We shouldn't forget the _cornered animal effect._ Imagine, that you notice someone attempting to break into your home. You probably call the police and run or hide. However, if your neighbour was murdered in a home invasion and you heard of other cases where the victims were tortured or murdered despite being compliant to robbers, then you probably grab a weapon and rather die fighting than begging for mercy to monsters that know no mercy.... In WWII, Russians had such reputation and according to my Grandfather they feared the Americans too, having heard of Yankees murdering everyone after they surrendered. The result: they fought the Americans to the last bullet and surrendered to the Brits who came from the other side...
This trapped rabbit effect is especially known from Russians or Soviets - heard of the recent case of the Russian pilot being shot down over Syria? He knew that terrorists do not treat their prisoners well, so he fought to the last bullet and then blew himself up with his grenade as the terrorists ganged up on him.
19Koty96 I honestly have no idea who in Syria the good guys are... my sympathy goes mostly to the kurds, since they are not religious nutcases and got screwed over by every major player. While they did help out some minorities, they did push out ethnic arabs... Funfact: a German was kidnapped in Afghanistan and the terrorists abused him as a mule carrying ammunition. Then they made the mistake of letting him carry even handgrenades of which he stole one and kept it in case he does not get rescued...
I don't think this effect applies here because it is something that is a thing among all militaries and countries. It could only work when the soldiers make collective decisions themselves. Other countries who were defeated by Germany also had soldiers who fought bravely and courageously. A lot more depends on orders from the generals, chancellor, prime minister, emperor. etc If the soldiers were given an order to stay and fight in a situation that is obviously or very likely lost, they'll fight more fiercely and feel like a cornered animal. If there is a chance, no matter how small, then every person considers at what point they should take their chance to do something to survive. Its just my opinion that it isn't something unique or new to Germans.
pow's casualties rates in Us prison camps was obviously much better than soviet gulags BUT noticebly higher than british pow camps... so make sense that the prefered enemy to surrender was british/commonweallth forces rater than american or far worse, red army... just like eastern front on winter 43, sometimes when soviet capture germans and italian soldiers, they send the first to partisan to shot them meanwhile italian are send to gulag because they still enemies but italian army has never commited war crimes in urss
What the video said about "comradeship" needs to be additionally emphasized because many people grossly underestimate it. I learned of it when I was a teenager and the older brothers of friends were coming back from the US-Vietnam War. Many were Marines who had served on the Danang perimeter and had patrolled the nearby villages. They regarded the war as lost because the villagers hated the government more than they feared the Viet Cong and the government was corrupt and ineffective. Yet they were volunteering for another tour-of-duty. Why? Most said it was to support - or not abandon - their comrades who were still there and to not dishonor those who sacrificed (dead and severely wounded). A few said it was simple patriotism - the President had said the US needed to fight and we needed to support him. This is similar to what the video said about German loyalty to Hitler and various institutions.
The average South Vietnamese citizen certainly didn't like their government, but they probably knew enough about what China was like under Mao to realize the communists wouldn't treat them better. They were mostly tired of being stuck in the middle of a fight that was killing their family members and their ability to support themselves. It was the communists who started the fight with help from foreign governments, with the intention of imposing a completely new economic and political system on them. After the communists took power in Vietnam, everything the U.S. said would happen, actually did. Hundreds of thousands of people were murdered, and neighboring countries also fell in the domino fashion that was foretold. The communists also murdered huge numbers of people in those countries. And then they lost as many from starvation caused by communist incompetence with agriculture. I guess we ignore the horrible consequences of our leaving Vietnam because we view the victims as less valuable than Americans.
I guess I'd have to disagree. I've heard several times that the Americans didn't trust the villagers , because there were often communists among them. I guess most of the Governments support was in the city, even if people felt opressed by the minority rule and corrupt officials as well.
I was conscripted into the Soviet Army and sent to Afghanistan. My only loyalty was to the other men, really just boys. Though we did have a general loyalty to our direct officers. We were indoctrinated by the political officers - fucking slugs- with the Party's reasons for being there but no one seriously accepted. We did not like the Afghan government but the people opposing the Islamics we did take seriously. For the most part it seemed an incomprehensible tribal war with a lot of religious hypocrisy. Pointless and little to do with us. Of course then their was the Americans feeding in weapons and foreign fanatics. For us it was just take care of each other and hope the generals did not get us all killed promoting their careers.
It always depends, the younger generation which formed units like the SS-Grenadierdivision "30. Januar" was not really fanatic but had nothing to relay, it was the third reich or a big black hole. Units like Panzerdivision "Müncheberg" which had a battle hardend core had fough the whole time just because they had no way to retreat or just surrender, you see it with the Courland-Pocket, always the hope to come out alright. An example: The Kampfgruppe "1001" had 13 Jagdpanzer 38(t) and 50 men(of previous 24 Hetzer and 500 men) they kept fighting to hold of the Red Army at Seelow so the 606. Infantry Division could escape. I think, it is a mix of just keep fighting for others, specially on the eastern Front. The moral, like my relative told me, is so low, that you do not bother if you fight or not.
Among the veterans I befriended was a common story: the Germans seldom surrendered as individuals, or small groups; they generally surrendered as entire units. This observation is consistent with your presentation.
My great grandfather was wounded in combat and had the opportunity to stay in the hospital for quite some time. He insisted on being sent back to the front ASAP, because for one "What are my children supposed to think of me?" and "I want to be with my comrades when we win the war". IIRC it was some time in '43 or '44. He went missing shortly after and the letters with his military numbers and everything went missing as well.
I helped US veterans who fought under my father's command in WWII and most of them said that the bonds between soldiers is stronger than the bonds between family. I do not think that you can understand this unless you were a combat soldier because their lives depended upon each other and many died saving their fellow soldiers. I witnessed the strong feelings of these veterans and at reunions they became young soldiers again. I was told by my father that many good soldiers died in the defense of their own country.
One factor that is widely overlooked is the effect of allied bombing. Especially the British that sought civilian carnage to break the will of the people. Now imagine the husband or father returning to a bombed out city to find his family perished. These men now had the chance to fight the ones responsible for their deaths. This is a powerful reason to fight to the last bullet.
I absolutely love your video's. You are insightful, brave enough to challenge accepted opinions, but most importantly you don't politicize your content. Thank you.
Could you make a video about German POWs in Russia after 45? Numbers, fates, last to return and why it took so long for them to return? Did it require some political dealings by both German states? Did POWs coming from newly established DDR went back home sooner? Very interesting topic, but I can't find a good text about it - so if anyone can point me to a book (in English) I would appreciate that. Also - keep up the awesome job you are doing :)
Leszek Kadelski I would like to hear about this too. My grand grandfather told me the story about his time as a Pow in Russia. I would find it interesting to know what others experienced there. He was from Besserabia with German ancestors, but speaking Russian helped him making actual friends among the Russian guards and Women who brought them Food (one of my sisters is named after one of these women). Really enjoy your Work. Have a nice evening.
I too would be very interested in a video on this subject. It's the sort of thing only mentioned in passing in most history books, but has tremendous importance to the history of the Eastern Front and the men who fought there.
It can be expanded into topic of Japanese POWs captured by Soviet Russia in 45 as well. According to Wiki, some of those men were held prisoners into 60'.
Generally speaking, only a handfull of all the POW's who were taken got back home. Most died in Gulags or were just executed. I dont know if the itch for knowlege on this is enough for you, but the story is pretty gruesome for their fate.
For a German soldier during the period in question the man on his right and on his left would have been better off surrendering to the western allies and so would he, and Germany their country would not have been any worse off in the end if many more had done so earlier. So I guess if they really wanted to fight for the man on their left and the man on their right they should have fought any Military Police, officers, or Nazi loyalists who would have stopped them from doing so.
Tavish that was mostly a joke (literally it would have been the truth but of course I understand why it is unrealistic). And yes you are correct I have not.
A good book that goes into this topic is Hitler's Army by Omer Bartov. He argues that the wehrmacht soldiers on the Eastern Front were much more ideological and fanatical than what is commonly believed.
This might have to do with the fact that they saw first hand what they were fighting against. With the exception of Dresden and other war crimes perpetrated by the Americans and British - being captured by them seemed a lot more preferable to dying. Contrast this with the Soviets on the Ostfront, it was a nightmare.
Don't forget about the myth of "glorious" Frederik the Great (Friedrich der Große), who did lead the prussian army in a war against basically all other european powers in the mid-18th century. Accordng to german history books King Frederik frequently managed to slip out of hopeless situations on the battlefield (supposedly due to his unquestionable faith in final victory). There was even a famous propaganda movie about him, screened at Nazi theaters in the 40's. How much of king Frederik's successes can be attributed his military genius or his people's persistence is matter of dispute today. However it can't be denied the myth had impact on german military culture and doctrine before and during the war. It might help explain the young generation's irrational will to endure and sacrifice til the bitter end in ww2.
TheBespectacledN00b No, that's another Nazi blockbuster. "Kolberg" is staged in Napoleonic times. The one about Frederik II is called "The Great King" by Veit Harlan.
Wyatt Earp what it means: it would have been smarter to surrender to the Western Allies, less painful for others and themselves, better for the future of the country they love so much and that of Europe. To be rational would have been to avoid further loss of human lifes for a lost cause. That's not a matter of opinion but a fact. Mind what he said, 2/3 of German soldiers died in the last two years of war, thats not counting in civilians who died in concentration camps and due to allied bombing. The problem is that it is too easy to manipulate a crowd of people to start a war and fight to the point of self-sacrifice but it seems too hard to make everyone clean they head in order to stop it. I guess a crowd of people simply does not act rationally.
@Christian S "it would have been smarter to surrender to the Western Allies" for this to work the Western Allies would have needed to accept a West only surrender. Which is unlikely. At least they communicated several times that there will be no surrender or peace in detail. This made this option very unlikely to achieve the desired result. Never the less this was the solution the officers who tried to stage a coupe in '44 went for. Only they failed. "To be rational would have been to avoid further loss of human lifes for a lost cause." Certainly not. Your conclusion only is valid from a humanitarian perspective. Which is clearly not even close to the perspective the decisive people back in the day had. You have to concider the fact that basically unprecedented atrocities and crimes had been commited. This is mentioned in the video too. There would have been consequences. The responsible people would have been punished. So it made no sense at all for the vast majority of the German high leadership to even concider surrender. Their lives had been forfeited anyways. The only chance they had for survival was victory. So they clinged to the only chance they had. Fear of punishment and guilt are very powerfull motivators. "better for the future of the country they love so much and that of Europe." The Nazi leaders didn't even care in the slightest for "the country", the people or anyone but themself. What makes you think they would have cared for Europe? BTW chances are the result of the events are the best possible outcome for Germany and Europe. At least they tourned out reasonable good in the intermediate and long run. The era of peace and prosperity after WW2 in Europe, which still goes on, is unprecedented in history. Especially Germany really came out on top. The German people are by orders of magintude far better off than they have ever been before. "I guess a crowd of people simply does not act rationally." If by this you want to suggest that simply all soldiers would have had to stop fighting to end the war I would say that this is an extremly naive point of view. If you want to say that once certain things are put in motion they can be hard to stop or even undo than I fully agree. This is also not special to WW2. Its one of the driving forces behind perpetual wars. Once war breaks out there will be people that have an intrest in keeping it going. As has been pointed out in the video this even can include the frontline soldiers themself.
Thanks for your comment, read my response to them point by point: 1) Officially a seperate peace might not have been an option for western governments. However behind the curtains there were in fact negotiations going on between american and Nazi officals. If that is of interest to you, please do some research on American diplomat John Foster Dulles, who later became head of the CIA. He was one who worked on a seperate peace. Plus there was certainly a lot of negotiating between war factions which you and I don't know about. The failure of the officer's coup of '44 doesn't prove anything about the likelyhood of a seperate western peace. Regardless of the politcal scale, it doesn't say anything of how smart it was from the perspective of a soldier, to surrender to the western Allies and choose to be a prisoner of war - instead of choosing to obey Hitler and accept to become cannon fodder (which most of them did). 2) I thought the discussion was about what was going on in the mind of the fighting Wehrmacht soldier, less about the individual motivations of who you call "decisive people" or "responsable people". You are certainly right about the leading elites of the Axis powers, who were mostly fully aware that what they did was inexcusable. But that was not the topic, read the headline - this is about the soldier who swore his oath to Hitler, who killed and died on the front - it was not about the general staff or partymembers. 3) I didn't say that Nazi leaders cared for Europe at any point. It seems pretty weird to draw that conclusion. I was mentioning europe, because europe was the loser of the war. It was the loser, because especially during the final years and after WW2, the level of destruction on economy and sacrifice of population in european countries got to a degree that would result in ultimate loss of world hegemony. The only reason the madness kept on going is there were still soldiers brainwashed enough to keep on fighting even though surrender was getting closer every day. 4) No, I did not say that every soldier "would have had to stop" fighting. I know that humans are no robots. You seem to intentionally misunderstand my words. Let me clarify: By nature, the human individual is not acting rationally, even less so when acting in crowd. That's reason why it is so important to have rational leaders.
Germans also knew that there was a very high probability that the alliance between the Soviet Union and the United States would probably break down before the end of the war. There was a good chance that the Americans and Soviets would have started fighting each other. This can not be underestimated as a reason to hold out until the last possible second.
Ein weiterer Punkt wäre mMn. noch der Gedanke an die Heimat. Es ist etwas anderes wenn man um ein Stück russischen Acker kämpft, oder um die eigene Heimat. Man hatte in Preussen evtl. Familie/ Freunde/ Bekannte gehabt, die man beschützen wollte. Oder zumindest die Chance geben wollte zu fliehen. Das spielte sicherlich auch zu einem gewissen Teil eine Rolle.
Military History Vlogs The book has a brief chapter on the status of the average german soldier during Market Garden and focuses on multiple individual storys. This chapter claims that the younger soldiers and the rear-area troops (which were filling the ranks at that time) had a almost naive belief in the final victory but most veterans especially ones who made it out of normandy had low moral. Even says older soldiers many who had been wounded early on were known as alte Hasen. It also refers to the "front atmosphere" working within the accepted framework but giving it a human face creating a sense of belonging and unit pride.
295Phoenix - You mean like what the North american indians were a prime victim of ? And currently the palestinians ? Not to mention the plunder by force of resources all over the middle east. The hidden truth about Hussein, and the convenient removal of Ghadaffi. Or the absolute garbage propaganda about Russia and the Syrian regime, all backed by the western WWII victors. Meanwhile the Germans sought justice after having been plundered themselves by the versaille treaty under which stipulations no nation could endure forever. And they achieved not just justice and regained their honor, but they achieved far more than any nation ever has - a future not just for it's own people but for Europe. That history is of course sealed to people, because anyone who knows general history which is taught in school curriculums; only learns what they need to know. And they also learn something else that you too should be aware of - that even questioning what you are taught about the Germans will make you a target. People fear being called nazis or sympathiesers because it could wreck their grades and careers - that should tell you something about democracy and freedom. You can be an active satanist and gut cute fluffy little pets and not receive a tenth of the persecution and threats by simply investigating questionable history about the Germans. You are supposed to know about them, but not read about it outside of popular history. State documents tends to show a completely different story, if it became general knowledge - people would alter their perception of history and not in the favour of the allies.
@@reeda7681 I am a Nationalsocialist. But i'm not Neo and i don't belong to the violent extreme Nazis. They deserve a distinction of term like that, because those poor mislead fools belong to a category of their own. They don't comprehend the history of their own supposed ideology, and they think hatred is a proper stance to other ethnicities.
@@Tyrfingr Lol, I haven't heard even one thought leader on the right claim to hate someone. Neo-nazis deny their hate just as vehemently as you do. And I'm not defending them, the purpose of this comment is to point out that people don't tend to admit to hateful attitudes. Denying you hold such attitudes if you identify with an ideology which is famous for them, is not going to be easily believed.
I'd say, the horrors of the Soviet union were a pretty good reason to keep fighting. Russia, even back then, did not have a good reputation for their treatment of prisoners, or occupied territories people.
LOL. You link me a regurgitated version of Other Losses by James Basque and expect me to take you seriously? Fuck off. You can't possibly feed me this shit and not know that you're in the wrong, but to be honest it takes little more than the screen name "Persian Aryanism" to know you're either a teenager or acting in bad faith. Here, I'll even give you a "rebuttal" in the same way you gave me "proof." The great thing is it's even more reputable a source than your favorite white supremacist geocities account: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Losses#Criticism_of_Other_Losses
The Allies didnt offer conditional surrender because to quote Max Hastings "the Germans had done nothing to earn the right to demand conditions", the same applies to the Japanese. If you fight in the same way those armies did you lose the right to any conditions.
How does your response make any sense when we know Germans fought well on the Western front. The point of the video also wasn't meant to invite others to say what they think, but to watch his video. If you had watched it it would have been unnecessary to write what you wrote, which is a more general alleged reason. He went over more credible explanations which he gave basis for.
The main difference between WW1 and Ww2 is that Germans hoped they would get an honorable peace in 1918, especially after the Kaiser abdicated. There was no such hope in 1945, only the prospect of total annihilation. Most German soldiers simply saw no alternative to fighting to the bitter end.
There is a psychological theory called 'Learned Helplessness' that postulates that after a certain period of adverse effects an organism will just sit there and suffer, not even looking for a method of escape. This may be an underlying factor why many troops in dire circumstances do not desert or surrender. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness
@@marcobaretta9645 Actually, I remember a story my grandfather's brother told, he fought on the Russian front. One day they encountered thousands of Russian POW who were marched west to Germany while the German soldiers marched east. The German soldiers all said "There must be a mixup here, we're all going into the wrong direction." None of them wanted to be in Russia, much less fight a war. They all just wanted to go home to their families.
I think that the strong bond between soldiers is something no one can understand unless you experience it yourself. My father commanded a WWII US Army rifle company and fought against the German Army in Italy and in France. He said that there were places that the Germans fought to the end and his men also fought to the end. The last man standing was the victor and war is a terrible thing. He also told me that he used to talk to the German Army Officers during lull in fighting to exchange wounded POW on both sides. I think that Germany and Japan have this type of thinking.
@@295Phoenix well odds are the soldiers only hear about the 20% of times they got shot. And 20% is still an absurdly high death rate. And the average Wehrmacht soldier had nothing to do with killing the Russian soldiers
@@thomasbrady3827 Nazi apologetics. We have many accounts of Wehrmacht soldiers participating in murdering Soviet POWs and and civilians. Hell, there's an order from 1941 ordering Wehrmacht soldiers to quit wasting bullets on POWs!
There is one more aspect: in 41/42 when the Wehrmacht has conquered a lot of teritorries of USSR many mass graves of the victims of NKVD were found. Probably the most famou were mass graves of polish officers murdered in 1940 in Katyn. This finding was well documented not only by Wehrmacht officials, but also by the Red Cross and Vichy France officials. I assume that the Germans were certain about what will happen with Germany and German people if they fail.
Memoirs of German officers I've read seem to all agree the effects of Allied bombing were a big factor. Wounded soldiers on leave generally wanted to get back to their units ASAP because they felt more in control of things at the front with their comrades instead of staying with terrified civilians at the mercy of indiscriminate bombing raids. Add to this that 'combat fatigue does not exist with the German Soldier' in the view of National Socialism. Two stark choices-face your fate at the front with a weapon in your hands or get strung up with a 'Deserter/Defeatist' plaque adorning your stretched neck. It's also why hundreds of thousands felt surrendering to the Anglo-Americans was the easier choice who conveniently airdropped 'Safe Conduct' passes over German positions with the promise of no harm, promised food and medical care along with being removed from the combat area as soon as possible. They featured the signature of the commanding Allied general, playing on the German soldier's psyche of being properly authorized to do so.
There was also hope in a final alliance with the west against the soviets. There was also the reality that civilians were not suffering like in WWI but they were until the end well clothed, fed and housed... soldiers just had to fight and this miracle lasted until the end as documented by Gotz Ali.
It Is pretty amazing that there isn't a example of any German unit fighting to be able to surrender until Berlin was encircled in April 1945. In retrospect, a stay in an allied P.O.W. camp -- assuming you surrender to British, Americans or Canadians -- sounds a lot more attractive than near certain death.
I really like your videos, watched a lot of them. I really think, form my heart, you need an outro again. Some sort of song, jingle or whatever. Da fehlt was ;)
I may have missed it but patriotism isn't mentioned in this video. They were fighting for their people and their country. Also Roosevelt and Churchill's "unconditional surrender" demands instead of a negotiated peace left them no choice.
I think the discussion needs to be more diversified and take into consideration the front a German Landser was assigned to. Yes, the military commanders still believed on a victory over the Allies in the West, the situation in Q1 1945 was completely different on the Eastern front and such were the motives of the soldiers to fight on there. Being a POW for the UK/US was not a problem but as you pointed out it was a different ballgame with the Russian. But one very important reason why the Wehrmacht fought nails and claws on the Eastern front (with huge casualties numbering into hundreds of thousand per month) was to give civilians the time to flee west as far and fast as possible.
Could you do a video on the German spring offensive of 1918? Did it have a real chance of a decisive breakthrough in the entente lines that could have won the war?
it didnt. the german imperial army was more or less a walking corps at that point. They regained a major boost in strenght and menpower do to the peace with russia and the transport of the eastern armies to the west, but that didnt matter any more at that point. germany was starving with hundred thousands dying. The german army was out of supplies and food. There are countless reports of german soldiers stopping their advance so they could eat captured entente food. the german soldiers were worn down by that really fast. The entente soldiers on the other hand had all the food and supplies in the world after the USA joint the war. The german army couldnt fight on a empty stomach. Basically the entente could replenish every lost soldier do to the USA joining in full force while the german army had 0 reserves left and evry lost soldier was a lost of unreplensihble substance. Also it kind of achieved a major breakthrough at the start. Considering the previous 4 years of war on the western front the germans conquered a great amount of land (compared to verdun, Somme or Paschendale), but they got weaker with each new offensive until nothing was left to attack anymore. Also germanys allies were collabsing left and right, they were starving as well and were compleatly out of supply and menpower (espacially austria-hungary). the best corse of action for the germans would have been to use their new amassed army on the western front and offer the entente a white peace or elsass-lorane. Do to their army still beeing a major power (on paper) they could use the fear of a major german attack for the negotiations. The german empire needed peace, not any new offensive.
I read that the announcement by Roosevelt and Churchill of "unconditional surrender", and a map of Germany divided up into 4 zones with the eastern part given to Poland, was widely disseminated.
The country didn't fall apart till late 1944, ofc they wouldnt have given up. Once Soviet ran over Romania, it's all over. No country can function without oil.
Andrei Valdez I just saw that video again. What is really frigtening me is that the vast majority of the comments are supporting them. Dont get me wrong, I think it would be terribly wrong to blame 3 random ex-Wermacht soldier personally for WW2 atrocities, they probably did not do any worse than the average soldier of that time anyway. But here are the comments, praising them and insulting everyone else with messages filled with buzzwords and utmost stupidity. This is just so fucking depressing.
MyMrmoi yeah stupidity knows no side in politics. left and right both have stupid people very similar (both usually have racist and sexist ideas) yet different(who they hate). btw if it wasn't obvious yet I'm talking about the far left and the far right.
Dad met a number of new German recruits when it was clear the war only had weeks to go. Despite being asked why they didn't go home as Germany was kaput they were still determined to fight on. Even acknowledging they couldn't win.
@Bernhard Kast (Military History not Visualized) I see it as a case of "moral inertia" inside the mass of the German military from 1942 onward - it was easier to keep going on doing the same thing and hoping for some sort of victory or armistice. You also have the element of unit comradeship, so nobody wanted to give up on their fellows, or their families back home. Focusing on doing the job well while not thinking about the general military/political situation in 1943-1944-1945 was a form of avoiding the pain of knowing that the cause was lost and that Germany was in the wrong, especially if you had seen the trains with full cattlecars going to the camps, or empty trains going eastward for more. Finally you have to remember the amount of drugs everybody was on to do their jobs - uppers to fly for long distances or stand a watch all night, downers to sleep without nightmares, etc. After a while being glazed from the drugs mixed with being glazed from seeing so much combat if you survived long enough. Gunter Grass' 2007 "confession" of being a last-ditch recruit for the Waffen SS says a lot about that period: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/06/04/how-i-spent-the-war
The only German soldier I worked alongside ( in1969 ) told me that his entire company ( after spending almost the entire war in Paris ) found a way to surrender to American troops towards the end of the Battle of the Bulge. I was too young and shy to quiz him about the details but he was massively disparaging about the Nazi idiots who ordered the dumb attack through the Ardennes.
I’ve heard soldiers say essentially “Well my house has probably been bombed, my wife and children probably dead, why don’t I just take a couple more Americans with me to the grave?”
Why didn't you talk about the most obvious point? This was a very clear example of an war of ideologies on the one hand, and a blatant war against the german nation on the other hand. Even more so then the first world war. The average soldier was aware of this, the motives of the allies were very clear, surrender was never an option for the german people in this war. It was either victory or destruction.
Yeah, Germany was totally ruined and kept down after they surrendered. They were totally wiped out and have been a 3rd world shit hole ever since. *Eye roll*
A rather grouchy guy at another blog I hang out with posted a meme: "Hard Times Create Hard Men; Hard Men Create Good Times; Good Times Create Weak Men; Weak Men Create Hard Times; Hard Times Create Hard..."
The correct English for the title is actually "What kept Wehrmacht soldiers fighting til 1945?" I'm sure someone's already said it, but I haven't seen it in the comments.
The title used to say "Why kept Wehrmacht soldiers fighting til 1945?" but he fixed it. Trust me, I know a thing or two about English considering it's the only language I speak.
Blah b whoever wrote whatever foreign language education English textbook you read whatever passage you read to give you that false belief does not have the authority to decide to decree what is correct or incorrect in English, so I’m sorry but it being said in one of those or whenever else you heard or were taught this fallacy does not make it correct. The question was referring to something that happened in the past and for the sentence to be proper it would have to have said “Why did the German soldiers keep fighting...” if he wanted to use “why” and the verb “keep”. Also keep in mind that what is considered proper use of a language evolves and is determined by what is perceived/agreed to be correct amongst the vast majority of its speakers and in how it is used while being considered to be correct by the same. That is why dictionaries change and update their definitions over time, to make their definitions be proper for the current times, and is also why in updates they may mark some definitions as archaic to indicate that usage has evolved to the point that in the minds of the populace at large that definition for the word, while having once been used and considered proper, no longer is. I mention this to illustrate that it is what proper usage is considered to be, in the consciousness of the English speakers as a whole, that determines if a sentence is considered to be phrased properly or not. So trust me at least 99% of educated English speakers, educated or otherwise, would have considered his original title to be improper; to them reading it would sound like reading the broken English of a foreigner. Therefore regardless of what you may have been taught the original title contained improper use of English.
@Maz Robinson throughout the whole war NKVD executed 10k Soviet soldiers and resent 130k to new units/penal batallions those 130k usually got the most dangerous task e.g become the front part of the spearhead
Did you consider fear of the "communist hoards"? desperately fighting to protect home and family against the bogeyman?Does this idea have any real basis?
That would fall under "Nazi Propaganda". The US had plenty of it's own propaganda against the Germans that was mainly directed at the civilian populace because US officers refused to allow US troops to watch it for fear that they would be more likely to abuse POW's.
Looking at just facts here, Russia sent millions of people to gulags, their own people. 3 million Germans were taken prisoners at the end of the war if i recall, about 80.000 returned over a decade later. thats more than 98% death rate. Soviet Union was not a kind thing. From the war with Finland, treatment of prisoners, people knew Russia would do horrors. Specially if you just look at what they did when they took Berlin. They raped the entire town's female population. Or at least very close to that. But every communist or anti nazi will tell you thats just lies, denying warcrimes because "hitlor was worse even though stalin killed 16 million people more than Hitler".
I think the writing was on the wall when the British beat them out of North Africa and Russia drove Germany out of Stalingrad, between Feb and May 43. As a Soldier or General, I'd have to be thinking how we could possibly win against those odds.
Easy, they were defending their homeland! Anybody would defend their homeland agianst anybody who is attacking it, not to talk about the comradeship with your buddies who you have been fighting with since the start of the war. It's all about brotherhood and country at this point.
If he soldier knew 3 things: If he ran his family would suffer. If he stayed he might die, and if he ran he would die. And last a goodly part of the army were not Germans, but conscripts from occupied countries.
Having a really boring job, but with a good income and good benefits, I understand the pride of the Germans in 1943 in doing a good job even if it doesn't give anything emotionally. I know it should not be that way according to especially American interpretations of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It should be absolutely impossible. -- But I see it as a trade: You give me the opportunity to have an extra ordinary life off duty. So as a payment I do a really good job on duty, even if I die of boredom. And I put an honour into fulfilling that trade. -- Off coarse: Impossible, if you ask a political correctly educated "Human Resource" official...
Why wouldn't one fight for their country to the bitter end? How hard would we fight for the USA before throwing in the towel? Why did the Confederacy fight as long as it did?
@@l_radovanovic431 Well done Luka people like him never go away and die. fighting Bolsheviks was an excuse so they could expand German territory at the expense of the USSR while making themselves look like they were protecting capitalism/western style economics. Italy fought against communists in Spain and when the left / communists were defeated then Italy left Spain. Italy did not stay in Spain, German war was a war of conquest, not liberation. Once communism/ the left is defeated YOU LEAVE AND YOU DONT STAY. THAT IS THE DIFFERENCE. WHEN YOU STAY THAT IS INVASION/ CONQUEST. HUGE DIFFERENCE
I actually think the answer is fairly simple, at least as far as the general staff is concerned. Once it was clear by the end of 1942 that Germany would not just not win the war but was going to lose decisively, they stopped thinking strategically and just kept themselves busy fighting the war on the operational and tactical level. Sometimes it’s just easier to keep going than to actually stop and think about what you are doing. You can concentrate on winning the immediate fight you’re in right now rather than try to think ahead and get depressed. The German leadership had gotten themselves into a gruesome war, that they had no way of winning and no easy way out of, and each of them were deeply mired in the atrocities committed. Thinking ahead could not have been pleasant for any of them.
Similar logic applies to the individual soldier. No one had time to think ahead. They fought to avenge their friends because they did not want to face what awaited at the end.
Isn't it also true that in many battles the Germans managed to kill more than they lost? Think of the tank kill ratios. That means that the German soldiers could be failing, but individual units could feel the satisfaction of "doing well" while everything was going to hell. Combined with the four points you mentioned, especially comaradeship, they might be more hopeful at the local level while failing totally at the strategic level.
By statistic the kill ratio in the east was 1:5. In the west it was 1:1.6. But since in the west just one of three was in actual combat it was accordingly worse.
Well morale was pretty bad, but high command knew that if the germans wouldnt capture the oil fields the red army would eventually win Germany did not capture the oil fields.
A soldier has one job: follow orders. That's why they kept fighting. No other reason. Same with the Soviet Red Army. They got their asses collectively kicked in 1941, but they kept fighting. Then they kicked Germany's ass and turned Berlin into gravel all while German troops were obeying the order to become corpses.
1. Don't forget FDR demanded unconditional surrender. Which was dumb. 2. Building on 1: Fear of Morgenthau plan as well. FDRs Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr. was pushing for Gerrnany to be deindustrialized and transformed into a pastoral farm territory. And German men deported as laborers. And Morgenthau was of German Jewish ancestry, which played into Goebbels hands. 3. Fear of Soviet occupation. These 3 factors were huge in motivating German troops to fight.
I almost agree with what you said, BUT, you forgot to mention the Morgenthau effect in early 1943, where the american Secretary of Justice proposed a list of measures to Roosevelt, about how to deal with Germany and the german society after the war; measures that included the starvation of Germany and the POWs, execution of the main leaders of the Army and the Waffen SS, to take all the technological advances with the atomic bomb included and to expropriate all the industrial facilities, including machinery, So, what you have is that Morgenthau wanted that Germany would start from "0". The consequence of that was the famous Goebbels speech, where he said that from that moment on TOTALER KRIEG was in place. I believe that this went from the top to the very bottom of the German society, soldiers included. This led to have a higher confidence in Hitler, who in turn started with a defensive strategy, instead of an offensive war, to gain time for the presentation of the Wunderwaffen and win the war, but he didn't have that time.
The politically incorrect answer. Love of country and homeland. You know protecting what you know. Simple. Every thing else stems from that, no matter the flaws. It's Home
MHV, your last point about the wermaht soldiers knowing about the attrocities and the holocaust, what sources exactly do we have that state that "most" knew about them? Could you explain this further because this interests me greatly. I agree with you that many knew some details, and others had vague knowledge because of military gossip, however, I always believed for years now that the millions of wermaht soldiers that fought in WW2 couldn't know much about the holocaust simply because they never had much of an opportunity or be concerned. Most were on campaign and you cannot expect the front line troop to know much about this were they were more concerned with fighting the enemy and survival on a daily basis. Also by the end of the war these millions of wermaht soldiers were already dead, so most never even knew or found out about it. I also believed the Nazi regime like the soviet one, went to great lengths in having such knowledge about the subject strictly controlled.
they "knew" in various ways, some had vague information, others knew details, people talk etc. It is "nothing new" and "nothing old", remember the recent Harvey Weinstein "relevations", well, quite some people noted that there were even jokes done by comedians years before it became "public".
Well because Germany wasn't given any other option it was just get destroyed or be occupied and as FDR said still get totally destroyed. If the Germans were given the option where there national leaders would at worst be imprisoned or under life house arrest. and the nation goes back to either the 1933 borders or the 1936 borders but is demilitarised and perhaps has a small occupation force largely made up of arms inspectors then yeah i reckon the war would have been over quickly after August 1944
A better question is, why didn't they resist the same way the Poles and Soviets did? Poland didn't stop fighting in 1939, fighting on all European fronts and two large scale uprisings in Warsaw and constant partisan action, while German citizens were docile when the war came to them.
After Stalingrad the only hope for a German soldier was to surrender to the western allies. Knowing very well what atrocities they themselves (or were in their name and support) committed in the East they knew what to expect. Everyone knows about brutality of Soviet forces once they crossed into Germany, in my opinion it was planned on the level of command. Soviets and others nations demanded not only retributions but humiliation of those who considered themselves as superior and it was this national humiliation which changed Germany character, hopefully forever, and thanks to that Europe enjoys unprecedented in its history period of peace. As for myself, born in the last years of War, not being able to trust these people (or wish them well).
Germany is a very disciplined and obedient nation. It can be seen even today. The Prussian drill and state education together with Bismarck created Germany the REICH. Let's not forget that.
The attitude of just doing their job even though it’s clearly wrong and/or pointless is looks very German. Is Dieselgate a manifestation of this attitude in the modern days? Looks very much like it.
You mentioned "Band of Brothers" as including the difficulty of the vets accepting replacements. Another excellent movie that has this as part of its theme is the 1949 film "Battleground." It deals with a replacement into a platoon of the 101st Airborne who arrives a few days before the Battle of the Bulge starts. At first, he is ignored, but slowly the comradeship grows as they fight. It is also notable as it showed one of the platoon breaking and running away to the rear during combat, and the "so what" reaction of his platoon. Highly recommend it as a study of the front line soldiers: not heroes, sometimes doing things to get out of duty , but just still stubbornly doing their job. I think it really helps understand why men choose to fight when all appears lost.
Being aware of atrocities committed either in their name or by themselves they knew what to expect when they loose. In my opinion (and hope) the brutality with which Red Army treated defeated Germans thought them the lesson and now instead militarily they conquer Europe economically.
The Germans went to war with fervor and ferocity. Their actions on the eastern front were genocidal and brutal. When the tide turned the Germans knew what they had dealt to others would come back upon them 10 fold...and it did. The average German soldier would fight to the death because he knew what was coming to his nation, family and neighbors. The harder the Wehrmacht fought in the east the more time civilians had to go west.
Remember the Confederates in the U.S.Civil War said the Union fought much much harder on its own home ground. The Germans were no different in that respect.
If you surrender what happens to your family while your a POW? Surrender in the east would have been unthinkable due to harsh treatment by the Soviets. They were fighting for their home and family by the end
10:40-c.11:00 This idea to me seems typical of the German national character, not just a German soldier's. Maybe it's a stretch, a stereotype or whatever, but I've been given that impression from Germans I've spent time with.
Because the German soldier is the second best soldier in the world, a race of warriors, obedience, steadfastness, ruthlessness. All the hallmark of a great soldier.
I think the reasons are same as with russia/Soviets. Both systems were totalitarian and people were forced to defend homeland. System and enviroment directed to same result.
France, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands but no mention of Luxembourg. This is completely outrageous! How could you forget one of the most powerful empires to ever grace the continent of Europe! I'm kidding btw. I love your videos so keep up the great work.
Because Germany's national unity rating is 90%
@William Burns It's a thing in a Game called Hearts of Iron
"was"...
@T-34-85KempsBush istrue
Good one
But national unity does not matter when a average german got 10% equipment
We shouldn't forget the _cornered animal effect._
Imagine, that you notice someone attempting to break into your home. You probably call the police and run or hide. However, if your neighbour was murdered in a home invasion and you heard of other cases where the victims were tortured or murdered despite being compliant to robbers, then you probably grab a weapon and rather die fighting than begging for mercy to monsters that know no mercy....
In WWII, Russians had such reputation and according to my Grandfather they feared the Americans too, having heard of Yankees murdering everyone after they surrendered. The result: they fought the Americans to the last bullet and surrendered to the Brits who came from the other side...
This trapped rabbit effect is especially known from Russians or Soviets - heard of the recent case of the Russian pilot being shot down over Syria? He knew that terrorists do not treat their prisoners well, so he fought to the last bullet and then blew himself up with his grenade as the terrorists ganged up on him.
19Koty96 I honestly have no idea who in Syria the good guys are... my sympathy goes mostly to the kurds, since they are not religious nutcases and got screwed over by every major player. While they did help out some minorities, they did push out ethnic arabs...
Funfact: a German was kidnapped in Afghanistan and the terrorists abused him as a mule carrying ammunition. Then they made the mistake of letting him carry even handgrenades of which he stole one and kept it in case he does not get rescued...
I don't think this effect applies here because it is something that is a thing among all militaries and countries. It could only work when the soldiers make collective decisions themselves. Other countries who were defeated by Germany also had soldiers who fought bravely and courageously. A lot more depends on orders from the generals, chancellor, prime minister, emperor. etc If the soldiers were given an order to stay and fight in a situation that is obviously or very likely lost, they'll fight more fiercely and feel like a cornered animal. If there is a chance, no matter how small, then every person considers at what point they should take their chance to do something to survive. Its just my opinion that it isn't something unique or new to Germans.
edi wow!!!
Thanks for sharing that with us!!!
pow's casualties rates in Us prison camps was obviously much better than soviet gulags BUT noticebly higher than british pow camps...
so make sense that the prefered enemy to surrender was british/commonweallth forces rater than american or far worse, red army...
just like eastern front on winter 43, sometimes when soviet capture germans and italian soldiers, they send the first to partisan to shot them meanwhile italian are send to gulag because they still enemies but italian army has never commited war crimes in urss
What the video said about "comradeship" needs to be additionally emphasized because many people grossly underestimate it. I learned of it when I was a teenager and the older brothers of friends were coming back from the US-Vietnam War. Many were Marines who had served on the Danang perimeter and had patrolled the nearby villages. They regarded the war as lost because the villagers hated the government more than they feared the Viet Cong and the government was corrupt and ineffective. Yet they were volunteering for another tour-of-duty. Why? Most said it was to support - or not abandon - their comrades who were still there and to not dishonor those who sacrificed (dead and severely wounded). A few said it was simple patriotism - the President had said the US needed to fight and we needed to support him. This is similar to what the video said about German loyalty to Hitler and various institutions.
The average South Vietnamese citizen certainly didn't like their government, but they probably knew enough about what China was like under Mao to realize the communists wouldn't treat them better. They were mostly tired of being stuck in the middle of a fight that was killing their family members and their ability to support themselves. It was the communists who started the fight with help from foreign governments, with the intention of imposing a completely new economic and political system on them. After the communists took power in Vietnam, everything the U.S. said would happen, actually did. Hundreds of thousands of people were murdered, and neighboring countries also fell in the domino fashion that was foretold. The communists also murdered huge numbers of people in those countries. And then they lost as many from starvation caused by communist incompetence with agriculture. I guess we ignore the horrible consequences of our leaving Vietnam because we view the victims as less valuable than Americans.
I guess I'd have to disagree. I've heard several times that the Americans didn't trust the villagers , because there were often communists among them. I guess most of the Governments support was in the city, even if people felt opressed by the minority rule and corrupt officials as well.
Also knowing you're fighting for a just cause makes it even stronger.
Thinking you're fighting for a just cause, FTFY.
I was conscripted into the Soviet Army and sent to Afghanistan. My only loyalty was to the other men, really just boys. Though we did have a general loyalty to our direct officers. We were indoctrinated by the political officers - fucking slugs- with the Party's reasons for being there but no one seriously accepted. We did not like the Afghan government but the people opposing the Islamics we did take seriously.
For the most part it seemed an incomprehensible tribal war with a lot of religious hypocrisy. Pointless and little to do with us. Of course then their was the Americans feeding in weapons and foreign fanatics.
For us it was just take care of each other and hope the generals did not get us all killed promoting their careers.
It always depends, the younger generation which formed units like the SS-Grenadierdivision "30. Januar" was not really fanatic but had nothing to relay, it was the third reich or a big black hole. Units like Panzerdivision "Müncheberg" which had a battle hardend core had fough the whole time just because they had no way to retreat or just surrender, you see it with the Courland-Pocket, always the hope to come out alright.
An example: The Kampfgruppe "1001" had 13 Jagdpanzer 38(t) and 50 men(of previous 24 Hetzer and 500 men) they kept fighting to hold of the Red Army at Seelow so the 606. Infantry Division could escape. I think, it is a mix of just keep fighting for others, specially on the eastern Front.
The moral, like my relative told me, is so low, that you do not bother if you fight or not.
Among the veterans I befriended was a common story: the Germans seldom surrendered as individuals, or small groups; they generally surrendered as entire units. This observation is consistent with your presentation.
My great grandfather was wounded in combat and had the opportunity to stay in the hospital for quite some time. He insisted on being sent back to the front ASAP, because for one "What are my children supposed to think of me?" and "I want to be with my comrades when we win the war". IIRC it was some time in '43 or '44. He went missing shortly after and the letters with his military numbers and everything went missing as well.
I helped US veterans who fought under my father's command in WWII and most of them said that the bonds between soldiers is stronger than the bonds between family. I do not think that you can understand this unless you were a combat soldier because their lives depended upon each other and many died saving their fellow soldiers. I witnessed the strong feelings of these veterans and at reunions they became young soldiers again. I was told by my father that many good soldiers died in the defense of their own country.
One factor that is widely overlooked is the effect of allied bombing. Especially the British that sought civilian carnage to break the will of the people. Now imagine the husband or father returning to a bombed out city to find his family perished. These men now had the chance to fight the ones responsible for their deaths. This is a powerful reason to fight to the last bullet.
Thats actually a valid point..for the soldiers defending the Western Front they'd have to pass thought the bombed out cities before being deployed.
As far as I know those fathers and husbands bombed Warsaw to pieces first.
@@l_radovanovic431 Well I guess there's one reason the Polish resistance was so large and fierce
@@l_radovanovic431 Well I guess there's one reason the Polish resistance was so large and fierce
@@l_radovanovic431, didn't the Polish massacre thousands of German by the orders of the British prior to the war?
They totally covered this in Fury where the guy goes "Why don't they surrender?" and the other guy is all "Would you?"
I absolutely love your video's. You are insightful, brave enough to challenge accepted opinions, but most importantly you don't politicize your content. Thank you.
Could you make a video about German POWs in Russia after 45? Numbers, fates, last to return and why it took so long for them to return? Did it require some political dealings by both German states? Did POWs coming from newly established DDR went back home sooner? Very interesting topic, but I can't find a good text about it - so if anyone can point me to a book (in English) I would appreciate that. Also - keep up the awesome job you are doing :)
Leszek Kadelski
I would like to hear about this too.
My grand grandfather told me the story about his time as a Pow in Russia.
I would find it interesting to know what others experienced there.
He was from Besserabia with German ancestors, but speaking Russian helped him making actual friends among the Russian guards and Women who brought them Food (one of my sisters is named after one of these women).
Really enjoy your Work.
Have a nice evening.
I too would be very interested in a video on this subject. It's the sort of thing only mentioned in passing in most history books, but has tremendous importance to the history of the Eastern Front and the men who fought there.
It can be expanded into topic of Japanese POWs captured by Soviet Russia in 45 as well. According to Wiki, some of those men were held prisoners into 60'.
Leszek Kadelski yes please!
Generally speaking, only a handfull of all the POW's who were taken got back home. Most died in Gulags or were just executed.
I dont know if the itch for knowlege on this is enough for you, but the story is pretty gruesome for their fate.
Fight for the man on your right and your left
The germans only fought for the man on their right
@@MrMonkeyhanger HAHAHAHA so funny .....fucking idiot
For a German soldier during the period in question the man on his right and on his left would have been better off surrendering to the western allies and so would he, and Germany their country would not have been any worse off in the end if many more had done so earlier.
So I guess if they really wanted to fight for the man on their left and the man on their right they should have fought any Military Police, officers, or Nazi loyalists who would have stopped them from doing so.
@@briancline7349 you have Never seen barracks from the inside have you ?
Tavish that was mostly a joke (literally it would have been the truth but of course I understand why it is unrealistic).
And yes you are correct I have not.
A good book that goes into this topic is Hitler's Army by Omer Bartov. He argues that the wehrmacht soldiers on the Eastern Front were much more ideological and fanatical than what is commonly believed.
@ "Voor u eer en geweten, op tegen het bolshevisme." 🇳🇱
For your honor and reason, up against bolsgevism. 🇬🇧
This might have to do with the fact that they saw first hand what they were fighting against. With the exception of Dresden and other war crimes perpetrated by the Americans and British - being captured by them seemed a lot more preferable to dying. Contrast this with the Soviets on the Ostfront, it was a nightmare.
Will you make videos about Italy and the problems (in terms of military high command, weapons, logistic etc...) it encountered in WW2?
No he wont. Cause he already did it:
th-cam.com/video/IqoOk5nZEKw/w-d-xo.html
What WASN'T wrong with Italy in WWII?
Nothing, they were a detriment in every way possible.
Everything wrong with faschist Italy in 20 minutes
Spoilers
(Duh)
Don't forget about the myth of "glorious" Frederik the Great (Friedrich der Große), who did lead the prussian army in a war against basically all other european powers in the mid-18th century. Accordng to german history books King Frederik frequently managed to slip out of hopeless situations on the battlefield (supposedly due to his unquestionable faith in final victory). There was even a famous propaganda movie about him, screened at Nazi theaters in the 40's.
How much of king Frederik's successes can be attributed his military genius or his people's persistence is matter of dispute today. However it can't be denied the myth had impact on german military culture and doctrine before and during the war. It might help explain the young generation's irrational will to endure and sacrifice til the bitter end in ww2.
Christian S Was that film Kolberg?
TheBespectacledN00b No, that's another Nazi blockbuster. "Kolberg" is staged in Napoleonic times. The one about Frederik II is called "The Great King" by Veit Harlan.
Wyatt Earp what it means: it would have been smarter to surrender to the Western Allies, less painful for others and themselves, better for the future of the country they love so much and that of Europe. To be rational would have been to avoid further loss of human lifes for a lost cause. That's not a matter of opinion but a fact. Mind what he said, 2/3 of German soldiers died in the last two years of war, thats not counting in civilians who died in concentration camps and due to allied bombing. The problem is that it is too easy to manipulate a crowd of people to start a war and fight to the point of self-sacrifice but it seems too hard to make everyone clean they head in order to stop it. I guess a crowd of people simply does not act rationally.
@Christian S "it would have been smarter to surrender to the Western Allies" for this to work the Western Allies would have needed to accept a West only surrender. Which is unlikely. At least they communicated several times that there will be no surrender or peace in detail. This made this option very unlikely to achieve the desired result.
Never the less this was the solution the officers who tried to stage a coupe in '44 went for. Only they failed.
"To be rational would have been to avoid further loss of human lifes for a lost cause."
Certainly not. Your conclusion only is valid from a humanitarian perspective. Which is clearly not even close to the perspective the decisive people back in the day had.
You have to concider the fact that basically unprecedented atrocities and crimes had been commited. This is mentioned in the video too. There would have been consequences. The responsible people would have been punished. So it made no sense at all for the vast majority of the German high leadership to even concider surrender. Their lives had been forfeited anyways. The only chance they had for survival was victory. So they clinged to the only chance they had.
Fear of punishment and guilt are very powerfull motivators.
"better for the future of the country they love so much and that of Europe."
The Nazi leaders didn't even care in the slightest for "the country", the people or anyone but themself. What makes you think they would have cared for Europe?
BTW chances are the result of the events are the best possible outcome for Germany and Europe. At least they tourned out reasonable good in the intermediate and long run. The era of peace and prosperity after WW2 in Europe, which still goes on, is unprecedented in history. Especially Germany really came out on top. The German people are by orders of magintude far better off than they have ever been before.
"I guess a crowd of people simply does not act rationally."
If by this you want to suggest that simply all soldiers would have had to stop fighting to end the war I would say that this is an extremly naive point of view.
If you want to say that once certain things are put in motion they can be hard to stop or even undo than I fully agree.
This is also not special to WW2. Its one of the driving forces behind perpetual wars. Once war breaks out there will be people that have an intrest in keeping it going. As has been pointed out in the video this even can include the frontline soldiers themself.
Thanks for your comment, read my response to them point by point:
1)
Officially a seperate peace might not have been an option for western governments. However behind the curtains there were in fact negotiations going on between american and Nazi officals. If that is of interest to you, please do some research on American diplomat John Foster Dulles, who later became head of the CIA. He was one who worked on a seperate peace. Plus there was certainly a lot of negotiating between war factions which you and I don't know about. The failure of the officer's coup of '44 doesn't prove anything about the likelyhood of a seperate western peace. Regardless of the politcal scale, it doesn't say anything of how smart it was from the perspective of a soldier, to surrender to the western Allies and choose to be a prisoner of war - instead of choosing to obey Hitler and accept to become cannon fodder (which most of them did).
2)
I thought the discussion was about what was going on in the mind of the fighting Wehrmacht soldier, less about the individual motivations of who you call "decisive people" or "responsable people". You are certainly right about the leading elites of the Axis powers, who were mostly fully aware that what they did was inexcusable. But that was not the topic, read the headline - this is about the soldier who swore his oath to Hitler, who killed and died on the front - it was not about the general staff or partymembers.
3)
I didn't say that Nazi leaders cared for Europe at any point. It seems pretty weird to draw that conclusion. I was mentioning europe, because europe was the loser of the war. It was the loser, because especially during the final years and after WW2, the level of destruction on economy and sacrifice of population in european countries got to a degree that would result in ultimate loss of world hegemony. The only reason the madness kept on going is there were still soldiers brainwashed enough to keep on fighting even though surrender was getting closer every day.
4)
No, I did not say that every soldier "would have had to stop" fighting. I know that humans are no robots. You seem to intentionally misunderstand my words. Let me clarify: By nature, the human individual is not acting rationally, even less so when acting in crowd. That's reason why it is so important to have rational leaders.
Audio is much improved!
That's it???
This is what you call a unicorn review 😉😉
Germans also knew that there was a very high probability that the alliance between the Soviet Union and the United States would probably break down before the end of the war.
There was a good chance that the Americans and Soviets would have started fighting each other. This can not be underestimated as a reason to hold out until the last possible second.
Ein weiterer Punkt wäre mMn. noch der Gedanke an die Heimat. Es ist etwas anderes wenn man um ein Stück russischen Acker kämpft, oder um die eigene Heimat. Man hatte in Preussen evtl. Familie/ Freunde/ Bekannte gehabt, die man beschützen wollte. Oder zumindest die Chance geben wollte zu fliehen.
Das spielte sicherlich auch zu einem gewissen Teil eine Rolle.
I read that quote from "it never snows in September" it was more a saying 44-45 "Enjoy the war while you can because peace will be terrible."
very likely, I didn't look it up and was mostly from memory, unlike the "Sieg oder Sibirien", which I never heard of before, but read about lately.
Military History Vlogs The book has a brief chapter on the status of the average german soldier during Market Garden and focuses on multiple individual storys. This chapter claims that the younger soldiers and the rear-area troops (which were filling the ranks at that time) had a almost naive belief in the final victory but most veterans especially ones who made it out of normandy had low moral. Even says older soldiers many who had been wounded early on were known as alte Hasen. It also refers to the "front atmosphere" working within the accepted framework but giving it a human face creating a sense of belonging and unit pride.
coh1 opposing fronts anyone?
hayro252 What do you mean?
th-cam.com/video/uxxKXjhKI3M/w-d-xo.html
They had something greater than themselves to fight for.
Yeah, Lebensraum and genocide.
295Phoenix - You mean like what the North american indians were a prime victim of ? And currently the palestinians ? Not to mention the plunder by force of resources all over the middle east. The hidden truth about Hussein, and the convenient removal of Ghadaffi. Or the absolute garbage propaganda about Russia and the Syrian regime, all backed by the western WWII victors.
Meanwhile the Germans sought justice after having been plundered themselves by the versaille treaty under which stipulations no nation could endure forever. And they achieved not just justice and regained their honor, but they achieved far more than any nation ever has - a future not just for it's own people but for Europe. That history is of course sealed to people, because anyone who knows general history which is taught in school curriculums; only learns what they need to know. And they also learn something else that you too should be aware of - that even questioning what you are taught about the Germans will make you a target. People fear being called nazis or sympathiesers because it could wreck their grades and careers - that should tell you something about democracy and freedom. You can be an active satanist and gut cute fluffy little pets and not receive a tenth of the persecution and threats by simply investigating questionable history about the Germans. You are supposed to know about them, but not read about it outside of popular history. State documents tends to show a completely different story, if it became general knowledge - people would alter their perception of history and not in the favour of the allies.
@@Tyrfingr lol ok neo-nazi
@@reeda7681 I am a Nationalsocialist. But i'm not Neo and i don't belong to the violent extreme Nazis. They deserve a distinction of term like that, because those poor mislead fools belong to a category of their own. They don't comprehend the history of their own supposed ideology, and they think hatred is a proper stance to other ethnicities.
@@Tyrfingr Lol, I haven't heard even one thought leader on the right claim to hate someone. Neo-nazis deny their hate just as vehemently as you do. And I'm not defending them, the purpose of this comment is to point out that people don't tend to admit to hateful attitudes. Denying you hold such attitudes if you identify with an ideology which is famous for them, is not going to be easily believed.
ah the time when his beard was still in the proccess of transfering from the top of his head to his chin area
I'd say, the horrors of the Soviet union were a pretty good reason to keep fighting.
Russia, even back then, did not have a good reputation for their treatment of prisoners, or occupied territories people.
Neither did the Germans, if you lived east of the Oder.
LMAO. Hard to tell if you got that from Stormfront or the National Enquirer.
LOL. You link me a regurgitated version of Other Losses by James Basque and expect me to take you seriously? Fuck off. You can't possibly feed me this shit and not know that you're in the wrong, but to be honest it takes little more than the screen name "Persian Aryanism" to know you're either a teenager or acting in bad faith.
Here, I'll even give you a "rebuttal" in the same way you gave me "proof." The great thing is it's even more reputable a source than your favorite white supremacist geocities account:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Losses#Criticism_of_Other_Losses
The Allies didnt offer conditional surrender because to quote Max Hastings "the Germans had done nothing to earn the right to demand conditions", the same applies to the Japanese. If you fight in the same way those armies did you lose the right to any conditions.
How does your response make any sense when we know Germans fought well on the Western front. The point of the video also wasn't meant to invite others to say what they think, but to watch his video. If you had watched it it would have been unnecessary to write what you wrote, which is a more general alleged reason. He went over more credible explanations which he gave basis for.
The main difference between WW1 and Ww2 is that Germans hoped they would get an honorable peace in 1918, especially after the Kaiser abdicated. There was no such hope in 1945, only the prospect of total annihilation. Most German soldiers simply saw no alternative to fighting to the bitter end.
There is a psychological theory called 'Learned Helplessness' that postulates that after a certain period of adverse effects an organism will just sit there and suffer, not even looking for a method of escape. This may be an underlying factor why many troops in dire circumstances do not desert or surrender.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness
How did surrendering work out for those who did so at Stalingrad?
Not good for any of the axis fighters. Having said that 2 million soviet soldiers died at the hands of the Germans. So what goes around comes around
@@marcobaretta9645 Actually, I remember a story my grandfather's brother told, he fought on the Russian front. One day they encountered thousands of Russian POW who were marched west to Germany while the German soldiers marched east.
The German soldiers all said "There must be a mixup here, we're all going into the wrong direction." None of them wanted to be in Russia, much less fight a war. They all just wanted to go home to their families.
I think that the strong bond between soldiers is something no one can understand unless you experience it yourself. My father commanded a WWII US Army rifle company and fought against the German Army in Italy and in France. He said that there were places that the Germans fought to the end and his men also fought to the end. The last man standing was the victor and war is a terrible thing. He also told me that he used to talk to the German Army Officers during lull in fighting to exchange wounded POW on both sides. I think that Germany and Japan have this type of thinking.
Looking at how the Allies have been running things the past 70 years, it is easy to understand why they resisted as long as they did.
Drug, more like a pesticide. That said, RIGHT-ON, *RIGHT-WINGER!*
It was no longer about the fatherland, it was a question of survival if you surrender to the Soviets you would likely get shot
False, approx. 20% of Germans died in Soviet POW camps compared to 60% of Soviets in German POW camps.
295Phoenix That is literally the opposite of what happened.
@@295Phoenix well odds are the soldiers only hear about the 20% of times they got shot. And 20% is still an absurdly high death rate. And the average Wehrmacht soldier had nothing to do with killing the Russian soldiers
@@thomasbrady3827 Nazi apologetics. We have many accounts of Wehrmacht soldiers participating in murdering Soviet POWs and and civilians. Hell, there's an order from 1941 ordering Wehrmacht soldiers to quit wasting bullets on POWs!
There is one more aspect: in 41/42 when the Wehrmacht has conquered a lot of teritorries of USSR many mass graves of the victims of NKVD were found. Probably the most famou were mass graves of polish officers murdered in 1940 in Katyn. This finding was well documented not only by Wehrmacht officials, but also by the Red Cross and Vichy France officials. I assume that the Germans were certain about what will happen with Germany and German people if they fail.
Memoirs of German officers I've read seem to all agree the effects of Allied bombing were a big factor. Wounded soldiers on leave generally wanted to get back to their units ASAP because they felt more in control of things at the front with their comrades instead of staying with terrified civilians at the mercy of indiscriminate bombing raids. Add to this that 'combat fatigue does not exist with the German Soldier' in the view of National Socialism. Two stark choices-face your fate at the front with a weapon in your hands or get strung up with a 'Deserter/Defeatist' plaque adorning your stretched neck. It's also why hundreds of thousands felt surrendering to the Anglo-Americans was the easier choice who conveniently airdropped 'Safe Conduct' passes over German positions with the promise of no harm, promised food and medical care along with being removed from the combat area as soon as possible. They featured the signature of the commanding Allied general, playing on the German soldier's psyche of being properly authorized to do so.
There was also hope in a final alliance with the west against the soviets. There was also the reality that civilians were not suffering like in WWI but they were until the end well clothed, fed and housed... soldiers just had to fight and this miracle lasted until the end as documented by Gotz Ali.
It Is pretty amazing that there isn't a example of any German unit fighting to be able to surrender until Berlin was encircled in April 1945. In retrospect, a stay in an allied P.O.W. camp -- assuming you surrender to British, Americans or Canadians -- sounds a lot more attractive than near certain death.
I really like your videos, watched a lot of them. I really think, form my heart, you need an outro again. Some sort of song, jingle or whatever. Da fehlt was ;)
seegurke93 Wasted seconds imho.
The Allied decision of only accepting unconditional surrender.
I may have missed it but patriotism isn't mentioned in this video. They were fighting for their people and their country. Also Roosevelt and Churchill's "unconditional surrender" demands instead of a negotiated peace left them no choice.
I think the discussion needs to be more diversified and take into consideration the front a German Landser was assigned to. Yes, the military commanders still believed on a victory over the Allies in the West, the situation in Q1 1945 was completely different on the Eastern front and such were the motives of the soldiers to fight on there. Being a POW for the UK/US was not a problem but as you pointed out it was a different ballgame with the Russian. But one very important reason why the Wehrmacht fought nails and claws on the Eastern front (with huge casualties numbering into hundreds of thousand per month) was to give civilians the time to flee west as far and fast as possible.
Could you do a video on the German spring offensive of 1918? Did it have a real chance of a decisive breakthrough in the entente lines that could have won the war?
it didnt. the german imperial army was more or less a walking corps at that point. They regained a major boost in strenght and menpower do to the peace with russia and the transport of the eastern armies to the west, but that didnt matter any more at that point. germany was starving with hundred thousands dying.
The german army was out of supplies and food. There are countless reports of german soldiers stopping their advance so they could eat captured entente food. the german soldiers were worn down by that really fast.
The entente soldiers on the other hand had all the food and supplies in the world after the USA joint the war. The german army couldnt fight on a empty stomach.
Basically the entente could replenish every lost soldier do to the USA joining in full force while the german army had 0 reserves left and evry lost soldier was a lost of unreplensihble substance.
Also it kind of achieved a major breakthrough at the start. Considering the previous 4 years of war on the western front the germans conquered a great amount of land (compared to verdun, Somme or Paschendale), but they got weaker with each new offensive until nothing was left to attack anymore.
Also germanys allies were collabsing left and right, they were starving as well and were compleatly out of supply and menpower (espacially austria-hungary).
the best corse of action for the germans would have been to use their new amassed army on the western front and offer the entente a white peace or elsass-lorane. Do to their army still beeing a major power (on paper) they could use the fear of a major german attack for the negotiations.
The german empire needed peace, not any new offensive.
I read that the announcement by Roosevelt and Churchill of "unconditional surrender", and a map of Germany divided up into 4 zones with the eastern part given to Poland, was widely disseminated.
I really like the indepth analyses. Keep up the good work!
The country didn't fall apart till late 1944, ofc they wouldnt have given up. Once Soviet ran over Romania, it's all over. No country can function without oil.
Why can't people in the past see the future the way that we can?
Anyone else see that video of German soldiers justifying the fighting they did in WWII?
Yeah it was rediculous
Andrei Valdez many
They were right... But who cares cuz they lost!
Andrei Valdez I just saw that video again. What is really frigtening me is that the vast majority of the comments are supporting them.
Dont get me wrong, I think it would be terribly wrong to blame 3 random ex-Wermacht soldier personally for WW2 atrocities, they probably did not do any worse than the average soldier of that time anyway.
But here are the comments, praising them and insulting everyone else with messages filled with buzzwords and utmost stupidity.
This is just so fucking depressing.
MyMrmoi yeah stupidity knows no side in politics. left and right both have stupid people very similar (both usually have racist and sexist ideas) yet different(who they hate).
btw if it wasn't obvious yet I'm talking about the far left and the far right.
Because they were defending their homeland. Easy. At what point would you surrender if your country was invaded?
MSRLR 07/20/1944 Most desertions happen when your army defends rather than attacks. Because you’re losing and your home to run to is near
Dad met a number of new German recruits when it was clear the war only had weeks to go. Despite being asked why they didn't go home as Germany was kaput they were still determined to fight on. Even acknowledging they couldn't win.
@Bernhard Kast (Military History not Visualized)
I see it as a case of "moral inertia" inside the mass of the German military from 1942 onward - it was easier to keep going on doing the same thing and hoping for some sort of victory or armistice. You also have the element of unit comradeship, so nobody wanted to give up on their fellows, or their families back home. Focusing on doing the job well while not thinking about the general military/political situation in 1943-1944-1945 was a form of avoiding the pain of knowing that the cause was lost and that Germany was in the wrong, especially if you had seen the trains with full cattlecars going to the camps, or empty trains going eastward for more. Finally you have to remember the amount of drugs everybody was on to do their jobs - uppers to fly for long distances or stand a watch all night, downers to sleep without nightmares, etc. After a while being glazed from the drugs mixed with being glazed from seeing so much combat if you survived long enough. Gunter Grass' 2007 "confession" of being a last-ditch recruit for the Waffen SS says a lot about that period: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/06/04/how-i-spent-the-war
"In War it doesn't matter who's right but who's left"
Not this time...not this time.
The only German soldier I worked alongside ( in1969 ) told me that his entire company ( after spending almost the entire war in Paris ) found a way to surrender to American troops towards the end of the Battle of the Bulge. I was too young and shy to quiz him about the details but he was massively disparaging about the Nazi idiots who ordered the dumb attack through the Ardennes.
No matter how heroic or noble some individuals may have been on either side, war will always be the worst choice man can choose
Guilt. They knew agree what they had done in Russia it was going to be a flight to the death.
I’ve heard soldiers say essentially “Well my house has probably been bombed, my wife and children probably dead, why don’t I just take a couple more Americans with me to the grave?”
Basically because from 1944 until the end we were on their turf.
Why didn't you talk about the most obvious point?
This was a very clear example of an war of ideologies on the one hand, and a blatant war against the german nation on the other hand. Even more so then the first world war.
The average soldier was aware of this, the motives of the allies were very clear, surrender was never an option for the german people in this war. It was either victory or destruction.
Thanks for the explanation Goebbels.
Yeah, Germany was totally ruined and kept down after they surrendered. They were totally wiped out and have been a 3rd world shit hole ever since. *Eye roll*
A rather grouchy guy at another blog I hang out with posted a meme: "Hard Times Create Hard Men; Hard Men Create Good Times; Good Times Create Weak Men; Weak Men Create Hard Times; Hard Times Create Hard..."
I think he didn't talk about it because he isn't a German racist lunatic like you.
@Lang Hansen Except Germany did not lose anywhere near 30% of its population
The correct English for the title is actually "What kept Wehrmacht soldiers fighting til 1945?" I'm sure someone's already said it, but I haven't seen it in the comments.
Yep just looked in the weird notification comments and two people already said it, nevermind.
The title used to say "Why kept Wehrmacht soldiers fighting til 1945?" but he fixed it. Trust me, I know a thing or two about English considering it's the only language I speak.
Blah b whoever wrote whatever foreign language education English textbook you read whatever passage you read to give you that false belief does not have the authority to decide to decree what is correct or incorrect in English, so I’m sorry but it being said in one of those or whenever else you heard or were taught this fallacy does not make it correct. The question was referring to something that happened in the past and for the sentence to be proper it would have to have said “Why did the German soldiers keep fighting...” if he wanted to use “why” and the verb “keep”.
Also keep in mind that what is considered proper use of a language evolves and is determined by what is perceived/agreed to be correct amongst the vast majority of its speakers and in how it is used while being considered to be correct by the same. That is why dictionaries change and update their definitions over time, to make their definitions be proper for the current times, and is also why in updates they may mark some definitions as archaic to indicate that usage has evolved to the point that in the minds of the populace at large that definition for the word, while having once been used and considered proper, no longer is.
I mention this to illustrate that it is what proper usage is considered to be, in the consciousness of the English speakers as a whole, that determines if a sentence is considered to be phrased properly or not. So trust me at least 99% of educated English speakers, educated or otherwise, would have considered his original title to be improper; to them reading it would sound like reading the broken English of a foreigner. Therefore regardless of what you may have been taught the original title contained improper use of English.
Well, you can also ask yourself why Soviet soldiers kept fighting in 1941, 1942 and so on
Mack Sarnie
*citation needed*
@Maz Robinson throughout the whole war NKVD executed 10k Soviet soldiers and resent 130k to new units/penal batallions those 130k usually got the most dangerous task e.g become the front part of the spearhead
Did you consider fear of the "communist hoards"? desperately fighting to protect home and family against the bogeyman?Does this idea have any real basis?
That would fall under "Nazi Propaganda". The US had plenty of it's own propaganda against the Germans that was mainly directed at the civilian populace because US officers refused to allow US troops to watch it for fear that they would be more likely to abuse POW's.
Looking at just facts here, Russia sent millions of people to gulags, their own people.
3 million Germans were taken prisoners at the end of the war if i recall, about 80.000 returned over a decade later.
thats more than 98% death rate.
Soviet Union was not a kind thing. From the war with Finland, treatment of prisoners, people knew Russia would do horrors. Specially if you just look at what they did when they took Berlin. They raped the entire town's female population. Or at least very close to that.
But every communist or anti nazi will tell you thats just lies, denying warcrimes because "hitlor was worse even though stalin killed 16 million people more than Hitler".
Because they were of good character.
Unconditional surrender demand played a role.
"Why kept Wehrmacht Soldiers fighting til 1945?"
Kraut English. Also inb4 correction.
thx, that title killed me took me like 5-10 minutes to fix it... probably reading too much today about Kamikaze...
Mort Business
You don't need to be mean if you don't get the reference.
Yeah, in the begging I thought that it was the story of an individual soldier, just like the Japanese soldier fighting in the jungle.
I think the writing was on the wall when the British beat them out of North Africa and Russia drove Germany out of Stalingrad, between Feb and May 43. As a Soldier or General, I'd have to be thinking how we could possibly win against those odds.
Easy, they were defending their homeland! Anybody would defend their homeland agianst anybody who is attacking it, not to talk about the comradeship with your buddies who you have been fighting with since the start of the war. It's all about brotherhood and country at this point.
I believe there was a West point study that stated that soldiers fight best when motivated by comradeship.
If he soldier knew 3 things: If he ran his family would suffer. If he stayed he might die, and if he ran he would die. And last a goodly part of the army were not Germans, but conscripts from occupied countries.
A correction: those from the occupied territory were mostly volunteers
@@jurisprudens Correction accepted. Just another brick in the edifice that is human history.
Having a really boring job, but with a good income and good benefits, I understand the pride of the Germans in 1943 in doing a good job even if it doesn't give anything emotionally. I know it should not be that way according to especially American interpretations of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It should be absolutely impossible. -- But I see it as a trade: You give me the opportunity to have an extra ordinary life off duty. So as a payment I do a really good job on duty, even if I die of boredom. And I put an honour into fulfilling that trade. -- Off coarse: Impossible, if you ask a political correctly educated "Human Resource" official...
they where fighting for their existence
Because they defend their Home !!! Everyone would do this !!!
Ever wanted to root out the beast that broke your walls like nothing?
Cough...France...cough.
@@arthurlewis9193 Cough... Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary... Cough
Why wouldn't one fight for their country to the bitter end? How hard would we fight for the USA before throwing in the towel? Why did the Confederacy fight as long as it did?
Confed (NOT the guys fighting the Kilrathi!) was hoping to create war weariness & maybe win a separate peace.
Because They was defending Europe and European culture from Bolsheviks
No shit nazi dog. They liberated 20 milion people from their lives, half of that cowardly, in Death camps and by executions.
@@l_radovanovic431
Well done Luka people like him never go away and die. fighting Bolsheviks was an excuse so they could expand German territory at the expense of the USSR while making themselves look like they were protecting capitalism/western style economics. Italy fought against communists in Spain and when the left / communists were defeated then Italy left Spain. Italy did not stay in Spain, German war was a war of conquest, not liberation. Once communism/ the left is defeated YOU LEAVE AND YOU DONT STAY. THAT IS THE DIFFERENCE. WHEN YOU STAY THAT IS INVASION/ CONQUEST. HUGE DIFFERENCE
I actually think the answer is fairly simple, at least as far as the general staff is concerned. Once it was clear by the end of 1942 that Germany would not just not win the war but was going to lose decisively, they stopped thinking strategically and just kept themselves busy fighting the war on the operational and tactical level. Sometimes it’s just easier to keep going than to actually stop and think about what you are doing. You can concentrate on winning the immediate fight you’re in right now rather than try to think ahead and get depressed. The German leadership had gotten themselves into a gruesome war, that they had no way of winning and no easy way out of, and each of them were deeply mired in the atrocities committed. Thinking ahead could not have been pleasant for any of them.
Similar logic applies to the individual soldier. No one had time to think ahead. They fought to avenge their friends because they did not want to face what awaited at the end.
Isn't it also true that in many battles the Germans managed to kill more than they lost? Think of the tank kill ratios. That means that the German soldiers could be failing, but individual units could feel the satisfaction of "doing well" while everything was going to hell. Combined with the four points you mentioned, especially comaradeship, they might be more hopeful at the local level while failing totally at the strategic level.
By statistic the kill ratio in the east was 1:5. In the west it was 1:1.6.
But since in the west just one of three was in actual combat it was accordingly worse.
@@bubiruski8067 on east it was around 1:2.3 if you consider soldiers who died in Concentration camps and 1:1.8 if you consider combat casualties.
Thanks !
Why did British soldiers not give up in 1940 or soviet soldiers in 1941? Especially for the soviets the situation looked very very bad.
Well morale was pretty bad, but high command knew that if the germans wouldnt capture the oil fields the red army would eventually win
Germany did not capture the oil fields.
Norbert Blackrain
In the case of the Soviets it was because their great leader decreed that anyone retreating would be branded a traitor and executed.
A soldier has one job: follow orders.
That's why they kept fighting. No other reason.
Same with the Soviet Red Army. They got their asses collectively kicked in 1941, but they kept fighting. Then they kicked Germany's ass and turned Berlin into gravel all while German troops were obeying the order to become corpses.
Holy, cow, man... What a look transformation within the span of one year... (Watched a late December 2018 video before this one)
Because it took that long for the western allies to reach the heart of Germany!
I would have thought the answer is simple. That they didn't want foreigners invading their homeland.
They were brave and defended their homeland till the very end! Its honorable! Even if it just made the wounds deeper
1. Don't forget FDR demanded unconditional surrender. Which was dumb.
2. Building on 1: Fear of Morgenthau plan as well. FDRs Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr. was pushing for Gerrnany to be deindustrialized and transformed into a pastoral farm territory. And German men deported as laborers. And Morgenthau was of German Jewish ancestry, which played into Goebbels hands.
3. Fear of Soviet occupation.
These 3 factors were huge in motivating German troops to fight.
I almost agree with what you said, BUT, you forgot to mention the Morgenthau effect in early 1943, where the american Secretary of Justice proposed a list of measures to Roosevelt, about how to deal with Germany and the german society after the war; measures that included the starvation of Germany and the POWs, execution of the main leaders of the Army and the Waffen SS, to take all the technological advances with the atomic bomb included and to expropriate all the industrial facilities, including machinery, So, what you have is that Morgenthau wanted that Germany would start from "0". The consequence of that was the famous Goebbels speech, where he said that from that moment on TOTALER KRIEG was in place. I believe that this went from the top to the very bottom of the German society, soldiers included. This led to have a higher confidence in Hitler, who in turn started with a defensive strategy, instead of an offensive war, to gain time for the presentation of the Wunderwaffen and win the war, but he didn't have that time.
The politically incorrect answer. Love of country and homeland. You know protecting what you know. Simple. Every thing else stems from that, no matter the flaws. It's Home
MHV, your last point about the wermaht soldiers knowing about the attrocities and the holocaust, what sources exactly do we have that state that "most" knew about them? Could you explain this further because this interests me greatly.
I agree with you that many knew some details, and others had vague knowledge because of military gossip, however, I always believed for years now that the millions of wermaht soldiers that fought in WW2 couldn't know much about the holocaust simply because they never had much of an opportunity or be concerned. Most were on campaign and you cannot expect the front line troop to know much about this were they were more concerned with fighting the enemy and survival on a daily basis.
Also by the end of the war these millions of wermaht soldiers were already dead, so most never even knew or found out about it. I also believed the Nazi regime like the soviet one, went to great lengths in having such knowledge about the subject strictly controlled.
they "knew" in various ways, some had vague information, others knew details, people talk etc. It is "nothing new" and "nothing old", remember the recent Harvey Weinstein "relevations", well, quite some people noted that there were even jokes done by comedians years before it became "public".
There even were newspaper articles about the opening of new concentration camps back in the day
+merliigary Holy shit, they actually did that?? ok...that's weird. So much for what I thought the Nazis wanted to keep what they were doing secret.
Well by chance, I came across this article...
www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/diary-shows-germans-were-aware.html
Well because Germany wasn't given any other option it was just get destroyed or be occupied and as FDR said still get totally destroyed. If the Germans were given the option where there national leaders would at worst be imprisoned or under life house arrest. and the nation goes back to either the 1933 borders or the 1936 borders but is demilitarised and perhaps has a small occupation force largely made up of arms inspectors then yeah i reckon the war would have been over quickly after August 1944
I can only suggest one reads the novels of Hans Helmut Kirst to understand what drove the Wehrmacht soldiers, from before 1939 to 1945...
A better question is, why didn't they resist the same way the Poles and Soviets did? Poland didn't stop fighting in 1939, fighting on all European fronts and two large scale uprisings in Warsaw and constant partisan action, while German citizens were docile when the war came to them.
After Stalingrad the only hope for a German soldier was to surrender to the western allies.
Knowing very well what atrocities they themselves (or were in their name and support) committed in the East they knew what to expect.
Everyone knows about brutality of Soviet forces once they crossed into Germany, in my opinion it was planned on the level of command.
Soviets and others nations demanded not only retributions but humiliation of those who considered themselves as superior and it was this national humiliation which changed Germany character, hopefully forever, and thanks to that Europe enjoys unprecedented in its history period of peace.
As for myself, born in the last years of War, not being able to trust these people (or wish them well).
Germany is a very disciplined and obedient nation. It can be seen even today. The Prussian drill and state education together with Bismarck created Germany the REICH. Let's not forget that.
The attitude of just doing their job even though it’s clearly wrong and/or pointless is looks very German. Is Dieselgate a manifestation of this attitude in the modern days? Looks very much like it.
You mentioned "Band of Brothers" as including the difficulty of the vets accepting replacements. Another excellent movie that has this as part of its theme is the 1949 film "Battleground." It deals with a replacement into a platoon of the 101st Airborne who arrives a few days before the Battle of the Bulge starts. At first, he is ignored, but slowly the comradeship grows as they fight. It is also notable as it showed one of the platoon breaking and running away to the rear during combat, and the "so what" reaction of his platoon. Highly recommend it as a study of the front line soldiers: not heroes, sometimes doing things to get out of duty , but just still stubbornly doing their job. I think it really helps understand why men choose to fight when all appears lost.
Because they had a crystal ball that could see into the future and thought: mein gott
Being aware of atrocities committed either in their name or by themselves they knew what to expect when they loose.
In my opinion (and hope) the brutality with which Red Army treated defeated Germans thought them the lesson and now instead militarily they conquer Europe economically.
You Tube post:
Russian veteran recalls their crimes in Germany is an example off why keep fighting.
The Germans went to war with fervor and ferocity. Their actions on the eastern front were genocidal and brutal. When the tide turned the Germans knew what they had dealt to others would come back upon them 10 fold...and it did. The average German soldier would fight to the death because he knew what was coming to his nation, family and neighbors. The harder the Wehrmacht fought in the east the more time civilians had to go west.
Remember the Confederates in the U.S.Civil War said the Union fought much much harder on its own home ground. The Germans were no different in that respect.
If you surrender what happens to your family while your a POW? Surrender in the east would have been unthinkable due to harsh treatment by the Soviets. They were fighting for their home and family by the end
I prefer the shaved head, you look devilishly handsome that way.
10:40-c.11:00 This idea to me seems typical of the German national character, not just a German soldier's. Maybe it's a stretch, a stereotype or whatever, but I've been given that impression from Germans I've spent time with.
Germans have 150% discipline.
Because the German soldier is the second best soldier in the world, a race of warriors, obedience, steadfastness, ruthlessness. All the hallmark of a great soldier.
I think the reasons are same as with russia/Soviets. Both systems were totalitarian and people were forced to defend homeland. System and enviroment directed to same result.
To put off being under authority of Russians as long as possible, hope to be able to surrender to Americans.
so what your saying is, german troops just didn't play the objectives?
France, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands but no mention of Luxembourg. This is completely outrageous! How could you forget one of the most powerful empires to ever grace the continent of Europe!
I'm kidding btw. I love your videos so keep up the great work.
Well because the soviets kept executing them and the west kept refusing to accept their surrender