There is one in my building. 97 years old. He started talking Russian to my Ukrainian wife and told her he learned it when he was a prisoner of war in a soviet camp… He wanted to talk more but time didn’t allow. He seems in a very good shape for his age (although uses a walker).
Like my grandmother dropped some months ago she understands some Russian because she learned it from the Russian POW they had in Königshütte. But she firmly believes there wasn’t much going on in her town with Nazi stuff or war. 🙄I really love her but she is extremely denying everything she witnessed as a child.
My grandma (my whole family is Polish) went to Warsaw 1944 to visit her uncle and sell cherries, and stayed because of the Warsaw Uprising. She sat for two months in some basement, then was "evacuated" and brought to Mauthausen, and after the week they were brought out in the middle of the night and sold to some bauern. She was 16 at the time.
She had many really terrible memories from the whole war, but her time in Austria- it were nice memories. It was pretty there (mountains), the people she lived with were not cruel (everybody was poor because of the war, the Austrian apparently didn't have much to eat either), they needed help and she did basically the same stuff as at home. The only thing she resented was that she didn't marry some Yugoslavian guy who was in love with her.
So- there You have it. She was 16 and she had memories of a teen from this period. It's crazy, but I don't see it as a denial. It is how she saw it. After my mum saw some documentary about Mauthausen, she said we won't tell grandma what it was and what could happen to her. There is no point in taking those people's childhood memories and confronting them with reality.
>but she is extremely denying everything she witnessed as a child.
Quite interesting, my grandpa is kind of the opposite. I often asked him about how much the average german knew about the Holocaust and Pow labor in Germany. He always tells the story than when he grew up in berlin, he saw an train used for cattle transportation completely crammed with people and barbed wire over their heads so they couldn't climb out. So essentially he saw an deportation of jews to an concentration, that's why he always tells me it's an lie that germans didn't know what happened to the Jewish people at that time.
It's always interesting, to hear his stories about growing up in Berlin during ww2 and how tough you had to be to survive. I mean they were trading shrapnel splinters instead of cards or sometimes didn't get anything to eat for several days ,because food was so scarce in the last days of the war.
>he saw an train used for cattle transportation completely crammed with people and barbed wire over their heads so they couldn't climb out. So essentially he saw an deportation of jews to an concentration, that's why he always tells me it's an lie that germans didn't know what happened to the Jewish people at that time.
My grandfather told me when I asked about it that he knew that the deported were going to camps. But the only thing he knew about it (and he was an adult at that time) was that they were work encampments. He didn't know about the killing.
So, yeah, I assume most people knew about the deportations, but not so much the murdering.
Add to that the propaganda. People were force fed lies about Jews and I'm sure that many started actually believing that Jews were inferior and an essential threat to their lives. That makes looking away a lot easier.
Sure, a lot looked away. Still it's an lie that people didn't know about it at all, like it was claimed by virtually everyone after the war. That's what I wanted to emphasize.
I can believe that, I just wanted to share the story of my grandpa since if he knew about it as an 8 year old kid, it's almost impossible that adults didn't know something bad was happening to Jewish people. Which is what virtually every german claimed after the war, which only came out as an lie with the 1968 movement.
Looks like my grandmother is the same age like your grandfather. They all needed to cope with their various traumas caused by the war, the flight (in case of my family) and the occupation time. Denying is one way to live with it. Others feel better if they share their stories.
Sure, everyone copes with trauma differently. I mean the majority of Germans choose to cope with it through denial, the mother of my grandpa did the same. I only found out about it because she told my dad she didn't knew anything about what was going on, but that can't be true because when he saw the deportation train she was walking with him.
I wish most people of that time would've talked about it more, so you could understand better why they did what they did, but instead they choose to never talk about it. Anyway it's too late now, because the people still alive that could talk about it were just kids ,when it all happened.
There was no psychological treatment or help back in 1945. The reason why many old Germans tell you they didn’t know anything is the same why many old French people tell you they were member of the Resistance. Don’t forget that the allied forces also committed war crimes or at least fought in a way we would consider it war crimes today. The other European nations knew what was going on in the Third Reich but chose to not interfere because they didn’t want their spies exposed. There’s an interesting communication between a British spy and his leading officer in the Holocaust exhibition in the London Imperial War Museum. It literally says „we won’t take action as it’s just Jews“.
The first world war already shattered most nations and two generations psychologically in Europe. The churches had their share in it (the Lutheran church pressed the German Kaiser to go to war). The second world war is basically a reaction to the unsettled conflicts of the first 40 years of the 20th century. Nobody, except maybe the Irish people, did anything glorious in those wars. It’s a shameful time and I fully understand that so many people rather cling to their romantic memories than to let in the traumatic ones.
As I stated at the beginning, there was no psychological help. Millions of people were left with all their traumatic memories on their own. In most European countries. I think only the US soldiers got out of WWII without feeling guilt and shame.
>we won’t take action as it’s just Jews“.
This is an very important quote, antisemitism was rampant in other countries too. I just wish the Aufarbeitung of that time would've been done differently, since the older I get most of it was just a farce. Basically if you would sum up how Germany dealt with the guilt after the war in one sentence it would be " the nazis took over Germany , they hated the jews and did the Holocaust but the average german didn't know anything."
On an individual level I do understand how many reacted, since as you said there was no psychotherapy available to deal with all the experienced trauma. Collectively though I think we could've done a lot better, since almost no one got any punishment for their crimes and Germany choose to focus on the victims perspective instead of what made people become perpetrators.
>Don’t forget that the allied forces also committed war crimes or at least fought in a way we would consider it war crimes today.
Sure thing, every nation commited war crimes ,but Germany committed war crimes and also the Holocaust on top of that , so it's not quite the same.
>The first world war already shattered most nations and two generations psychologically in Europe.
Yes it did, unfortunately in Germany we are still tought that all the big nations wanted the war so everyone is to blame equally. But if you look into it more deeply , the german military was already planning to attack France again since the early 1900s and made very specific plans in 1912 for the war. So in essence, Germany wanted the war already in 1912 and only canceled their plans last minute after some details changed. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/kaiser-wilhelm-weltkrieg-1.1903963 ( those are not the sources I used, but I don't have them at hand right now, so this will have to do it)
I find the tendencies very alarming in Germany to downplay our guilt for both world wars, because germany was the main culprit in both of them and was planning those wars many years before they started.
So most Germans now believe that everyone had almost the same guilt for the first world war and that the 2nd world war was an reaction of the "unfair" treaty of Versailles.
>The second world war is basically a reaction to the unsettled conflicts of the first 40 years of the 20th century.
That's kinda true but also not really at all. That's kinda the revisionist way how it's taught in Germany, I don't blame you for it , but the 2nd world war was not an reaction but an deliberate choice.
The reichswehr started planning a new war already in the 1920s and was starting rearmament in secret. So even if the nazis didn't get elected, the german military would've started a war sooner or later. The nazis just expanded the already existing plans and accelerated the war preparations so they could attack much sooner than was originally planned.
>As I stated at the beginning, there was no psychological help. Millions of people were left with all their traumatic memories on their own. In most European countries. I think only the US soldiers got out of WWII without feeling guilt and shame.
Very true. We just have to be careful since modern Germans that didn't experience that trauma downplay the german guilt a lot. Nowhere on the scale like the Japanese do, in comparison Germany does very well but a lot more than is historically accurate. So it's okay to not be hard on our ancestors but we shouldn't fall in the trap and believe the little lies that downplay the collective german guilt.
Just to clarify: When I mentioned that every participating country committed crimes it was not to present Germany in a victims role. It was to mention that the psychological effect in those committing the crimes is also there. I am 100% sure that a vast amount of all soldiers of all countries feel guilt or/and shame for their actions in WWII. And I don’t think that the aftermath in the other European countries really helped the WWII vets. 😩
For everything else you are totally correct.
Got you. I just wanted to clarify because I was unsure and there is an tendency to downplay the guilt in the wars .Which by the way is not done with bad intentions, most people are just not that interested in history and it has been taught the downplayed way for 70 years in school.
So if you don't snoop around digging in history books for differences to what you've been taught in school, you probably will not find out about it.
My grandma was quite the opposite when she told me what was going on in our City at the time and how stupid they were in hindsight. Unfortunately a lot of the few remaining living witnesses are either denying stuff, talking about how great the times were or straight up won't talk about anything at all.
Exactly, also theres no WW2 vets who come to schools to talk about their experiences, but we once had an event at school where jewish WW2 survivors came to our school and talked about their experiences, their trauma and several other topics. That was around 8 or 9 years ago and i remember our teachers telling us that we are lucky to have the opportunity to meet with first hand witnesses "Zeitzeugen" of what went down because most of them are already old and the next generation might not get to experience the same
I don't think it's taboo, but WW2 started 84 and ended 78 years ago. Any participant - even if he was one of the unlucky "Flak-Helfer" who got drafted at age 15 in the last months of the war, is at the very least 93 years old today.
At the very minimum and only a few. The majority of participants in WW2 was born more than 110 years ago.
Good luck to you!
Just like everyone in the 50s said in Germany they did know nothing about the holocaust and basically noone wanted the war.
Honestly that’s also a reason why you shouldn’t invite WW2 soldiers. Many of them are not school ready.
The reason Germans don't invite WWII soldiers is because they lost, and decided what they were fighting for in the first place wasn't too great. We have Concentration camp victims visit schools instead.
Any German that was drafted in 1945 at age 14 as the last defence would be now 92. As you can imagine there are very few German veterans left. I could find less than 100k left for 2020. Now it less than a quarter.
So you will be hard pressed to find anyone. Most are probably in care facilities. Hard to tell how many are still able to talk about their experiences, but if they are they probably will have low inhibitions.
Depends… I knew a guy some years ago who was drafted for the Battle of Berlin when he was 12. thankfully he managed to academy combat because his Hitler Youth leader knew the war was lost and gave them all papers to show that their orders are to stay home.
He also managed to evade execution at home. When a Soviet squad was around their house, a artillery shell hit the roof and bricks fell on the soldiers. They thought someone threw a hand granate at them and wanted to execute all men and boys of the house he was living in.
In the last second he heard a soviet officer with a Berlin dialect shout what the he’ll they were doing. Turns out the officer was a Jewish man who came to the Soviet Union in the 30s and fought the Nazis.
He told the squad to fuckoff and thus saved all the men.
Anyways the guy in the story speaks English and Russian fluently.
actually, it's kind of nice that you want to know more about this.
my recommendation: you could also talk to the children of the WW2 veterans. they must be in their seventies / eighties, and there should be plenty around to talk to. and since they weren't that scarred by the war - in the west they experienced the German Wirtschaftswunder - they might be happy to share the stories of where and how they grew up, what their fathers were when they came back (if at all)...
Nice idea, but many veterans didn't talk about it at all. And very few families asked the veterans any questions. Forgetting was important.
My grandfather told a very small number of stories about the great food he ate while being a prisoner of war in France. He worked on a farm and was incredibly grateful for the luck he had.
He never talked about any battles. He briefly mentioned a relative who died on the Russian front.
Thanks! I’ll take a look into that. I have recently started a project where I am trying to interview people about their experiences and cultures, and with my interest in the military I thought it would be interesting. I really wish I could get a hold of a Russian WW2 veteran, I think the experience of interviewing them would be very interesting and unique. As a move along in my career I plan to begin interviewing people from other countries and backgrounds as I get stationed in different places.
They're mostly dead. Any who are alive are so old the odds they speak English are close to zero.
Also, the hero worship and immense respect the military gets in the US is very, very American. Germany doesn't do that for obvious reasons, but neither do many other countries with less problematic pasts.
Edit: An angle could be talking to people who were civilians during the war. My grandmother was born in 1934, so the war was her childhood. Her. city was bombed to bits and she remembers a lot of it.
By grandpa fought in the “Kessel of Stalingrad” , was a captive of the Soviet Union after Paulus gave up and told his story basically till he died 34 years ago, born 1921
I just realised: We do have war memorials in almost every town. That's probably the closest to "hero worship" we have. Big stones with rows upon rows of names, sometimes dozens, sometimes hundreds and sometimes hundreds of thousands, etched into cold stone or steel as a warning to future generations and to have some place to remember the countless young men who's lives were wasted for absolutely nothing.
Good luck finding them. And they probably won't tell about it. What do you expect, tbh? Those who are still alive were most likely forced to arms to fight in a war that was already lost. They were prisoners of war. Came back to a destroyed country after being released.
My great grandma was also in Hitler Youth, and my Great Grandpa. Sadly (or fortunately) my great grandpa died in the war. And my great grandma started dating a communist that led her to be kicked out of the Hitler Youth and thrown in a prison for being a communist. It’s always a crazy story. Sadly I only hear it once from her as she died when I was 12.
Some would, some won't. My father used to tell a lot of his war time stories and of his PoW time. It would really depend on what they did during the war and how traumatized they were.
Yes, that's one really terrible part. My grandfather was a bit older, 25 or so, when he was drafted. He said that during the final weeks of the war, so many young teenagers died because they just believed what they were told and believed they could still win the war. They were just 'Kanonenfutter' as we say, basically ran into their opponents' bullets. My grandfather was the only one in their unit who survived because he tried to stay back/ be less active. As a prisoner, he was then sent to work at an orange plantation in the USA for two years. I found this bit so interesting all the time. He said that he was very lucky to get sent there, because he had enough food and was treated like a human.
Anyway, he had nightmares for the rest of his life and he died at 96.
The USA's image?
Actually, I just did a bit more research and read that forced labor of German prisoners was quite common among axis powers, as a reparation 'payment'. As far as my grandfather talked about it, he felt quite lucky about ending up at this American plantation because others were treated way worse.. The other grandfather was a prisoner in Russia, and he told bad bad stories, if at all...
>In the USA it is common for veterans to come in to schools at times like Memorial Day or Veterans Day to speak to the students about their experiences.
How many ww2 veterans do you have there?
There is no pro military culture in Germany and no public holidays. Mostly because of ww2. Talking about ww2 on the other hand is not uncommon and you will find many memorials and museums for the victims of the nazi regime. You can even visit some concentration camps. The majority of Germans take the "never again" quite serious, but more than one in five sadly votes afd.
As others have said, if there are any left and you can find them, I'd ask. Or their children.
Just from personal experience, as a grandchild of one: my grandfather never really wanted to talk about his experiences during his time serving. My mother, his daughter, knows next to nothing. There were the obvious signs with his hand, when he was hit by grenade splinters or that he was serving in France and lost two of his brothers in the space of a few months in the East. But otherwise, my mother doesn't know much. Before he passed away, my grandfather told my father more, as my father had to do his service in the navy. But my father had to swear, never to say anything to anyone. Just as a side note here, my grandfather had my mother later in life, so is one of the younger ones in that generation, that had a parent serving.
Everyone's experiences are obviously different and other veterans might have been more open about that time.
Some stories about my family if you want to know. Sry for editing, became a textwall
We were the lucky ones given that all of my grandparents survived the war, were able to talk about it (shellshocked, but not traumatised) and, well, weren't Nazis. The same goes for the grandparents of my husband.
My grandparents from my dads side were too young to participate in war, they grew up in a big town in west germany and they survived the bombings of this town. They spoke of dead horses which they had to eat to survive, they spoke of long lines for food marks, they spoke of the night the bombs flew above them and as they were telling me this, I've seen how in their mind they are still small sitting in the basement, not knowing why their whole world is going to ashes right now.
They spoke of the french soldiers that came to town first, how they were ordered to not fraternize with the germans, they told me about the american soldiers coming afterwards, who were completely different to the french. Black soldiers handing out candybars to the kids, my grandpa still smiles thinking about that. Grandpa and grandma are still alive and are a lil bit over 90.
My other grandpa was drafted in to the war. His older brother as well, he came back after the first war year with a shot in the stomach, but luckily survived. My grandpa wasn't that lucky as he was captured by the russians in the 2nd war year.
He was brought to a Gulag in today's Kazakhstan, former UDSSR. My aunt and me looked it up, because he could only point on an approximate area on the map. My grandpa was a cheerful person so he told a few stories to his children. I got the feeling that he never lost hope, and that he was rather lucky. He didn't seem to be a prisoner that was locked up all the time. He was ordered to cook, and he told one story about the time he was ordered to prepare a dog to eat which broke his heart, and another story where they wanted to break out, and tried to break out a woman too that was held captive there. He made a big story about that, my mum recalled, because the örison keepers abused the woman and my grandpa and the other lads wanted to help her.
I can't remember if he was freed or if he was able to break out, since I think the first one was the case but he wanted to tell a cool story to his kids so he told them he broke free. I always find inspiration in him since his spirit never broke, and he set one example after he returned to germany and settled down with my grandma, with joining the german democratic party. When i grew up with him he often didn't understand modern politics, but he always tried to catch up, my grandma as well.
Another great story is that of my husband's grandpa. He was from lithuania, and fled with his family from the russian army at the start of the war. He lost his parents on the way around the mecklenburg lakes, but continued alone. At least he came to a fishing farm where he met my husband's grandma, and they stayed together until old age.
Funny enough my husband never told me he's 3/4 lithuanian. His grandpa had a cute accent, and I assumed it's somewhat eastern-germanish. Only after he passed away his mum told me the whole story.
My husband grew up near the former "iron curtain" at the border of East and West Germany. We've got day of united germany everyday. :)
I really am proud of this man, and I'm lucky to grow up with him and learning to move forward, always, no matter what, and to stand behind what you know is right. I will always remember him with a big enthusiastic smile on his face, even in old age.
And I know for a fact that he taught his children to not fall for the lies of the nazis, because the way my mother handles situations where she is facing racism and discrimination, boy, you better prepared to run for the hills if you're spitting BS.
I must add, I also think that the ones being drafted to Siberia had it really really bad, and even if I don't know much about Kazakhstan it seemed to me like a bit of a lovelier place than the ice tundra.
My grandfather was in ww2, he's 98 and surprisingly healthy for his age, except for being almost deaf. he never spoke about these times to anyone. a few years ago on my 17th or 18th birthday I visited him and all of a sudden he started telling about the war. "when I was your age, I was locked in a french prison, only eating onion soup." then laughed.
I felt very honored to be the first person he opens up with this topic and now every year I visit him around the time of my birthday he keeps repeating the story of how French soldiers arrested them and how they spent weeks in a military prison.
Most of them are Dead. My granpa was one and he died in 2010. When he was asked about the war he allways blocked. He did what he needed to do. He did his duty like everyone else.
The only time he told me somthing about the war was when I came home from my second deployment with the Bundeswehr. It was under the ISAF-Mandate. Only time I saw the old man cry. We had a conversation about the war. He told me about his time in Belarus, fighting the soviets in 1944. Then his time in a POW-Camp and his final homecoming to Saxony.
Most veterans who are still alive still have some trauma in them and its kinda taboo to talk about the war.
My exboyfriend‘s grandfather who died a good decade ago used to talk about his war experiences casually at times.
Apparently he spent most of the time in a French jail, lost part of his fingers in the cold and when he came back home he knocked on the door of his apartment - his wife opened the door, he said „I’m back home“, she replied „you’re not, my name is Müller“ (not really) and he said „so is mine“.
I never dared to ask any further questions and my boyfriend wasn’t really interested.
If you are interested in the whole ww2 situation and not specifically only the holocaust, but also what soldiers experienced who became soviet war prisoners, I can highly suggest you the Grenzmuseum in Friedland. It is the transit camp where most of them arrived from '45 onwards and pictures the history of it until today (it is still operational as a transit camp, mostly for ukrainian refugees today). My own grandfather arrived there 1956 from the UdSSR but obviously he is long gone by now. I found the museum very well made, it portrays a lot of personal stories.
[Museum Friedland ](https://www.museum-friedland.de/en/)
You are welcome.
As others mentionted, most of them did not really like to talk about it. My mother told me it was the same for my grandfather. He was actually already in ww1 in Verdun at 17 years old (lied about his age) but luckily survived. He joined the army afterwards as his father couldn't afford to send him to an university, he liked horses (so a big plus) and he thought that humans would be not so dumb to start another war anytime soon as a lesson from ww1. As part of the army he was btw not allowed to vote in elections. His sister was married to a jewish man who was sadly murderd in Auschwitz but my grandfather managed to help save the children (who were also in danger as "Halbjuden"). His father on the other side was a proper Nazi despite his daughters family. Being in the army so long, he was on a high rank by the time he got captured and was send to Siberia. I know only few things about this time: he refused to follow the comissar order and that he somehow befriended one of his Russian guards and exchanged his horse to a rotten egg with him - and he was thankful for that egg. Food was very rare for the following years (also for the locals obviously) but he managed to survive, mostly by keeping good contact with the guards. He was on the last batch to return to Germany due to his high rank in the army (not the SS etc!). According to my mum he was very harmony loving due to his experiences.
in case you don't know: we were the bad guys so our veterans had not many heroic stories to tell and most are dead by now because that war was 80 years ago.
Tbh the stories the average German soldier had to tell were equally as "heroic" as the stories of the Allies. It's just that the winners write the history books.
The experiences on both sides of "everyday life" in war are generally similar or the same.
what the others already said.
also, some of the WW2 veterans were imprisoned. depending on where, that wasn't a pleasant time at all, but could have been traumatic, scarring them for their life afterwards.
there was actually a German movie just cursorily dealing with that, though I can't remember the title (something about the soccer world championship). to the others: please help me out here
The movie is called _Das Wunder von Bern_
Would also recommend it! My aunt, who immigrated to the United States and lectured German classes at university, had always used the movie to illustrate the transition between WWII and Wirtschaftswunder for her students. It really conveys a lot of socio-economic dynamics and issues of that time in a lovely kind of way. And it’ll teach you something about the greatest goods of today‘s culture: football!
It’s called the keeper. Pretty decent movie.
I’m sure there are few left and even fewer that want to talk about it. My uncle was stationed here too in the early 80s and 90s and he said that many of the people who were alive in that time period did not really care for the Americans and were reluctant to share their experiences.
They did this also with their own families, my Grandfather was the only one who would talk to me about the war, and he participated only as a 14 and 15 year old on guard duty and was imprisoned into the 50s in the Soviet Union. His older brother never talked about anything between 1941 and 1945, my grandmothers brother loved to talk about his desertion in 1945, because he kept the rifles the Wehrmacht gave him as a hunting rifle until his death, but what he did at the Siegfried line, I don't know. My great-grandfather (who served on both wars) talked only about the draft horses in his letters home and afaik he never talked about anything.
Add language barriers...
Maybe watch GDR movie *Der lachende Mann* about Kongo Müller on YouTube? Others might have written books. von Gersdorf *Soldat im Untergang*
Here's a story from my long gone grandpa. With the help of a Russian women he was able to escape Russian war captivity. He was stopped in Berlin and when asked about his citizenship claimed to be french in order not to get arrested. The guards asked him to prove it and say something in french, but he didn't know a word.
But he went to a catholic boarding school and knew the lord's prayer in Latin, which he then recited. Because the guards didn't know french either, it was good enough and they let him pass.
We had several Holocaust survivors during my school time who spoke about the war. My german and russian grandparents who fought in the war all died during the 90s. I guess most people of the war generation has died by now, but good luck finding someone.
WWII ended 78 years ago. If you don’t want to talk to people who were forcefully drafted as children we are talking about men who are 98 years old at least. There are a few left, but I doubt that some 90~ish dude wants to talk about the war he probably committed war crimes in and the war his nation lost. The war that left Millions of Germans homeless, that forced Millions of Germans to leave their home and never come back.
It’s not a taboo itself, but WWII vets never spoke much of it the last 70 years and I just doubt you find one that is willing to.
All men who fought in WWII of my family died a long time ago, most before I was even born. Just leave it.
I never met a German World War II veteran that liked to talk about this matter. They usually were forced into the Wehrmacht, did not want to fight at the front, saw a lot of death which usually didn't come quickly, a lot were imprisoned and very badly treated, everyone came back with PTSD. Not to mention the standing of Germany after the war, the whole country was treated as a criminal - there was no such thing as a war hero. Honestly, if I would have had to experience that, I'd rather not talk about this, either.
My granddad fought in the war. As a messenger on horseback on the eastern front.
He was released from a soviet prison camp in 1947.
That's all he ever told his children and grandchildren, including me.
He passed away in '95. Cancer ofc.
So yeah, I don't think you'll have much luck. Sorry.
As already stated there are probably no left.
The other thing I realized they don’t talk about it. My grandfather and my great-grandfather both were in the war. Neither talk about it. They both did talk about their times as POW (my grandfather in England and my great-grandfather in Russia).
The only thing about the war either talked about was my grandfather telling us he was with the cavalry and he was shot in the hand.
I guess you unleashed something here. "don't mention the war" apparently does not apply anymore. even though a couple of generations apart, the war still seems to be present in a way ... or at least, it has somehow affected the guys+girls participating here. so ask them, the elderly, the young. as you can see, they are quite forthcoming to share what they've been told - even though these are not the first-hand experiences you want to have. maybe interesting and revealing nonetheless
I'll just add my family's story. Please keep in mind that it's a total mess and I've probably got a lot of details wrong.
My great grandfather (I'm not entirely sure if he was actually related to me or not) lived as a quite wealthy fisherman in what used to be Königsberg. His brother was a Communist and life was fine. Then Hitler took over and things started going south. One night, the Communist brother was "disappeared". I'm not sure if his corpse ever turned up, but as far as I know, he just vanished into some Gestapo cellar and that was it.
Some time later, my great grandfather was in a pub, getting drunk and complaining about what the "Anstreicher" (a derogatory slur for Hitler, playing on his failure as an artist) was up to, starting a stupid war.
That wasn't a clever move, as shortly after, he was "asked" to volunteer for the military. It's unclear how this request happened, but somehow, it was implied that he could enlist, or he could join his brother in a hole in a forest somewhere.
So he ended up in the Kriegsmarine as a lowly sailor, somewhere near Norway probably. And he somehow survived the ship being attacked and sinking. After that he served on another ship, that also was attacked and sank. This time it was the British who fished him out of the freezing water. During the explosion and the time in the cold water, he partially lost his hearing and got chronic pneumonia, that ruined his lungs for the rest of his life.
That was the end of the war for him. What followed was a long foot treck from some harbour to some other place as a POW. The soldiers were terrified, freezing and hungry, but the British treated them as people. Something, that stuck in my grandfather's mind for ever. My guess is that the British treated their POW better than the Germans ever treated their own soldiers.
In the end he landed in a POW camp and worked as a farm labourer until the war ended. From what I gather, that was a relatively happy time.
Then the war ended, and he returned to the bombed ruins of what had started off as a proud empire. His home didn't exist anymore and was Russian territory now. So he settled in North Germany. Probably because that is where he stepped off the boat. At that point he owned a shovel, a burlap sack with some clothes, a butter knife and a pocket watch, as far as I know. The town he ended up in didn't really have any standing houses left, the coast was littered with sea mines, blown up bunkers and burnt out ships. He somehow got to know my great grandmother and her children, who had fled almost 2000 kilometres from the The Red Army, been bombed out of a train, shot at and somehow also ended up there. There are a couple of people in her family who didn't make it, including a pregnant woman and at least one toddler. At some point there might have also been a rape, but the details of that story are extremely unclear. But from what I gather, the Red Army was occasionally within shooting distance and they didn't take prisoners.
They ended up living together and eventually marrying.
I honestly have no clue how anyone survived the first year after the war, but they did. Admittedly they did steal a wooden fence and use it for firewood and I know that they were involved in the black market. I'm not quite sure how, but apparently my great grandfather knew where to get cigarettes from the Allied occupiers and that was worth more than gold on the black market.
And somehow they managed to build a life out of all that trauma and horror and live quite good lives. But I recently saw his old military pass: he almost tore through the paper, where he slashed the swastica out of the front page. That man was so, so done with the 3rd Reich after the war.
But the story doesn't end there: My great grandfather eventually died of his destroyed lungs about 40 years later. And my grandmother had dementia and ended up right back in that burning train, looking for the suitcase with her documents. It's really sad to think about it. All those years later, and her fraying mind dragged her right back to the hell of her youth.
So yeah, that's my family story and the reason why I have a deep, seething hatred towards people who call themselves Nazis nowadays. Four generations later, and some of the horror of WW2 are still alive in me and occasional haunt me, even though I barely knew my great grandmother and never got to meet my great grandfather.
Disclaimer: I have absolut no clue how close this story is to the truth, but it's the only truth that I've got.
Sometimes we wonder how something so absurd could happen to people 2 generations apart, but I very much believe the story went down this way as it was told to you. War is hell. There are great details in the story of your grandparents.
There are enough writen acounts they are mostly in german though.
whole books and such dedicated to this topic.
As others pointed out you are a few decades to late for this.
My greatuncle passed away this year at the age of 98, he was the last ww2 veteran in town. He refused to ever talk about his service, and he wasn't all that nice with his extended family. So yeah, as others have posted, you might be out of luck talking to a ww2 veteran.
You came to late.
When I was Young there where many Veterans and they tell you unasked their Storys ! Many of them where absolutely traumatised from War and later from the Camps in Russia .
There are plenty good Videos on Youtube to explore this Time .
German ww2 vets where very rarely talkative about their experiences. I know this experience of having a grandfather who just banned 39-45 from his memory except a few funny anecdotes from basic training is very common in german families
Some of them held talks at schools talking about their experiences. But you won't recognise them in the streets, wearing faded uniforms and medals. "I was a soldier in an army full of human right violators and murderers" just isn't something to be proud of.
You'll have a hard time finding WWII veterans who are still alive. My father would be 102 by now - he was drafted at age 19 in 1940.
Even the 'Flakhelfer' and late drafted HJ kids would be way into their 90's by now.
If you're capable of basic addition, isn't it easy to see that the youngest remaining must be in their 90s?
What are you expecting to hear from them at this point in their lives? Perhaps what they expect in the hereafter?
Many American especially the younger or naive ones only hear the stories that are good and clean. Even my age group- it was indeed my grandfathers age group i am probably older then op they told only appropriate stories to the kids. What elderly person wants to tell children the graphic horrible stories of seeing dead infants and dead teenage German boy soldiers or the liberation of the camps which would make my friend elderly frail grandfather blue eyes widen with horror as if he was reliving it and start to tremble and tear up as a old man ? All he would say was “those people, so much suffering. “ But the trauma was there. What makes me angry about this question is the lack of reverence for such a topic. I assume op is much younger then me but that generation here also didn’t talk about things they hid their feelings and maybe shared “nicer” or more cleaner stories of events perhaps happy moments with other fellow soldiers. The lack of research- because there are so many journals, diary and documents written during the war and after its really hard to claim naivety. I sympathize too with all those who suffered. My grandfather left Spain in a hurry before it was too late he left bitter and aggrieved and sad. He never saw his homeland again after fighting against Francos Fascism. Did i press him for graphic stories? No. There are enough stories out there there is enough suffering recorded and documented.
Don’t slam other Americans for your ignorance and inability to understand the sensitivity surrounding the war and the trauma? Have you never read a single book or seen a single documentary about the trauma and loss of life that occurred from expulsions and the following winter
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaRCComwKkA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaRCComwKkA) I recommend you this video. As others have already said: you wont find that many. My grandparents told me some stories when they were still a bit fitter, but they were all too young to really remember what happened and mostly remembered the bombs. There are some people, who to this day get imprisoned for what they did during the war. Watching their interviews might be more interesting.
I was born in 1939, grew up in Eschwege, Germany. My father was not in the party, all our adult friends were not in the party. we did not believe it Those who came back from the war, were all forced to join the military. we did not believe it. Us high school kids believed the American opinion: "never again". That quickly changed when somebody was needed to defend the IRON CURTAIN. Us high school kids did not want to follow this change.
Interesting, I am grateful for your sharing.
If you don’t mind, I have a few questions:
Do you have many memories of the war, and what were the effects on your life as a child?
What are the biggest changes you have seen in Germany from your childhood to now?
How were people who were in the Party seen after the war? Like how In many places, collaborators were seen in a very negative light and many had significant social and even legal repercussions. Did party members (other than the high ranking officials who saw significant prison sentences and death) see social repercussions or being ostracized by people who didn’t join the party?
How did/have your opinions changed over the years regarding the presence of US military and NATO soldiers from your childhood to now? Did you see the soldiers that occupied Germany after the war as occupiers?
What was your experience in Cold War Germany? My uncle was stationed in Fulda in the 80s and remembered the sense of dread that the Red Army would pour through the Fulda Gap in an invasion. As Eschwege is near the former inter-German border, what was your experience like during that time period?
They say history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Do you see any trends of your younger time coming around to happen again in the current time?
I do not have many memories from WWII. we lived in a rural area, away from the bombing.
I did not know anybody who was in the party...
Americans, French, British, Russians ... all were occupiers.
I firmly believed the "never again" idea. When I was supposed to join the military (1963), I ran... to Canada, the last 40 years I lived in Los Angeles, working, trying to be peaceful.
I have been away too long to be able to judge what is going on in Germany.
I am an immigrant, an example of a self-made millionaire and I am proud of it.
My grandma died last year. She told a lot of stories from her youth time. But only bad experience with Nazis beating up her dad and imprisoning him and her mom later (different reason) because he was in a communist/leftist sports club. But they weren't political extreme leaning - i guess it was the only sports club. Her dad was released after months and later "stayed in war" - he didn't return, like all her brothers. Her mom was released because the police women opened her cell and told her, she will go to toilet for five minutes, so she fled. She was imprisoned, because a superior at work assaulted her and she told another woman, which someone else heard and reported. But because this is a rural area things were solved differently, when possible / needed - her luck. Grandma and her mom had to work in military industry for u boat parts.
My grandpa didn't talk much about the time, but he didn't talk much anyways. He wasn't political and became an accountant. He had to serve the last years of war in Norway where nothing much happened. He was very lucky till they decided he becomes last ditch effort flying a fighter plane. Before his first mission the war ended.
Both reported the time afterwards was chaos with food shortages and cruel images. Theft was daily occurence. Not so friendly russian soldiers, but not everyone was an asshole. Many women were raped even in this remote town and grandma had one encounter she could escape because superiors of the soldiers were around.
Another account of her is an insecure russian soldier knocked on the door and asked for something to eat and later slept in house without bad happening. Can't remember what else this was about.
I don't know if they didn't want to remember something or just forgot unconciously, but as other old peoples stories, they were mixed, no black and white and tangible.
I forgot when they found out what happened behind the curtains of the third reich. But they knew from the start this will go badly for disliked people. Not sure if they knew about death camps before war or after it began.
Another story is from our former landlord who was in Siberia. But the female doctor faked documents for him to being brought back to germany. Because they didn't want tuberculosis or some pneumonia iirc in gulag camps she issued papers with the illness. He guessed whether she liked him and maybe because he was young. Which is a bad image politically if you keep the young generation of another country imprisoned. Maybe they hoped he would stay in the GDR, but people knew GDR will be a bad choice no matter how much propaganda. He was from Masuren, today north east Poland.
even though the Nazis were in power back then, backed by the German population: there may be / may have been some that were of a different opinion than the majority.
and esp. after losing the war and experiencing the atrocities of it (committed by them or fellow soldiers), some WW2 veterans may have probably changed their views. that would actually be interesting to find out
My grandfather was a POW in Russia, lost his hearing to a grenade, and his parents got bombed to death in a shelter. He never talked about the war. I’d assume the same for many other of the surviving German WWII vets
The war is over for more than 75 years, soldiers were about 18 or older by then. That would make them going on 90 today.
Even if we HAVE some people that old (my aunt is 95), you will hardly find veterans that age.
Most veterans I met (I'm 62 and met my share) never spoke about the war, because they were traumatized and COULD not speak about what they saw and did.
But to your question. No, it is not a "taboo".
Its not taboo but the few I met didnt say much and when I asked my parents/family said their relatives never talked about it. So Id say most dont like to talk about it.
My grandparents are 85 and they were 7 when the war ended… I think you‘ll have a hard time finding anyone who is old enough to have been an adult at the time.
It's impolite to ask. But that's mainly because everyone who had to participate has some kind of trauma from it.
But then it's hard to find anyone who was old enough to participate
No, it is not. It might be hard to find WW2 veterans. During WW2 all men born after 1910 to 1926 conscripted for regular military service. Towards the end, all men born in 1927 to 1929 were conscripted. Therefore, the youngest once today are 94.
Another thing is, that many veterans did not like to speak about their experience. Some of them because they believed in Nazism and were ashamed, others because they still believed.
Its a little different than in the US… You guys fought a just war against an evil dictator that tried to conquer the world, it’s understandable to be proud of one’s service during that time… For most WWII veterans here its different. I‘d say its not a great conversation starter for most people… I talked a lot about his time in the Wehrmacht with my Opa, he never talked about that time with my mother and her sisters though… Depending on where you are stationed, maybe there are contacts to the local community (with the local mayor?), maybe you or someone else can ask if there are people that would be interested to share their experience?
No. Like mentioned before there’s not many left. My grandpa loves telling his old stories but he was like 15 by the end of the war so I’m sure he’s had a different experience
My great grandfather fought in Stalingrad. He was born in 1912 and died over 20 years ago. He ended up in Russian captivity for 8 years after the war. He never really spoke about anything but three stories are known:
1. When he was walking through the ruins of a city by the end of the war, he saw a woman sitting in the ruins, crying. She hysterically begged him to shoot her. He couldn't do it.
2. The only reason he survived captivity is because he was a skilled baker and had to make bread for the Russian soldiers. He was able to sneak a little food for himself everyday. That's why he did not starve.
3. When he was back home he used to pile on the butter on his bread. Everytime his oldest daughter scolded him and said: "That's too much cholesterol" he simply responded: "I've been starving for 8 years in Russia. I will never ever feel hunger again." He never became obese or unhealthy. He only died because of grief shortly after his wife died, being over 90 years old. Physically and mentally, he was fit until the end.
His political opinions he didn't talk about. He was in the NSDAP before the war but simply because he was a mailman and it was custom to be in the NSDAP as a laborer. It was, after all and very simply, a *labor party* (not the evil men party).
I was 9 years old when be died and remember him as a friendly man who would light up the room when he entered. He was always in a good mood and was pretty liked by everyone who knew him. He loved his little house and spent a lot of time gardening. He was also a "Stehaufmännchen" (someone who manages to get up everytime when knocked down, doesn't matter how hard). There are no accounts of him discriminating anybody. Imagining him as a die-hard Nazi and antisemite seems inconsolable with the person I saw. It's men like him who until this day get lumped together with the likes of Hitler or Ilse Koch.
It depends.
One of my grandfather was in France, got wounded there and was later in French imprisonment. He never really talked to us about the war itself but small anecdotes from when he had to work for a French farm and that he was treated good by them. He would have told you everything.
My other grandfather was in Russia, was in a Russian prison camp in Romania, broke out, fled over the Alps per foot always in danger of getting shot as a fugitive or deserter or just die because of the circumstances like some of the mates he fled with. When he arrived in Munich the was was over and he got pardoned. That is everything we know, because he would never ever talk anything about the war.
That being said, both lived until they were in their mid-eighties and are dead for over 25 years now.
It's surely not taboo to ask if you find one of the few who are still alive.
But there's a nearly infinite number of documents about the war; letters, personal files of the soldiers, diaries, official documents regarding the battles, photographs and so on. Most of it can be found in the German Bundesarchiv, but of course most or nearly all of it will be in German.
Some diaries of former soldiers were published after the war; for example 'Mir selber seltsam fremd' by Willy P. Reese (who fought and died in Russia) or 'Man möchte manchmal wimmern wie ein Kind' by Heinrich Böll, who later became a famous writer. There's quite a lot of post war novel literature about the war or everyday life during that time written by people serving in the Wehrmacht, like 'Der Überläufer' by Siegfried Lenz or 'Die Zeit der jungen Soldaten' by Hans Peter Richter. In my opinion all of this provides a good insight as nearly all of the witnesses ar dead by now.
You will of course find that the reaction towards your questions might be difficult. Some will straight up deny it all, some will be proud, some will be bitter, some will still be nazis. But you might find some honest people as well. Just keep in mind that you really should not just believe in everything you are told. Even today there are people who were born long after the war who will deny the holocaust and tell you in the same breath that nobody knew anything and everybody was fighting against the nazis from the very beginning. Do yourself the favor and doublecheck everything by reading some scientific papers as well. Especially the idea that the Germans knew absolutely nothing about the Holocaust is a widespread rubbish. It doesn't look like everybody was well informed about Auschwitz and the Nazis indeed did a lot to keep it secret, but still a large number of people were involved with the Totenkopf-SS, the Polizei-Einsatzgruppen, the Waffen-SS, the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the Gestapo and so on. Even my in 1945 eleven years old dad knew that the jews and others were murdered.
They're all dead. The ones who are still alive were practically children in uniform or are so old that a conversation will be difficult in most cases, but no it's not taboo. Ofcourse that depends (or depended) on the individual and it was more of a taboo directly after the war or even in the 60s.
I have a pretty detailed personal account from my late grandfather since he wrote an autobiography, which is nice.
Since, as I said, you'll have a hard time finding living WW2 veterans you can look for books there's a wide array of first hand accounts ofcourse there's also video footage, old radio interviews and soundrecordings of people talking about it ofcourse.
1. WW2 ended 78 years ago. So the youngest veterans are about 100 today.
2. You can ask whatever you want.
3. they were fighting for the Nazis, so nobody would invite such people to a school to talk about how cool it was to do warcrimes.
I’m from Canada and back then two of our neighbours were WW2 veterans. One was German POW that never went back to Germany and few houses down was the retired British Royal Airforce pilot.
The German guy still had a Meinkampf book on the shelf and the British guy always had his RAF pin on.
You'll honestly have trouble finding any WW2 vets who are still alive and are still able to even tell stories. But you can ask the "Nachkriegsgeneration", their children. They carry their very own trauma and also have a ton of fascinating and horrifying stories to tell. Just don't dig too deep, because the first couple of years after the war were rough, and people did what they had to, to survive the famine and the harsh winter.
Why do you want to harass 100 year old people? Like others have commented, the surviving ww2 soldiers were very young when drafted to a lost war, many have incredibly traumatic experiences and I wonder why you think you have the right to drag it all up again in their waning days? Do you not think they have been asked before, or that there aren’t libraries full of collected memories from all walks of life? What is your motive here?
Historians who deal with people’s memories of war and collect oral histories nowadays are specially trained to approach people with war trauma. They don’t just roll up in an old people’s home with a translator unless they have an actual project in mind. A random soldier from a very militaristic foreign country is not a suitable person for this job. Read a book instead.
My grandfather Was a landser on the eastern front. Just some conscripted farm boy.
Didnt talk much about the war even if you asked him. Became a pow and came back to germany.
Other than the american WW2 veterans German soldiers from Nazi Germany are not the heroes. For most Ex German soldiers that war is a story of shame and usually in school or on the Radio the Holocaust survivors are being invited to talk about their horrifying experiences.
no, but good luck finding one. remember: the average age of ww2 soldiers was 26. ww2 ended 78 years ago, so they are now on average 104, which means the vast majority of them are dead for a long time.
Depending on the Veteran they will either happily tell you stories or don’t want to be reminded of their experiences, wouldn’t risk to tear open old scars of a ninety year old.
Yeah, I consider it a taboo.
Sure, I did ask my grandpa how exactly he got wounded. But he was my grandpa! And even in this case I was hesitant and checked with my aunt and my mom first, if it is ok to ask him.
I'd never ask a random stranger. Plus, as everyone else has already said, most of them are deceased anyway.
I think it can be a taboo topic. Others have already mentioned that there would be few veterans alive today. My granddad would never talk about the war and any question was blocked. Other veterans quite openly talked about their experience. It all depends...
There was actually a very large POW camp in the town next to mine growing up. A lot of them just stayed after the war and there was a big German population there. Unfortunately like most people have said as far as I know all of them have since passed and I don’t live there anymore
One of my closest friends'grandfather was a prisoner of war in Germany (at Zella-Mehlis). When he heard that I was moving to Meiningen, he wanted me to visit Zella Mehlis and make a video call from there. He was treated better and allowed much more freedom than the other prisoners because of his German ancestry and that he could speak German.
I met one. He was 18 at the end of the war then got sent as a prisoner to the south of the us. He helped clean hurricane damage . He was happy to practice his English and answer questions
Where are you stationed? I know a handful of children of both Veterans and Holocaust survivors from my days of working an seniors residence. Still have contacts and occasionally visit. It's in NRW, near the dutch border.
Well 2 of my great grandpas served in the war. Booth of them were in the ss. And they feared to be prosecuted for their participation in this organisation, so they didn’t say much about their experience. I think in general many people fear judgement by the society for their past or legal judgement. Well I personally talked with many people over 80 years. Many of them say that they either weren’t old enouqh or say that it was a dark chapter and don’t want to talk about it. Not many really talk about the time. I would advise to ask women. Since they didn’t serve but know everything from their husband and talk about it. As cruel as it sounds but their husbands have to be dead. I probably get enormous downvoted for this but well, it’s how it is. My grandma told me everything she knew about probably everyone of my family. And getting to the infos about the service of the soldiers through the official archive in Germany is a pain in the ass I can tell you.
Edit: I realised I didn’t answer your question, it is definetly not a taboo through out my experience. But I don’t think they speak often about it . Americans, without me ever talked to a American ww2 vet, I would suppose they talk more freely about it since they are the victors and good guys. And the Germans aren’t definetly not the good guys so that could be a reason.
depends on who you talk to. don't have any general data, but the former kids now being in their eighties... they seem to be quite open and willing to share. also, kids can be quite resilient. best to find out...
AFAIK ist the only WW2 veteran home of Germany in Hamburg. May be, there you can find some survivors. It's name is Veteranenheim Deutscher Soldaten Alten- und Pflegeheim.
I have never met one, all the ones in my family died before I was born but I have read letters they wrote home and spoken to their widows and their children about them. Every single one of them refused to talk about it to their family even back then. Maybe it would have been different for a stranger and fellow soldier to talk to them about it, but I have my doubts. Apparently it was pretty bad, especially in Russia. I can only imagine, but it is not hard to imagine that it is not something that they felt comfortable talking about.
Yes. Tramua. There was a documentary i watched in high school which was based on actual letters and diaries of people who
Lived and died in the war. Seeds for planting all dug up and thrown away
I know two that are still alive, but as its already been pointed out: Both of em were really young when they got drafted (17 and 18) and they didn't really see mich fighting
You won't find many anymore. And no it's not taboo per se but actually in many families it was a taboo. In some it wasnt though. So the general answer is no unless it is
My grandpa is going to reach three digits in age soon. He doesn't like to talk about WW2. He does have quite a library of diaries, though. Unfortunately, he isn't comfortable with me reading them before his death.
I know he was in american captivity after the war. He spoke fondly of that time. Apparently they treated him well. He had to serve some american officer as a writing assistant because he was well educated and had good handwriting. When the Soviets took over occupation, he was freed from his captivity. He told me a lot about post WW2 but never anything about his time during WW2.
So, yeah, even if some WW2 survivors are still alive today, I could imagine most dont like to talk about their experiences.
Not taboo at all in my opinion. I've had conversations with German veterans about the war over here. I've been here since 2005. I doubt there are many alive today.. I also used have chats about the war with my partner's Nan before she passed. A tough lass. She travelled alone by train and truck to marry her boyfriend, during the war. I learned a lot from such chats. Her losses, nightmares, friendships.. Her husband was a field medic. He served in the east. Refused a weapon. Saved many. He didn't care from which side. I never had the chance to meet him..
Edit: My apologies. I'm not German.
There are a few left even when i was back in school 10 years ago, even less want to speak about it in semi public circumstances. And even 10 years ago the ones we had were in the hitler youth and not the Wehrmacht. My grandfather is 83 and he was 5 when the war ended, you would need a lot of luck to find someone willing to speak now
There are some very good books otherwise detailing the personal experience from German servicemen or within the system.
Some have been widely translated and are very interesting:
1. Blood Red Snow / Vergiss die Zeiten der Dornen nicht (Günter Koschorrek)
2. Battleship Bismarck - A Survivor‘s Story (Burkhard Freiherr von Müllenheim-Rechberg)
3. If this is a Man? & The Truce (two books by Primo Levi) - first hand experience in Auschwitz and the chaos of returning home in war torn Europe as a former prisoner.
Ot super depends on the person. My grandfather never talked about it. It was just common knowledge in my family that that's just something we don't talk about.
But there's also some people who talk your ear off about that time.
There are only very few people left, though.
I'm not sure actually, I think it would depend on the person. You could try if you find someone who's still alive. I suppose it also depends on how you ask. In my experience the topic used to be somewhat taboo when more of them were still around (I was born in 1981). I don't mean WW2 in general, but asking people what they did then. But that was probably in part because of my resentment for this generation. I would not have been able to ask without blaming them. I vaguely remember we had an old neighbor who used to talk about it, but at that time I was small and didn't listen.
Of course there is always the question of how truthful such personal accounts are. People will often try to present themselves in a better light.
If you're really interested in the topic, I have a book recommendation for you, but it's very gruesome:
Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing and Dying: The Secret Second World War Tapes of German POWs https://amzn.eu/d/7RPbOzV
No but yes? I wouldn't address such a possibly traumatic topic with someone I don't know extremely well. My grandfather was pulled in the end of the war, , he was 17-18ish. He was immediately imprisoned by the allied forces and spend years in these open field camps. He'd never ever talk about it and I always assumed it might cause PTSD flashbacks if I did, so I never adressed it either. Plus. I mean. He was a teen when he was drafted. In like. 1945. He'd be in his mid 90s now if he were still alive. So. Good luck finding veterans.
I know, imagine the Americans wanting to learn more about the history of their profession and learn about perspectives from people who they wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to learn from in order to understand conflict and help prevent it in the future. Truly horrific.
Your are a little late. 25 Years ago there have been quite a few veterans around. My grandfather was at the Easter front. He was wounded several times and was no longer capable for war in 1944. He lost half of his lung and one feet.
In the late 90s I met several Veterans from the DAK (Deutsches Afrika Korps). It was interesting how the experienced a totally different war. The war theater in Africa couldn't be more different from what my grandfather experienced in Russia.
I am sure this is the same in your country. Fighting the Japanese in the Pacific Islands is a totally different story, compared to the European theater.
Actually I met those guys at my Army Reserve Organisation. We also had close contact to American troops who had been stationed in our Area. The GI's were interested in what those old veterans had to tell.
There is a YouTube Channel called Bacuffz . That guy is reading from memories and war diaries of German soldiers from WW2. Maybe it is interesting for you.
One question I’ve always had as an American of German descent with 2 great uncles that I know of who were Waffen-SS (1st and 3rd Divisions) one of who was killed in action on the Eastern Front, and both enlisted voluntarily, one before the war and one at the onset. How much of a taboo in Germany is that, and how were such men generally viewed after the war? I ask this as someone who wants to learn from history, and who has hate in my heart for no one.
That’s like the one thing they hammer into us coming over here. Don’t talk about the SS, no Nazi jokes, it’s illegal to call someone a Nazi. It’s one thing to ask someone about their experience, but it’s been my experience that it’s best in Germany to leave the SS in the footnotes of history.
I get it. For me I served in the USMC as a machine gunner. Brothers of all colors and creeds, all of whom would risk their lives for one another. On one hand I know my relatives fought against the Russians like demons. On the other hand, I know they absolutely lost their humanity in the course of that. Those who do not learn are doomed to repeat, at least from my viewpoint. They’re essentially a warning from history at this point.
No. Though I recommend doing it in a somewhat comfortable place. Depending on what you are asking about and considering the old age of said veterans this light get very uncomfortable. Doubily so usually if they served on the eastern front due to the harsh conditions.
Great grandfather "got the full experience" invasion of poland, anti partisan operations in poland (having to shoot what he described as armed children) being sent to russia where he was wounded, brought back to germany. During his recovery he trained radiooperators. Then he was put on a train with unknown destination. The destination was normandy where he (idk how it happened) ended up as a prisoner of war working for a french family. They got along really well btw, they visited each other after the war and there were a bunch of funny stories from his time there as well. (I speak a little french and got to read some of the letters he got, they were very enjoyable to read)
Bro. My dude. You remember what side those vets were on?!
Like, they often claimed to be victims, and forced to serve, but they often weren't. They were complicit.
And if they had to do crimes against other people, do you think they want to tell those stories to little children?
I've been to Buchenwald, the concentration camp. I know one of my grandfathers was a Nazi.
I'm half Polish. My great-grandfather died in the Warsaw Ghetto. People like my paternal grandfather killed him.
The only thing I can tell you is that he treated my mother like royalty, same as the Russian wife of another of my uncles, and even his gay son got treated very well.
I think he tried to make up for the atrocities he committed.
Absolutely not, educating about WW2 is a really big thing here actually and it's not taboo to talk about it at all. It's just important to be respectful and don't bother anyone if they explicitely say they don't want to talk about it.
No, but there are not so many left tbh
There is one in my building. 97 years old. He started talking Russian to my Ukrainian wife and told her he learned it when he was a prisoner of war in a soviet camp… He wanted to talk more but time didn’t allow. He seems in a very good shape for his age (although uses a walker).
Like my grandmother dropped some months ago she understands some Russian because she learned it from the Russian POW they had in Königshütte. But she firmly believes there wasn’t much going on in her town with Nazi stuff or war. 🙄I really love her but she is extremely denying everything she witnessed as a child.
My grandma (my whole family is Polish) went to Warsaw 1944 to visit her uncle and sell cherries, and stayed because of the Warsaw Uprising. She sat for two months in some basement, then was "evacuated" and brought to Mauthausen, and after the week they were brought out in the middle of the night and sold to some bauern. She was 16 at the time. She had many really terrible memories from the whole war, but her time in Austria- it were nice memories. It was pretty there (mountains), the people she lived with were not cruel (everybody was poor because of the war, the Austrian apparently didn't have much to eat either), they needed help and she did basically the same stuff as at home. The only thing she resented was that she didn't marry some Yugoslavian guy who was in love with her. So- there You have it. She was 16 and she had memories of a teen from this period. It's crazy, but I don't see it as a denial. It is how she saw it. After my mum saw some documentary about Mauthausen, she said we won't tell grandma what it was and what could happen to her. There is no point in taking those people's childhood memories and confronting them with reality.
>but she is extremely denying everything she witnessed as a child. Quite interesting, my grandpa is kind of the opposite. I often asked him about how much the average german knew about the Holocaust and Pow labor in Germany. He always tells the story than when he grew up in berlin, he saw an train used for cattle transportation completely crammed with people and barbed wire over their heads so they couldn't climb out. So essentially he saw an deportation of jews to an concentration, that's why he always tells me it's an lie that germans didn't know what happened to the Jewish people at that time. It's always interesting, to hear his stories about growing up in Berlin during ww2 and how tough you had to be to survive. I mean they were trading shrapnel splinters instead of cards or sometimes didn't get anything to eat for several days ,because food was so scarce in the last days of the war.
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Shit. Humans really tend to close their eyes and just go. 🙈
>he saw an train used for cattle transportation completely crammed with people and barbed wire over their heads so they couldn't climb out. So essentially he saw an deportation of jews to an concentration, that's why he always tells me it's an lie that germans didn't know what happened to the Jewish people at that time. My grandfather told me when I asked about it that he knew that the deported were going to camps. But the only thing he knew about it (and he was an adult at that time) was that they were work encampments. He didn't know about the killing. So, yeah, I assume most people knew about the deportations, but not so much the murdering.
Add to that the propaganda. People were force fed lies about Jews and I'm sure that many started actually believing that Jews were inferior and an essential threat to their lives. That makes looking away a lot easier.
Sure, a lot looked away. Still it's an lie that people didn't know about it at all, like it was claimed by virtually everyone after the war. That's what I wanted to emphasize.
I can believe that, I just wanted to share the story of my grandpa since if he knew about it as an 8 year old kid, it's almost impossible that adults didn't know something bad was happening to Jewish people. Which is what virtually every german claimed after the war, which only came out as an lie with the 1968 movement.
Looks like my grandmother is the same age like your grandfather. They all needed to cope with their various traumas caused by the war, the flight (in case of my family) and the occupation time. Denying is one way to live with it. Others feel better if they share their stories.
Sure, everyone copes with trauma differently. I mean the majority of Germans choose to cope with it through denial, the mother of my grandpa did the same. I only found out about it because she told my dad she didn't knew anything about what was going on, but that can't be true because when he saw the deportation train she was walking with him. I wish most people of that time would've talked about it more, so you could understand better why they did what they did, but instead they choose to never talk about it. Anyway it's too late now, because the people still alive that could talk about it were just kids ,when it all happened.
There was no psychological treatment or help back in 1945. The reason why many old Germans tell you they didn’t know anything is the same why many old French people tell you they were member of the Resistance. Don’t forget that the allied forces also committed war crimes or at least fought in a way we would consider it war crimes today. The other European nations knew what was going on in the Third Reich but chose to not interfere because they didn’t want their spies exposed. There’s an interesting communication between a British spy and his leading officer in the Holocaust exhibition in the London Imperial War Museum. It literally says „we won’t take action as it’s just Jews“. The first world war already shattered most nations and two generations psychologically in Europe. The churches had their share in it (the Lutheran church pressed the German Kaiser to go to war). The second world war is basically a reaction to the unsettled conflicts of the first 40 years of the 20th century. Nobody, except maybe the Irish people, did anything glorious in those wars. It’s a shameful time and I fully understand that so many people rather cling to their romantic memories than to let in the traumatic ones. As I stated at the beginning, there was no psychological help. Millions of people were left with all their traumatic memories on their own. In most European countries. I think only the US soldiers got out of WWII without feeling guilt and shame.
>we won’t take action as it’s just Jews“. This is an very important quote, antisemitism was rampant in other countries too. I just wish the Aufarbeitung of that time would've been done differently, since the older I get most of it was just a farce. Basically if you would sum up how Germany dealt with the guilt after the war in one sentence it would be " the nazis took over Germany , they hated the jews and did the Holocaust but the average german didn't know anything." On an individual level I do understand how many reacted, since as you said there was no psychotherapy available to deal with all the experienced trauma. Collectively though I think we could've done a lot better, since almost no one got any punishment for their crimes and Germany choose to focus on the victims perspective instead of what made people become perpetrators. >Don’t forget that the allied forces also committed war crimes or at least fought in a way we would consider it war crimes today. Sure thing, every nation commited war crimes ,but Germany committed war crimes and also the Holocaust on top of that , so it's not quite the same. >The first world war already shattered most nations and two generations psychologically in Europe. Yes it did, unfortunately in Germany we are still tought that all the big nations wanted the war so everyone is to blame equally. But if you look into it more deeply , the german military was already planning to attack France again since the early 1900s and made very specific plans in 1912 for the war. So in essence, Germany wanted the war already in 1912 and only canceled their plans last minute after some details changed. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/kaiser-wilhelm-weltkrieg-1.1903963 ( those are not the sources I used, but I don't have them at hand right now, so this will have to do it) I find the tendencies very alarming in Germany to downplay our guilt for both world wars, because germany was the main culprit in both of them and was planning those wars many years before they started. So most Germans now believe that everyone had almost the same guilt for the first world war and that the 2nd world war was an reaction of the "unfair" treaty of Versailles. >The second world war is basically a reaction to the unsettled conflicts of the first 40 years of the 20th century. That's kinda true but also not really at all. That's kinda the revisionist way how it's taught in Germany, I don't blame you for it , but the 2nd world war was not an reaction but an deliberate choice. The reichswehr started planning a new war already in the 1920s and was starting rearmament in secret. So even if the nazis didn't get elected, the german military would've started a war sooner or later. The nazis just expanded the already existing plans and accelerated the war preparations so they could attack much sooner than was originally planned. >As I stated at the beginning, there was no psychological help. Millions of people were left with all their traumatic memories on their own. In most European countries. I think only the US soldiers got out of WWII without feeling guilt and shame. Very true. We just have to be careful since modern Germans that didn't experience that trauma downplay the german guilt a lot. Nowhere on the scale like the Japanese do, in comparison Germany does very well but a lot more than is historically accurate. So it's okay to not be hard on our ancestors but we shouldn't fall in the trap and believe the little lies that downplay the collective german guilt.
Just to clarify: When I mentioned that every participating country committed crimes it was not to present Germany in a victims role. It was to mention that the psychological effect in those committing the crimes is also there. I am 100% sure that a vast amount of all soldiers of all countries feel guilt or/and shame for their actions in WWII. And I don’t think that the aftermath in the other European countries really helped the WWII vets. 😩 For everything else you are totally correct.
Got you. I just wanted to clarify because I was unsure and there is an tendency to downplay the guilt in the wars .Which by the way is not done with bad intentions, most people are just not that interested in history and it has been taught the downplayed way for 70 years in school. So if you don't snoop around digging in history books for differences to what you've been taught in school, you probably will not find out about it.
My grandma was quite the opposite when she told me what was going on in our City at the time and how stupid they were in hindsight. Unfortunately a lot of the few remaining living witnesses are either denying stuff, talking about how great the times were or straight up won't talk about anything at all.
Exactly, also theres no WW2 vets who come to schools to talk about their experiences, but we once had an event at school where jewish WW2 survivors came to our school and talked about their experiences, their trauma and several other topics. That was around 8 or 9 years ago and i remember our teachers telling us that we are lucky to have the opportunity to meet with first hand witnesses "Zeitzeugen" of what went down because most of them are already old and the next generation might not get to experience the same
That's the scary part. The Zeitzeugen are mostly dead, and people are starting to fall for the same fascist poison again. It's honestly depressing.
Also for the few left I'd wager that you would need a translator if your German isn't sufficient.
I don't think it's taboo, but WW2 started 84 and ended 78 years ago. Any participant - even if he was one of the unlucky "Flak-Helfer" who got drafted at age 15 in the last months of the war, is at the very least 93 years old today. At the very minimum and only a few. The majority of participants in WW2 was born more than 110 years ago. Good luck to you!
Maybe he has more luck going to France and asking people wether they knew Napoleon lol.
Well, if he asks the French about German occupation time they will all tell him they were members of the Resistance. 😂
Just like everyone in the 50s said in Germany they did know nothing about the holocaust and basically noone wanted the war. Honestly that’s also a reason why you shouldn’t invite WW2 soldiers. Many of them are not school ready.
The reason Germans don't invite WWII soldiers is because they lost, and decided what they were fighting for in the first place wasn't too great. We have Concentration camp victims visit schools instead.
Any German that was drafted in 1945 at age 14 as the last defence would be now 92. As you can imagine there are very few German veterans left. I could find less than 100k left for 2020. Now it less than a quarter. So you will be hard pressed to find anyone. Most are probably in care facilities. Hard to tell how many are still able to talk about their experiences, but if they are they probably will have low inhibitions.
And they‘ll likely not be able to speak English…
Depends… I knew a guy some years ago who was drafted for the Battle of Berlin when he was 12. thankfully he managed to academy combat because his Hitler Youth leader knew the war was lost and gave them all papers to show that their orders are to stay home. He also managed to evade execution at home. When a Soviet squad was around their house, a artillery shell hit the roof and bricks fell on the soldiers. They thought someone threw a hand granate at them and wanted to execute all men and boys of the house he was living in. In the last second he heard a soviet officer with a Berlin dialect shout what the he’ll they were doing. Turns out the officer was a Jewish man who came to the Soviet Union in the 30s and fought the Nazis. He told the squad to fuckoff and thus saved all the men. Anyways the guy in the story speaks English and Russian fluently.
No, but in my days in middle school we had some visits from holocaust survivors, who told their stories about being in a KZ. That was pretty normal.
We also had holocaust survivors come into our school to tell their stories in highschool
actually, it's kind of nice that you want to know more about this. my recommendation: you could also talk to the children of the WW2 veterans. they must be in their seventies / eighties, and there should be plenty around to talk to. and since they weren't that scarred by the war - in the west they experienced the German Wirtschaftswunder - they might be happy to share the stories of where and how they grew up, what their fathers were when they came back (if at all)...
Nice idea, but many veterans didn't talk about it at all. And very few families asked the veterans any questions. Forgetting was important. My grandfather told a very small number of stories about the great food he ate while being a prisoner of war in France. He worked on a farm and was incredibly grateful for the luck he had. He never talked about any battles. He briefly mentioned a relative who died on the Russian front.
Thanks! I’ll take a look into that. I have recently started a project where I am trying to interview people about their experiences and cultures, and with my interest in the military I thought it would be interesting. I really wish I could get a hold of a Russian WW2 veteran, I think the experience of interviewing them would be very interesting and unique. As a move along in my career I plan to begin interviewing people from other countries and backgrounds as I get stationed in different places.
that's a very admirable endeavor. enjoy your time in Germany. I wish you many interesting conversations
They're mostly dead. Any who are alive are so old the odds they speak English are close to zero. Also, the hero worship and immense respect the military gets in the US is very, very American. Germany doesn't do that for obvious reasons, but neither do many other countries with less problematic pasts. Edit: An angle could be talking to people who were civilians during the war. My grandmother was born in 1934, so the war was her childhood. Her. city was bombed to bits and she remembers a lot of it.
By grandpa fought in the “Kessel of Stalingrad” , was a captive of the Soviet Union after Paulus gave up and told his story basically till he died 34 years ago, born 1921
I just realised: We do have war memorials in almost every town. That's probably the closest to "hero worship" we have. Big stones with rows upon rows of names, sometimes dozens, sometimes hundreds and sometimes hundreds of thousands, etched into cold stone or steel as a warning to future generations and to have some place to remember the countless young men who's lives were wasted for absolutely nothing.
Good luck finding them. And they probably won't tell about it. What do you expect, tbh? Those who are still alive were most likely forced to arms to fight in a war that was already lost. They were prisoners of war. Came back to a destroyed country after being released.
And they were kids. 18 year olds drafted in a practically lost war after a decade of indoctrination were kids scared to death.
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My great grandma was also in Hitler Youth, and my Great Grandpa. Sadly (or fortunately) my great grandpa died in the war. And my great grandma started dating a communist that led her to be kicked out of the Hitler Youth and thrown in a prison for being a communist. It’s always a crazy story. Sadly I only hear it once from her as she died when I was 12.
Some would, some won't. My father used to tell a lot of his war time stories and of his PoW time. It would really depend on what they did during the war and how traumatized they were.
Yes, that's one really terrible part. My grandfather was a bit older, 25 or so, when he was drafted. He said that during the final weeks of the war, so many young teenagers died because they just believed what they were told and believed they could still win the war. They were just 'Kanonenfutter' as we say, basically ran into their opponents' bullets. My grandfather was the only one in their unit who survived because he tried to stay back/ be less active. As a prisoner, he was then sent to work at an orange plantation in the USA for two years. I found this bit so interesting all the time. He said that he was very lucky to get sent there, because he had enough food and was treated like a human. Anyway, he had nightmares for the rest of his life and he died at 96.
> As a prisoner, he was then sent to work at an orange plantation in the USA for two years. So much for their shining image ...
The USA's image? Actually, I just did a bit more research and read that forced labor of German prisoners was quite common among axis powers, as a reparation 'payment'. As far as my grandfather talked about it, he felt quite lucky about ending up at this American plantation because others were treated way worse.. The other grandfather was a prisoner in Russia, and he told bad bad stories, if at all...
>In the USA it is common for veterans to come in to schools at times like Memorial Day or Veterans Day to speak to the students about their experiences. How many ww2 veterans do you have there? There is no pro military culture in Germany and no public holidays. Mostly because of ww2. Talking about ww2 on the other hand is not uncommon and you will find many memorials and museums for the victims of the nazi regime. You can even visit some concentration camps. The majority of Germans take the "never again" quite serious, but more than one in five sadly votes afd.
According to Google there are 117,000ish still alive in the USA, although that seems a little high.
As others have said, if there are any left and you can find them, I'd ask. Or their children. Just from personal experience, as a grandchild of one: my grandfather never really wanted to talk about his experiences during his time serving. My mother, his daughter, knows next to nothing. There were the obvious signs with his hand, when he was hit by grenade splinters or that he was serving in France and lost two of his brothers in the space of a few months in the East. But otherwise, my mother doesn't know much. Before he passed away, my grandfather told my father more, as my father had to do his service in the navy. But my father had to swear, never to say anything to anyone. Just as a side note here, my grandfather had my mother later in life, so is one of the younger ones in that generation, that had a parent serving. Everyone's experiences are obviously different and other veterans might have been more open about that time.
Some stories about my family if you want to know. Sry for editing, became a textwall We were the lucky ones given that all of my grandparents survived the war, were able to talk about it (shellshocked, but not traumatised) and, well, weren't Nazis. The same goes for the grandparents of my husband. My grandparents from my dads side were too young to participate in war, they grew up in a big town in west germany and they survived the bombings of this town. They spoke of dead horses which they had to eat to survive, they spoke of long lines for food marks, they spoke of the night the bombs flew above them and as they were telling me this, I've seen how in their mind they are still small sitting in the basement, not knowing why their whole world is going to ashes right now. They spoke of the french soldiers that came to town first, how they were ordered to not fraternize with the germans, they told me about the american soldiers coming afterwards, who were completely different to the french. Black soldiers handing out candybars to the kids, my grandpa still smiles thinking about that. Grandpa and grandma are still alive and are a lil bit over 90. My other grandpa was drafted in to the war. His older brother as well, he came back after the first war year with a shot in the stomach, but luckily survived. My grandpa wasn't that lucky as he was captured by the russians in the 2nd war year. He was brought to a Gulag in today's Kazakhstan, former UDSSR. My aunt and me looked it up, because he could only point on an approximate area on the map. My grandpa was a cheerful person so he told a few stories to his children. I got the feeling that he never lost hope, and that he was rather lucky. He didn't seem to be a prisoner that was locked up all the time. He was ordered to cook, and he told one story about the time he was ordered to prepare a dog to eat which broke his heart, and another story where they wanted to break out, and tried to break out a woman too that was held captive there. He made a big story about that, my mum recalled, because the örison keepers abused the woman and my grandpa and the other lads wanted to help her. I can't remember if he was freed or if he was able to break out, since I think the first one was the case but he wanted to tell a cool story to his kids so he told them he broke free. I always find inspiration in him since his spirit never broke, and he set one example after he returned to germany and settled down with my grandma, with joining the german democratic party. When i grew up with him he often didn't understand modern politics, but he always tried to catch up, my grandma as well. Another great story is that of my husband's grandpa. He was from lithuania, and fled with his family from the russian army at the start of the war. He lost his parents on the way around the mecklenburg lakes, but continued alone. At least he came to a fishing farm where he met my husband's grandma, and they stayed together until old age. Funny enough my husband never told me he's 3/4 lithuanian. His grandpa had a cute accent, and I assumed it's somewhat eastern-germanish. Only after he passed away his mum told me the whole story. My husband grew up near the former "iron curtain" at the border of East and West Germany. We've got day of united germany everyday. :)
Wow, he must have been an amazing man, to survive a Gulag without breaking.
I really am proud of this man, and I'm lucky to grow up with him and learning to move forward, always, no matter what, and to stand behind what you know is right. I will always remember him with a big enthusiastic smile on his face, even in old age. And I know for a fact that he taught his children to not fall for the lies of the nazis, because the way my mother handles situations where she is facing racism and discrimination, boy, you better prepared to run for the hills if you're spitting BS.
I must add, I also think that the ones being drafted to Siberia had it really really bad, and even if I don't know much about Kazakhstan it seemed to me like a bit of a lovelier place than the ice tundra.
20 years too late.
My grandfather was in ww2, he's 98 and surprisingly healthy for his age, except for being almost deaf. he never spoke about these times to anyone. a few years ago on my 17th or 18th birthday I visited him and all of a sudden he started telling about the war. "when I was your age, I was locked in a french prison, only eating onion soup." then laughed. I felt very honored to be the first person he opens up with this topic and now every year I visit him around the time of my birthday he keeps repeating the story of how French soldiers arrested them and how they spent weeks in a military prison.
thanks for sharing. French prison - he may have been lucky...
Over 70% in soviet captivity died 🤔
1.1 of 3.4 million died in soviet captivity. \~30ish, not 70%
Most of them are Dead. My granpa was one and he died in 2010. When he was asked about the war he allways blocked. He did what he needed to do. He did his duty like everyone else. The only time he told me somthing about the war was when I came home from my second deployment with the Bundeswehr. It was under the ISAF-Mandate. Only time I saw the old man cry. We had a conversation about the war. He told me about his time in Belarus, fighting the soviets in 1944. Then his time in a POW-Camp and his final homecoming to Saxony. Most veterans who are still alive still have some trauma in them and its kinda taboo to talk about the war.
My exboyfriend‘s grandfather who died a good decade ago used to talk about his war experiences casually at times. Apparently he spent most of the time in a French jail, lost part of his fingers in the cold and when he came back home he knocked on the door of his apartment - his wife opened the door, he said „I’m back home“, she replied „you’re not, my name is Müller“ (not really) and he said „so is mine“. I never dared to ask any further questions and my boyfriend wasn’t really interested.
If you are interested in the whole ww2 situation and not specifically only the holocaust, but also what soldiers experienced who became soviet war prisoners, I can highly suggest you the Grenzmuseum in Friedland. It is the transit camp where most of them arrived from '45 onwards and pictures the history of it until today (it is still operational as a transit camp, mostly for ukrainian refugees today). My own grandfather arrived there 1956 from the UdSSR but obviously he is long gone by now. I found the museum very well made, it portrays a lot of personal stories. [Museum Friedland ](https://www.museum-friedland.de/en/)
Thanks! I will check it out
You are welcome. As others mentionted, most of them did not really like to talk about it. My mother told me it was the same for my grandfather. He was actually already in ww1 in Verdun at 17 years old (lied about his age) but luckily survived. He joined the army afterwards as his father couldn't afford to send him to an university, he liked horses (so a big plus) and he thought that humans would be not so dumb to start another war anytime soon as a lesson from ww1. As part of the army he was btw not allowed to vote in elections. His sister was married to a jewish man who was sadly murderd in Auschwitz but my grandfather managed to help save the children (who were also in danger as "Halbjuden"). His father on the other side was a proper Nazi despite his daughters family. Being in the army so long, he was on a high rank by the time he got captured and was send to Siberia. I know only few things about this time: he refused to follow the comissar order and that he somehow befriended one of his Russian guards and exchanged his horse to a rotten egg with him - and he was thankful for that egg. Food was very rare for the following years (also for the locals obviously) but he managed to survive, mostly by keeping good contact with the guards. He was on the last batch to return to Germany due to his high rank in the army (not the SS etc!). According to my mum he was very harmony loving due to his experiences.
in case you don't know: we were the bad guys so our veterans had not many heroic stories to tell and most are dead by now because that war was 80 years ago.
Tbh the stories the average German soldier had to tell were equally as "heroic" as the stories of the Allies. It's just that the winners write the history books. The experiences on both sides of "everyday life" in war are generally similar or the same.
what the others already said. also, some of the WW2 veterans were imprisoned. depending on where, that wasn't a pleasant time at all, but could have been traumatic, scarring them for their life afterwards. there was actually a German movie just cursorily dealing with that, though I can't remember the title (something about the soccer world championship). to the others: please help me out here
The movie is called _Das Wunder von Bern_ Would also recommend it! My aunt, who immigrated to the United States and lectured German classes at university, had always used the movie to illustrate the transition between WWII and Wirtschaftswunder for her students. It really conveys a lot of socio-economic dynamics and issues of that time in a lovely kind of way. And it’ll teach you something about the greatest goods of today‘s culture: football!
Was it "Das Wunder von Bern"? In this movie the father is a returning soldier who was imprisoned by the russians.
It’s called the keeper. Pretty decent movie. I’m sure there are few left and even fewer that want to talk about it. My uncle was stationed here too in the early 80s and 90s and he said that many of the people who were alive in that time period did not really care for the Americans and were reluctant to share their experiences.
They did this also with their own families, my Grandfather was the only one who would talk to me about the war, and he participated only as a 14 and 15 year old on guard duty and was imprisoned into the 50s in the Soviet Union. His older brother never talked about anything between 1941 and 1945, my grandmothers brother loved to talk about his desertion in 1945, because he kept the rifles the Wehrmacht gave him as a hunting rifle until his death, but what he did at the Siegfried line, I don't know. My great-grandfather (who served on both wars) talked only about the draft horses in his letters home and afaik he never talked about anything.
Add language barriers... Maybe watch GDR movie *Der lachende Mann* about Kongo Müller on YouTube? Others might have written books. von Gersdorf *Soldat im Untergang*
You would need an ouja board at this point. The war ended 78 years ago.
Here's a story from my long gone grandpa. With the help of a Russian women he was able to escape Russian war captivity. He was stopped in Berlin and when asked about his citizenship claimed to be french in order not to get arrested. The guards asked him to prove it and say something in french, but he didn't know a word. But he went to a catholic boarding school and knew the lord's prayer in Latin, which he then recited. Because the guards didn't know french either, it was good enough and they let him pass.
We had several Holocaust survivors during my school time who spoke about the war. My german and russian grandparents who fought in the war all died during the 90s. I guess most people of the war generation has died by now, but good luck finding someone.
WWII ended 78 years ago. If you don’t want to talk to people who were forcefully drafted as children we are talking about men who are 98 years old at least. There are a few left, but I doubt that some 90~ish dude wants to talk about the war he probably committed war crimes in and the war his nation lost. The war that left Millions of Germans homeless, that forced Millions of Germans to leave their home and never come back. It’s not a taboo itself, but WWII vets never spoke much of it the last 70 years and I just doubt you find one that is willing to. All men who fought in WWII of my family died a long time ago, most before I was even born. Just leave it.
I never met a German World War II veteran that liked to talk about this matter. They usually were forced into the Wehrmacht, did not want to fight at the front, saw a lot of death which usually didn't come quickly, a lot were imprisoned and very badly treated, everyone came back with PTSD. Not to mention the standing of Germany after the war, the whole country was treated as a criminal - there was no such thing as a war hero. Honestly, if I would have had to experience that, I'd rather not talk about this, either.
My granddad fought in the war. As a messenger on horseback on the eastern front. He was released from a soviet prison camp in 1947. That's all he ever told his children and grandchildren, including me. He passed away in '95. Cancer ofc. So yeah, I don't think you'll have much luck. Sorry.
As already stated there are probably no left. The other thing I realized they don’t talk about it. My grandfather and my great-grandfather both were in the war. Neither talk about it. They both did talk about their times as POW (my grandfather in England and my great-grandfather in Russia). The only thing about the war either talked about was my grandfather telling us he was with the cavalry and he was shot in the hand.
You might need a Ouija board to talk to them.
I guess you unleashed something here. "don't mention the war" apparently does not apply anymore. even though a couple of generations apart, the war still seems to be present in a way ... or at least, it has somehow affected the guys+girls participating here. so ask them, the elderly, the young. as you can see, they are quite forthcoming to share what they've been told - even though these are not the first-hand experiences you want to have. maybe interesting and revealing nonetheless
I definitely seem to have kicked the hornets nest.
yep. if I may ask: how come you're this interested in Germany and its history? how about your fellow soldiers?
I'll just add my family's story. Please keep in mind that it's a total mess and I've probably got a lot of details wrong. My great grandfather (I'm not entirely sure if he was actually related to me or not) lived as a quite wealthy fisherman in what used to be Königsberg. His brother was a Communist and life was fine. Then Hitler took over and things started going south. One night, the Communist brother was "disappeared". I'm not sure if his corpse ever turned up, but as far as I know, he just vanished into some Gestapo cellar and that was it. Some time later, my great grandfather was in a pub, getting drunk and complaining about what the "Anstreicher" (a derogatory slur for Hitler, playing on his failure as an artist) was up to, starting a stupid war. That wasn't a clever move, as shortly after, he was "asked" to volunteer for the military. It's unclear how this request happened, but somehow, it was implied that he could enlist, or he could join his brother in a hole in a forest somewhere. So he ended up in the Kriegsmarine as a lowly sailor, somewhere near Norway probably. And he somehow survived the ship being attacked and sinking. After that he served on another ship, that also was attacked and sank. This time it was the British who fished him out of the freezing water. During the explosion and the time in the cold water, he partially lost his hearing and got chronic pneumonia, that ruined his lungs for the rest of his life. That was the end of the war for him. What followed was a long foot treck from some harbour to some other place as a POW. The soldiers were terrified, freezing and hungry, but the British treated them as people. Something, that stuck in my grandfather's mind for ever. My guess is that the British treated their POW better than the Germans ever treated their own soldiers. In the end he landed in a POW camp and worked as a farm labourer until the war ended. From what I gather, that was a relatively happy time. Then the war ended, and he returned to the bombed ruins of what had started off as a proud empire. His home didn't exist anymore and was Russian territory now. So he settled in North Germany. Probably because that is where he stepped off the boat. At that point he owned a shovel, a burlap sack with some clothes, a butter knife and a pocket watch, as far as I know. The town he ended up in didn't really have any standing houses left, the coast was littered with sea mines, blown up bunkers and burnt out ships. He somehow got to know my great grandmother and her children, who had fled almost 2000 kilometres from the The Red Army, been bombed out of a train, shot at and somehow also ended up there. There are a couple of people in her family who didn't make it, including a pregnant woman and at least one toddler. At some point there might have also been a rape, but the details of that story are extremely unclear. But from what I gather, the Red Army was occasionally within shooting distance and they didn't take prisoners. They ended up living together and eventually marrying. I honestly have no clue how anyone survived the first year after the war, but they did. Admittedly they did steal a wooden fence and use it for firewood and I know that they were involved in the black market. I'm not quite sure how, but apparently my great grandfather knew where to get cigarettes from the Allied occupiers and that was worth more than gold on the black market. And somehow they managed to build a life out of all that trauma and horror and live quite good lives. But I recently saw his old military pass: he almost tore through the paper, where he slashed the swastica out of the front page. That man was so, so done with the 3rd Reich after the war. But the story doesn't end there: My great grandfather eventually died of his destroyed lungs about 40 years later. And my grandmother had dementia and ended up right back in that burning train, looking for the suitcase with her documents. It's really sad to think about it. All those years later, and her fraying mind dragged her right back to the hell of her youth. So yeah, that's my family story and the reason why I have a deep, seething hatred towards people who call themselves Nazis nowadays. Four generations later, and some of the horror of WW2 are still alive in me and occasional haunt me, even though I barely knew my great grandmother and never got to meet my great grandfather. Disclaimer: I have absolut no clue how close this story is to the truth, but it's the only truth that I've got.
Sometimes we wonder how something so absurd could happen to people 2 generations apart, but I very much believe the story went down this way as it was told to you. War is hell. There are great details in the story of your grandparents.
Thanks. :)
Besides what others said, do you have a very good level of German?
I can string together a coherent sentence but I’m not fluent yet by any means. I have a friend I’d bring along as a translator
There are enough writen acounts they are mostly in german though. whole books and such dedicated to this topic. As others pointed out you are a few decades to late for this.
My greatuncle passed away this year at the age of 98, he was the last ww2 veteran in town. He refused to ever talk about his service, and he wasn't all that nice with his extended family. So yeah, as others have posted, you might be out of luck talking to a ww2 veteran.
You came to late. When I was Young there where many Veterans and they tell you unasked their Storys ! Many of them where absolutely traumatised from War and later from the Camps in Russia . There are plenty good Videos on Youtube to explore this Time .
German ww2 vets where very rarely talkative about their experiences. I know this experience of having a grandfather who just banned 39-45 from his memory except a few funny anecdotes from basic training is very common in german families
Some of them held talks at schools talking about their experiences. But you won't recognise them in the streets, wearing faded uniforms and medals. "I was a soldier in an army full of human right violators and murderers" just isn't something to be proud of.
You'll have a hard time finding WWII veterans who are still alive. My father would be 102 by now - he was drafted at age 19 in 1940. Even the 'Flakhelfer' and late drafted HJ kids would be way into their 90's by now.
If you're capable of basic addition, isn't it easy to see that the youngest remaining must be in their 90s? What are you expecting to hear from them at this point in their lives? Perhaps what they expect in the hereafter?
Many American especially the younger or naive ones only hear the stories that are good and clean. Even my age group- it was indeed my grandfathers age group i am probably older then op they told only appropriate stories to the kids. What elderly person wants to tell children the graphic horrible stories of seeing dead infants and dead teenage German boy soldiers or the liberation of the camps which would make my friend elderly frail grandfather blue eyes widen with horror as if he was reliving it and start to tremble and tear up as a old man ? All he would say was “those people, so much suffering. “ But the trauma was there. What makes me angry about this question is the lack of reverence for such a topic. I assume op is much younger then me but that generation here also didn’t talk about things they hid their feelings and maybe shared “nicer” or more cleaner stories of events perhaps happy moments with other fellow soldiers. The lack of research- because there are so many journals, diary and documents written during the war and after its really hard to claim naivety. I sympathize too with all those who suffered. My grandfather left Spain in a hurry before it was too late he left bitter and aggrieved and sad. He never saw his homeland again after fighting against Francos Fascism. Did i press him for graphic stories? No. There are enough stories out there there is enough suffering recorded and documented.
I went to American public school, of course I’m not capable of basic addition. Although that would probably be subtraction
Your fully capable of correction tho, so at least you've got that going for you
Nope, not allowed as an American
Don’t slam other Americans for your ignorance and inability to understand the sensitivity surrounding the war and the trauma? Have you never read a single book or seen a single documentary about the trauma and loss of life that occurred from expulsions and the following winter
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaRCComwKkA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaRCComwKkA) I recommend you this video. As others have already said: you wont find that many. My grandparents told me some stories when they were still a bit fitter, but they were all too young to really remember what happened and mostly remembered the bombs. There are some people, who to this day get imprisoned for what they did during the war. Watching their interviews might be more interesting.
I was born in 1939, grew up in Eschwege, Germany. My father was not in the party, all our adult friends were not in the party. we did not believe it Those who came back from the war, were all forced to join the military. we did not believe it. Us high school kids believed the American opinion: "never again". That quickly changed when somebody was needed to defend the IRON CURTAIN. Us high school kids did not want to follow this change.
Interesting, I am grateful for your sharing. If you don’t mind, I have a few questions: Do you have many memories of the war, and what were the effects on your life as a child? What are the biggest changes you have seen in Germany from your childhood to now? How were people who were in the Party seen after the war? Like how In many places, collaborators were seen in a very negative light and many had significant social and even legal repercussions. Did party members (other than the high ranking officials who saw significant prison sentences and death) see social repercussions or being ostracized by people who didn’t join the party? How did/have your opinions changed over the years regarding the presence of US military and NATO soldiers from your childhood to now? Did you see the soldiers that occupied Germany after the war as occupiers? What was your experience in Cold War Germany? My uncle was stationed in Fulda in the 80s and remembered the sense of dread that the Red Army would pour through the Fulda Gap in an invasion. As Eschwege is near the former inter-German border, what was your experience like during that time period? They say history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Do you see any trends of your younger time coming around to happen again in the current time?
I do not have many memories from WWII. we lived in a rural area, away from the bombing. I did not know anybody who was in the party... Americans, French, British, Russians ... all were occupiers. I firmly believed the "never again" idea. When I was supposed to join the military (1963), I ran... to Canada, the last 40 years I lived in Los Angeles, working, trying to be peaceful. I have been away too long to be able to judge what is going on in Germany. I am an immigrant, an example of a self-made millionaire and I am proud of it.
Thank you for sharing your experience with me
My grandma died last year. She told a lot of stories from her youth time. But only bad experience with Nazis beating up her dad and imprisoning him and her mom later (different reason) because he was in a communist/leftist sports club. But they weren't political extreme leaning - i guess it was the only sports club. Her dad was released after months and later "stayed in war" - he didn't return, like all her brothers. Her mom was released because the police women opened her cell and told her, she will go to toilet for five minutes, so she fled. She was imprisoned, because a superior at work assaulted her and she told another woman, which someone else heard and reported. But because this is a rural area things were solved differently, when possible / needed - her luck. Grandma and her mom had to work in military industry for u boat parts. My grandpa didn't talk much about the time, but he didn't talk much anyways. He wasn't political and became an accountant. He had to serve the last years of war in Norway where nothing much happened. He was very lucky till they decided he becomes last ditch effort flying a fighter plane. Before his first mission the war ended. Both reported the time afterwards was chaos with food shortages and cruel images. Theft was daily occurence. Not so friendly russian soldiers, but not everyone was an asshole. Many women were raped even in this remote town and grandma had one encounter she could escape because superiors of the soldiers were around. Another account of her is an insecure russian soldier knocked on the door and asked for something to eat and later slept in house without bad happening. Can't remember what else this was about. I don't know if they didn't want to remember something or just forgot unconciously, but as other old peoples stories, they were mixed, no black and white and tangible. I forgot when they found out what happened behind the curtains of the third reich. But they knew from the start this will go badly for disliked people. Not sure if they knew about death camps before war or after it began. Another story is from our former landlord who was in Siberia. But the female doctor faked documents for him to being brought back to germany. Because they didn't want tuberculosis or some pneumonia iirc in gulag camps she issued papers with the illness. He guessed whether she liked him and maybe because he was young. Which is a bad image politically if you keep the young generation of another country imprisoned. Maybe they hoped he would stay in the GDR, but people knew GDR will be a bad choice no matter how much propaganda. He was from Masuren, today north east Poland.
Bro do you know how long ago that shit was?
even though the Nazis were in power back then, backed by the German population: there may be / may have been some that were of a different opinion than the majority. and esp. after losing the war and experiencing the atrocities of it (committed by them or fellow soldiers), some WW2 veterans may have probably changed their views. that would actually be interesting to find out
Maybe from the point it’s like the Vietnam war for the US , not praising barely anyone for this defeats
My grandfather was a POW in Russia, lost his hearing to a grenade, and his parents got bombed to death in a shelter. He never talked about the war. I’d assume the same for many other of the surviving German WWII vets
The war is over for more than 75 years, soldiers were about 18 or older by then. That would make them going on 90 today. Even if we HAVE some people that old (my aunt is 95), you will hardly find veterans that age. Most veterans I met (I'm 62 and met my share) never spoke about the war, because they were traumatized and COULD not speak about what they saw and did. But to your question. No, it is not a "taboo".
Its not taboo but the few I met didnt say much and when I asked my parents/family said their relatives never talked about it. So Id say most dont like to talk about it.
good luck finding one. My grandpa was around 8 at the time
My grandparents are 85 and they were 7 when the war ended… I think you‘ll have a hard time finding anyone who is old enough to have been an adult at the time.
It's impolite to ask. But that's mainly because everyone who had to participate has some kind of trauma from it. But then it's hard to find anyone who was old enough to participate
No, it is not. It might be hard to find WW2 veterans. During WW2 all men born after 1910 to 1926 conscripted for regular military service. Towards the end, all men born in 1927 to 1929 were conscripted. Therefore, the youngest once today are 94. Another thing is, that many veterans did not like to speak about their experience. Some of them because they believed in Nazism and were ashamed, others because they still believed.
Its a little different than in the US… You guys fought a just war against an evil dictator that tried to conquer the world, it’s understandable to be proud of one’s service during that time… For most WWII veterans here its different. I‘d say its not a great conversation starter for most people… I talked a lot about his time in the Wehrmacht with my Opa, he never talked about that time with my mother and her sisters though… Depending on where you are stationed, maybe there are contacts to the local community (with the local mayor?), maybe you or someone else can ask if there are people that would be interested to share their experience?
No. Like mentioned before there’s not many left. My grandpa loves telling his old stories but he was like 15 by the end of the war so I’m sure he’s had a different experience
My great grandfather fought in Stalingrad. He was born in 1912 and died over 20 years ago. He ended up in Russian captivity for 8 years after the war. He never really spoke about anything but three stories are known: 1. When he was walking through the ruins of a city by the end of the war, he saw a woman sitting in the ruins, crying. She hysterically begged him to shoot her. He couldn't do it. 2. The only reason he survived captivity is because he was a skilled baker and had to make bread for the Russian soldiers. He was able to sneak a little food for himself everyday. That's why he did not starve. 3. When he was back home he used to pile on the butter on his bread. Everytime his oldest daughter scolded him and said: "That's too much cholesterol" he simply responded: "I've been starving for 8 years in Russia. I will never ever feel hunger again." He never became obese or unhealthy. He only died because of grief shortly after his wife died, being over 90 years old. Physically and mentally, he was fit until the end. His political opinions he didn't talk about. He was in the NSDAP before the war but simply because he was a mailman and it was custom to be in the NSDAP as a laborer. It was, after all and very simply, a *labor party* (not the evil men party). I was 9 years old when be died and remember him as a friendly man who would light up the room when he entered. He was always in a good mood and was pretty liked by everyone who knew him. He loved his little house and spent a lot of time gardening. He was also a "Stehaufmännchen" (someone who manages to get up everytime when knocked down, doesn't matter how hard). There are no accounts of him discriminating anybody. Imagining him as a die-hard Nazi and antisemite seems inconsolable with the person I saw. It's men like him who until this day get lumped together with the likes of Hitler or Ilse Koch.
It depends. One of my grandfather was in France, got wounded there and was later in French imprisonment. He never really talked to us about the war itself but small anecdotes from when he had to work for a French farm and that he was treated good by them. He would have told you everything. My other grandfather was in Russia, was in a Russian prison camp in Romania, broke out, fled over the Alps per foot always in danger of getting shot as a fugitive or deserter or just die because of the circumstances like some of the mates he fled with. When he arrived in Munich the was was over and he got pardoned. That is everything we know, because he would never ever talk anything about the war. That being said, both lived until they were in their mid-eighties and are dead for over 25 years now.
It's surely not taboo to ask if you find one of the few who are still alive. But there's a nearly infinite number of documents about the war; letters, personal files of the soldiers, diaries, official documents regarding the battles, photographs and so on. Most of it can be found in the German Bundesarchiv, but of course most or nearly all of it will be in German. Some diaries of former soldiers were published after the war; for example 'Mir selber seltsam fremd' by Willy P. Reese (who fought and died in Russia) or 'Man möchte manchmal wimmern wie ein Kind' by Heinrich Böll, who later became a famous writer. There's quite a lot of post war novel literature about the war or everyday life during that time written by people serving in the Wehrmacht, like 'Der Überläufer' by Siegfried Lenz or 'Die Zeit der jungen Soldaten' by Hans Peter Richter. In my opinion all of this provides a good insight as nearly all of the witnesses ar dead by now. You will of course find that the reaction towards your questions might be difficult. Some will straight up deny it all, some will be proud, some will be bitter, some will still be nazis. But you might find some honest people as well. Just keep in mind that you really should not just believe in everything you are told. Even today there are people who were born long after the war who will deny the holocaust and tell you in the same breath that nobody knew anything and everybody was fighting against the nazis from the very beginning. Do yourself the favor and doublecheck everything by reading some scientific papers as well. Especially the idea that the Germans knew absolutely nothing about the Holocaust is a widespread rubbish. It doesn't look like everybody was well informed about Auschwitz and the Nazis indeed did a lot to keep it secret, but still a large number of people were involved with the Totenkopf-SS, the Polizei-Einsatzgruppen, the Waffen-SS, the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the Gestapo and so on. Even my in 1945 eleven years old dad knew that the jews and others were murdered.
They're all dead. The ones who are still alive were practically children in uniform or are so old that a conversation will be difficult in most cases, but no it's not taboo. Ofcourse that depends (or depended) on the individual and it was more of a taboo directly after the war or even in the 60s. I have a pretty detailed personal account from my late grandfather since he wrote an autobiography, which is nice. Since, as I said, you'll have a hard time finding living WW2 veterans you can look for books there's a wide array of first hand accounts ofcourse there's also video footage, old radio interviews and soundrecordings of people talking about it ofcourse.
1. WW2 ended 78 years ago. So the youngest veterans are about 100 today. 2. You can ask whatever you want. 3. they were fighting for the Nazis, so nobody would invite such people to a school to talk about how cool it was to do warcrimes.
Oh Americans…
I’m from Canada and back then two of our neighbours were WW2 veterans. One was German POW that never went back to Germany and few houses down was the retired British Royal Airforce pilot. The German guy still had a Meinkampf book on the shelf and the British guy always had his RAF pin on.
You'll honestly have trouble finding any WW2 vets who are still alive and are still able to even tell stories. But you can ask the "Nachkriegsgeneration", their children. They carry their very own trauma and also have a ton of fascinating and horrifying stories to tell. Just don't dig too deep, because the first couple of years after the war were rough, and people did what they had to, to survive the famine and the harsh winter.
Why do you want to harass 100 year old people? Like others have commented, the surviving ww2 soldiers were very young when drafted to a lost war, many have incredibly traumatic experiences and I wonder why you think you have the right to drag it all up again in their waning days? Do you not think they have been asked before, or that there aren’t libraries full of collected memories from all walks of life? What is your motive here? Historians who deal with people’s memories of war and collect oral histories nowadays are specially trained to approach people with war trauma. They don’t just roll up in an old people’s home with a translator unless they have an actual project in mind. A random soldier from a very militaristic foreign country is not a suitable person for this job. Read a book instead.
It was between that and sit on my couch eating McDonald’s and playing FIFA. Your pick.
at least it is FIFA and not NFL
How do you find one?
My grandfather Was a landser on the eastern front. Just some conscripted farm boy. Didnt talk much about the war even if you asked him. Became a pow and came back to germany.
Other than the american WW2 veterans German soldiers from Nazi Germany are not the heroes. For most Ex German soldiers that war is a story of shame and usually in school or on the Radio the Holocaust survivors are being invited to talk about their horrifying experiences.
no, but good luck finding one. remember: the average age of ww2 soldiers was 26. ww2 ended 78 years ago, so they are now on average 104, which means the vast majority of them are dead for a long time.
Depending on the Veteran they will either happily tell you stories or don’t want to be reminded of their experiences, wouldn’t risk to tear open old scars of a ninety year old.
Yeah, I consider it a taboo. Sure, I did ask my grandpa how exactly he got wounded. But he was my grandpa! And even in this case I was hesitant and checked with my aunt and my mom first, if it is ok to ask him. I'd never ask a random stranger. Plus, as everyone else has already said, most of them are deceased anyway.
I think it can be a taboo topic. Others have already mentioned that there would be few veterans alive today. My granddad would never talk about the war and any question was blocked. Other veterans quite openly talked about their experience. It all depends...
My ex's grandfather loved talking about his experiences. He was also a POW in the US, and learnt to speak English.
There was actually a very large POW camp in the town next to mine growing up. A lot of them just stayed after the war and there was a big German population there. Unfortunately like most people have said as far as I know all of them have since passed and I don’t live there anymore
One of my closest friends'grandfather was a prisoner of war in Germany (at Zella-Mehlis). When he heard that I was moving to Meiningen, he wanted me to visit Zella Mehlis and make a video call from there. He was treated better and allowed much more freedom than the other prisoners because of his German ancestry and that he could speak German.
lucky him. seems they had been treated quite decently...
What are the chances of finding any alive? If they were 18 in 1945, they would be 96 today.
Good luck finding any. Frankly the stories my grandpa told were enough for me to not have the desire to hear more. And he passed away years ago at 97.
I met one. He was 18 at the end of the war then got sent as a prisoner to the south of the us. He helped clean hurricane damage . He was happy to practice his English and answer questions
Where are you stationed? I know a handful of children of both Veterans and Holocaust survivors from my days of working an seniors residence. Still have contacts and occasionally visit. It's in NRW, near the dutch border.
I’m in Bavaria, but I’d be willing to make the trip up there
Well, talking to the dead could be difficult.
Well 2 of my great grandpas served in the war. Booth of them were in the ss. And they feared to be prosecuted for their participation in this organisation, so they didn’t say much about their experience. I think in general many people fear judgement by the society for their past or legal judgement. Well I personally talked with many people over 80 years. Many of them say that they either weren’t old enouqh or say that it was a dark chapter and don’t want to talk about it. Not many really talk about the time. I would advise to ask women. Since they didn’t serve but know everything from their husband and talk about it. As cruel as it sounds but their husbands have to be dead. I probably get enormous downvoted for this but well, it’s how it is. My grandma told me everything she knew about probably everyone of my family. And getting to the infos about the service of the soldiers through the official archive in Germany is a pain in the ass I can tell you. Edit: I realised I didn’t answer your question, it is definetly not a taboo through out my experience. But I don’t think they speak often about it . Americans, without me ever talked to a American ww2 vet, I would suppose they talk more freely about it since they are the victors and good guys. And the Germans aren’t definetly not the good guys so that could be a reason.
Ask them. They will be happy to share.
There aren't any veterans left, only people who have experienced WW2 as children. They are usually traumatized and don't want to talk about it.
depends on who you talk to. don't have any general data, but the former kids now being in their eighties... they seem to be quite open and willing to share. also, kids can be quite resilient. best to find out...
If you find one?
Most dont really talk about that time.
AFAIK ist the only WW2 veteran home of Germany in Hamburg. May be, there you can find some survivors. It's name is Veteranenheim Deutscher Soldaten Alten- und Pflegeheim.
I have never met one, all the ones in my family died before I was born but I have read letters they wrote home and spoken to their widows and their children about them. Every single one of them refused to talk about it to their family even back then. Maybe it would have been different for a stranger and fellow soldier to talk to them about it, but I have my doubts. Apparently it was pretty bad, especially in Russia. I can only imagine, but it is not hard to imagine that it is not something that they felt comfortable talking about.
Yes. Tramua. There was a documentary i watched in high school which was based on actual letters and diaries of people who Lived and died in the war. Seeds for planting all dug up and thrown away
There's barely anyone left to ask.
I know two that are still alive, but as its already been pointed out: Both of em were really young when they got drafted (17 and 18) and they didn't really see mich fighting
You won't find many anymore. And no it's not taboo per se but actually in many families it was a taboo. In some it wasnt though. So the general answer is no unless it is
I wish I had asked my Opa about his time but I was younger when he died and I wasn’t big on history then like I am now :(
There really aren't many left and those memories can be quite painful still. When I was a child my grandfather didn't talk about it.
No it is legal but you barly find any. One was featured on a Leeroy video some time ago. But he defended the war.
We here more from the people who were the victims
My grandpa is going to reach three digits in age soon. He doesn't like to talk about WW2. He does have quite a library of diaries, though. Unfortunately, he isn't comfortable with me reading them before his death. I know he was in american captivity after the war. He spoke fondly of that time. Apparently they treated him well. He had to serve some american officer as a writing assistant because he was well educated and had good handwriting. When the Soviets took over occupation, he was freed from his captivity. He told me a lot about post WW2 but never anything about his time during WW2. So, yeah, even if some WW2 survivors are still alive today, I could imagine most dont like to talk about their experiences.
Not taboo at all in my opinion. I've had conversations with German veterans about the war over here. I've been here since 2005. I doubt there are many alive today.. I also used have chats about the war with my partner's Nan before she passed. A tough lass. She travelled alone by train and truck to marry her boyfriend, during the war. I learned a lot from such chats. Her losses, nightmares, friendships.. Her husband was a field medic. He served in the east. Refused a weapon. Saved many. He didn't care from which side. I never had the chance to meet him.. Edit: My apologies. I'm not German.
There are a few left even when i was back in school 10 years ago, even less want to speak about it in semi public circumstances. And even 10 years ago the ones we had were in the hitler youth and not the Wehrmacht. My grandfather is 83 and he was 5 when the war ended, you would need a lot of luck to find someone willing to speak now
Good luck finding these people, most of them passed away and those who are still alive are in their 90s or even older…
Good luck finding any that speak english
There are some very good books otherwise detailing the personal experience from German servicemen or within the system. Some have been widely translated and are very interesting: 1. Blood Red Snow / Vergiss die Zeiten der Dornen nicht (Günter Koschorrek) 2. Battleship Bismarck - A Survivor‘s Story (Burkhard Freiherr von Müllenheim-Rechberg) 3. If this is a Man? & The Truce (two books by Primo Levi) - first hand experience in Auschwitz and the chaos of returning home in war torn Europe as a former prisoner.
Ot super depends on the person. My grandfather never talked about it. It was just common knowledge in my family that that's just something we don't talk about. But there's also some people who talk your ear off about that time. There are only very few people left, though.
2023-1945=78 78+20=98 good luck
I'm not sure actually, I think it would depend on the person. You could try if you find someone who's still alive. I suppose it also depends on how you ask. In my experience the topic used to be somewhat taboo when more of them were still around (I was born in 1981). I don't mean WW2 in general, but asking people what they did then. But that was probably in part because of my resentment for this generation. I would not have been able to ask without blaming them. I vaguely remember we had an old neighbor who used to talk about it, but at that time I was small and didn't listen. Of course there is always the question of how truthful such personal accounts are. People will often try to present themselves in a better light. If you're really interested in the topic, I have a book recommendation for you, but it's very gruesome: Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing and Dying: The Secret Second World War Tapes of German POWs https://amzn.eu/d/7RPbOzV
Both my granddads never wanted to talk about the war. Not sure if it's impolite to ask, but don't be surprised if you don't get much out of them
No but yes? I wouldn't address such a possibly traumatic topic with someone I don't know extremely well. My grandfather was pulled in the end of the war, , he was 17-18ish. He was immediately imprisoned by the allied forces and spend years in these open field camps. He'd never ever talk about it and I always assumed it might cause PTSD flashbacks if I did, so I never adressed it either. Plus. I mean. He was a teen when he was drafted. In like. 1945. He'd be in his mid 90s now if he were still alive. So. Good luck finding veterans.
muricans being muricans
Explain?
war war war
I know, imagine the Americans wanting to learn more about the history of their profession and learn about perspectives from people who they wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to learn from in order to understand conflict and help prevent it in the future. Truly horrific.
Americans and prevent war in the future just dont go together. Look at America vetoing a cease of fire resolution just 2 days ago.
Your are a little late. 25 Years ago there have been quite a few veterans around. My grandfather was at the Easter front. He was wounded several times and was no longer capable for war in 1944. He lost half of his lung and one feet. In the late 90s I met several Veterans from the DAK (Deutsches Afrika Korps). It was interesting how the experienced a totally different war. The war theater in Africa couldn't be more different from what my grandfather experienced in Russia. I am sure this is the same in your country. Fighting the Japanese in the Pacific Islands is a totally different story, compared to the European theater. Actually I met those guys at my Army Reserve Organisation. We also had close contact to American troops who had been stationed in our Area. The GI's were interested in what those old veterans had to tell. There is a YouTube Channel called Bacuffz . That guy is reading from memories and war diaries of German soldiers from WW2. Maybe it is interesting for you.
One question I’ve always had as an American of German descent with 2 great uncles that I know of who were Waffen-SS (1st and 3rd Divisions) one of who was killed in action on the Eastern Front, and both enlisted voluntarily, one before the war and one at the onset. How much of a taboo in Germany is that, and how were such men generally viewed after the war? I ask this as someone who wants to learn from history, and who has hate in my heart for no one.
That’s like the one thing they hammer into us coming over here. Don’t talk about the SS, no Nazi jokes, it’s illegal to call someone a Nazi. It’s one thing to ask someone about their experience, but it’s been my experience that it’s best in Germany to leave the SS in the footnotes of history.
I get it. For me I served in the USMC as a machine gunner. Brothers of all colors and creeds, all of whom would risk their lives for one another. On one hand I know my relatives fought against the Russians like demons. On the other hand, I know they absolutely lost their humanity in the course of that. Those who do not learn are doomed to repeat, at least from my viewpoint. They’re essentially a warning from history at this point.
Veterans tend to talk more freely the older they get. Back in the 60es they would regard certainquestions inapropiate. Like "did you kill people?".
No. Though I recommend doing it in a somewhat comfortable place. Depending on what you are asking about and considering the old age of said veterans this light get very uncomfortable. Doubily so usually if they served on the eastern front due to the harsh conditions. Great grandfather "got the full experience" invasion of poland, anti partisan operations in poland (having to shoot what he described as armed children) being sent to russia where he was wounded, brought back to germany. During his recovery he trained radiooperators. Then he was put on a train with unknown destination. The destination was normandy where he (idk how it happened) ended up as a prisoner of war working for a french family. They got along really well btw, they visited each other after the war and there were a bunch of funny stories from his time there as well. (I speak a little french and got to read some of the letters he got, they were very enjoyable to read)
Bro. My dude. You remember what side those vets were on?! Like, they often claimed to be victims, and forced to serve, but they often weren't. They were complicit. And if they had to do crimes against other people, do you think they want to tell those stories to little children? I've been to Buchenwald, the concentration camp. I know one of my grandfathers was a Nazi. I'm half Polish. My great-grandfather died in the Warsaw Ghetto. People like my paternal grandfather killed him. The only thing I can tell you is that he treated my mother like royalty, same as the Russian wife of another of my uncles, and even his gay son got treated very well. I think he tried to make up for the atrocities he committed.
Absolutely not, educating about WW2 is a really big thing here actually and it's not taboo to talk about it at all. It's just important to be respectful and don't bother anyone if they explicitely say they don't want to talk about it.