fitting metaphor for the state of the Reich. Scene of Germany's victory over the Russians in 1914 now the scene of Soviet Victory in 1945. Also salute to a true American hero in Audie Murphy. I remember visiting his grave at Arlington.
Yes. And if you had the chance to see it this week, the channel posted about the Nazis destroying their "monument" to that WWI battle at Tannenberg (and taking away the body of Pres Hindenburg and his wife, that had been buried there).
Note that there is still a monument there today only now it commerates the 1410 Victory of the Poles/Lithuanians over the Teutonic Knights and is now the Battle of Grunwald (Polish) rather than the Battle of Tannenberg (German). th-cam.com/video/C_6UstnXvJ8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=nF2oPJ4qR24w3vfB
To end the episode with the infamous "this is modern war", the same way you ended most of the early Great War-episodes, but not for a deadly brutal military engagement but rather the aftermath in the villages... that just hits hard....
I met a worker in a factory in Birmingham, UK who related some of his war time experiences. I listened to him intently as my father and my relatives had not revealed much of their life in war service. Unusually he was gently insistent that I hear about his part in the Battle Of Arnhem with his Paratroop comrades, from which they then relieved/documented/cleared up a death camp. The men were so traumatized by their situation that the Officers of his battalion photographed and wrote up a book representing the scene as they saw it. Some how the book was reproduced several hundred times and each member of the Parachute Battalion was presented with a copy. Every Trooper was ordered to talk about the experience when they returned home and that they should refer to the book that each of them had. I was 22 in 1983 and the tall , elderly chap was just retiring from work when our conversations took place. All of his stories became solid and relatable when he produced his own , personal copy of the death camp book , about which he commented upon while turning the pages. His age would have been twenty something when he received the book. I like to believe that the book and his officer's order to talk about their experiences gave him some peace in his life.
Over the years I've talked to a few vets, almost all from Vietnam. I've found that each individual is different in what they will say. One of my fellow Marines (I entered the Marine Corps Reserve in 1977, two years after the fall of Saigon) would talk pretty freely about his experiences, another wouldn't say much about anything, and another would reminisce about something when something else reminded him of an event. He once mentioned that one of our fellow Marines looked just like a kid he served with, that was killed. He briefly described the circumstances, then never spoke of it again. I later worked with a guy that would talk freely about things to me, yet his wife once told me, "Dennis never talks about Vietnam." I guess he thought I would understand and not judge or react with horror given that I was a fellow Marine. Everyone reacts differently, and each person has unique experiences.
The whole war of the air probably emphasises best what modern war is. With how an airwar looks like a war of machines, it's easy to romanticise it, as was done during the First World War. But when you look at the capability of the bomber, that should show the ugly side of modern war.
This episode got to you , which is not surprising. It’s very difficult doing this job without being affected by the horrors of what went on. You do an excellent job but sometimes it must get to much. Thank you and your team for the excellent work you all do.
It really does (get to be too much). I've been trying to catch-up with Sparty's War Against Humanity series, but I can only watch so much at a time before I need a break from it. Sometimes I take a minute to be thankful how blessed I am I *can* get a break from it, unlike the people who had to live it.
My grandfather and father only told the "cute stories" of their time in WWI and WWII, respectively. Then again, my father was primarily in supply ships during WWII, except for a brief fun towards Anzio, the one time in the war when he was actually shot at. I did, however, speak with a friend of mine about his time in Vietnam. One night, utterly out of the blue, when his wife was asleep and he was a couple of cups in, he told me two utterly horrifying stories of his service. I still cannot get those terrifying second-hand images out of my brain; due to this, I feel only a tiny portion of what he carried with him every day. We praise our warriors for heroism, but we have little notion of the actual emotional baggage that they carry.
It is amazing that almost in every possible case Hitler dooms another army or corps or division by denying any attempt to break out of encirclement and ordering fight to the end.
His 'siege mentality' or the Festung Platz - Fortified Towns policy towards the later half of the war on the Eastern Front is quite unfathomably bizzare.
Excellent job as always, especially showing the true sweep of WWII as a world-spanning war. Extra kudos for coverage of the CBI Theater the toughest and most forgotten theater of the war.
Been following since The Great War. Outstanding work as always. That ending was both captivating and devastating all at once. Thank you for your hard work.
During Audie Murphy's famous action that saw him earn his Medal of Honor, he was radioing in artillery whilst taking heavy fire from tanks and small arms as they advanced on his position. The artillerymen at one point asked "How close are the enemy?" Murphy replied, "Hold the phone and I'll let you talk to one of the bastards!"
I have been a faithful watcher since the first episode since I discovered your WWI series and I have really enjoyed the Between Two Wars series. I was born 21 years after this episodes date. I call myself a historian who doesn't get paid for the privilege because I really enjoy learning about history and I really like it when I see people like yourself and the rest of your comrades at The Time Ghost Army helping to make history come alive and you all are doing a great job!
Both my Dad and Uncle loved talking about their wartime experiences. I finally asked my Uncle why he liked talking about them, "because I'm so f****** happy I lived through it!"
Audie Murphy did some incredible things but very few people realize just how badly they affected him. Murphy spent years dealing with PTSD that the military refused to recognize as a valid disability. As his popularity grew he spent a great deal of time and influence advocating for research treatment and imo most importantly for the time, recognition for the warriors of the world that left a part of themselves on that field of glory and brought back something evil in its place.
22:30 - 25:49 - the best part of the video, imo. Imho, the single, most impressive part of this series is that Indiana (Indy) has done an outstanding job of pointing out the good and the bad of all sides. ☮
My great grandfather would often times tell a story how he escaped an american POW camp in 1945 by gathering up a few comrades and marching out of the camp together in an orderly file while singing a song (Die Blauen Dragoner iirc) as if they were going out to work. They were not stopped and he just walked home. I have no idea if there is any truth to that story, still it is an interesting memory.
The evacuation of East Prussia has been started too late and the Kriegsmarine is not in the shape that it can defend the shipping. This is bound to end terribly.
Initially, Erich Koch, the Gauleiter of East Prussia, forbade evacuation of civilians (until 20 January 1945), and ordered that civilians trying to flee the region without permission should be instantly shot. Any kind of preparations made by civilians were treated as defeatism and "Wehrkraftzersetzung" (undermining of military morale). Koch and many other Nazi functionaries were among the first to flee during the Soviet advance.
Thank you Indy, Jake and everyone who puts these well-made documentaries together. I love and learn something every time I watch one. I wish you would put out a set of DVD's; so I could buy them. Thank you all very much.
Visits to WW2 sites and musea have transported me to the past and helped me feel no doubt a tiny fraction of the grief and horror and awe, but the only place that gave me a physical first-hand experience of the scale were the cemeteries, and those are in all corners of the world.
Just want to thank you for putting these up onto youtube, for those of us who don't have regular internet access; despite the push to expand access, it's not complete for rural areas quite yet. Fortunately, the town library has no problem with us coming in whenever we seniors want, to spend the days watching videos. I figured out how to download videos, so I can take some home with me, to watch later, then delete them from the USB drive, so I can get some more the next week. Keeps me in touch with the world without having to have continuous cable/internet at the house. We're soon getting a competitor for the cable company here, so hopefully we will have inexpensive broadband soon. Keep up the great work! You're channels are a great educational resource, greatly expanding the available information for the world to learn about history!
Seven tons of women's hair. Good lord. If we assume a woman to have roughly half a pound of hair on their head on average, that's like 28,000 women. That's just unfathamable evil.
What I don't get is if you're a German, how can you walk by and see all that everyday presumably, and still think you're on the right side? You'd figure basic humanity would eventually kick in at some point.
@@stephengrinkley9889 Many didn't. However, notice how in war and many political movements the other side is de-humanized in rhetoric. That is to help their people do these things. Hence Germans become Huns, illegal immigrants are instead "invading", and other ethnicities are subhuman.
@@DreagostiniAlso I think the percentage of clinically psychopathic men among the German concentration camp staff was probably quite high. About 1% of all people on earth cannot physically empathize with other people.
Your series is a tour de force in terms of WW2 and review. It being built with feed future generations in history and knowledge. It is a splendid series and a splendid effort.
I have always believed that the most significant outcome of any war is that so many good people suffered and died. The true cost going in is never accurately understood.
I always find it interesting when the Soviets are shown employing Shermans (at 10:32), as most you always hear about the T-34 almost like it was the only tank the Soviets had.
The Soviets had many different tanks.They received US tanks and UK tanks. They also had the IS! and The IS2 and T26. The Soveits produced over 102,000 tanks and self propelled guns.
@@caryblack5985 I realize that, it's just that the T-34 gets all the press. The Soviets also didn't like to admit how much they depended on Lend-Lease. From what little I've read on the subject, Soviet tankers really liked the Sherman.
Its kind of like they show the Germans using Tiger tanks, because that one became infamous. The T34 became infamous because it happened to be the medium tank, that was due for replacement but never really happened.
My first time watching. The January 27 caught my attention because today is my 73 birthday. My dad fought in the US WW2. He told me he saw the prisoner in the death camps. He was in Communication in the war. I have seen pictures of him on phone poles in his army uniform. And enormous rabbit pictures either in France or Germany after victory.
Thank you for the lesson. I know from family history one of my grandfathers and his brother were in the area around the Ardennes at the end of the Battle of the Bulge. One was infantry and one was an engineer. My grandfather helped install pipelines for fuel dispersement. Many years later they figured out that at one point they were within one mile of each other but did not know it at the time.
What timing with this episode as we gather around the world on the Day of Remembrance for the Holocaust or Shoa. Thanks Indy for another jam-packed exciting weekly report. I’m actually going to be sad when the war ends as we’ve been at it for so long now. But, you have taken us through 2 World Wars, the years Between the 2 Wars and I KNOW you have great things planned for when this debacle is finally over! Time Ghost: Absolutely THE best!❤️
My mothers father never opened up to his own children about his time in the Service during the Second World War. The only thing he would say and show them were pictures of the bombed out remains of Hiroshima he took in October of 1945. It was not until I was about 16 and he opened up about his time in the war. I feel honored to be the person that he chose to keep the momories of his friend killed in action during a Kamikazi attack.
My Uncle "Red" was a driver/recovery corporal with the medical battalion attached to the 32nd Division. He was in the first draft before the USA joined the war, went with the Division to Australia in 1942, and returned home in September 1945.
Your finest episode you are right on and talking about the brutality and the horror and the sheer bloodthirsty nest of both sides in this well done to you and your crew and thank you for documenting this in a tasteful way God bless
My grandmother told me about her escape from East Prussia in January 1945. On foot at -20 degrees over the frozen Oderhaff. The Russian low-flying aircraft were over their heads, firing into the crowd with machine guns. Horse-drawn carts sank into the icy water, dead bodies everywhere. They just kept on walking, hoping they wouldn't get killed. My grandfather was a sailor on one of the ships during the evacuation of Königsberg. The whole deck was packed with soldiers and civilians. The Russian planes shot right into them and tore everything in their path to shreds. The ship was later sunk by a torpedo. Somehow he made it ashore. He was not able to explain me how he survived. The usual stories of German families.
Well, sucks if your war of aggression turns the other way. The ship stories are especialy ridiculous because with that the people try to catch sympathy, while those ships were, by international laws of war, considered viable targets for attacks. It's not the allies fault that the Nazis didn't bother to care to make their evacuation safe for refugees. They wanted to get their soldiers out, who they couldn't transport with dedicated refugee evacuation ships.
@@Dreagostini If you look at the bigger picture you are right. But these are personal stories of people who are not begging for sympathy. And at least my grandparents know exactly who was to blame: Hitler, the Nazis and everyone who supported the system, including themselves. My grandfather once summarised it quite well: Yes, at the age of 18 I was a convinced Nazi, I believed everything and went along with it. I can't change the past, I can only regret it and do better. But yes, there are also the other stories. Like the one about my great-grandfather. He was too old for the front and so he became a warden in a local labour camp for Russian prisoners of war. Even after the war, he was convinced of the ideas of National Socialism and was of the opinion that it was just wrongly implemented. For him, as a veteran of the First World War and a child of the German Empire, it was a self-evident fact that the interests of the German people must always come first.
@@benbecker2004 Well, if they aknowledge the situation they are in I haven't said anything. But I really learned to despise all those apologists who try to play the "but we were also victims" card.
They seem to be too busy discussing every minor detail of the Western front, all they ever do for the east is some overall directions of whats going on.
@@jakubstanicek6726 Movements of divisions and down to regiments in the West are treated with the same attention to detail as movements of whole fronts in the East. Now some of that could be blamed to lack of sources in English, though I'm doubtfull. It's similar to how there has been not even a peep on happenings in the Yugoslavia which has pretty much switched from guerilla to full frontal division and army scale war after Soviets helped liberate Serbia.
@@jakubstanicek6726There’s a huge gap between available (trustworthy) sources on the two fronts. It’s really easy to find verifiable material on the western front, finding the same for the eastern front is much more of an issue.
@@Blazo_Djurovic did you take in the consideration that the eastern Front is of an entirely different scope than the western. You could fill an entire episode just talking about movements of a single soviet army
@@Blazo_Djurovic I dont think its the sources, they were wery capable in providing details during Barbarossa, when there was not much going on in the West. Ever since Pearl Harbor, the level of detail went dramtically down ( which was dissapointing, as it collided with battle for Moscow). I think its just business decision, as they guessed their American audience will be dissspointed if they do not hear all their favourite stories again. But it gets to absurd levels of reporting about American soldier getting a medal in some 10v10 skirmish, when glossing over entire battles in the east. But I guess only us from Eastern Europe are bothered by that :) And yeah, I was looking forward to Yugoslavia too. Shame. But I guess you know already much more than they would ever mention.
Another great video. I love the opening with the Jugs, especially. Please don't ever change it. My father was in the 25th Division. He never talked about what he went through. His youngest brother was a tanker on the Western Front. He was generally more talkative than my father, as were most of the men I knew who fought there. I watch ALL the videos in this series. I do watch most of the videos in the War Against Humanity series, but it is difficult, as you point out. I have also had some interesting discussions with Spartacus in the comments. I appreciate the engagement. I found a couple of channels that present war diaries of soldiers from all ranks, especially of Germans, with some Russian and American ones thrown in. Some of the first-person accounts of those withdrawals from the Eastern Front, include the plight of the civilians. They are quite as horrific as you point out.
Yeah automation and mechanisation often only amplifies the scale and speed of the operation. If the operation is massive death and suffering.... Good episode, great ending!
My grandfather was in a combat engineer unit in the Army during the battle for the Philippines. This is awesome hearing about it. He was hit twice by a sniper and survived, Purple Heart and a bronze star recipient. I never got to meet him as he died in the 80s
As one of those who's father was there in Germany (and Korea) and, didn't want to talk about it, the ending speech left me in tears. What hell did he experience? I really never knew, until now. And I know in my heart, I still really don't know. But I know enough.
Just a small note to appreciate Indy as it feels like he made extra effort in this episode regarding Budapest's pronounciation. (And, of course, appreciate the whole team. Amazing work, as always!)
Armygroup Center was once the Red Army's nemesis, aimed precariously close towards Moscow at Rhzev, and from 1941 to 1943 the Red Army sought in vain to destroy it. And now, within a year's time they managed to destroy it twice. And the renamed mark II variant under Schörner for a 3rd time in a year come the last days of the war.
I know you all have a full plate given the ever-increasing series of events in '45, but man, I think an Audie Murphy biopic would make for a great WW2 special ep - such an amazing story. Anyway, I rarely comment, so I'll simply say: thank you all for your service - know we're all with you as you keep pushing forward to finish the fight!
I mean he acted in his own "biopic" depicting this famous scene. An issue with it for sure is that while Murphy isn’t at all controversial as a war hero (he already was incredible brave in Italy) this famous story doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. A heavy MG on a burning tank does not have the ammo to defeat waves after waves of German soldiers (not to mention his vulnerability on top of the tank to small arms fire that in WW2 had accuracy of hundreds of meters) incl. several tanks according to the American report. Supposedly his squad also cowered in fear and waited for him to do all the work… Also no German report exists about it. So it’s quite a tough sell if you would now make it into a movie…
@@bingobongo1615 he was apparently obscured by smoke and was eventually wounded by small arms fire. When you imagine waves upon waves of Germans, it was probably not the Hollywood masses of troops walking across an open field. I believe the use of the .50 was only part of his entire contribution to that battle, and since it was documented in his MOH citation, undoubtedly had a lot of witnesses.
Why would the Germans write a report about it? "Here you go sir, just a report on how we got our asses handed to us by some lone 5-foot-nothing dude." @@bingobongo1615
My grandfather was a military policeman in the U.S. Army and followed the war from North Africa to Germany. He told me at some point his unit was tasked with maintaining security at a supply dump and that theft by local civilians were not to be tolerated. They were ordered to shoot on sight and he did during on one occasion. That's all he ever told me about his time in the war.
As a kid raised on one too many a war film, I could not understand why my grandparents did not want to discuss war. It was only after I saw conflict firsthand myself that I finally got some small sense of why they stayed silent because I too could not put into words what I had seen, even if I wanted to.
I have visited the death camp in Poland after I had seen the death camps in Bosnia during the 1990s...the lessons I have learned are speak up and speak out against this kind of hatred...we must be united against human trafficking, slavery and wholesale murder...
Like the part about Audie Murphy, read the book but the movie is still good! Krueger taking Clark's field is an interesting ordeal. The Japanese pull back bit there artillery ready to bombard the airport but snipers landmines are easily over powdered but the artillery is what makes Kruger job so difficult. There is even an artillery duel that lasts a couple of days? But it will be secured in a couple of weeks!
Thank you for all you do. I’ve been following you guys since early in the WW1 coverage, and I’ve got to say, not an episode goes by where I don’t learn something new. I used to regard myself as a World War Two historian, having studied the subject since-really, I could read, about six. I’m nearly 58 now. Unfortunately, many of the facts and details I thought I knew were patently false, or simply glossed over by the typical books that came out in the immediate post-war period. Fortunately for me, I had the benefit of talking to so many veterans of all branches and theaters who were around my now back then. Their memories were as vivid (or more so) than my own of my service in the 80s. I got to know quite a few things that never did make it into the the contemporary accounts of the time. However, all too often, these veterans’ reflections lacked the context of the “bigger picture” scenery that you guys provide. For example: my uncle Eddy was on the carrier that had its forward flight deck folded over in the typhoon. He recalled hearing the ship’s captain advise the men that they may have to abandon ship. The young seamen exclaimed that he’d ‘be damned if he got off this big ship to get into a little boat!’ Without context, one understands the sheer terror of seeing waves breaking over the flight deck of an Essex class carrier. Very soon, like my uncle Eddy, those veterans personal accounts will be gone forever. Your channel keeps alive the memory of a war so terrible that many of today’s youth cannot fathom how it could actually be true. We who are not so far removed from that dark time know it to be all too real.
You are so correct Indy...No one who actually witnessed those sorts of things will talk about them. I took a counseling seminar from a licensed counselor that was a former ambulance driver in 'nam that still suffers from PTSD. He pretty much said the same thing and also said if someone just goes on with the war stories, they are full of BS, they were never there.
My grandfather never talked about the war. He was an officer in the British Navy stationed in the Med. He was something to do with British intelligence, but that's all I know. When he came back though, he was on a bottle of whisky a day. He was a big guy and very reserved, but it must have been eating him up inside.
When I see the pain and torturous destruction brought about to innocent civilians going east , and now back west ,I thank my father in Heaven that I am a free man. Born in a free land of laws, and inalienable rights ,that is what I am most grateful for......
Seven tons of women's hair got me right off the bat. I've been to Holocaust museums and seen the giant piles of shoes, but that caught me off guard and really hit home.
@@ToddSauve they used the hair for many kinds of insulation and filling. The Luftwaffe had boots made with the "confiscated" prisoner hair, allegedly they were satisfactory.
We put out a short recently featuring Sparty, Astrid and Anna talking about a small part of what helps. The short answer is, pets can make a huge difference! Here's the short: th-cam.com/users/shortsQE_S9-p3pek
Tarlac is a weirdly well off little city in Fils. Visiting from San Fernando is like stepping into the 21st century... =) Nice place to go spend a few days, it has a great city market. Lovely, neat-ish little city with nice gardens.
1:30 My maternal grandfather was from Gumbinnen. He got captured in Libya and has spent the past years as a mechanic for the British. They treated him well, even allowed him to visit the nearby town on weekends. After the war he relocated to Rhineland-Palatinate. Up until his death he received the "Gumbinner Heimatbrief" (Gumbinnen home letter), a magazine published for those that had to leave their homes (Heimatvertriebene). He would visit his old home with his 2 sons sometime in the late aughts, still remembering the places from his childhood.
Seems like the worst is usually perpetrated by the rear echelon types. I seem to recall that someone said something similar about Wellington's troops, in Napoleonic times.
That final comment from Indy reminded me of what Shia Lebaouf's character said in the movie Fury. He said; "wait until you see. What a man can do to another man."
The Red Army stumbles upon Auschwitz this week. Sparty covered the Auschwitz Uprising and the fate of camp prisoners forced on death marches across the Reich in a recent episode of War Against Humanity: th-cam.com/video/2K1nY1pfZRU/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ZH6MQia558SQZqt8.
nice touch colouring budapest's name based on local control
Still can't believe people today deny it happened. Thank you Timeghost for keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive.
Let us also remember that today, January 27th and the Soviet Red Army's liberation of Auschwitz also marks the current International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Never Forget. Never Again.
What happened at Auschwitz is yet to sink in.
@alexamerling79 What happened during the holocaust should never be forgotten. The youth of today must learn from the ghastly, brutal errors of our grandparents.... or be doomed to repeat it
Hitler quietly leaving his forces in one mini-Stalingrad after another.
"Say, nice position you have here. Sure would be a shame if this were turned into a..... Fortress City."
@@Raskolnikov70German soldiers : "Not again! 😭"
I know right. If you're a German male, and you haven't yet been called up to go die on the Eastern front, I don't see how you don't just do whatever it takes to go find an American or British unit somewhere to go surrender to. It's gotta be pretty evident by now that your leaders couldn't care less about your life.
@Raskolnikov70 the 12 engineers and 27 Hitler youth comprising the city garrison: 👁 👄 👁
@@obi-wankenobi1750 Surely they'd get some outside help. Maybe from Steiner.
All I gotta say are the German troops stationed in Norway at this point of the war are super lucky to be there!
@victorm3237 and the ones out on the weather station on the island were counting their blessings. The were the last German troops to be rounded up in Europe, afair.
The notion that German troops in Norway quietly sat out until the end of war is very misleading, especially when it comes to the _Heer_ and _Waffen-SS_ ground combat formations.
Unlike ancient armies, WW2 forces were not constantly deployed on a well-defined piece of territory and (or) fought for a single day. Therefore, the forces committed in a particular theater of war can vary tremendously from week to week, from month to month and so on. The same applies to the Germans in Norway.
The difficult German situation on the Western and Eastern Fronts in late 1944-45 meant that the _20. Gebirgsarmee_ in Norway served as an important reservoir of available divisions. Thus from late 1944 to March 1945, the following formations were transferred from Norway to other fronts, where they were bloodied.
To the Eastern Front:
- 163. Infanterie-Division (February 1945);
- 169. Infanterie-Division (March 1945);
- 199. Infanterie-Division (March 1945).
To the Western Front:
- 269. Infanterie-Division (November 1944);
- 2. Gebirgs-Division (February 1945);
- 6. SS-Gebirgs-Division "Nord" (January 1945);
To the Italian Front, then shortly later to the Eastern Front (Hungary):
- 710. Infanterie-Division.
The 169. and 199. Infanterie-Divisionen were transfered to the Eastern Front in Berlin area in March 1945, just in time to be crushed during the Soviet Berlin Offensive. Remnants of both divisions were taken prisoner by the Soviets, parts of the 199. broke out west and surrendered to the U.S. forces. So they were certainly not 'super lucky' at all. Meanwhile the 163. Infanterie-Division was destroyed in Pomerania in March 1945.
The formations transferred to the Western Front, with the exception of the 269., were heavily damaged and then surrendered to the Allied forces in April-May 1945. The 269. Infanterie-Division, however, was transferred to the Eastern Front in late January 1945, where it was destroyed in the Breslau and Ohlau areas soon after- once again, this division was complete opposite of 'super lucky'.
Meanwhile, the 710. Infanterie-Division, which after the transfer from the Arendal area in southern Norway had a short stay in Denmark, was sent to the Italian Front. Barely half a month later, it was sent to the East in Hungary, where it fought in hard and costly battles. In May 1945, survivors of the division managed to reach U.S. lines in Austria and surrendered there.
@@scientiaaclabore3362woah
@@scientiaaclabore3362 I’m not hear to argue thanks for the info really interesting 👍
@@scientiaaclabore3362 VERY well said. I consider myself a WWII history buff, but see that you best me. This'll force me to buy more books ;-))
I had an uncle that was in 'Graves Registration' and had to process one of the extermination camps. He was never right in the head again, and in the end, was placed in a home where all he did was pray. He never told anyone what he saw or what he had to do. He lived for decades after that war. Decades of the dammed.
US Army graves registration unit members were sometimes unpopular with front-line soldiers who considered them callous. There were cases where soldiers threatened to shoot them if they thought they were not showing enough respect to their dead comrades. Many graves registration unit members were heavy drinkers - alcohol helped them cope with the nature of their work.
@@stevekaczynski3793 Yes, it is cruel and unfortunate. They had to deal with bodies mutilated beyond any human comprehension. To do this they had to desensitize themselves which appeared inhuman to others. The only alternative to this coping mechanism is insanity, medications or death. War does not just destroy bodies.
OMFG. That just breaks you if you have any emotions at all.
I am researching war history in general and WW2 specifically for 30 years now. I know (thankfully just from observing, not experiencing) all horrors of war, I think.
But Graves Registration in a death camp is the most soul-crushing I have ever heard. In fact I wondered how the Allies dealt with those places. You just can't blame his poor soul for breaking. May he rest in peace. 😢
Prayers for him.
@@vladimpaler3498 In the film "A Midnight Clear" (1992), based on the William Wharton novel of the same name, surviving members of an American squad in the Ardennes struggle back with the corpse of one of their comrades after being forced to retreat from the German attack. They lose their jeeps and in the end are carrying the dead body themselves. They get him to a graves registration unit, and the soldier in charge puts one of his dog tags in a bag, then places the other in the corpse's slightly open mouth and then hits the dead man's jaw with a mallet to close the mouth. Possibly standard operating procedure but the scene illustrates in its subtle way the dehumanising effect of war. In the original novel, the mallet detail is not mentioned when the dead body is brought to the graves registration members.
Always so impressed with the team behind the animated maps. A lot of work must go into getting each detail correct and moving at the proper pace, so hats off to them once again!
Thank you for the kind words, I'll pass it onto the map maker and researcher!
- Jake
Great point. That is arguably one of the best features of this weekly series. The animated maps showing deployments are incredible. I cannot imagine the amount of work that goes into the Eastern Front, specifically.
I second that - sooo many historical publications of any type are lacking in the map department, whilst teh Tiem Ghost Army just excels!
I mean, EVERY freaking Division is there! Do you know how deep you have to dig to get their positions pinned down like that!?!? Even with some interpretation ( I bet there is, because the research would otherwise be MONUMENTAL) it still is outstanding.
@@WorldWarTwo Is there a video or such showing how they make them? I'm very interested in how they do it. Makes the maps on network TV look amateurish in comparison.
@@Plaprad I think Eastory is the one making the animated maps, he has his own TH-cam channel if you're interested.
At the end of this installment, Indy asks the question, "if you had witnessed any of the atrocities you may would you want to talk about ?" My father was a 17 year old fresh out of basic training when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He was one of the thousands of sailors tasked with salvaging what remained of the US Navy fleet which sat in the mud of Pearl Harbor. He did talk to me about his experiences a few years before he passed. When the ammunition stores on the Arizona exploded the heat blast vaporized everything within a 100 yards or more, men of other ships no longer existed. He was assigned at one point, after raising those ships from the depths, to "clean the teak wood decks." This haunted him the rest of his life. Every man who perished from the explosion left a "grease spot" imbedded in the wooden deck, and he said you could tell which of those men had been barefoot or which had shoes by the hobnails which were melted into the greasy remains of what once were his fellow sailors and it changed him forever. Never Forget!
God that sounds awful, may he rest in peace, him and all the heroes that fought and died in that horrible war.
Following the war, millions of men returned from war. They set about rebuilding their nations, their families, and their own lives, many succeeded, some failed. But out of this rebuilding came a system of support, the veterans clubs, places where men could sit and not talk about terrible things, but understand that every man there KNEW about those terrible things they weren't talking about. Women went to church, formed church groups and book clubs for the same reason, to not talk about the terrible things they had endured, or heard from their husbands on cold dark nights where the wailing of wind provoked the men. And the working world grew around these men, they became places where if they wanted to be in the office with the bottle of booze everyone pretended they didn't have, then their bosses would let them. Friday nights became bar nights, either drinks at the office with old war buddies, or a night at the bar with staff, because the weekends were quiet and lonely and they had little to distract them from dreams. I am sure a million men were killed by the war long after the fighting had finished. They endured a terrible thing and spawned a world fit for a generation of happy, spoiled children who they hoped would never again feel a shred of discomfort or see a moment of horror in their lives. They took a ruined world and made it a sweeter place for their families.
Their bravery and fortitude can never be forgotten.
I've had the honor of knowing many WW2 vets. In time some shared some of the horrors they had seen but many didn't. One of those had been a Medic on Utah beach; what he went through had to be far beyond unimaginable. He never spoke of the experience, those who knew him and knew what he'd done in the war didn't need to be told why. He taught all of his sons the importance of honor, duty, and in always carrying your own burdens by yourself. But there were times when the subject was brought up around him, and I then saw in his eyes the horrors he held within somehow, I have no words to describe that beyond it being like a camera shutter opening for a moment with the lens focused into the depths of Hell itself, and then with great effort he closed the shutter once again. Wars do not end at the cease of hostilities but resides in the depths of the souls of the men who fought them until they too leave this world behind. Honor them in the way that they want, for they have seen Hell first hand and do not want you or anyone else to ever have to follow in their footsteps ever again.
@@mynameismynameis666 Are you feeling sorry for the Japanese because two of their cities were obliterated by atomic, not nuclear, bombs? Many others were saturation bombed with fire creating phosphorous bombs. Those killed far more than the two atomic bombs. All told 3 million Japanese were killed in WW2. Yet in China alone the Japanese killed about 14 million innocent people. After the US Doolittle raid in 1942 the Japanese killed around 200,000 Chinese civilians simply because the US bombers landed there. If you want to feel sorry for some country in WW2 then at least pick one that wasn't composed of monsters because that is precisely what Japanese society at that time was. Many Japanese vets never felt any regret for the atrocities they committed during the war and would have done it all over again because they served their immortal god the emperor Hirohito, and people everywhere else were lesser beings than they were. Seriously. 🤔🤨
Drachinifel has a good 3 part video series on the salvage of Pearl Harbor th-cam.com/video/bB-V9cCSC8o/w-d-xo.html. Navy Ships are death traps. Once the ship gets hit you're pretty much screwed. It's not going to be a pleasant death either. To this day the Navy doesn't design their ships so that people can survive it. There's no way a crew is going to survive if the ship rolls over or getting off the ship to life boats in under 10 minutes. Even in most Births there's only one exit.
I met a U.S. veteran who had been one of those who liberated a death camp. Even decades later what he saw was literally unspeakable, as he had a miserable time trying to put what he had seen into words. His expression told how much the experience still haunted him even as his tongue failed him.
My great grandfather was on one of the last trains that made it out of Breslau. He was very lucky because he was wounded but not allowed to leave the city. But at the train station they didn't turn around the paper so they didn't realize he wasn't allowed to leave, which meant he didn't get trapped there.
The only reason you exist is because a guard didn’t turn over a piece of paper for your ancestor.
The line between begin born or not existing can be very thin.
@@excrono My grandmother was already born by the time, but who knows how things would have gone for my family. So most likely yes. And that is far from the only crazy story from the madness of the eastern front I have. Everyone who survived had a dozen of lucky breaks.
I currently live in Wroclaw and just a few meters from where I'm writing is an old building with German encryptions on one of its walls. Passing by always makes me thing of what became of the people living here before 1945...
Speaking of close calls. My father flew with the Desert Air Force from 1942-1943. On a Friday 13th in 1943 he caught malaria, which then caused him to get jaundice. After a month in hospital and recuperating in Sicily, he was mustered out. During the time he was convalescing his entire squadron, bar three other people, were all shot down and killed. As he said in later life, Friday the 13th was his lucky day.
A co-worker's grandfather was Ukrainian, and ended up walking, on foot, all the way from Odessa to western Europe ahead of the Soviet advance. Another fortuitous escape.
It's incredible to think how something as simple as a paper not being turned over made such a huge difference for him, thank you very much for sharing and thank you for watching.
My grandma was one of those Germans who fled west during the fighting of WWII. Her and the rest of my family orignally lived in the German of Stettin. As the Russians advanced fearing the reprisals and retributions they fled taking only the stuff they could carry and headed towards the Stuttgart Area. The journey they faced was a long and hard with the train they were taking coming under attack by Russian strafing runs and my family falling in ill a refugee camp more then once. I share this not to take away from the sufferring that the russians felt but to also show the Sufferring truly innocent germans went through at the time. My grandma was 11 at that point in history.
It was a very special moment when in 2016 we went to what Is now poland to see where her house had once stood and where she had grown up. It was the last trip we would do as a large family. Furthermore, My grandma would always show the scars from her life as a refugee. While she was by no means a hoarder to say my grandparents' house was full was an understatement. So long as it had value, so long as something still functioned fine it would be carefully stored away.
My dad was an RCAF bomber pilot stationed in England. The only time I saw him break down in tears was when he recalled the crash of a plane at the airfield, and running over to help pull out the flight crew, who were engulfed in flames. He would have been about 21 at the time. He never made the mistake of talking about the war again...unless it was amusing anecdotes about being on leave.
I found basically the same experience being around any WW2 vets in Regina. Unless it was funny, they did not talk about it around kids or teens. Virtually nothing. A different generation, that is for sure. I remember one vet who hung around the service station for the "drinking hour," roughly 6 pm to 10 pm, when all the men who worked at the service station and the neighbourhood vets would go in the back room and get half obliterated. Then a few stories would get told. This RCAF vet laughed as he recalled strafing German forces in North Africa with his machine guns on the front of a B-25 bomber. He delighted in how they fled on foot for all they were worth, though he doubted he managed to kill anyone. It was just a spray of bullets as they flew past at a low level.
I bet the flight crew felt a little worse.
@@penultimateh766 Not for long.
Thank you for sharing this with us, it's a stark reminder of what these war and these experiences can have on an individual. Thank you for watching.
That's sad he couldn't resolve the trauma and talk about it. That kind of thing haunts you until you confront it.
A shame you didn't mention Operation Meridian, the British raids on the Japanese held Palembang oil refineries. Sure in the grand course of the war it's relatively minor but this was thus far the largest concentrated British carrier attack of the war, and cut production by 75%.
Thank you for the reminder of the wide spread history of WWII.
My grandfather was among those Wehrmacht soldiers, retreating from East Prussia. He did talk about it, but not much of the train of refugees, that must have accompanied the soldiers. He would rather mention the dead horses or the bitter cold. He did tell stories from the war, but I guess a lot more stayed untold. But it must have haunted him for the rest of his life, he had frequent nightmares and once almost strangled my grandmother in his sleep during one.
But the good news of the day is that Auschwitz is finally liberated, millions of deaths too late and the system of concentration camps will only be dismantled in early May, when Mauthausen is finally liberated.
There's books by German journalist Sabine Bode, born 1947. She write about (trans)generational traumata and talked to many children of Germans who lived through the last days of the war, including many Prussians and Silesians who had to flee, trying to learn about the stories their parents told and trying to unravel the trauma. Stories about dead infants laying by the roadside in a long trail from Silesia, about violence breaking out from the side of supressed Poles against German refugees, about rivers filled with corpses. It's memories that stay with you even when reading about them and only getting their essence from "third hand experience".
I wouldn't even know what to say to your grandfather, because the borders were being changed to fix some problems so now those people were refugees. 'East' Prussia was the 'arm' of the Prussian Kingdoms and the German Empire for 200+ years so that had been a home for many people until this war. Poland had never had well defined territory until the League of Nations decided that it should exist after all and what those borders should be.
My grandfather was a bombardier in a B-17 that was involved in the Battle of the Bulge once the weather cleared. He was shot down over the Netherlands and rescued with his pilot and a waist gunner by a farmer's family. Luckily the Allied lines caught up rather quickly and he was able to make it back to the UK for treatment and recovery. He spent the rest of the war training to man B-29s in the pacific, but everything ended before he shipped out again.
He stayed in touch with the Dutch family, exchanging Christmas cards every year. That stack of Christmas cards is one of my prized possessions.
A very stirring speech to end this episode Indy. It seemed as if you were trying to keep your emotions in check when summarizing the inconceivable barbarism of this chapter of humanity's history. The entire Time Ghost team are providing a great service by reporting and preserving this information. Thank you for all that you do!
Thank you for the kind words, they are much appreciated by everyone here at TimeGhost.
My grandfather was one of the many Japanese Americans serving in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, Company K. In one particular battle they participated in, they entered in with 150 men. Only nineteen survived, and he just so happened to be one of them. I was only able to learn about all this and his Bronze Star award after he passed away.
I suppose were I in his shoes, and survived such a battle only to learn that many of friends did not, I wouldn't want to talk about it with anyone.
Thank you again, Indy. Especially for that last bit. I still want to know what my dad saw... and did... when the 157th reached Dachau. He mentioned, briefly, the railroad cars filled with the cord-wood of humanity, and the huddles masses of walking dead. He had the few pictures he took. But again, he was silent about how he, a young man from Buhl, Idaho, reacted when others he was with let their anger loose on the remaining Germans in that place. You are right... I would not talk about it either.
My mother's brother, my uncle, was an infantry scout who was now of the first to encounter Dachau. He would acknowledge that he was there, but would never speak of what he saw. He was a quiet and patient man who attended church. My cousins said that sometimes he would start to yell at them but then get a faraway look and then approach the issue gently.
Amazing and heavy ending. I haven't seen The Great War yet but started watching you guys and joined the Time Ghost Army in late 1942/early 1943 and have been a huge fan since. That ending about what the experiences were like and how "this is modern war" was stellar and I think really drove home the emotions of that war and everything in it. Absolutely awesome and impactful, thank you so much Time Ghost Team for providing such knowledge and perspective.
Thank you for the comment and thanks for joining the TimeGhost Army!
Indy used the phrase “this is modern war” at the end of quite a few TGW episodes. Normally I smile when I hear a throwback but this gave me chills.
@@jrsimpkinUsually it is like "He said the thing!" But not this time...
".....some losses from Russian submarines...." Refer to MV _Wilhelm Gustloff_ and _General von Steuben_ .
My grandfather was on Guadalcanal and he very rarely spoke of the war. It seems to have been a common element of many of the veterans who saw the horrors humanity is capable of
Soviet General Zhukov was as tough as any man could ever be. He had seen countless thousands of people killed in the war and yet somehow managed. But at the liberation of the first death camp there was a huge pile of baby shoes and he lost it. It made him even more resolute to defeat that great evil as thoroughly and quickly as he could.
Losing Tannenberg was a fitting metaphor for the state of the Reich. Scene of Germany's victory over the Russians in 1914 now the scene of Soviet Victory in 1945. Also salute to a true American hero in Audie Murphy. I remember visiting his grave at Arlington.
Yes. And if you had the chance to see it this week, the channel posted about the Nazis destroying their "monument" to that WWI battle at Tannenberg (and taking away the body of Pres Hindenburg and his wife, that had been buried there).
Also where the Teutonic Germans lost in 1410, though against the Poles
@@williestyle35I saw that. Figured Indy would mention it here too :p
Note that there is still a monument there today only now it commerates the 1410 Victory of the Poles/Lithuanians over the Teutonic Knights and is now the Battle of Grunwald (Polish) rather than the Battle of Tannenberg (German). th-cam.com/video/C_6UstnXvJ8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=nF2oPJ4qR24w3vfB
@fabianvoigtlander1042Who? you? definitely
My Dad worked with someone who survived the Bataan death march. He did NOT talk about his time in the war, and everyone knew not to ask.
To end the episode with the infamous "this is modern war", the same way you ended most of the early Great War-episodes, but not for a deadly brutal military engagement but rather the aftermath in the villages... that just hits hard....
I met a worker in a factory in Birmingham, UK who related some of his war time experiences.
I listened to him intently as my father and my relatives had not revealed much of their life in war service.
Unusually he was gently insistent that I hear about his part in the Battle Of Arnhem with his Paratroop comrades, from which they then relieved/documented/cleared up a death camp.
The men were so traumatized by their situation that the Officers of his battalion photographed and wrote up a book representing the scene as they saw it. Some how the book was reproduced several hundred times and each member of the Parachute Battalion was presented with a copy. Every Trooper was ordered to talk about the experience when they returned home and that they should refer to the book that each of them had. I was 22 in 1983 and the tall , elderly chap was just retiring from work when our conversations took place. All of his stories became solid and relatable when he produced his own , personal copy of the death camp book , about which he commented upon while turning the pages. His age would have been twenty something when he received the book. I like to believe that the book and his officer's order to talk about their experiences gave him some peace in his life.
I worked with 2 vets in Canada. The flyer had many stories. The infantry guy had 3 and only in relation to me over 4 years.
Over the years I've talked to a few vets, almost all from Vietnam. I've found that each individual is different in what they will say. One of my fellow Marines (I entered the Marine Corps Reserve in 1977, two years after the fall of Saigon) would talk pretty freely about his experiences, another wouldn't say much about anything, and another would reminisce about something when something else reminded him of an event. He once mentioned that one of our fellow Marines looked just like a kid he served with, that was killed. He briefly described the circumstances, then never spoke of it again. I later worked with a guy that would talk freely about things to me, yet his wife once told me, "Dennis never talks about Vietnam." I guess he thought I would understand and not judge or react with horror given that I was a fellow Marine. Everyone reacts differently, and each person has unique experiences.
The whole war of the air probably emphasises best what modern war is. With how an airwar looks like a war of machines, it's easy to romanticise it, as was done during the First World War. But when you look at the capability of the bomber, that should show the ugly side of modern war.
This episode got to you , which is not surprising. It’s very difficult doing this job without being affected by the horrors of what went on. You do an excellent job but sometimes it must get to much. Thank you and your team for the excellent work you all do.
It really does (get to be too much). I've been trying to catch-up with Sparty's War Against Humanity series, but I can only watch so much at a time before I need a break from it. Sometimes I take a minute to be thankful how blessed I am I *can* get a break from it, unlike the people who had to live it.
At this point indy has been seeing the horrors of war almost daily for 10 years
My grandfather and father only told the "cute stories" of their time in WWI and WWII, respectively. Then again, my father was primarily in supply ships during WWII, except for a brief fun towards Anzio, the one time in the war when he was actually shot at.
I did, however, speak with a friend of mine about his time in Vietnam. One night, utterly out of the blue, when his wife was asleep and he was a couple of cups in, he told me two utterly horrifying stories of his service. I still cannot get those terrifying second-hand images out of my brain; due to this, I feel only a tiny portion of what he carried with him every day.
We praise our warriors for heroism, but we have little notion of the actual emotional baggage that they carry.
It is amazing that almost in every possible case Hitler dooms another army or corps or division by denying any attempt to break out of encirclement and ordering fight to the end.
And that he didn't allow anyone to retreat
His 'siege mentality' or the Festung Platz - Fortified Towns policy towards the later half of the war on the Eastern Front is quite unfathomably bizzare.
"War is cruelty and cannot be refined". William T. Sherman
Excellent job as always, especially showing the true sweep of WWII as a world-spanning war. Extra kudos for coverage of the CBI Theater the toughest and most forgotten theater of the war.
Been following since The Great War. Outstanding work as always. That ending was both captivating and devastating all at once. Thank you for your hard work.
And thank you for watching!
During Audie Murphy's famous action that saw him earn his Medal of Honor, he was radioing in artillery whilst taking heavy fire from tanks and small arms as they advanced on his position. The artillerymen at one point asked "How close are the enemy?"
Murphy replied, "Hold the phone and I'll let you talk to one of the bastards!"
A very dark episode particularly at the end, very well delivered as always indy keep up the great work of this amazing project ,
I have been a faithful watcher since the first episode since I discovered your WWI series and I have really enjoyed the Between Two Wars series. I was born 21 years after this episodes date. I call myself a historian who doesn't get paid for the privilege because I really enjoy learning about history and I really like it when I see people like yourself and the rest of your comrades at The Time Ghost Army helping to make history come alive and you all are doing a great job!
Both my Dad and Uncle loved talking about their wartime experiences. I finally asked my Uncle why he liked talking about them, "because I'm so f****** happy I lived through it!"
Powerful summation of the horror of war, and brilliantly delivered. This channel is something special.
Audie Murphy did some incredible things but very few people realize just how badly they affected him. Murphy spent years dealing with PTSD that the military refused to recognize as a valid disability. As his popularity grew he spent a great deal of time and influence advocating for research treatment and imo most importantly for the time, recognition for the warriors of the world that left a part of themselves on that field of glory and brought back something evil in its place.
22:30 - 25:49 - the best part of the video, imo.
Imho, the single, most impressive part of this series is that Indiana (Indy) has done an outstanding job of pointing out the good and the bad of all sides.
☮
That was quite an episode. I can feel its impact in my mind and heart.
My great grandfather would often times tell a story how he escaped an american POW camp in 1945 by gathering up a few comrades and marching out of the camp together in an orderly file while singing a song (Die Blauen Dragoner iirc) as if they were going out to work. They were not stopped and he just walked home.
I have no idea if there is any truth to that story, still it is an interesting memory.
The evacuation of East Prussia has been started too late and the Kriegsmarine is not in the shape that it can defend the shipping. This is bound to end terribly.
Yeah, the Kriegsmarine has been a shell of itself since Black May 1943.
And it did.
MV 'Wilhelm Gustlof' has entered the chat.
MV 'Wilhelm Gustlof' has entered the chat.
Initially, Erich Koch, the Gauleiter of East Prussia, forbade evacuation of civilians (until 20 January 1945), and ordered that civilians trying to flee the region without permission should be instantly shot. Any kind of preparations made by civilians were treated as defeatism and "Wehrkraftzersetzung" (undermining of military morale). Koch and many other Nazi functionaries were among the first to flee during the Soviet advance.
Mr Neidell, you are a master storyteller.
Thank you, kindly!
Thank you Indy, Jake and everyone who puts these well-made documentaries together. I love and learn something every time I watch one. I wish you would put out a set of DVD's; so I could buy them. Thank you all very much.
Thank you very much for the shout out! Thanks for watching.
- Jake
@@WorldWarTwo You're welcome and, of all the docs I've seen here on this site, yours easily is the best and most honest.
Visits to WW2 sites and musea have transported me to the past and helped me feel no doubt a tiny fraction of the grief and horror and awe, but the only place that gave me a physical first-hand experience of the scale were the cemeteries, and those are in all corners of the world.
That closing monologue hit hard. Nice call back to modern war.
Just want to thank you for putting these up onto youtube, for those of us who don't have regular internet access; despite the push to expand access, it's not complete for rural areas quite yet. Fortunately, the town library has no problem with us coming in whenever we seniors want, to spend the days watching videos. I figured out how to download videos, so I can take some home with me, to watch later, then delete them from the USB drive, so I can get some more the next week. Keeps me in touch with the world without having to have continuous cable/internet at the house. We're soon getting a competitor for the cable company here, so hopefully we will have inexpensive broadband soon.
Keep up the great work! You're channels are a great educational resource, greatly expanding the available information for the world to learn about history!
Seven tons of women's hair. Good lord. If we assume a woman to have roughly half a pound of hair on their head on average, that's like 28,000 women. That's just unfathamable evil.
What I don't get is if you're a German, how can you walk by and see all that everyday presumably, and still think you're on the right side? You'd figure basic humanity would eventually kick in at some point.
@@stephengrinkley9889 Many didn't. However, notice how in war and many political movements the other side is de-humanized in rhetoric. That is to help their people do these things.
Hence Germans become Huns, illegal immigrants are instead "invading", and other ethnicities are subhuman.
@@stephengrinkley9889 That's the marvel of dehumanisation and peer pressure.
@@DreagostiniAlso I think the percentage of clinically psychopathic men among the German concentration camp staff was probably quite high. About 1% of all people on earth cannot physically empathize with other people.
Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps complex was functioning by 54 months killing 1 300 000 people. The 28 000 women was just one month average rate...
Your series is a tour de force in terms of WW2 and review. It being built with feed future generations in history and knowledge. It is a splendid series and a splendid effort.
I have always believed that the most significant outcome of any war is that so many good people suffered and died. The true cost going in is never accurately understood.
unfortunately, it was spartacus on the other end of the line today...
Excellent video Indy & team. Powerful send off.
I always find it interesting when the Soviets are shown employing Shermans (at 10:32), as most you always hear about the T-34 almost like it was the only tank the Soviets had.
The Soviets had many different tanks.They received US tanks and UK tanks. They also had the IS! and The IS2 and T26. The Soveits produced over 102,000 tanks and self propelled guns.
@@caryblack5985 I realize that, it's just that the T-34 gets all the press. The Soviets also didn't like to admit how much they depended on Lend-Lease. From what little I've read on the subject, Soviet tankers really liked the Sherman.
@@oldesertguy9616 And like the Bell's cobras on air
Its kind of like they show the Germans using Tiger tanks, because that one became infamous. The T34 became infamous because it happened to be the medium tank, that was due for replacement but never really happened.
My first time watching.
The January 27 caught my attention because today is my 73 birthday.
My dad fought in the US WW2.
He told me he saw the prisoner in the death camps. He was in Communication in the war. I have seen pictures of him on phone poles in his army uniform. And enormous rabbit pictures either in France or Germany after victory.
Happy birthday. It is also International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Happy Birthday Patty, thanks for watching.
So much to learn…
If schools or family could teach us the deep truths about war.
Thank you for this video and more to watch.
Thank you for the lesson.
I know from family history one of my grandfathers and his brother were in the area around the Ardennes at the end of the Battle of the Bulge.
One was infantry and one was an engineer.
My grandfather helped install pipelines for fuel dispersement.
Many years later they figured out that at one point they were within one mile of each other but did not know it at the time.
What timing with this episode as we gather around the world on the Day of Remembrance for the Holocaust or Shoa. Thanks Indy for another jam-packed exciting weekly report. I’m actually going to be sad when the war ends as we’ve been at it for so long now. But, you have taken us through 2 World Wars, the years Between the 2 Wars and I KNOW you have great things planned for when this debacle is finally over! Time Ghost: Absolutely THE best!❤️
My mothers father never opened up to his own children about his time in the Service during the Second World War. The only thing he would say and show them were pictures of the bombed out remains of Hiroshima he took in October of 1945.
It was not until I was about 16 and he opened up about his time in the war. I feel honored to be the person that he chose to keep the momories of his friend killed in action during a Kamikazi attack.
Dad's Commando unit was in Kangaw, Arakan, which was a particularly bloody affair.
My Uncle "Red" was a driver/recovery corporal with the medical battalion attached to the 32nd Division. He was in the first draft before the USA joined the war, went with the Division to Australia in 1942, and returned home in September 1945.
Your finest episode you are right on and talking about the brutality and the horror and the sheer bloodthirsty nest of both sides in this well done to you and your crew and thank you for documenting this in a tasteful way God bless
Thank you for your support.
- TG Ambassador
My grandmother told me about her escape from East Prussia in January 1945. On foot at -20 degrees over the frozen Oderhaff. The Russian low-flying aircraft were over their heads, firing into the crowd with machine guns. Horse-drawn carts sank into the icy water, dead bodies everywhere. They just kept on walking, hoping they wouldn't get killed.
My grandfather was a sailor on one of the ships during the evacuation of Königsberg. The whole deck was packed with soldiers and civilians. The Russian planes shot right into them and tore everything in their path to shreds. The ship was later sunk by a torpedo. Somehow he made it ashore. He was not able to explain me how he survived.
The usual stories of German families.
Well, sucks if your war of aggression turns the other way. The ship stories are especialy ridiculous because with that the people try to catch sympathy, while those ships were, by international laws of war, considered viable targets for attacks. It's not the allies fault that the Nazis didn't bother to care to make their evacuation safe for refugees. They wanted to get their soldiers out, who they couldn't transport with dedicated refugee evacuation ships.
@@Dreagostini If you look at the bigger picture you are right. But these are personal stories of people who are not begging for sympathy. And at least my grandparents know exactly who was to blame: Hitler, the Nazis and everyone who supported the system, including themselves.
My grandfather once summarised it quite well: Yes, at the age of 18 I was a convinced Nazi, I believed everything and went along with it. I can't change the past, I can only regret it and do better.
But yes, there are also the other stories. Like the one about my great-grandfather. He was too old for the front and so he became a warden in a local labour camp for Russian prisoners of war.
Even after the war, he was convinced of the ideas of National Socialism and was of the opinion that it was just wrongly implemented. For him, as a veteran of the First World War and a child of the German Empire, it was a self-evident fact that the interests of the German people must always come first.
@@benbecker2004there’s the interest of the people and then there’s murder of millions
@@pyatig Yes, and sometimes there is someone who thinks both is connected. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, ...
@@benbecker2004 Well, if they aknowledge the situation they are in I haven't said anything. But I really learned to despise all those apologists who try to play the "but we were also victims" card.
You need to do a special on Soviet river crossing operations. The details are fascinating.
They seem to be too busy discussing every minor detail of the Western front, all they ever do for the east is some overall directions of whats going on.
@@jakubstanicek6726 Movements of divisions and down to regiments in the West are treated with the same attention to detail as movements of whole fronts in the East. Now some of that could be blamed to lack of sources in English, though I'm doubtfull. It's similar to how there has been not even a peep on happenings in the Yugoslavia which has pretty much switched from guerilla to full frontal division and army scale war after Soviets helped liberate Serbia.
@@jakubstanicek6726There’s a huge gap between available (trustworthy) sources on the two fronts. It’s really easy to find verifiable material on the western front, finding the same for the eastern front is much more of an issue.
@@Blazo_Djurovic did you take in the consideration that the eastern Front is of an entirely different scope than the western. You could fill an entire episode just talking about movements of a single soviet army
@@Blazo_Djurovic I dont think its the sources, they were wery capable in providing details during Barbarossa, when there was not much going on in the West. Ever since Pearl Harbor, the level of detail went dramtically down ( which was dissapointing, as it collided with battle for Moscow). I think its just business decision, as they guessed their American audience will be dissspointed if they do not hear all their favourite stories again. But it gets to absurd levels of reporting about American soldier getting a medal in some 10v10 skirmish, when glossing over entire battles in the east. But I guess only us from Eastern Europe are bothered by that :)
And yeah, I was looking forward to Yugoslavia too. Shame. But I guess you know already much more than they would ever mention.
Another great video. I love the opening with the Jugs, especially. Please don't ever change it.
My father was in the 25th Division. He never talked about what he went through. His youngest brother was a tanker on the Western Front. He was generally more talkative than my father, as were most of the men I knew who fought there.
I watch ALL the videos in this series. I do watch most of the videos in the War Against Humanity series, but it is difficult, as you point out. I have also had some interesting discussions with Spartacus in the comments. I appreciate the engagement.
I found a couple of channels that present war diaries of soldiers from all ranks, especially of Germans, with some Russian and American ones thrown in. Some of the first-person accounts of those withdrawals from the Eastern Front, include the plight of the civilians. They are quite as horrific as you point out.
I really pity Spartacus. Indy gets to report all the 'fun' stuff, while Spartacus has to talk about the worst things of humanity.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 Good point.
Well said and balanced. I only hope years and years from now your documentation is viewed and understood.
Wise commentary at the at the end by Indy as by Spartacus as usual .
Thank you .
Thanks for your kind words.
-TimeGhost Ambassador
Yeah automation and mechanisation often only amplifies the scale and speed of the operation. If the operation is massive death and suffering....
Good episode, great ending!
Thank you for watching.
My grandfather was in a combat engineer unit in the Army during the battle for the Philippines. This is awesome hearing about it. He was hit twice by a sniper and survived, Purple Heart and a bronze star recipient. I never got to meet him as he died in the 80s
Ultimately, it's sad, so sad. In friendship we should rest, dear brothers, sisters, comrades, friends.
As one of those who's father was there in Germany (and Korea) and, didn't want to talk about it, the ending speech left me in tears. What hell did he experience? I really never knew, until now. And I know in my heart, I still really don't know. But I know enough.
A wonderful historical coverage video about this epic....thank you ( time ghost army) crew's and introducer of WW2 channel.
Just a small note to appreciate Indy as it feels like he made extra effort in this episode regarding Budapest's pronounciation.
(And, of course, appreciate the whole team. Amazing work, as always!)
When wil you get lessons to grow out your worker class proletarian behaviour?
Armygroup Center was once the Red Army's nemesis, aimed precariously close towards Moscow at Rhzev, and from 1941 to 1943 the Red Army sought in vain to destroy it. And now, within a year's time they managed to destroy it twice. And the renamed mark II variant under Schörner for a 3rd time in a year come the last days of the war.
Once again, an excellent episode. Thanks
Bydgoszcz - I am impressed by so good pronunciation 🙂
You do a great job, best I've found. Thank you.
Thank you for the kind words, and thanks for watching.
Well thank you for your kind words.
-TimeGhost Ambassador
Good episode. We mustnt let these things be forgotten. Thank you for your service to humanity folks.
Thanks for your comment and NEVER FORGET!
-TimeGhost Ambassador
I know you all have a full plate given the ever-increasing series of events in '45, but man, I think an Audie Murphy biopic would make for a great WW2 special ep - such an amazing story. Anyway, I rarely comment, so I'll simply say: thank you all for your service - know we're all with you as you keep pushing forward to finish the fight!
I mean he acted in his own "biopic" depicting this famous scene.
An issue with it for sure is that while Murphy isn’t at all controversial as a war hero (he already was incredible brave in Italy) this famous story doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
A heavy MG on a burning tank does not have the ammo to defeat waves after waves of German soldiers (not to mention his vulnerability on top of the tank to small arms fire that in WW2 had accuracy of hundreds of meters) incl. several tanks according to the American report. Supposedly his squad also cowered in fear and waited for him to do all the work…
Also no German report exists about it. So it’s quite a tough sell if you would now make it into a movie…
@@bingobongo1615 he was apparently obscured by smoke and was eventually wounded by small arms fire. When you imagine waves upon waves of Germans, it was probably not the Hollywood masses of troops walking across an open field. I believe the use of the .50 was only part of his entire contribution to that battle, and since it was documented in his MOH citation, undoubtedly had a lot of witnesses.
Why would the Germans write a report about it? "Here you go sir, just a report on how we got our asses handed to us by some lone 5-foot-nothing dude." @@bingobongo1615
Thank you Indy . That's exactly why.
My grandfather was a military policeman in the U.S. Army and followed the war from North Africa to Germany. He told me at some point his unit was tasked with maintaining security at a supply dump and that theft by local civilians were not to be tolerated. They were ordered to shoot on sight and he did during on one occasion. That's all he ever told me about his time in the war.
As a kid raised on one too many a war film, I could not understand why my grandparents did not want to discuss war. It was only after I saw conflict firsthand myself that I finally got some small sense of why they stayed silent because I too could not put into words what I had seen, even if I wanted to.
I am old enough that I got to hear the stories of survivors of the war in Germany first hand.
Probably no words can truly express the disaster.
I have visited the death camp in Poland after I had seen the death camps in Bosnia during the 1990s...the lessons I have learned are speak up and speak out against this kind of hatred...we must be united against human trafficking, slavery and wholesale murder...
Like the part about Audie Murphy, read the book but the movie is still good!
Krueger taking Clark's field is an interesting ordeal. The Japanese pull back bit there artillery ready to bombard the airport but snipers landmines are easily over powdered but the artillery is what makes Kruger job so difficult. There is even an artillery duel that lasts a couple of days? But it will be secured in a couple of weeks!
My great-grandpa was one of the few who survived Auschwitz. It's very chilling.
Thank you for all you do. I’ve been following you guys since early in the WW1 coverage, and I’ve got to say, not an episode goes by where I don’t learn something new. I used to regard myself as a World War Two historian, having studied the subject since-really, I could read, about six. I’m nearly 58 now. Unfortunately, many of the facts and details I thought I knew were patently false, or simply glossed over by the typical books that came out in the immediate post-war period.
Fortunately for me, I had the benefit of talking to so many veterans of all branches and theaters who were around my now back then. Their memories were as vivid (or more so) than my own of my service in the 80s. I got to know quite a few things that never did make it into the the contemporary accounts of the time. However, all too often, these veterans’ reflections lacked the context of the “bigger picture” scenery that you guys provide. For example: my uncle Eddy was on the carrier that had its forward flight deck folded over in the typhoon. He recalled hearing the ship’s captain advise the men that they may have to abandon ship. The young seamen exclaimed that he’d ‘be damned if he got off this big ship to get into a little boat!’ Without context, one understands the sheer terror of seeing waves breaking over the flight deck of an Essex class carrier. Very soon, like my uncle Eddy, those veterans personal accounts will be gone forever.
Your channel keeps alive the memory of a war so terrible that many of today’s youth cannot fathom how it could actually be true. We who are not so far removed from that dark time know it to be all too real.
Thank you for the kind words and for sharing your uncle's story!
- TimeGhost Ambassador
You are so correct Indy...No one who actually witnessed those sorts of things will talk about them. I took a counseling seminar from a licensed counselor that was a former ambulance driver in 'nam that still suffers from PTSD. He pretty much said the same thing and also said if someone just goes on with the war stories, they are full of BS, they were never there.
My grandfather never talked about the war. He was an officer in the British Navy stationed in the Med. He was something to do with British intelligence, but that's all I know. When he came back though, he was on a bottle of whisky a day. He was a big guy and very reserved, but it must have been eating him up inside.
It would be interesting to present along with the status of Soviet troops racing west the NKVD units just behind them. Great series, by the way.
When I see the pain and torturous destruction brought about to innocent civilians going east , and now back west ,I thank my father in Heaven that I am a free man. Born in a free land of laws, and inalienable rights ,that is what I am most grateful for......
Seven tons of women's hair got me right off the bat. I've been to Holocaust museums and seen the giant piles of shoes, but that caught me off guard and really hit home.
And still, in spite of all the hair, shoes, clothes, dentures …., there are people denying the Holocaust.
I visited the holocaust memorial museum in Washington DC.
I will never forget the truth.
The Nazis used the hair to insulate the periscopes on their U boats, among other things I suppose.
@@ToddSauve they used the hair for many kinds of insulation and filling. The Luftwaffe had boots made with the "confiscated" prisoner hair, allegedly they were satisfactory.
You guys, too, are heroic. Facing this horror, living through it day by day -- how do you do it?
We put out a short recently featuring Sparty, Astrid and Anna talking about a small part of what helps. The short answer is, pets can make a huge difference!
Here's the short: th-cam.com/users/shortsQE_S9-p3pek
Tarlac is a weirdly well off little city in Fils. Visiting from San Fernando is like stepping into the 21st century... =) Nice place to go spend a few days, it has a great city market. Lovely, neat-ish little city with nice gardens.
Those last lines of the script really touched a sensitive spot in my soul 😢
It's harrowing to think about, thank you for watching.
1:30 My maternal grandfather was from Gumbinnen. He got captured in Libya and has spent the past years as a mechanic for the British. They treated him well, even allowed him to visit the nearby town on weekends. After the war he relocated to Rhineland-Palatinate. Up until his death he received the "Gumbinner Heimatbrief" (Gumbinnen home letter), a magazine published for those that had to leave their homes (Heimatvertriebene). He would visit his old home with his 2 sons sometime in the late aughts, still remembering the places from his childhood.
The thumbnail of Himmler looks likes he’s absolutely stoned
He probably was towards the end.
High-grade Goering's packs 😂
Wouldn't be surprised, them mfs were taking pervitin as if it was candies😂
Well I mean. . . he probably was almost constantly at this point.
@@MrCrosby.s_lunch lol facts
Love seeing the lend lease shermans in soviet use
Excellent series! Thank you!
It would be nice to hear of the Mopping Up operations involving the Australian & NZ forces ?
Good episode. Great ending.
Glad you enjoyed, thank you for watching.
Seems like the worst is usually perpetrated by the rear echelon types. I seem to recall that someone said something similar about Wellington's troops, in Napoleonic times.
That final comment from Indy reminded me of what Shia Lebaouf's character said in the movie Fury.
He said; "wait until you see. What a man can do to another man."
I can see you reaching down with your right hand to scroll down. I cant unsee this. help