Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
2 January 2009
11:4011916#1
Ive experienced the dreaded malady over the past five or six days and its not been nice but while recovering what better way to do it than to enjoy the generous helping of war films they stuff the schedules with in this season of goodwill. Yes war and Christmas seems to go together very well. Odd that, bizarre even, it all jingles in together well with peace on earth!
Ive had the Great Escape, Battle of the Bulge, Heroes of Telemark, Von Ryans Express, all standards of the christmas schedules for many a year. There are others of course but the stamina can only manage the few.
Many of these films claim to be authentic and have assorted military advisors in their listings as the credits roll. Major this or General that.
There is an interesting strand though that runs through all these films. The Germans of course are the baddies and have to be seen as such, they do considerable snarling and a lot of menacing but the real strand is this...in all or nearly all these films the ordinary german soldiers are always seen butchering prisoners in cold blood by machine gun fire from the backs of trucks. In some cases they butcher the wounded, in other cases they butcher the hapless prisoners. This is clearly seen in the authentic sounding Battle of the Bulge and in The Great Escape, but is this really true?
In the lighter Von Ryan's Express, with no real claim to authenticity, they butcher the wounded, so the malady is self propogating, and so on so forth throughout a whole series of films. But is any of this based on any truth?
In war many unfortunate and regretable incidents happen with all sides, but despite our current war torn world, it nevertheless remains hard to beleive that the Germans systematically murdered in this way many of the prisoners they took.
2 January 2009
12:3111917#2
Not Germans, Nazis - they are different! Especially now we should remember that!! (A bit like we need to remember that being Irish doesn't bring instant IRA membership.....!!!)
Guest 658- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 660
2 January 2009
12:5011921#3
Many years ago i was privileged to meet Henry Macanelee who at the time was the Arnhem battlefield guide, the gent was missing an arm he also had had a metal plate in his head, he was captured if that's the right word by the SS on the battlefield after losing an argument with a German tank. It was the SS who gave him enough treatment to save his life and had him taken by train to Germany where doctors treated him and he remained a prisoner until the end of the war.
He was still active when i last saw him in 1984. In fact on at least 2 occasions during the battle for Arnhem the SS took the allied wounded away for treatment. I think Hollywood has a lot to answer for. Whilst serving in Osnabruck my local bar was owned by an ex member of the Africa korps a true gent indeed. War is not pleasant and many evil acts are committed by all sides.
beer the food of the gods
Ross Miller
- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,709
2 January 2009
13:0411924#4
Well said guzzler - the majority of German soldiers were ordinary decent men put into extraordinary situations just like our soldiers, the Americans, Russians etc. The percentage of fanatics within German ranks was tiny
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
2 January 2009
13:0511925#5
Big, big, difference Bern, the IRA were as much enemies of Irish Government as they was ours, they were not the Government itself.
The Nazis were the German Government and held popular support there and it is a much more complex issue. Without the support of the German people the Nazis would not have lasted so long. It is far too easy to claim that the enemy were something other than the German people, something apart, but that was not so. The reasons for the power and sway of the Nazis are complex and goes back to the appalling terms set by the allies for the Armastice after WW1. We are ourselves not immune to the kind of monsters respresented by the Nazis and should not feel superior in that sense.
I like the Germans, have German friends and had a great holiday there some years ago as a guest of the German version of the Young Conservatives, but the Nazis were not a race apart.
As for the war films, The Great Escape was based on a real incident and yes around 50 escapees were murdered, machine gunned, and the film is right to depict that.
Near our place in France is the remain of a village called Oradour-sur-Glane and after D Day German SS troops surrrounded the village and murdered every man woman and child. The only survivor was the local doctor who was away making house calls. The village is preserved as it was to this day as a memorial. A visit there is a very moving experience where 642 were murdered.
See more here:
http://www.oradour.info/
So yes PaulB - the Germans do deserve to be cast as bloodthirtsty villans in WW2 films
2 January 2009
14:1511928#6
the principle is the same - that we should not by default see a race as having the same characteristics as the most infamous/famous of their representatives.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
2 January 2009
14:2511931#7
i am trying to picture the german version of the young conservatives.
Ross Miller- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,709
2 January 2009
14:2711933#8
That is a little black and white Barry
There were attrocities committed by all sides, however the victors always get to write the history books!
See here for a very good summary of known attrocities
members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres.html"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
2 January 2009
14:3211935#9
i know a couple of falkland veterans who would tell you that atrocities are committed as much by our own people as any other army.
there are times in conflict when one side has not the facilities, time or resources to take prisoners.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
2 January 2009
14:3711936#10
I must say that i worked in Germany for over a year I was living with A German family in a village they were very good to me and when I got run over by a car late at night coming out of work they were the first to get to the hospital and came each day to see me. Germany is so big and clean, and if we had the funds we both would like to move to there.
Vic Matcham
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
2 January 2009
14:5711940#11
Ross- I dont really think you can say my post was all black and white, it is not as if I cast the Germans as evil and I did say that we are not immune to the same evil.
As far as the British are concerned, in WW2 and since, you will not find examples to match what happened at Oradour (or Mai Lay....come to that). Yes in the horrors and pressures of conflict very nasty things can happen on an individual and small unit level but what the Germans did in WW2 was of another scale. The nearest we British have to that kind of thing over the last 100 years is in India, the Amritza massacre when (Colonel) Dyer ordered his troops to open fire on protestors for which he was Court Martialled.
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
2 January 2009
16:1811949#12
And not forgetting the Holocaust - The Final Solution. Many ordinary Germans were a a party to that too - as the saying goes "Evil triumphs when good men (and women) do nothing.
Maybe forgive, but we must never forget.
The modern day Germans are great people.
Roger
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
2 January 2009
16:2211951#13
there is a whole page about oradour on forgetmenotwargraves web site.
2 January 2009
16:5511953#14
It is so important not to forget. I had a friend who had been through the holocaust, had been forced to choose which of her children lived and died, a favour given to her because she was a nurse and could nurse the nazis. It is also important.as you say, to recognise that we are all capable of doing nothing, and of doing bad things, we don't need to be geographically placed for that.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
2 January 2009
20:1011962#15
i lived a few houses from a couple of jewish sisters that had survived aucshwitz.
they were exceptionally tiny ladies, the reason they survived is that the doctor in charge of the camp was amused by them and wanted to study them.
they were in their eighties when i knew them, they both never married and were inseparable, not twins, but you would have assumed that they were.
the banter from them was non stop.
sadly, but not surprisingly, when one died, the other lasted only a few months.
they were a triumph of the human spirit.
Guest 644- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 1,214
3 January 2009
12:3212011#16
Returning to the original post a little, the massacre of the fifty POWs following the Stalag III escape in March 44 was ordered specifically following a meeting between Hitler, Himmler, Goering and Keitel. Up until that point on the western front escaped POWs tended to be returned to their camps. Hitler wanted all 76 escapees to be shot, but Goering talked him down to 50, the rest being returned to various camps. It is important to remember that the executions were carried out by the Gestapo, not by the German Army or the Luftwaffe who controlled Stalag III. Notably the Kommandant of Stalag III was so appalled by the executions, he built a memorial to the fallen which still stands and to which he personally contributed. The executions were primarily carried out as a deterrent to further escapes and to send a message to insurgents within Germany.
My point is, there was a broad spectrum of standards of behaviour between the individual armed forces, some more political than others. The SS, Hitler Youth and Gestapo were of course Nazi organisations, Nazi influence on the Army and Luftwaffe less so, and the Navy comparatively non-Nazified. Indeed Admiral Canaris, head of the German Intelligence service, kept secret files detailing SS atrocities and even, it is believed, met British agents to pass on information. He was executed a couple of weeks before the war ended in the aftermath of the July Plot.
The utterly superlative film Downfall (an essential watch to anyone with the slightest interest in the period) demonstrates the correct way in which the madness of the Nazi world should be depicted. No-one is depicted in black and white, as it was in war films of a generation or so ago, the world simply doesn't run like that. All the players are shown with various degrees of adherence to the Nazi Regime, from the dutiful exasperation of professional doctors to senior army officers, to fanaticists such as Keitel and Goebbels, culminating in the murder of his six children so they did not have to grow up in a Soviet dominated world.
Germans in war films should not be portrayed with the same brush, we've moved beyond that Victor comic stereotyping - most of the non-political combatants were simply doing their duty. I have a personal diary and book of thoughts by a German paratrooper at home who was killed in the immediate aftermath of Normandy. It's full of poems and musings mostly about his home and mother, the war is barely mentioned and there is absolutely no mention of Hitler or his gang of thugs. It makes very tragic and sad reading. His commanding officer unofficially protected soldiers with Jewish ancestry in his regiment and led a memorial service for the fallen British dead at Crete.
3 January 2009
19:1512029#17
You are so right: War, and Life, are never black and white issues. We really should hold that thought.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
3 January 2009
20:5312036#18
my understanding of the second altercation was that the average german soldier was not involved in the atrocities.
there always seemed to be many east europeans involved with the camps.
the gestapo and ss seemed to attract certain individuals that had personality disorders that dealt with other matters.
3 January 2009
20:5712039#19
Always the way.......certain jobs and actions will attract certain people........
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
3 January 2009
21:0312043#20
surprised you have not mentioned the "black and tans" bern.
they were the funsters in earlier times.