Stalingrad Holdouts - German Resistance After the Surrender
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
- Think the German 6th Army surrendered at Stalingrad on 2 February 1943? Well, not all of it - over 11,000 German troops fought on for weeks afterwards! This is the largely unknown story of the Stalingrad Holdouts.
Dr. Mark Felton is a well-known British historian, the author of 22 non-fiction books, including bestsellers 'Zero Night' and 'Castle of the Eagles', both currently being developed into movies in Hollywood. In addition to writing, Mark also appears regularly in television documentaries around the world, including on The History Channel, Netflix, National Geographic, Quest, American Heroes Channel and RMC Decouverte. His books have formed the background to several TV and radio documentaries. More information about Mark can be found at: en.wikipedia.o...
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My uncle was fighting in Stalingrad with Italian Bersaglieri. He was captured by the Soviets and put in a prison camp somewhere East and South of Moscow. Previously he had fought in the African campaign. He came from Gorizia, in Northern Italy and many people there, including my uncle, spoke Italian, German and Slovenian. Once in Russia, he quickly learned that language and, at the camp, was put to work as a translator. According to him, conditions at the camp were terrible and even the Russians didn’t have much to eat. The Italians got less much less but got some food since they, unlike the Germans, had also fed Russian prisoners their own rations. The Germans got little food, no compassion and simply died off. When my uncle was finally released, one of the last to be let go, he was given a letter of safe passage and pointed in the right direction. Nothing else. He was forever grateful for the help he received from Russian peasants, who treated him kindly as he made his long walk home to Italy where he arrived several months later. He was starving, without his teeth, suffering from the malaria he picked up in Africa and forever changed both physically and mentally. Thank you for the excellent episode as otherwise I would not have thought of him, his travails and the strength of the human spirit.
That was a cool story, thanks for sharing!
Twice he invaded a foreign country.
Buena historia..saludos a Italia.
Both you, Bob L, and Tepes Voda have relatives possibly gone now who fought the great evil of Bolshevism. You should be proud!!!
what a wonderful story. Germans were too brutal to the locals. Me being of latin heritage i have sympathy for our fellow humans. Maybe im wrong but maybe the Catholic teachings provided decency and compansion .
My great grandpa fought in Stalingrad and was one of the fortunate 6000 German soldiers in the cauldron who returned home. He was sent to a prison in Siberia and forced to mine coal. They didn't receive any food besides raw herring and onions. The mere smell of onions made him have flashbacks even when he was 97 years old. They didn't get medical supplies, attention or work breaks. He had scars all over himself black as night, from all the coal dust accumulating in the wounds. On a lighter note, he made the best waffles i ever had.
Wow, amazing he lived to such an age after living through the labour death camps. They say the winter cold wore them down; a lot of them knew they wouldn't survive the Winter after experiencing perhaps only a couple of weeks of such conditions.
If russian cruelty didn’t kill him, nothing else but age would.
That is so sweet! 😪
My grandmother was rapped by German soldiers 2 years in the row Sometimes 10 times a day. She was 14-16 yo at that time. She had 3 pregnancies from German soldiers and 2 miscarriage. My aunt were suffering from hunger until Red army came back. Grandma wasn't able to find husband because she had a German daughter until people forgot about war in a 60ies. She was suffering all her youth years.
Your garndfather came with gun to break my grandma life. Do not even dare to moan about "mean Russia". You are lucky to even able to speak German.
@@yannikoloff7659 There are plenty of reports of German soldiers being executed for rape. Are there any from russian forces? It was tolerated and encouraged. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to weigh crime vs. crime.
"The railway station changed hands fourteen times over six hours of fighting." Fascinating research Mark as always! Thanks for sharing!
That means that slightly more than every half hour it changed hands.
Similar to the kinda fighting that would take place in SouthEast asia just 15yrs later.
You gotta admit, fighting over a train depot makes alot more strategic sense than hills with Numbers instead of names.
And I thought Red Orchestra 2 was a bit far fetched in that regard. More the fool me.
@@im1who84u cheers Einstein, plus that is a mean average,(maths jokes),it could have changed hands 10 times in the first hour, you don't know...
@@DanceySteveYNWA Thanks
My former boss knew I'm a history buff. He told me he had an uncle from Austria who was in the 6th Army. He survived and retreated into the encirclement. He was wounded so was evacuated early on by one of the supply aircraft flying out. Very, very lucky man.
VERY lucky
My grandma told me her dad fought in ww2 and reached Odessa. Her was to go to Stalingrad, but he got apendicitis and had to be sent back home. He lived because of that.
My Austrian Grandfather (as I also have a Bulgarian one) also fought in the Eastern Front and survived
In my small hometown near Hamburg , northern Germany , there used to be a pub during the 1970s and 1980s run by a Stalingrad survivor.
This landlord's name was Adolf L. , everybody called him "Addi" , but out of his presence we youngsters just nicknamed him , and accordingly also his place , "Einachser"(German technical slang that translates to about "single axle trailer" ), as he was one of the last severely wounded German soldiers to be flown out of the Stalingrad pocket with one of his legs severed above the knee.
He had put wooden pallets all around behind his bar , where we often used to sit for a beer or two back then , as this more elastic underground was easier and less painful for his stump and wooden leg attached to walk and stand on rather than on the hard floor.
61diemai good story!
He could have told you what Hell was like!
Anywhere near embsen?
@@KatyaLishch When you stare into the abyss...
There is an excellent book, survivors of Stalingrad by rheinhold Busch, that details many such stories, fascinating but tragic.
When you consider that most of the Germans that were captured at Stalingrad never returned home, putting up a resistance probably wasn't the worst idea.
Indeed
but its beacuse in moment of capitulation there were 200k soldiers, if they would surrender earlier im sure that more soldiers would return home
@@Sven-ql3ch with the soviet treatment of POWs what it was that's doubtful A better idea would have been for Paulus to ignore Hitler and attempt a breakout
But if he ignored hitler he would have been shot as a traitor
Any dead communist is a good communist after all. I'd rather fight communism with bayonet and shovel than give in to their folly...
When you hear the number of casualties that came out of Stalingrad, D-Day seems like barely a blip on the German radar.
not only d-day...
the US lost about 300.000 soldiers from june 44 to may 45 (6th german army alone had about 200.000 soldiers)
about 130.000 in the pacific
thats pretty few compared to eastern europe, where we talk about millions
@@Abensberg 27 million russians alone
@@42033 Russia and China had the biggest death toll by far. And both also tied up the bulk of the German and Japanese army.
@@42033 Before the war, the “Holodomor” (1932/33) killed at least 3.5 million Ukrainians, under Stalin.
@@dotarsojat7725 no ones leader was a princess at that time
I read in a German memoir that the worst impact of Stalingrad was on moral. German troops had always believed they would never be left in the lurch. That if they were cut off every effort would be made to rescue them. After Stalingrad they knew that the German high command could no longer be trusted.
Yep it was a "double edged sword ". When hitler condemned the 6th army-turned out to be a very bad decision ,.But hey hitler didnt " sweet it ".
The Germans tried very hard to break through and relieve the encircled troops. The Russians stopped them. The Germans even tried air resupply, but this was wholly insufficient.
Sounds like Russian high command.
@@connorbrownrigg Not really.
@@howardsimpson489what are you even talking about?
History Channel: Aliens
Mark Felton: 100% History.
98% No one is perfect
Hahahaha, I know right Budd. By the way Love the Red Ensign. Cheers from Manitoba Bro.
@@danielb7117 xD Cheers from Manchester.
@HistoryFan 88 God save the Queen. And Me
@@trekker4254 Fucken eh!!! Bro. I love Manchester, great Football town, that's always a good place for a Damn Good Piss Up too My Friend. Cheers.
The part about units of German soldiers escaping Stalingrad and getting back to German territory would make a great movie. Especially how they snuck through Russian territory.
Murdering and stealing all along the way.
@@garypulliam3740 makes sense. not.
There is a movie about Stalingrad that has this. Called Stalingrad, watch the 1993 version. Do not watch the remake
@Number #2 Vacuum Salesman of Marrakesh the remake just feels like a normal action movie. The 1993 version was serious and grim. The remake was all about big explosions and a big romance subplot
The Cross of Iron is kinda-sorta the closest thing to that, I think?
My father worked with a German architect in the 60s. He invited his German friend and family to come skiing with us. He said he d seen enough ice and snow in Russia. He came on a picnic with us and while we we swimming I noticed he had an incredible amount of scarring on his body from bullet and shrapnel wounds. They were a nice family. I was 8 yo at the time. His name was Karl Schmidt.
Was it spelled Carl Schmitt? That guy was a very prominent nazi
Is there an Emmy Award category for online content?? Dr. Felton's work would certainly be a good candidate if one does exist, brilliant storytelling
One can only imagine the terrible suffering on both sides..
In my mind this was hell on earth. Probably the most violent and brutal battle in human history. Cold, without supplies and ended up in cases of cannibalism.
Pain and suffering caused by the nazis and soviets on other nations. They deserved the pain and suffering they inflicted on each other.
@@tbrowniscool Not even close to the bloodiest or most miserable unfortunatley
@@UltmateKngofNothngthest true. Sadly, genocide, mass rape, and conquest have been part of human culture since the stone age.
@@UltmateKngofNothngthest oh really... What's your pick?
Personally I'd like to thank all commenters here who gave a personal report of their relatives who survived the incredible suffering during and after this monumental battle.
No physical evidence for battle of stalingrad
@Derk Dicerk what?
The battles in Stalingrad created so many scars that the city may never heal them. No physical evidence of the bloodiest battle in ww2? Okay I feed a troll 😅
Whenever I'm working outside in the summer or winter I always just remind myself I never had to go through what these men went through. Doesn't seem so bad then.
Me too god rest their souls
Me too. Me too
Dr. Felton, I am a Black 71 yr old man and have watching you for two years! Thank You so very much
@lorenzoharrell1135...what's your colour got to do with anything????
Mark thank you for telling the side stories of WW2, as useal I was not aware of this, so keep telling th stories, so we all can learn
That's a good summary of Mark's channel. Here we find all the history that we didn't know we didn't know.
but why they did not encircle the city than assault
Do not learn from propaganda, find your own way understanding a conflict or war. Political views are rubbish who kills people
@@borninwashingmachine4582 political views are always rubbish, 90% of the time they are exaggerated or outright modified and 99% of the time biased, self questioning, investigation and a critic, skeptical mindset seems to be the only reasonable way to actually learn history
You wouldn't have as the old saying goes, "the victor writes history, the lower is forgotten". I love Marks channel and hearing the German side. We only ever hear about the 'glorious' allied feats and the Germans defeat after defeat
I love these documentaries cos they're just the facts. Thats it. Not a stupid reality series. Just the facts. Thank you Mark!
Soviet Union 90% Won in WW2...
El CUCUY russia was needed for the defeat of germany, i dont believe americans would sacrifice millions for victory
Not only that but also Mark's storytelling is great and he keeps you interested.
& lots of BS, Glory for what ????????
And lots of ignoring of facts as well. He says that history largely ignored these events even though history teachers whose students felt they had better things to do than stay awake in order to graduate high school have been teaching these events for more than 50 years!
An uncle of mine was in Stalingrad as a blacksmith. The German army had many horses and , therefore, also many blacksmith. He had much luck, caught a frost bite and was flown out. He was a very calm man not talking about it all. A grandfather of my wife was as a "Sanitäter" i. e. a medic (not a doctor) in Stalingrad and lighly wounded. He should not be flown out. The doctor saw him and asked him how many children he had. 6 was the answer. The doctor thought ... and then covererd arms and legs with bandages so that he looked like a severe wounded soldier ... and was flown out and survided the war. He, too, never talked about Stalingrad
My Grandfather was also a WW2 veteran, he never spoke about it.
that's a kind doctor who allowed the medic to leave. Sad not to know any stories, but it probably is a horrifying experience, so they kept quiet.
@Duke of Istria Definitly based
Their military codes had been cracked by then. The allies knew most of their moves way ahead of time.
@Duke of Istria you seem to have a very poor understanding of WWII if you think the entire Soviet Army were true fanatical Communists and I'm shocked by your praise for the killing of them. They were people like you and I and a people that had been deeply persecuted by the Nazi and Axis forces and were in many circumstances fighting for their lives. The mass liquidation of towns in Belarus and Russia and the millions of people who died there and fighting Hitler especially those from the Soviet Union means the freedom of speech you now have the pleasure having here is a bi-product of the many sacrifices they made.
My wife's maternal grandfather was a Romanian cavalry reconnaissance soldier in the Fall Blau campaign in 1942; not sure if he was attached to the 3rd or 4th Romanian Army. He was captured sometime in September or October 1942 on a recon mission east of the Don. It probably saved his life since he avoided becoming a casualty when the Red Army launched its counterattack. He spent years in a POW camp in present-day Moldova, worked in a literal salt mine, and only returned to Romania in '48 or '49. Quite a story, but all too common for Eastern Europe at that time.
One of the times "youve been promoted" means death.
Never heard of the holdout German units before. Thanks for bringing this to light.
Iuiip
You’re not going to hear about that after, neither. The guy is full of crap.
@@TRYOK mini and you)kllpp
@@pot_kivach160 How is he full of crap?
@@patrickmorrissey3084 Read my other 2 posts below.
I'd always heard that Stalingrad was important, but I never really knew how important until that old film explained its strategic importance. Thanks for finding those bits of film.
True. I always heard it was a vanity project for Hitler. Wow, the city really was important for Hitler to take as a route to the Caucus oil fields off the Caspian Sea.
Thanks, again to Dr. Felton!
Same
Essentially when Stalingrad was lost, Germany lost the war at that point.
@@murphy6700 Its pretty insane to think, that german frontline was stretched in that point to over 3000 kilometres long, in the middle was Moscow what could have been invaded. But as history tells us uncle addi made huge mistake against suggestions of his generals.
I love how detailed and informative the old news programs are. I absolutely love the animated drawing of maps and the front line.
i lived in Germany in the 70`s, the old veterans never wanted to talk about the war. back then anybody over 40 seemed to me to be bitter and miserable. i went to a school in Euskirchen, we had a teacher in his late 30`s, one day he suddenly talked about a war experience , he was nine years old when he was shot at by an american fighter plane strafing the town at anything that moved, i was the only foreigner in the class, he looked at me several times while telling his story....Ironically, the first German book i ever read was entitled ; Das Herz der 6`er Armee ...detailed account of a German medical unit in Stalingrad and what the doctors witnessed.
My Uncle Rudi (1921-2000) lost his right lower leg at Stalingrad trying to take the high ground over seeing the last air field. They placed him away from the aid station in the cold and he watched lice leave the cooling bodies and head toward warmer ones.
Suddenly a light "Storche" landed and he waved to the pilot and said "Wie gehts!" The pilot pointed at him and he was loaded into the back. After they took off, a number of holes appeared and he passed out. Several days later he woke up on a train headed back to Germany.
I did not get some of his stories until the mid 1970s. Prior all I knew was that he lost his leg during the war.
My mother lost a brother, my uncle Wilhelm "Willie" who went M.I.A., Vistula, Arch, Poland. His Name is recorded at the Pulawy German War Cemetery, Polesie Duze, Pulawy, Poland.
My father was a brand new US Army replacement at the end of the war and saw his first dead bodies near then at Dachau. He was a guard for the concentration camp guards trials. After his first enlistment he returned home then later re-enlisted and was sent back to Germany in time to serve two rotations as a guard at Nuremberg.
In time he met my mother and later they married. Before we left Germany in 1965 and he retired from active duty, he took us to Dachau and told us what he saw. After that he did not say much about it. I do remember his admonition, "Never forget this."
@@jrcrin001 My grandfathers were veterans of WW2, and they taught my father, mother, and in turn us grandchildren to never forget, either. What is despicable is there are comments in this very video from people who were not there that it all never happened. And this is how such atrocities repeat themselves throughout history.
Thanks for sharing your story.
Did the book describe how German soldiers rounded up Russian civilians - men, women, and children - and sent the healthy ones to work camps and executed those that couldn't work?
@Revolting Peasant I hope I would at least have the courage to mention these4 inhumanities and not put everything on the Russians. By the way, an ad hominem argument is the refuge of the incompetent.
I'm alive today living under great stress and loneliness.
Nothing compared to what those men went through. This video gives me strength
👍🏼⛓️
a year later and I hope you are doing well, Jo Jo..............
goodluck
Remember what your ancestors have lived through and try to make them proud
There’s no such thing as loneliness if you have a higher power, whatever your ego will allow yourself to see as “above oneself” it doesn’t have to be a religious thing.
Mark Felton a real Historian and not someone who thinks they know history. I respect that
I can't stand most of the youtubers and book writers today, all they want to do is grind their axe or promote their pet theories that 'debunk' everyone else ie actual historians who lived at the time of the war.
"This part of the battle of Stalingrad has been completely ignored by historians..." that is, until now. Mr. Felton, I am always amazed at the depth of your research. I learn something new every time👍
The looks in the eyes of these men from history just sends me the chills.
I think I would have committed suicide rather than be captured or surrender.
@@DRILL-SGT.HARTMAN Back in America in the old wild west days, if you were fighting Indians, you never used up all your amo. You always saved one bullet for yourself.
Being captured by American Indians was not a good thing. How would you like being "scalped" while still alive?
I know it wasn't the Indians that started that tradition, but they sure did pick it up and run with it.
Being dead, they couldn't take their frustrations out on me. Or use me for any work in their atrocious camps. Where your chance of survival was next to nothing.
@@im1who84u Yup, not even a joke. You'll live for about 4-5 days after being scalped before dying from infection it's a slow death. Another one of their methods was creating an incision in the abdomen and letting the individuals guts hang out to be eaten by ants / crows etc. You'd live for about 2 days of complete agony in that circumstance. They had some fairly... creative ways of making people suffer. My favorite (in a macabre way) was cutting a hole in ice, putting the person in the water up to their knees and the water would freeze over and crush / cut their knees off before hypothermia could take hold and kill the person.
@@DigitalRX2r No thanks, I'll save a bullet for myself. Maybe two in case the first one is a dud.
If Mark Felton would've been my teacher at school I wouldn't have such a hard life I reckon. Mark thankyou.
My Grandpa lost his Leg in Stalingrad after a direct Artillery hit. Good bless the Pilot who flew him out before the 6. Army surrendered.
That artillery hit should be thanked as well!. It got him on the plane.
How long did your grandpa live?
@@wakeup8052 He died 2008. Next week i'll get my grandpas archived documents from the WASt in Berlin.
@@maverickwsv damn man you must be so proud your grandfather was a true MAN
@@atlaskaiser693 I'm not really sure what you are seems to be?
Was he forced or did he volunteer to join the Wehrmacht?
I love stories about Stalingrad. I just can’t imagine the struggle both sides dealt with. It had to have been hell on earth or worse.
Yes it must’ve been a better, it was hell on earth. My 18 year old father has been killed by a snipers head shot in January 1944.
Абсолютно верно это было величайшее в истории напряжение двух сил евразийского СССР и европейского из стран бывшей священной римской средневековой империи где были швабы хорваты саксы, баварцы, бельгийцы французы итальянцы австрийцы итд итп а те кто не приехали в сталинград помогали промышленностью чехи, голландцы и датчане засветились в легионах. А также их союзники венгры и румыны. А со стороны ссср помогали союзники по ленд лизу а степная монголия все свое национальное богатство отдала за эти годы весь скот все запасы
My grandfather was there, with the Romanian 4th Army, 30th inf regiment, at the river Don's bend. Out of a regiment of 3.200 nominal strenght, there were only 185 survivors that made it back to their lines, after walking more than 200 km, in the Russian winter. All the rest became KIA or MIA. Walking at night, hiding by day from the prowling Russians, scavenging what they could. He arrived in the town of Rostov in mid march 1943, and was sent straight home, as unfit for front duty. Weighed just 50 kg, was 1.65 m tall. He was 32 years old, had 3 children home.
In august 1944, after Romania left the Axis and joined the Allies, he was recalled (he had 4 children home now) and sent westward, to fight the Germans and the Hungarians. He went through the liberation of Transylvania and the siege of Budapest, VE Day found him in the Banka Bistriza area, present day in Slovakia.
He arrived back home, to his village outside Bucharest in late September 1945, after WALKING all the way from Slovakia (, 1.100 km, the Russians didn't allow them to use the trains and have confiscated their vehicles, because they were of German make and considered war spoils!). He tried to get back to his farming, only to see his land and wares confiscated by the communists, who forced him to work in a collective farm. He died in 1991, delighted to see the fall of the communist regime in Romania.
From his scant stories, ( he would only talk after a couple of glasses of plum brandy) I got the details above and from the regiment's archives I tried retracing his steps and came up with the mindboggling distance of some 5.000 km, on foot, with countless engagements and fights against the Russian and the Germans
Here is one story, from so many untold ones.
Thanks for sharing :) Mulțumesc
You should write a collection of them all
Thank you very much! Amazing
As a Romanian, I am proud of your grandfather.👍
Good german propaganda buddy
One of my great grandfathers fought in Stalingrad and managed to escape - as far as I know with some of his comrades.
My grandfather told me, that he never talked about the war in his whole life except for one time,
where he accidentally broke silence by saying about Stalingrad "If we did not have our MPs, we wouldn't be alive today."
I cant imagine what he had gone through and was too young when he was still alive to know about what the war actually meant.
what's MP?
@@ente866 Maschine Pistol - referring to the MP40
So he must have been an officer or something, because MPs weren't handed out to regular soldiers. MPs were in very short supply, so the regular German unit outfit consisted of Kar98s and the all important MG.
I wonder how the war would have went if the StGs were avalible at the start of the war, or just many more MPs.
@@vitman2409 I honestly can't tell you. My great grandfather died around 2005, when I was like 10 years old. So I never really could have talked with him about serious stuff. Also like I said, he never really mentioned the war and I did not often talk with my grandfather about him, as he a bad relationship with him.
So the only thing I know is this thing I mentioned in the original comment and also I think that my grandfather mentioned, that my great grandfather also was in Berlin '45. But it's just very vague from this point on.
General consensus is apart from about 40 men who actually escaped Stalingrad after air relief stopped (most whom were killed in the train they were in when it was attacked by russian airplanes), no-one else escaped except by plane (est-30/40k wounded and 2000 essential personnel).
Then there's the units that were cut-off from the 6th army all together (but belonged to the 6th army), a lot of these did make it back (but did fight at Stalingrad).
Over the years I too heard stories of individual smaller units, so-called kampfgruppe's (cobbled-together units of all types and arms), units actually stuck inside of the pocket, punching back to German lines, they were small enough that they weren't given much notice (if any) by Soviet pursuers.
The Nazi's certainly never would have made any official mention of it, their stance was that anyone left in the pocket = Fight to the last man, I'd imagine the leaders of these kampfgruppe's (having ordered the breakthrough of their group, against standing orders to fight to the last man) to be in deep sh*t.
Historians in general have taken the stance that absolutely no-one, apart from those 40 men, ever made it back.
Issue is, said historians only ever relied on official records, but official Nazi stance was the soldiers at Stalingrad fought to the last... So there's that.
We don't know the full picture.
They should have attempted escape as soon as Operation Uranus started but a really stubborn guy said no.
A certain Mr.Mustache got in the way.
True, but the entire soviet campaign was doomed to failure from the outset. Should never have followed the stubborn guy!
Breakout was impossible so if they tried they would all just get killed.
MaTeS breakouts when an enemies defence of the encirclement is weak is possible, if you attack with a coordinated push with air cover and maybe support from a relief attempt, then you might be able to save most of the pocket
@@jacoblee8989 There was no way that the 6th army breakout was possible germans were outnumbered, supplies were missing, thousands of wounded and hard russian winter.
A friend of mine, who is native German (who moved to US as a boy with his family but still has ties in Germany) told me about an uncle who fought in Stalingrad and who got back. The uncle said that in order to get through the German lines they killed more fellow Germans than Russians.
Mark, once again you find a bit of obscure forgotten history and weave it into a great story. Well done as you are brilliant at it.
Nah, i'm upset that there's not enough ancient aliens in these
@@FunnyCallsPrank Careful. The Pawn Shop and Junk Store Channel formerly known as The History Channel will try to hire you.
Saying the Luftwaffe failed to supply 6th army gives Göring too much credit, because it implies that there was a possibility for them to succeed in the first place lol.
Exactly, Going was too focused on desperately trying to keep/regain Hitler's favour.
@parklawnz He lost more planes than he had due to damage and repair and he was still supplying demyansk by air since it was some what precarious.
Im actually surprised they provided what they did
DUNKIRK
Hermann Goeoring; “ my luftwaffe will take care of that”
BATTE OF BRITAIN
Hermann Goeoring; “ my luftwaffe will take care of that”
RUSSIA
Hermann Goeoring; “ my luftwaffe will take care of that”
dammn was Goering actually an allied spy?
All hitlers fault.
He was advised to heavily invest in very long range bombers and transports in the 30s years before war broke out.
He didn’t listen.
@@thesnoopmeistersnoops5167 We can't just blame Hitler, we have to blame the Luftwaffe.
1. The Luftwaffe FAILED to supply 6th army not because of bombers, but because of the losses.
2. The Red air force managed to destroy a lot of the transports to the Germans.
Everybody quiet, I'm watching Mark felton productions.
I'm addicted to these things I've exhausted all documentary's I can find n these are keeping my addiction for knowledge about this conflict going.
Mark: "...at least that is what the history books tell us."
Me: *heavy breathing*
These stories of war gives me a sense that as a middle class American, im living in paradise compared with my grandparents WW2 ordeals and my father service in the frozen hills of Korea, and my best friend service in Vietnam. Makes me try to work as hard as I can. Because they did it before; For me. And Because hard work makes hard to knock down men...
Well said sir.
Well, if USA had not fought the side of communist, then no Communistic China would happen, and then no communistic Korea and no Communists in Vietnam. As Patton said "We defeated the wrong enemy."
hard times make strong men -WW2
strong men make good times -Booming
good times makes men weak -Antifa & BLM
weak men make hard times -communism
yes BLM and antifa are living life on easy mode
Ob Server A fairly oversimplification to a gigantic real world reality.
God bless
"Enjoy the war while you can," a common joke in the ranks went, "because the peace will be terrible!"
Sadly this is still true for many veterans
Thank you Mark for reporting on WWII. I'm a war history buff, but you are a Master at one of my favorite subjects.
I swear Mark Felton, The History Guy, and The Engineer Guy are like educational ASMR
And Hardcore History by Dan Carlin
Andy Niedel (sp?), Invictus, and 10 Minute History need to be on that list, too.
Don't forget Drachinifel
My favorites are TIK and Mark Felton.
If you like those you might also like Project Farm!
The moral of the story is that if the enemy thinks he will be killed, tortured or treated badly upon capture, he will fight on, killing more of your own men.
That's only really a problem if you value your own troops' lives above killing the enemy. Not sure that Stalin did. Also, it encourages the enemy to run away rather than risk capture.
That's actually one of best, but rarely used war strategies. Reduce the enemy's morale to fight, without great damage.
Yep. I saw this in Iraq and Afghanistan.
@@mosulman7773 thank you for your service. ❤🇺🇲🙏
I would say that the moral of the story is dont start a war with more enemies you can handle, or your country will end up leveled and in debt, besides milliones of dead, missing, raped and traumatised(again)
Contrary to popular opinion, Stalingrad clearly had great strategic value for the Germans.
The Germans reached their goal by destroying the Industrial section of the city.
I've learned that there's always an underlying economic or strategic reason for wars and battles. Nationalism and religion are merely used for rallying troops and civilians or justifying the cause.
@@Charlesputnam-bn9zy that was not their main goal. Their main goal was to control the city and cut off supplies that russia was receiving from the allies through the Volga.
@@Charlesputnam-bn9zy Not really, as shown in this video their strategic goal was to secure the entire city and then use it as a hub to supply operations in the south (the Volga river would also form a formidable barrier for the coming Soviet winter counter-offensive). If their goal was to reduce its industrial output, they would've just bombed the crap out of it and by-passed it.
@@solomonsudi8657 symbolic- stalin name
Strategic- like you said plus oil
And set up the invasion of the middle east to meet with rommel
My ex-father-in-law was a young German soldier in the Panzers. One night when we were both drinking some honey schnapps in his Man-cave (his shed), he told me that in the first battle his unit was in, the whole unit was wiped out and he was the only survivor and was taken prisoner by the Red Army. I’ve read many books about how the Russians treated the Germans and it was nearly always bad, but for some reason my ex father-in-law had nothing but nice things to say about Russians. He wasn’t released from the POW camp until about 1949 or 1950, and when he got back to Wanne Eickel (near Dortmund) and met my ex-mother-in-law he was emaciated and sick. He passed away in the 90’s I believe, but I have always wondered why he spoke of the Russians so favourably - re-education/brain washing possibly? I will never know now. It makes me wish I’d asked him more about it. But as with all war veterans, speaking about it can be a touchy subject. Love your channel @Mark Felton. Always something interesting to learn about the history of World War 2.
Probably because he knew the horrors executed by the German army and had little reason to believe he would return alive.
Perhaps One of them befriended and took up for him.They are people too
Maybe what we hear about the Red Army was a product of the Cold War….
Maybe after hearing a first hand account that entirely contradicts the second and third and fourth hand accounts, you should think about the idea that maybe you're the one who's been brainwashed.
I'll take things that never happened for 500
A Russian in an interview in the 1980's stated that in lulls in the fighting he could hear the Germans talking and smell their food and cigarette smoke. It then occurred to him that they could hear smell him and his comrades as well.
In WWI the minimum distance of the French and German trenches was 8m. So close that using the artillery was not possible, because it would most certainly hit the own men.
@@janbosenberg107 That's within hand grenade distance though
Imagine. First Floor hold by Germans. Second Floor hold by Russians. Third Floor hold by Germans and fourth Floor hold by Russians. Crazy.
@@maverickwsv And the polish and checks and othe easter europeans bringing supplies to the Germans..
@@maverickwsv Maneuver the 1st and 3rd floor to take the second (as the second is cut off), and then get back down to the first floor and demolish the building.
aliens: 0%
secret Antarctic bases: 0%
logging: 0%
ice road trucking: 0%
_History: 100%_
FOR THE SOVIET UNION, I CHARGE FORWARD
@@donsly375
KOMUNISTAAAAAANNN!!!
@@aleembaksh1880 Do you serve the Union, cumrade
I know what you mean. To see what the History Channel in Canada has become, breaks my heart. So many stories to tell but all they show is just trash.
Well, Mr. Felton did do a video on the theory of "Secret Nazi Antarctic Base - Fact or Fiction?"
That news reel at the beginning made the Stalingrad decision make a lot more sense. What a great clip to give context.
Oft forgotten. Hats off to the cameraman who got in the thick of this to bring us incredible footage, sometime within feet, no protection.
I recall in another's historic video that some of these "holdouts" actually fired upon a Red Army ceremonial formation in the days after the official surrender. But I had not known that there were 11,000 of them. 11,000 dead men walking.
11000 german survivors or 11000 soviets?
Probably germans, but wow.
Better dead than red.
@@MrMalicious5 OK boomer
Those renegade German soldiers had to resort to cannibalism to survive the winter ...
@@MrMalicious5 better dead than feel the wrath of men whose family was killed by your comrades
At this time my grandpa was a motorcycle courier in the Hungarian Royal Army. (Signal unit's motorcycle courier)
He was not in the first line of the front until when this is really happened. 6:56
An officer won't let them flee, but commanded his reserve small signal unit to a machine gun nest where the Solothrun 31M Light machinegun should be manned.
The light machine gun just jammed for bad condition and the officer changed his mind and ordered them to get the hell outta there.
Lucky man
Good officer. Smart officer
What I like about this channel is its factual impartiality, and it’s ability to lay bare the tragedy on both sides. We can’t but pity all those thrown into the meat grinder - friend and ‘foe’ - by the merciless ambitions of a few despots.
I don't think it's impartial the way he constantly praises the Germans and no other country. I find that very disturbing.
Well said
@@jenniferlarson6426 Everyone should be praised. I find your comment rather disturbing. It's not like the USSR turned out to be better than Germany anyway, with all of their genocide. Gtfo.
Shut up Karen
@@jenniferlarson6426 You clearly have listened to none of his content, your comment is utterly ignorant and simply in factual. How you people peritrate your lies and poison is a primary reason our own civilization is crumbling. Just astounding.
I hope a few of the 11k Germans found a way home. Sad story.
This is precisely what was taught at Parris Island in the 1980s, if you mistreat POWs, others will fight to the death rather than surrender.
No, quite the opposite. If you mistreat the enemy, you will be given no quarter. Nazis killed millions of Russian POWs and civilians. So 6th had it coming in the end.
@@alexsoklakov7454 war is war
Thats a good lesson.
@@alexsoklakov7454 Tell that to Japanese
If you torture kids, kill the elders and rape women, you are like to stay alive after be captured after your deeds. Nazis behaved like a beasts and barbarians and they were lucky to have a chance to survive
My great grandfather fought with the ARMIR Italian division in the Stalingrad operations of Barbarossa. He lost most of his hand in a skirmish with soviet forces and was eventually captured. Though, he managed to escape travelling through rural eastern Europe, scavenging whatever he could, sometimes eating from pig troughs. He eventually made it back to Italy alive. When he arrived in his village he was apparently unrecognisable with a dishevelled appearance, extremely thin, and a great beard.
Message from England. Your Great Grandfather is a top man. Hope he had a long and easier life afterwards,
Твой дед сбежал с поля боя как трус
@@zelex112 Ya dumayu on molodets
An uncle of mine who was injured at the hospital in Romania in WW2 told me half of the patients in the hospital lounge,were injured italian soldiers.Greetings from Romania.
Historically, it's a fascinating place to visit. I was there in September 2014. Incredible museum and many sites throughout the city, from the flour mill to Pavlov's house to the grain elevator. Paulus' headquarters is still there in the basement of the former GUM department store. It's virtually intact and is surprisingly free admission. His kubelwagon is there too. The Motherland statue at night is breathtaking. We then flew from Volgograd to St. Petersburg which would be roughly the length of the eastern front in the summer of 1942. A vast country. Great video Mark.
Have you seen the "Bald and Baulder"(?) travel TH-cam series? He visited and it was fascinating. Lots of drunks laying about. Something tells me it's never been a great place where to live. There's a book written back in the 90's after the fall of the USSR where the author was able to travel outside the city limits and find bone fragments sticking out of the ground!
@@christopherfritz3840 "never been a great place to live"? Especially not under a bloody nazi siege.. something telling me someone is butthurt
He was only Paulus didn’t have the Von
The story of Mamaev Kurgan was one that particularly grabbed me, although there are many interesting facets of the stalingrad story.
@@jameseadie7145 That's significant, as you're likely aware, with a "Von" before his name Hitler may not have taken to Paulus as readily as he did, and thus may not have risen to such exalted if doomed heights.
My grandfather was one of those only 5000 Germans who made it back to Germany. He was captured outside Stalingrad by the Soviets and held in a temporary small PoW camp at a farm where escape, although difficult, was still possible. He urged his comrades to make an attempt to flee because according to justified rumors they were supposed to be force-marched or transported into Siberian labor camps shortly. But nobody wanted to follow him because conditions at this farm PoW camp were kind of acceptable compared to a gruesome thousands of miles long escape march back to Germany. He made it in a year-long solitude stealth march where he had to steal food and clothes from farms and even kill some civilians or Soviet soldiers in order to survive. For example when he had to cross some river one night there apparently was no other choice than to kill the ferryman. He was always very reluctant to talk in detail about this ordeal but one fact he mentioned was that he never heard anything of his friends from the PoW camp ever again. The more I learn about the fate of German soldiers in Soviet captivity the more proud I am of my grandfather.
Worthy of a book or movie. Seriously.
Он убил МИРНОГО жителя. Что еще можно ждать от немецкого солдата.
Every army field manual: Never fight a battle in a city.
And if you must, don't bomb it to pieces first.
Just nuke ot
Yeah but the manuel was write after stalingrad
Not true. A city can be very advantageous for a defensive army and as you see in Stalingrad it more or less swallowed a whole army. There is also a reason, why most armies go around cities and only start attacking it after encirclement. Cities a pretty much a huge bunker complex for defenders.
Unless it must be taken.
When people say that there life is so hard and stressful. I say "at least you are not at Stalingrad"
Or leningrad
@@MasterScar Or Anzio, for that matter.
@Malcolm Hoth In all seriousness, if you hate your job that much, get a different job. Life is too short for that. Become a firefighter or something if you are looking for adventure. Pay is pretty good in many parts of the world.
I think I am going to use that one from now on! Good choice. Another good one would be a Chinese person in Nanking during Japanese occupation!
@Malcolm Hoth Domino H.
There's never much mention of the 42,000 Germans who were evacuated by air. About three divisions worth of men.
@The Truth “about three”
In 1990 on the way from Germany to Swizerland, I shared a train compartment with an elderly German man. He said he was on the last JU-52s to fly out of Stalingrad. He had an old newspaper clipping about it in his wallet that he showed me.
Watch the Stalingrad series with TIK. He goes over a lot of this
That figure seems excessive considering that a Ju52 can only carry up to fourteen military or medical personnel.
@@DKFlax Didn't you watch the video? The city had a key role in german strategy Look at 3:47
So at one point over 11k holdout we're in/around Stalingrad....and they captured over 8k....them holdouts are getting old af you know someone lasted a lot longer than the rest and that would make an awesome movie 🍿🎥😎🤯
That’s incredible only 5% captured German soldiers ever saw Germany again🤯
Hitler did not really value the lives of German soldiers.
Thank you for educating me on these battles as I was listening to these type of stories from my grand parents growing up in Bosnia where my late grandfather was in the battle of Sutjeska and survived being wounded in the face by a german bullet. I never had a chance to speak to my grand parents as an adult as the Bosnian war had them killed and I ended up in Australia. My fascination has been brought back with your videos and my memory of my grandfather as well. Thank you again.
It's very sad that you forget about your grandfather without the "video".
A book well worth reading, is "Stalingrad", by Theodor Plievier. The last days of the struggle for the city, told from the German perspective. Harrowing.
Good call. I consider that novel to be among the best war novels I have ever read. Harrowing. Plievier was an interesting person, a German Socialist and WWI veteran who loved his country but served as a Soviet propagandist out of his hatred of both the NAZIs and of war. That he was able to write a novel that portrayed the regular German soldiers sympathetically whilst living as a Soviet "guest worker" says much about how much his hosts respected his craft and his ethical position.
An other book that I read a few years ago and can recommend is "Le soldat oublié" (The forgotten soldier) by Guy Sajer!
“The Forgotten Soldier” is one of my favorites, one hell of a book.
@@yyz4761 I couldn't agree more!
Good tidings to you and a happy New Year my friend!
I like watching these old videos..Mark does a great job bringing them back to life!
Men, one can easily addicted to this channel, filled.with facts and gems.
I can’t imagine what these men went through on both sides but I have worked at an Amazon Fulfillment Center before.
My dad was at Stalingrad, was badly wounded and evacuated before it’s down fall.
Ur lying
The History Channel??? It's a joke... Mark produces more history in one video alone
The History Channel legally shouldn’t be able to call themselves that.
They legally call themselves just ''History'' now.
@@bendover6272 they got rid of the wrong word. Should just be Channel now cuz no word exists to describe how stupid their shows are now
Does anyone research what Mark produces? OR everyone just takes his word for it because he's says it happened. He may be correct about a lot, but how do you all know that. What happens when people FAIL to think for themselves........they become slaves to the person who does all their thinking. Do your own research.....learn things for yourself. There's a lot of information out there about WWI and WWII.....go find it and see if what he tells you is correct. Also, information he says has never been talked about....have you checked the government archives about such events.....searched old newspaper articles...have you done anything besides listen to someone you don't personally know tell you how it was?? The Germans holding out after surrendering was common. Fulton claims it's never talked about. I disagree. I knew this back in high school......many, many decades ago. I guess it helps when your Social Studies teacher was a WWII Vet.
He really does, very well done. Reminds me of some of the cool older stuff that used to be on History before it was ruined by corporate shills, that I remember watching as a teen
One of the members of my church told of her brother's surprise return about two years after his capture at Stalingrad. He was unrecognizable! He had been about 160 lbs but was around 85 lbs when he came to their front door! It took several years for him to recover from the mail treatment he had undergone.
And how many people did he murder before?
WOW, such a pitiful, unfortunate, poor, little Nazi huh. DON'T YOU ALL SHOULD NEVER FORGET THAT, THEY ARE THE ONES WHO CAME THERE TO KILL, GENOCIDE, AND EXTERMINATE PEOPLE. Nazis starved prisoners of war to death, kept them outside behind the fence, and they would toss one loaf of bread for all ( hundreds ), and laughed and them when they fought till death for that bread. For all those horrible things they inflicted to innocent civilians, children, women, elderly. Only one concentration camp for small children in Latvia is enough to burn them all alive in hell. Just a thought, you know. Sometime it's good to think about it in the other way, see it from the other side, the real side.
@@vladworldzmason8244 you would have been the first to join the nazis if you were a german in the 30's.... your idealism and zealotry would fit right in!
@@vladworldzmason8244 god this is so bad 😆. MAYBE just maybe he was one of the millions enlisted who werent SS. Have you ever think about this typing on your PC?
I was a prior US servicemember... I salute that man's exemplary service.
Cmon guys let’s get him to 1 mil subs he deserves it probably one of the best if not the best war history channel on TH-cam
One of the best channels I've discovered on TH-cam. I appreciate your work a lot.
I have often thought that there must have been Germans who would rather fight it out then surrender to the Soviets. So it is interesting to know such things did happen.
Thanks, Mark
I have a vague memory of reading that there were still German soldiers in Russia as late as 1950 trying to escape. I've been scouring my library to see if I can find the story but unsuccessfully. It sounds unlikely but I would have said that up to 11,000 German soldiers still fighting in Stalingrad weeks after the surrender was equally unlikely until I saw this video so you never know.... I'd like it to be true but I may be misremembering French Indo China. When the French pulled out of what became North Vietnam in 1954 they abandoned a number of guerilla units which they had been established and which were led by French NCOs. In "The Last Valley" by Martin Windrow about the battle of Dien Bien Phu which ended in May 1954 he says "...they were abandoned in the jungle...to be hunted and exterminated by Viet Minh tracker units...one of the most horrible legends...is the report that an aircraft...near the border picked up a last desperate message from one of these French NCOs a full two years after Dien Bien Phu, cursing them for not dropping ammunition so that...they could die like men".
@@petermortimer6303 I know many Germans were kept by Stalin and those that did return were several years after his death.
I have read a little about those French left behind and obviously the same with Americans when they fought there. It is a difficult subject because many would be classed as MIA and families would still hope they are still alive. And having seen a number of Japanese who survived WW2 and were left behind that adds to the hope.
I am a little weary of the story of a French NCO as there is a similar story of an America NCO who was supposed to have sent a radio message some years after the Vietnam War had ended. That does not mean that one or the other is not true, but, as I say, it does make me weary.
@@bigblue6917 I agree and to be honest Martin Windrow, who I think is a good writer, does use the word "legend" when talking about the subject
@@petermortimer6303 someone killed himself for that
@@bigblue6917 The germans remainig PoWs in the soviet union after 1949 were pretty much all war criminals, which were allowed to return in 1955.
I'm currently teaching English to senior army officers. Your videos are providing excellent material for my lessons - thanks and keep them coming!
The lesson is stay home and don't invade other's.
@@blueshirtman8875 Try to tell this to the Americans and the English !
@@gaborczirjak4172 Tell them what?
@@blueshirtman8875 To stay home ! That was the advise ! You did not see it ?
@@gaborczirjak4172 Thanks for the reply,if they had only stayed home!!
Mark, thank you for all your hard work in producing these great videos. I enjoy them immensely. I am a big history fan here in Arizona USA. When I was a kid in the early 60's, I had a neighbor from Oklahoma who served in Patton's 3rd Army. He told me that he marched from North Africa to Germany. I asked him about his toughest fight. He told me it was against a British soldier outside of a bar in France. The Brit was at the top of the stairs and my neighbor was below him. He advised me of the value of holding the high ground. ;-)
The History Channel V Mark Felton = no contest. He is a master. Thanks for all the little treasures!
The destruction of the war in the east was simply astounding.
Two enemies that cared nothing about the lives of their soldiers.
@@kenperlman2204 don't mess USSR here, it's historically proven they were totally unlike germans
@@raketny_hvost I was referring to Hitler and Stalin.
@@kenperlman2204 i repeat, Stalin was product of beginning of 1900s, he didn't have any idea of killing his own worker class. Jukov and other generals have memoirs which say that Stalin didn't make hurried decisions and always consulted with officers. So throw off all you've been told in school or somewhere
@@raketny_hvost jukov lol. The proper English translation is Zhukov.
Finally I have legitimate excuse to not do my homework, thank you Mark.
Teacher:why didn't you do your homework
You: I was learning about WW2 on TH-cam
Teacher: you can't learn much online
You: then you haven't heard of Mark Felton
Your homework? More like OUR homework
I will do your homework
Plot Twist: the homework was WWII history...
A tragedy; the villains won.
Mark Felton?
I am leaving everything and start listening this masterprice of voice xD
Lesson, don't rely on Hungarians Romanians and Italians to cover Uranus. 😂
Sad, but hilarious
Should be top comment.
Bruh 🤣😅
I feel sorry for the Italians at times but they were on the wrong side of the War and of history. You only need to listen to the stories of the British or Anzac commanders in North Africa to find that they did not hold the Italians in high regard on that front as well!
You get a like just for the comment alone
"The railway station changed hands 14 times in over six hours"
These people were playing King of the Hill before it was cool.
Just want to let you know, my father and I love to watch your videos together!
More Russian soldiers died in the Battle of Stalingrad then the Americans lost during the whole war.
That is the Stalin & Putin mentality, they don't give a s_h_i_t about people:
Stalin quote:
A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is just statistics.
@@daveporter4667 what does Vladimir Putin have to do with this?
@@omar_xxnader9246 Putin is Stalin reborn
@@omar_xxnader9246 Putin doesn't give a damn thing about people. In a different way than Stalin though.
Much smaller involvment than the USSR, not a wonder.
Probably the Red Army killed more Germans in the battle for Berlin alone than the US forces did in the whole war.
I’d bet a few made it out. history is full of others stories of people succeeding in harsh conditions and circumstances.
I know every Idiot says that, but a member of my family , who died in 2005 always told me how they were led out of the Stalingrad pocket by some russian farmers in early january 1943
@@Ko.Wi. i would love to hear, honestly
@@TheBravocom he always told me , that they were supposed to get food supplies from a storage for their unit, when the pocket was already closed .So they were supposed to Sneak through Russian lines, to get food, and then come back. But it seems in snow and everything they got lost, but they came across some civilians, probably farmers Who knew how to Navigate, in this Terrain, and they got them out. Until his death he was always ashamed, that he didnt return with food to his comrades in the pocket, that probably mostly died. But i Think he was lucky enough to get out there....
@@Ko.Wi. would have been an amazing story
@@Ko.Wi. Thats fascinating, if it's true I applaud the farmers who were kind enough to do that to their enemy knowing that if they got found out they'd be dead. They must've realised how bad captivity was, do you know of any other stories like did he return to active duty.
“The street is no longer measured by meters but by corpses ... Stalingrad is no longer a town. By day it is an enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke; it is a vast furnace lit by the reflection of the flames. And when night arrives, one of those scorching howling bleeding nights, the dogs plunge into the Volga and swim desperately to gain the other bank. The nights of Stalingrad are a terror for them. Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only men endure.”
Max Hastings
My great great gran dad was on the line at Stalingrade and his group got drunk as ,they had a machine gun nest in a bunch of trees,Germans over ran the line and missed my drunk gran dad and his mates,then the Germans got pushed back,my Gran dad and his mates got bravery medals for not retreating and holding their position in a attack lol
What an amazing story.
Yea in real life the Germans probably kill 7 Soviets soldier in less than minutes
@@kkjkkj2584 Bursts of MG fire
Brilliant story 👏 who said alcohol doesn't solve everything 😅
@@mikesummers6880 yip a drink will always make a day better
It’s a very interesting phenomenon why soldiers surrender . There have been many wars where the soldiers know they will not be treated according to Geneva Convention but still they surrender . The 11k who didn’t surrender suffered exactly the same fate as the 90k who did surrender but at least they died on their feet with a weapon in their hands.
Yes, but they had a shorter life than those who did surrender. Seeing Germany again is not a metric for life longevity. Anyway I think I like them better than those who did surrender.
at day when they surrender they have no ammunition, no food, no fuel, no hope. I read german soldier memoirs where he witnessed about cannibalism among the germans. And many from this 11k were hiwis, they have no options.
Well, obedience is a funny thing. When the commanders said surrender, they surrendered. Earlier in the war, when the commanders said 'attack russia' they obeyed; that is the symmetry.
Amen to that. The USSR and Stalin never signed the Geneva convention prior to ww2, that was "the rule of battle" every german officer had in mind, meaning they had / nor the russians, any protection what so ever as a POW. In my country Norw inhabitans were shocked by the treatment of Russiand POWs as slave labour by the Wehrmacht occupants, having no idea of the reality at the front in the east.
@CKS1949 sikh soldiers in songapore ?
Many of the remnants of 6th Army after official surrender were HIWIs (russian volunteers), who fought on and obviously couldn't surrender to face fate worse than death.
It's not an abbreviation. It's the shortened version of hilfswilliger. Just - Hiwi.
Ultimately what is bravery? It's perseverance in the face of utter fear, none of the men involved from all of the sides involved can be called a coward.
@@colemanhigley747 Literally translated "someone willing to help". Thus, yes, volunteer
Suicide only option
The germans called them "hilfswilliger" - who wants to help- such cynism, they had the option to work for wehrmacht, or sent to a bloody gas chamber
My grandmother was German, and there are many tales of her side of the family, including an uncle who was a doctor drafted to the Russian front with the 6th army. After capture heescaped from a freight train to Siberia and made it back through the winter to German lines, but none of his comrades joined him and went to their silent deaths. He was one of the lucky 5,000. Thank you for filling in some of the gaps!
Thanksgiving dinner is going to be fun this year. It's going to be nothing but me talking the ears off my inlaws and relatives with WWII trivia from Mark Felton videos lol
You know your doomed when you’ve got fortress status
Nuts!
My uncle, an Italian, fought on the Russian front, but fled and WALKED back to Italy. Hiding and scavenging his way home. He made it and would eventually immigrate to Australia in the 1950’s.
You should interview his story if he is still alive, sounds really interesting
Thats why we lost the war. Niemals mehr mit Italien.
I only say this: of the 229 thousand Italians, 89,799 dead and missing; 35,133 injured and frozen. Only 10,030 soldiers will return from the Soviet concentration camps.
_WALKED back to Italy_ these boots were made for walking, and that's just what they'll do.
Stalingrad was the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany. Today, the Americans try to belittle that and to present that they are actually the greatest victors over Nazism, which is by no means true. They were waiting for the outcome of the Battle of Stalingrad and only then moved, and if the Russians had lost the battle, the Americans would have waited and not attacked until further notice.
The Soveits relayed on the convoys from the UK which my great uncles risked their lives for . The Russians where happy to see them .
It wasn't just Russians but Soveits .
We wouldn't have risked our men for a mortal enemy, which Russia thinks the UK is . Very one sided that rivalry.
Dr Felton I hope that students at the University of Essex appreciate what a true gem of a Historian you are and hope that they learn from these lessons you put on TH-cam to never allow things like this to happen again and not repeat itself
Read the book Stalingrad by Antony beever. It was literally hell on earth.. a great read..
Very nice book, it’s on YT in audio as well
The audio book is great.
Just bought the book...thanks for the reference...
It is very inaccurate but gives a good big picture of the operation
Beever's writing is noticeably biased. His research, such as it is, is subjective and narrowly focused. As part of research into 20th century European and Russian history, I included Beever in my readings , and found his book to be mostly a waste of time and money. He is more of a "pop" historian who presents his material in simplistic style with a selection of sources to support his narrow viewpoint. The main value in his writing is as mostly an auxiliary source of references, many of which I found to have been copied from other more complete chronologies. To his credit, he has popularised history of the time, and makes it more accessible on a broader level to more people, which is good in that the evidence of history becomes a larger part of general knowledge of world events.
Why any German would surrender is beyond me. It would mean certain death under cruel conditions.
When your encircled run out of food ammo and medical supplies surrender or / and death are about the only options left
It's quite easy to imagine why. Exhaustion, lack of food, extreme stress and wounds can make anyone break and want it to stop by surrender even if by doing so they have condemned themselves to death.
ikr would keep the last bullet for myself...but thats easy said in my warm house.
German army never took care of Soviet prisoners. Most of them died of exhaustion, neglect, or in labor camps. The Soviets took revenge, that's all... It was a total war, and nobody took care with other people.
@Karl Papp Of course I agree with you on the NKVD and the atrocities they have committed... But sorry, my comment has nothing to do with this . I was simply talking about the behavior of the two armies and that of the German army with the first Russian prisoners during the outbreak of Operation Barbarossa . This probably led the Soviet soldiers to have no mercy for German prisoners ...