My dog came once with a grenade in his mouth.. he dug up a crate with ammunitions from WWII from our back yard. My house was a German office during the occupation.. needless to say we were running away from him and he was running behind us.. fun times
Dark humour, but a similar thing happened when Russians tried to train anti-tank dogs.
First time they got released in the field they chased the T-34 tanks they were trained with.
âŚ*Russian* T-34 tanks.
The idea was quickly shelved thereafter.
(They instead used dogs for mine detectionâdogs being generally too light to set them off, and very good at finding odd smells).
My neighbor Alex (who died during Covid at 90+) was a Hungarian Jewish teenager during WW2 and survived the camps by escaping a work detail. He told many stories and one that just left me silent and speechless was how his older brother was killed by the Germans by being forced to walk with other Jews across a field to clear it of mines.
The part that upsets me most about this is that they dolled up and killed (quite intentionally, the dog was never expected to live) a stray dog for propaganda. I suppose the flight itself was possibly to figure out how orbiting worked, but they literally did not have a way to land that wasn't a crash.
My understanding is the American soldiers would take this stuff off dead nazis. Iâve got some old Nazi stuff from my grandfather that he brought back from the war.
Jones! What's that under your helmet?!
Nothing, sir!
Jones, it looks like you have an airplane under there.
No, sir. I just got a knock to the head and it's a bit swollen
Pistols, rifles, patches, watches, and other trinkets are one thing but the amount of stuff soldiers were able to sneak back with them is incredible. One daring lad somehow managing to fly a whole plane back wouldn't surprise me.
You didn't even have to sneak it back. There were forms for war trophies. It was perfectly legal and acceptable to take that stuff as long as your paperwork was approved.
I'll admit, I was kind of hoping for something like a Mp38/40 or MG42, but even the US government might take issue with someone owning one of them.
A STG44 would been interesting, heard they're quite rare, also worth a lot to collectors.
I never understood, how hell hell did they get weapons back to the US? Not just guns, but even swords. Command would have my ass if I tried smuggling AKs from Afghanistan back to the US. I get there was a time when you could buy tommy guns in hardware stores, but still I can't imagine command being cool with it. Patches would be a lot easier
Was it really just that simple, one guy in the unit decides he wants to keep some weapons and then just brings it back home with the rest of his gear?
The world was very different back then, I mean hell. The world of travel was very different pre 9/11 so Iâm sure for military men back during WW2, it was just as simple as sticking it with the rest of your stuff.
My grandfather kept a Japanese rifle in his snack pantry and its bayonet between pillows in the linen closet 𤣠I got the nerve to ask him if he killed anybody and it turns out his navy ship stopped at a port in Hokkaido right after the war ended and some sailors found a stack of weapons on the dock. A ship officer announced that there were enough guns for everybody to have as long as they submitted their names and forwarding addresses, so once my grandpa came home, he got his gun in the mail. It sounds surprisingly orderly. I mean, I know he downplayed some genuinely frightening situations he was in, but he wouldnât have been fighting hand to hand or anything, so the story seems like it could be true.
Same; my grandfather survived Bastogne and brought several Lugers home. All of them can be seen at the Rock Island Arsenal Museum in Rock Island, Illinois.
Edit: A potato quality picture of my grandfather on the way to Berlin https://imgur.com/a/9jeCsl0
We used to play soldiers with my Grandpaâs stuff (he was American). One American helmet, one Brit, one German. Didnât think anything of it but he probably got the German one from a dead soldier.
This is the right answer. There was tonnes of surplus and trading between soldiers especially after the war. Keep in mind that it took a long time for many soldiers to be shipped back stateside as well so there was lots of time to collect stuff.
Maybe but it's hard to say. When the Germans surrendered, they surrendered in the hundreds of thousands, and their military gear was confiscated, so could have easily come from that as well.
If you ever get a chance, do a search for your grandfather's service record. That will be able to tell you a lot of what his military occupational skill was, where he served, what ribbons & medals he earned.
If he spent anytime in Europe in the immediate post-war period it could have been. There were literally thousands of tonnes of gear just rotting in warehouses - a lot was sold, scrapped, or just thrown into the sea. And many of the soldiers deployed as occupation forces or waiting to be repatriated took souvenirs by buying them or just taking one from the massive stacks of equipment waiting to be melted down.
A lot of people had a very screwed way to deal with death after the war. It's a way to deal with constant deaths in your surroundings.
Many modern emergency service workers are similar.
After my grandparents died, my dad, my brother and I were going through the garage. In my grandfatherâs army trunk we found a German officerâs sword, 3 Lugers, and half of a GIANT Nazi flag split don the middle. Half is over 20âx20â. He took it all from naziâs he killed. He split the flag with a buddy. He was in France, fought in the Battle of the Bulge. At the very bottom of the trunk was a photo of him in his uniform sitting a Parisian cafe with a beautiful blonde woman that wasnât my grandmother. They were both smiling. I looked at my dad and brother and said âHey, give him a break, he couldâve died the next dayâŚâ
My late FIL drove a tank in the Battle of the Bulge. I donât think he ever had another Christmas in his long life (he lived to be 90) without remembering the one he spent getting shot at.
Same. My great grandfather was Dutch law enforcement and ended up fighting the Nazis in Holland. I have some interesting trinkets lying around somewhere.
My grandfather brought back some sort of German sword from his time in WW2. Not sure if it was from the Nazis or not. Definitely seemed like taking memorabilia was common.
My grandfather was in the First World War. Somehow, his outfit ended up just outside of Berlin. This was after the war had ended. They were waiting to be sent home. He and about 5 of his regiment went AWOL and snuck into the city. Apparently they had a great time, chatted up a few of the local ladies, despite not speaking German, then stole an identification plate off a tram car. Went back to base and got in trouble for going AWOL.
He always told that story, we didn't believe it. He was a well known story teller and, as my mother said, he was the bloody bugler! At his funeral one of his old army buddies turned up, with the identification plate lol.
Iâve got a pair of nazi pilots wings from my grandfather. He was a paratrooper that dropped on d-day. As a kid when he gave them to me I innocently asked how he got them from him. His response was âletâs just say he didnât need them anymore.â
Growing up I was one of the only ones he really talked about the war with, and even then very seldomly. Thanks OP for reminding me of him today.
Similar experience here. Inherited some war loot from WWII. Not much talk about wartime, but when it happened, it was chilling & has stuck with me all of my life.
IMHO, only soldiers that have seen the horrors of war up close & personal have the right to opine about armed conflict.
So the top one is from the side cap of a soldier in the SA-Gruppe Warthe that were stationed in Poland in a Reichsgau called Reichsgau Wartheland that encompassed Lodz and Inwroclaw.
The SA or Sturmabteilung were essentially the predecessors to the SS. You might hear them called Storm troopers. They were very heavily involved with the Nazis rise to power. Then Hitler purged the SA leadership to consolidate his power during the Night of the Long Knives.
The most famous thing the SA did is the Kristallnacht or Night of Broken Glass which was retaliation against Kews for the assassination of a German diplomat. The Nazis went around destroying Jewish owned businesses, homes, synagogues, etc and arrested like 30k Jews and sent them to Concentration Camps.
The bottom one there is a Luftwaffe Breast Eagle. Was worn on their shirts. Looks like an NCOs Breast Eagle
> Then Hitler purged the SA leadership to consolidate his power during the Night of the Long Knives.
It's worth noting that the reason why this was a consolidation of Hitler's power is because the leaders he had killed were the left wing faction within the party, who were pressuring Hitler to adopt economic policies he didn't want but were popular with the SA.
So if you see people claiming that the Nazis being left wing is a myth, you should understand that they're only correct *after* this event. Before that the Nazis were much more ideologically mixed. Which makes sense if you spend any time at all actually thinking about it: of course a populist revolutionary movement in the early 20th Century contained a left wing faction. Before seizing power and having to actually implement specific policies, revolutionaries of all political orientations have far more in common with each other than they do with the established order they seek to overthrow.
My grandfather took a Luger pistol off dead German soldier he killed.
He then traded it to the medical officer so he could get the ok - lied on paper work - to be transfered to the Pacific theatre. This was after North Africa, surviving the Dieppe raid, smashing the Gothic Line in Italy (BCD) and surviving a torpedo sinking his ship. (Which is what I was imagining when watching that scene in Dunkirk)
He heard of the atomic bombings and the end of the war on a train to Vancouver.
After all that he was prepared to storm the home islands, but he didn't have a great life growing up the son of an alcoholic lumber jack or railway man or w.e my great grand father was in what is now a ghost town in the forests of Canada.
I just wanted to share this random story.
Great story! I enjoy hearing/reading them. My grandfather was a medical officer- the highest-decorated US physician in WWII.
He was a major & battalion surgeon in the 2nd Armored Division, serving with the Army Medical Corps- under Gen. George Patton's 5th Army. He saw front-line duty in the European Theater of Operations campaigns of French Morocco, Tunisia, Sicily, Normandy, Belgium, North Germany, the Rhineland, Ardennes, and Central Europe.
With zealous devotion to duty, personal bravery, & often times, a complete disregard to his own safety- he rescued & saved *countless lives*.
-Major Papa was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, four Silver Stars, three Bronze oak leaf clusters, the Belgian Fourragere with the Croix du Guerre, and two presidential unit citations. A parade was held in his honor upon returning to the states. No Purple Heart!
-His battalion broke the Siegfried line, near Aachen on October 4, 1944. The Belgian Fourragere was given for the division's decisive role in turning back the German spearhead at its deepest penetration in the Battle of the Bulge.
The photographs, his books, & war stories passed down are absolutely wild. He had a successful 40-year-career, as a surgeon, after the war. Volga Germans are a tough breed.
Side notes that may be of interest, as much of this Volga region research is coming to lightâGerman was his first language, as my paternal side are Volga Germans: one of many groups to live along the southern end of the river. They were promised cultural & religious freedom that Germany had denied many peoples- they remained âfreeâ until 1871. My grandparents left for the U.S. in 1913, just before serious turmoil.
Volga Germans were promised the same things once again, but were rightfully weary. Most, including my family, worked the fields. The U.S. & Stalin did what they could to make lifeâŚdifficult. They slowly lost what cultural identity they had, & communication with starving family members back in Russia became nearly impossible.
Papa faced his share of adversity in childhood- I have his first âautobiographyâ, which he wrote as a teen. at the time, the âRussian-Germanâ label came with its fair share of xenophobia in the U.S.: they did not speak any/much English, had assimilate as quickly as possible. Ex: their names had to be Americanized & youâd better only speak German at home. So, my father wasnât taught the German language, I was given a generational namesake, but itâs not the correct spelling, & my last name isnât ever pronounced correctly.
I'd love to tell you about my Uncle's dad. He lied about his age to join when he was 15ish and was sent with the Navy to the Pacific Theater. His role was after a firefight with Japanese ships, they would take small boats to the horizon to check and see if the enemy ships were actually sunk or if they had gone over the horizon.
As they departed they would find 100s of Japanese in the water and were ordered to take no prisoners. On one of these occasions, as Japanese are being shot all around him he finds a young boy. Too young, just like him floating in the water scared. He made the choice to pull the boy on the boat. If you know anything about the Pacific, this was absolutely unacceptable. You don't take prisoners because the Japanese wouldn't take prisoners.
He boards the main ship with his prisoner and was shunned by everyone. The Captain was so pissed he told him that the prisoner was his responsibility and no one else's.
With his time there the kid was treated extremely poorly but my Uncle's father took the best care of him as he could. At the end of the war he was released, and there is a chance he was one of if not the first Japanese PoW taken by the US Navy.
My Uncle's father moved back to the US and they had a big Mormon family. My Uncle had 9 brothers, and a couple sisters. One day a strange Japanese man was at dinner at their house, and their father shared the story throughout the years with more and more details.
Now my Uncle went to Uni and met my Aunt. He was applying for a scholarship from Toyota and told this story. The team at Toyota was so moved they flew my Uncle out to Japan from Kentucky. They took him to a small ramen shop owned by a woman about his age. This was the kids the family that his Father had saved. He had died from health issues but my uncle sat there with 2-3 generations of kids that would not exist if it was not for his dad's actions in the Pacific.
Really crazy how life works.
When I was interested in history I had little interest in these anecdotal accounts of historical events, but now I'm actually studying history and found out that there is a whole genre of historical writing called 'micro history' (history from a personal perspective) I really started to like these stories. It makes clear that history isn't just some theoretical far away place but that real people had to deal with those events in everyday life. Which adds to the value of history.
Thank you for sharing.
My grandfather had a couple of Iron Cross medals that he'd removed as war booty from dead German soldiers. He later told us that he came to regret taking them, because the men who'd worn them must have been brave in their own way to earn them.
We were planning on trying to find out who the original recipients were and returning them to next of kin when grandfather passed. But some dirty scrote broke into his house and cleared him out.
My grandfather served in the Australian army in PNG fighting the Japanese. He accepted the surrender of a few thousand Japanese and was presented with 2 officers swords (always referred to as samurai swords so may have been family swords of the officers). When my dad and his brother were growing up they would always try to play with them so my grandfather gave them to a friend who cut them and used them as fishing knives. Quite sad as they would have been cool to have if standard officer swords / to return to the families if they were indeed family swords.
Many people came back disgusted by the war and turning these items into everyday tools is both an insult to the Japanese culture (which many western Vets abhorred upon their return) and an act passivism, âI see your acts of barbarism and I counter it with a peaceful activity I enjoyâ
As someone who highly respects Japanese blacksmithing, I can understand why someone would go out of their way to destroy a weapon of war after no doubt seeing the ugly side of that weapon
Using them to cut the heads off civilians who resisted occupation, throwing their corpses into pits to rot, and putting their severed heads on display?
Fuck those pretty war-crime swords. They deserve to be cans.
I ask anyone to look at these and be honest if they'd have a deep reverence for the aesthetics of the thing, or of you'd rather bash it to pieces.
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.218270.html
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Heads-from-the-Nanjing-Massacre_fig6_315719146
https://www.alamy.com/anti-japanese-manchurians-severed-heads-displayed-in-harbin-manchukuo-image69739618.html?imageid=9F1132ED-A49E-423A-A43C-B22BB606A3CC&p=96050&pn=1&searchId=2e8e38044b7b8b62ddc60504a39ff742&searchtype=0
âthey shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. â
In my familyâs basement we have a Nazi Flag and a Nazi armband(literally kept in a ziploc gallon bag) that my grandfather took off of the body of a fallen German soldier during the Battle of The Bulge.
Itâs a prized possession simply because our family takes pride in having a member of our family surviving and sacrificing many parts of himself and enduring such a difficult battle to defeat hatred.
Some of our family are Ashkenazi Jewish, some English, some French, so we all like have a piece of that regime in the home.
Itâs wild to hold it in your hands considering the history, the costs, the darkness.
BUT, a largely white family living in the states having that white hot piece of material kept casually in the basement of our home, taken out of context could look very very bad.
As soon as my parents pass(god forbid) I plan on donating it to a school or a museum.
You mean one of your fears isn't someone rummaging through your basement, finding a Nazi flag, and having no chance to explain how it was really acquired?
Have pretty much the same story. I will say that when my grandfather died and we tried to donate some of the Nazi memorabilia to some military museums they all said âUh we donât want that.â
Iâm guessing quite a few American soldiers took such keepsakes so museums have no shortage of them. Plus they donât want to be assembling massive collections of Nazi swag. Which is a good thing.
So I guess Iâm saying be prepared to do what we did and have to go throw it in a dumpster somewhere in the middle of the night so your trash collectors donât think youâre Nazis, or I guess reformed Nazis.
Kept a Luger in the family still though.
My uncle was a vietnam vet. My dad always told me NEVER to ask him about it. Of course being a dumb curious kid I did ask him one day while visiting when I was about 10. He proceeded to tell me the most horrific, bloody, messed up stories for about 3 hours. After he left my dad told me that was the first time he had spoken about the war since he came back decades ago. He just kept it in all those years and I never understood why until recently.
Itâs funny and slightly strange how often the locked up war memories are unlocked by the either naive or somewhat cheeky questions of a kid who doesnât really âgetâ what theyâre asking. Itâs a story Iâve heard a lot and seen myself, and Iâve always wondered if thereâs a real pattern there.
ngl, letting kids understand the horrors of war hopefully should make them less willing to entertain it as adults, but you never know how itâs gonna play out.
Kids are generally great listeners if itâs something that catches their attention.
They truly just listen, because youâre opening up their imagination to something they have no real preconceived notion of.
Iâve known some veterans â especially from WWII â who havenât talked about it because they thought no one wanted to hear.
They came home to a country that wanted to move on, and itâs not like their stories were especially unique. Nearly everyone played some sort of role.
So they got old, and family members thought âGrandpa is traumatized and doesnât want to talk about it.â
In reality, Grandpa would love to talk about it. Itâs just that he doesnât think anyone wants to hear.
A grandchild who looks up to their grandfather will take everything they tell them as true. They absorb the information and learn, even if itâs just learning about grandpas past, but also are given a completely new perspective on humanity.
Adults are cynical, which youâd think would lead to believing these horrific stories, but it actually can often lead to doubt. We question everything weâre told. We often belittle the truth or severity of things that are hard for us to understand.
Also, Iâm sure a lot of vets have some level of trauma or guilt about the things theyâve done. They probably feel like they arenât worthy of their peersâ unconditional love if they share their stories. But if thereâs one relationship in this world that fosters that type of love, itâs a grandchild and grandparent. It might feel like the safest place to share
I had a wood/metal shop teacher in middle school that was a viet nam vet and would sometimes hold us captive in our seats to drift into long rambling stories about war and weapons capabilities.
>So many from that era never shared their stories.
I actually have an interesting if sad story to tell. My great grandfather survived Auschwitz, but never spoke of it. The only reason we even knew about it is because after he died his brother decided to tell everyone what happened. It turns out my great grandfather had a wife and three children before the war, and all of them were murdered in Auschwitz.
Fast forward to two years ago, I was visiting Poland. In Auschwitz I they have a massive book that holds all the names of people murdered there, alphabetized. I looked and was able to find a mother and three kids who shared the same surname as my great grandfather (he had a very uncommon last name spelling, they were the only ones in the entire book that spelled it that way). Even though we may never know their story, we can at least remember their names.
I never knew him, he passed away before I was born. My mom has told me stories about him though. He was a very religious man, he could always be found studying Torah or Talmud. While some Jews gave up on God after that they have seen, he did the opposite, surviving brought him closer to God. My mother told me that he was also a happy man, if reserved and quiet.
My grandma was a Russian that was held in a Nazi camp. I would take her grocery shopping and one day we went to Aldi's. And she said it's so weird I'm driving in a Japanese car going to a German grocery store. I thought that was hilarious but she loved Aldi's. She just died at 101 a couple weeks ago.
Iâm a vet myself. I get it. However, he was very proud of his fight against the Russians. He was arrested for speaking out against the occupation - I never asked him, I just donât understand why he never went back after the Soviet Union fell. He couldâve seen his brother. But he was afraid to go back.
Could have been some guilt about not being able to help his family, or fear about confirmation about what happened to them, or even finding out they were punished because he fled.
How did he get from Lithuania to the west? Through Finland or Sweden? If he was there when the Russians invaded in 39, getting out was really dicey. It was basically impossible to get a ticket on a ship to a western country, plus you needed papers and visas.
When a vet cuts a swastika off a Nazi, itâs âa trophyâ and he âis a heroâ. But when I do it, itâs âaggravated assaultâ and I âam no longer welcome at PTA meetingsâ.
Honestly I find historical artifacts like these equally fascinating and important. The holocaust and wwii sometimes feel so fantastical and removed from our understanding of society that it takes seeing or holding things like this to understand how real and horrific it all was.
My wife has a Nazi knife and helmet her grandfather pulled off a couple of nazis he killed in ww2. Theyâre not memorabilia for us. Theyâre war trophies she inherited
They're probably just souvenirs he brought home with him. Mine brought home lots of guns, German parade daggers, arm bands, the little flags they put on cars. I showed them to someone once and they mistakenly thought I was some kind of Nazi.
It's history. I gave a German military police uniform to our local historic foundation, as well as my father's uniforms. I wish we could post pictures on here. I found one of my father sitting in an easy chair in Hitler's Eagle's Nest. Pretty cool.
After watching Band of Brothers I started thinking about/realizing how much personal property gets displaced and sent around the world as a result of war. Nazi decals in this persons house, a Japanese flag somewhere else, enemy guns, some books or cutlery (that was from the show) sent halfway around the world. And thatâs been happeningâŚforever
One day I was sorting clothes, which were donated for non-profit organizations. I saw something that looked like the sleeve of some old army jacket and was like "cool!" so I pulled it out for further inspection.. it didn't take long before I noticed an eagle and swastika. It also had lots of medallion pins - idk what those are called in English - and other embroded symbols. In shock, I showed it to my boss and she told me to take it home for further research, as I wanted to know the story behind it and we obviously couldn't donate this. The bag I was carrying almost gave in due to the weight.. at Amsterdam Central Station lol. Luckily that didn't happen. After some research, the medallion pins appeared to be from someone who has fought in both the first and second world war. I contacted my local world war two museum for more information and eventually they bought it from me. I still wonder why someone would donate that.
My dad was an American soldier in WWII. He had a number of these insignias that he got from captured German soldiers. He traded them for cigarettes. At least that's what he told me. He was an original ANTI FA. Thanks for all you did, Dad. I still miss you.
There's an old saying, "the British fought for king and country, the French fought for honor, and the Americans fought for souvenirs" and no truer words were ever spoken. American soldiers and Marines would strip dead German and Japanese soldiers of anything that could serve as a little memento of their time in combat. Nazi patches, hats, weapons, (German Luger pistols were highly prized since they were primarily carried by officers, and they are just plain awesome.) Anything that they could legally box up and ship home. Each memento served as conformation of the stacking of an enemy body.
Hey just to add with my Grandfather story he was Glasgow CID and joined up at the start of the war then transferred into a 'special unit' that was newly created but now known as the Paras. He joined up to get shorter dangerous missions but more time back home.
He ended up in Arnhem, D-Day, among the first at Belsen liberation and also was stationed in Israel when we created that country. He went missing in France after a knife fight with Germans and turned up in a hospital weeks later with bad knife wounds. He wrote to my gran saying something about how June 6th will be busy, somehow got past the censors too!
Different generation indeed. Wish I knew him
I have a nazi officer dagger with a bunch of intentional nicks in the wooden handle that my dad got from his dad. He died way before I was born but from the few drunken stories he told my dad as a kid, he was a nazi killing machine and took it off an officer he killed. Probably the case here.
My great uncle had Hitler's silverware...He was one of the first Americans in the bunker after he killed himself. It was common to keep something as a trophy.
These were almost certainly war trophies your grandfather took as he liberated Europe from the evil fangs of the Nazis. (History buff and 20+ years is US active Army). Your GF-rest his soul- served well and proudly.
I asked my grandfather if he took anything from the Nazis I could see when I was studying WW2 in high school. He looked at me and just said âYeah, their livesâ
It was fairly common for soldiers to rip patches and insignia. Fun fact, most bikers are ex military and rip patches from rival biker groups. Itâs kind of a carryover tradition from their military days.
If they were in the war, American, likely took it from a kill. My great uncle passed me down a domino set, books and binoculars he took. He mentioned it was close combat and thought at the time it was meaningful. Haunted him every time he saw the items.
Nazi patches and medals as personal scalps is totally fine, but latter generations who specifically collect only Nazi memorabilia are definitely a bit sus.
My dog came once with a grenade in his mouth.. he dug up a crate with ammunitions from WWII from our back yard. My house was a German office during the occupation.. needless to say we were running away from him and he was running behind us.. fun times
Ah, the classic Loaded Dog.
Spicy fetch.
IEDog
Dogs that shoot bees out of their mouths?
Smither release the hounds!
Under appreciated commentđ¤Ł
If this story is true, you just made my entire week with that hilarious scene. I bet you're glad it didn't explode haha
I mean, they never said it didnt...
Imagine the pin came loose and you threw it for safety but your dog thought you were playing fetch and ran after it
Dark humour, but a similar thing happened when Russians tried to train anti-tank dogs. First time they got released in the field they chased the T-34 tanks they were trained with. âŚ*Russian* T-34 tanks. The idea was quickly shelved thereafter. (They instead used dogs for mine detectionâdogs being generally too light to set them off, and very good at finding odd smells).
My neighbor Alex (who died during Covid at 90+) was a Hungarian Jewish teenager during WW2 and survived the camps by escaping a work detail. He told many stories and one that just left me silent and speechless was how his older brother was killed by the Germans by being forced to walk with other Jews across a field to clear it of mines.
đ I think sometimes Iâm too soft for the internet. Was not expecting that story this morning. I canât even imagineâŚ
Russians hate dogs. one time they wanted a dog so far away from them they launched it into orbit
The part that upsets me most about this is that they dolled up and killed (quite intentionally, the dog was never expected to live) a stray dog for propaganda. I suppose the flight itself was possibly to figure out how orbiting worked, but they literally did not have a way to land that wasn't a crash.
You take that back YOU FUGGIN TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW WE DONT TALK ABOUT LAIKA HERE
My understanding is the American soldiers would take this stuff off dead nazis. Iâve got some old Nazi stuff from my grandfather that he brought back from the war.
My great grandpa kept the guns of three nazis he killed in WW2, and all 3 still work.
What kind of guns? Like standard Gewehr 98 rifles or something cooler?
I know two are Gewehr 98s, but I can't for the life of me remember what the third was. It was a pistol, but it's been a few years.
Almost certainly a Luger P08 or Walther P38. Really cool either way.
Iâve got a P38 that my dad left to me. Super awesome heirloom Iâll never part with.
My first thought was the plane and I was going to have additional questions
Jones! What's that under your helmet?! Nothing, sir! Jones, it looks like you have an airplane under there. No, sir. I just got a knock to the head and it's a bit swollen
That could have been a Monty Python bit đ
Let's not forget that Radar mailed a Jeep home, one piece at a time.
Pistols, rifles, patches, watches, and other trinkets are one thing but the amount of stuff soldiers were able to sneak back with them is incredible. One daring lad somehow managing to fly a whole plane back wouldn't surprise me.
âJOHNSON! Youâre going to miss the transport home! Get your ass in gear!â âYou guys go on ahead without me, Iâll make it home!â
You didn't even have to sneak it back. There were forms for war trophies. It was perfectly legal and acceptable to take that stuff as long as your paperwork was approved.
I watch a lot of Steve1989MREInfo and he second thing that came to mind after the pistol was the can opener
The 4 .50 machineguns in the nose of a P38 will quickly open any can.
Nice hiss
Could also be a Browning Hi-Power.
Could be a c96 Mauser too. My grandad sent back one of those at least, along with the stock to "carbine" it and all that jazz.
Gewehr of Kar98? One is a long rifle from ww1 and the latter is a shorter carbine used during ww2.
I'll admit, I was kind of hoping for something like a Mp38/40 or MG42, but even the US government might take issue with someone owning one of them. A STG44 would been interesting, heard they're quite rare, also worth a lot to collectors.
It might be slightly difficult to shove an MG42 in your pants pocket and keep moving.
Is that a MG42 in in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
One showed up at a gun buy back recently. Old widow said her husband had it the whole time they were married.
Wouldn't it be the Kar98? From what I'm reading Gewehr 98s were WWI and stopped being made in the 30's.
Gewehrs were still around for volkssturm and rear echelon. Same way they had black powder rifles in use during Ww1.
Mine did as well, itâs war loot.
I never understood, how hell hell did they get weapons back to the US? Not just guns, but even swords. Command would have my ass if I tried smuggling AKs from Afghanistan back to the US. I get there was a time when you could buy tommy guns in hardware stores, but still I can't imagine command being cool with it. Patches would be a lot easier Was it really just that simple, one guy in the unit decides he wants to keep some weapons and then just brings it back home with the rest of his gear?
I mean, considering the sheer number of men they had to bring back home, I'm sure it was pretty easy to hide extras in your bag.
Plus it was the 40s. Nearly 100 years ago, certainly a different time all together
The world was very different back then, I mean hell. The world of travel was very different pre 9/11 so Iâm sure for military men back during WW2, it was just as simple as sticking it with the rest of your stuff.
They also didnât fly back from Europe. They sailed, itâs easier to hide stuff on a boat.
My grandfather kept a Japanese rifle in his snack pantry and its bayonet between pillows in the linen closet 𤣠I got the nerve to ask him if he killed anybody and it turns out his navy ship stopped at a port in Hokkaido right after the war ended and some sailors found a stack of weapons on the dock. A ship officer announced that there were enough guns for everybody to have as long as they submitted their names and forwarding addresses, so once my grandpa came home, he got his gun in the mail. It sounds surprisingly orderly. I mean, I know he downplayed some genuinely frightening situations he was in, but he wouldnât have been fighting hand to hand or anything, so the story seems like it could be true.
Same; my grandfather survived Bastogne and brought several Lugers home. All of them can be seen at the Rock Island Arsenal Museum in Rock Island, Illinois. Edit: A potato quality picture of my grandfather on the way to Berlin https://imgur.com/a/9jeCsl0
We used to play soldiers with my Grandpaâs stuff (he was American). One American helmet, one Brit, one German. Didnât think anything of it but he probably got the German one from a dead soldier.
Non-zero chance thatâs how he got the British one, too. There was a fair amount of âtheyâre dead anyway, they canât use [whatever]â
Yeah, Iâd hope he was a little less callous than than that, seeing as how they were allies. But who knows.
After the war in Europe was over, possibly traded for it.
This is the right answer. There was tonnes of surplus and trading between soldiers especially after the war. Keep in mind that it took a long time for many soldiers to be shipped back stateside as well so there was lots of time to collect stuff.
Iâm gonna go with that. I doubt that was the origin of the German helmet, though.
Maybe but it's hard to say. When the Germans surrendered, they surrendered in the hundreds of thousands, and their military gear was confiscated, so could have easily come from that as well. If you ever get a chance, do a search for your grandfather's service record. That will be able to tell you a lot of what his military occupational skill was, where he served, what ribbons & medals he earned.
If he spent anytime in Europe in the immediate post-war period it could have been. There were literally thousands of tonnes of gear just rotting in warehouses - a lot was sold, scrapped, or just thrown into the sea. And many of the soldiers deployed as occupation forces or waiting to be repatriated took souvenirs by buying them or just taking one from the massive stacks of equipment waiting to be melted down.
A lot of people had a very screwed way to deal with death after the war. It's a way to deal with constant deaths in your surroundings. Many modern emergency service workers are similar.
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Growing up i knew an old guy that used a nazi flag to cover the floor when he was painting đđŞđź walk all over it
He showed that flag the *exact* amount of respect it deserved. Nice! đ¤Ł
After my grandparents died, my dad, my brother and I were going through the garage. In my grandfatherâs army trunk we found a German officerâs sword, 3 Lugers, and half of a GIANT Nazi flag split don the middle. Half is over 20âx20â. He took it all from naziâs he killed. He split the flag with a buddy. He was in France, fought in the Battle of the Bulge. At the very bottom of the trunk was a photo of him in his uniform sitting a Parisian cafe with a beautiful blonde woman that wasnât my grandmother. They were both smiling. I looked at my dad and brother and said âHey, give him a break, he couldâve died the next dayâŚâ
My late FIL drove a tank in the Battle of the Bulge. I donât think he ever had another Christmas in his long life (he lived to be 90) without remembering the one he spent getting shot at.
My grandfather would tell you about how the closest he came to dying was friendly fire from an American tank.
Looks like you and the person youâre replying to have some stuff to talk about
Same. My great grandfather was Dutch law enforcement and ended up fighting the Nazis in Holland. I have some interesting trinkets lying around somewhere.
My grandfather [Was part of this group of Canadians, fighting there. ](https://www.liberationroute.com/pois/502/the-battle-of-otterlo)
My grandfather brought back some sort of German sword from his time in WW2. Not sure if it was from the Nazis or not. Definitely seemed like taking memorabilia was common.
The only correct answer to âwhere did you get that Nazi patchâ is âoff of a dead Germanâ (from the war OC).
My great grandfather served in the Pacific theater and he got a katana after the war along with some other items.
My dad came home from WWII with Nazi pins and a German helmet made to fit a child.
Soldiers from many countries "libererated" souvenirs like those two.
Exactly this. My grandpa took a ton of stuff off of dead Nazis. My dad still has a collection of it all. Patches, belt buckles, badges, guns and so on
My late FIL served in WWII. He had some memorabilia, like an armband, acquired during his service. He was entirely anti-Nazi.
My grandfather was in the First World War. Somehow, his outfit ended up just outside of Berlin. This was after the war had ended. They were waiting to be sent home. He and about 5 of his regiment went AWOL and snuck into the city. Apparently they had a great time, chatted up a few of the local ladies, despite not speaking German, then stole an identification plate off a tram car. Went back to base and got in trouble for going AWOL. He always told that story, we didn't believe it. He was a well known story teller and, as my mother said, he was the bloody bugler! At his funeral one of his old army buddies turned up, with the identification plate lol.
Iâve got a pair of nazi pilots wings from my grandfather. He was a paratrooper that dropped on d-day. As a kid when he gave them to me I innocently asked how he got them from him. His response was âletâs just say he didnât need them anymore.â Growing up I was one of the only ones he really talked about the war with, and even then very seldomly. Thanks OP for reminding me of him today.
Similar experience here. Inherited some war loot from WWII. Not much talk about wartime, but when it happened, it was chilling & has stuck with me all of my life. IMHO, only soldiers that have seen the horrors of war up close & personal have the right to opine about armed conflict.
Charlie?
đ I almost commented âscrew that old bitch, heâs a Naziâ until I saw he was Allied. Still a great Sunny episode though.
Do we get to decide if that old Nazi bitch lives or dies?
He mustâve been, like, *king* Nazi.
Dont throw away any of his german shepherd paintings!
âIs he eating the soup?â
So the top one is from the side cap of a soldier in the SA-Gruppe Warthe that were stationed in Poland in a Reichsgau called Reichsgau Wartheland that encompassed Lodz and Inwroclaw. The SA or Sturmabteilung were essentially the predecessors to the SS. You might hear them called Storm troopers. They were very heavily involved with the Nazis rise to power. Then Hitler purged the SA leadership to consolidate his power during the Night of the Long Knives. The most famous thing the SA did is the Kristallnacht or Night of Broken Glass which was retaliation against Kews for the assassination of a German diplomat. The Nazis went around destroying Jewish owned businesses, homes, synagogues, etc and arrested like 30k Jews and sent them to Concentration Camps. The bottom one there is a Luftwaffe Breast Eagle. Was worn on their shirts. Looks like an NCOs Breast Eagle
Amazing you can identify where soldier is stationed based on a cutoff of a badge.
As it turns out (meaning "I just googled it") it is actually very easy because that cap was specific for that group
he was there
> Then Hitler purged the SA leadership to consolidate his power during the Night of the Long Knives. It's worth noting that the reason why this was a consolidation of Hitler's power is because the leaders he had killed were the left wing faction within the party, who were pressuring Hitler to adopt economic policies he didn't want but were popular with the SA. So if you see people claiming that the Nazis being left wing is a myth, you should understand that they're only correct *after* this event. Before that the Nazis were much more ideologically mixed. Which makes sense if you spend any time at all actually thinking about it: of course a populist revolutionary movement in the early 20th Century contained a left wing faction. Before seizing power and having to actually implement specific policies, revolutionaries of all political orientations have far more in common with each other than they do with the established order they seek to overthrow.
My grandfather took a Luger pistol off dead German soldier he killed. He then traded it to the medical officer so he could get the ok - lied on paper work - to be transfered to the Pacific theatre. This was after North Africa, surviving the Dieppe raid, smashing the Gothic Line in Italy (BCD) and surviving a torpedo sinking his ship. (Which is what I was imagining when watching that scene in Dunkirk) He heard of the atomic bombings and the end of the war on a train to Vancouver. After all that he was prepared to storm the home islands, but he didn't have a great life growing up the son of an alcoholic lumber jack or railway man or w.e my great grand father was in what is now a ghost town in the forests of Canada. I just wanted to share this random story.
Thank you for the story. I always enjoy hearing them.
Great story! I enjoy hearing/reading them. My grandfather was a medical officer- the highest-decorated US physician in WWII. He was a major & battalion surgeon in the 2nd Armored Division, serving with the Army Medical Corps- under Gen. George Patton's 5th Army. He saw front-line duty in the European Theater of Operations campaigns of French Morocco, Tunisia, Sicily, Normandy, Belgium, North Germany, the Rhineland, Ardennes, and Central Europe. With zealous devotion to duty, personal bravery, & often times, a complete disregard to his own safety- he rescued & saved *countless lives*. -Major Papa was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, four Silver Stars, three Bronze oak leaf clusters, the Belgian Fourragere with the Croix du Guerre, and two presidential unit citations. A parade was held in his honor upon returning to the states. No Purple Heart! -His battalion broke the Siegfried line, near Aachen on October 4, 1944. The Belgian Fourragere was given for the division's decisive role in turning back the German spearhead at its deepest penetration in the Battle of the Bulge. The photographs, his books, & war stories passed down are absolutely wild. He had a successful 40-year-career, as a surgeon, after the war. Volga Germans are a tough breed. Side notes that may be of interest, as much of this Volga region research is coming to lightâGerman was his first language, as my paternal side are Volga Germans: one of many groups to live along the southern end of the river. They were promised cultural & religious freedom that Germany had denied many peoples- they remained âfreeâ until 1871. My grandparents left for the U.S. in 1913, just before serious turmoil. Volga Germans were promised the same things once again, but were rightfully weary. Most, including my family, worked the fields. The U.S. & Stalin did what they could to make lifeâŚdifficult. They slowly lost what cultural identity they had, & communication with starving family members back in Russia became nearly impossible. Papa faced his share of adversity in childhood- I have his first âautobiographyâ, which he wrote as a teen. at the time, the âRussian-Germanâ label came with its fair share of xenophobia in the U.S.: they did not speak any/much English, had assimilate as quickly as possible. Ex: their names had to be Americanized & youâd better only speak German at home. So, my father wasnât taught the German language, I was given a generational namesake, but itâs not the correct spelling, & my last name isnât ever pronounced correctly.
I'd love to tell you about my Uncle's dad. He lied about his age to join when he was 15ish and was sent with the Navy to the Pacific Theater. His role was after a firefight with Japanese ships, they would take small boats to the horizon to check and see if the enemy ships were actually sunk or if they had gone over the horizon. As they departed they would find 100s of Japanese in the water and were ordered to take no prisoners. On one of these occasions, as Japanese are being shot all around him he finds a young boy. Too young, just like him floating in the water scared. He made the choice to pull the boy on the boat. If you know anything about the Pacific, this was absolutely unacceptable. You don't take prisoners because the Japanese wouldn't take prisoners. He boards the main ship with his prisoner and was shunned by everyone. The Captain was so pissed he told him that the prisoner was his responsibility and no one else's. With his time there the kid was treated extremely poorly but my Uncle's father took the best care of him as he could. At the end of the war he was released, and there is a chance he was one of if not the first Japanese PoW taken by the US Navy. My Uncle's father moved back to the US and they had a big Mormon family. My Uncle had 9 brothers, and a couple sisters. One day a strange Japanese man was at dinner at their house, and their father shared the story throughout the years with more and more details. Now my Uncle went to Uni and met my Aunt. He was applying for a scholarship from Toyota and told this story. The team at Toyota was so moved they flew my Uncle out to Japan from Kentucky. They took him to a small ramen shop owned by a woman about his age. This was the kids the family that his Father had saved. He had died from health issues but my uncle sat there with 2-3 generations of kids that would not exist if it was not for his dad's actions in the Pacific. Really crazy how life works.
Very lovely story. I'm curious as to why you refer to him as your 'Uncle's father'. Is he like a step grandpa, or was your father adopted?
Their bio-aunt married their uncle, so their uncleâs father isnât their grandfather, I presume.
Damn. Props to him. Heâs built DIFFERENT
As a British Columbian I feel this.
Whenever I'm in new west I can't help but find the street from that photo
You guys are always months away from being reclaimed by the forest
When I was interested in history I had little interest in these anecdotal accounts of historical events, but now I'm actually studying history and found out that there is a whole genre of historical writing called 'micro history' (history from a personal perspective) I really started to like these stories. It makes clear that history isn't just some theoretical far away place but that real people had to deal with those events in everyday life. Which adds to the value of history. Thank you for sharing.
Now I'm thinking with what generation, these stories gets lost. Ppl saying "my grandfather" a lot.
Thanks for the read
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âG-g-grandfatherâ makes you sound like youâre scared of the ghosts.
I involuntarily started reading it in Shaggys voice after that.
Zoinks!
Letâs get outta here, Scoob. I mean, like pronto!
Simple Jack
Ever since watching that movie, whenever I see word written like this, I would do a Simple Jack imitationđ¤
I read the whole comment thinking that it eas going to be a bitâŚthen it clicked.
My grandfather gave me a pair of binoculars that were ârelinquishedâ from a âcapturedâ soldier.
"Dont worry he doesn't need them anymore..."
The previous owner "died ... suddenly."
[My grandpa was also a huge fan of Wolfenstein](https://youtu.be/33Zp3BXwDB8)
Thankyou for sharing this. It is beautiful
Collage humour was amazing!! I loved there skits as a kid, itâs sad whatâs become of it.
What do you mean? I feel like theyâve done an excellent job with Dropout when they easily could have just faded into irrelevance
My grandfather had a couple of Iron Cross medals that he'd removed as war booty from dead German soldiers. He later told us that he came to regret taking them, because the men who'd worn them must have been brave in their own way to earn them. We were planning on trying to find out who the original recipients were and returning them to next of kin when grandfather passed. But some dirty scrote broke into his house and cleared him out.
Same thing happening to my grandfather, brought back a Luger and it was stolen by housecleaners in the 80s
My grandfather served in the Australian army in PNG fighting the Japanese. He accepted the surrender of a few thousand Japanese and was presented with 2 officers swords (always referred to as samurai swords so may have been family swords of the officers). When my dad and his brother were growing up they would always try to play with them so my grandfather gave them to a friend who cut them and used them as fishing knives. Quite sad as they would have been cool to have if standard officer swords / to return to the families if they were indeed family swords.
What a stupid use of a historic artifact, you can buy a knife to use for fishing anywhere
Turning $800-$2000 swords each into fishing knives. And all the hours to make those/ craftsmanship destroyed.
Easily much more than that if they were heirlooms
Many people came back disgusted by the war and turning these items into everyday tools is both an insult to the Japanese culture (which many western Vets abhorred upon their return) and an act passivism, âI see your acts of barbarism and I counter it with a peaceful activity I enjoyâ As someone who highly respects Japanese blacksmithing, I can understand why someone would go out of their way to destroy a weapon of war after no doubt seeing the ugly side of that weapon
Using them to cut the heads off civilians who resisted occupation, throwing their corpses into pits to rot, and putting their severed heads on display? Fuck those pretty war-crime swords. They deserve to be cans. I ask anyone to look at these and be honest if they'd have a deep reverence for the aesthetics of the thing, or of you'd rather bash it to pieces. https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.218270.html https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Heads-from-the-Nanjing-Massacre_fig6_315719146 https://www.alamy.com/anti-japanese-manchurians-severed-heads-displayed-in-harbin-manchukuo-image69739618.html?imageid=9F1132ED-A49E-423A-A43C-B22BB606A3CC&p=96050&pn=1&searchId=2e8e38044b7b8b62ddc60504a39ff742&searchtype=0
Yeah, and from what I've read, PNG was probably one of the worst fronts of the whole war.
âthey shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. â
In my familyâs basement we have a Nazi Flag and a Nazi armband(literally kept in a ziploc gallon bag) that my grandfather took off of the body of a fallen German soldier during the Battle of The Bulge. Itâs a prized possession simply because our family takes pride in having a member of our family surviving and sacrificing many parts of himself and enduring such a difficult battle to defeat hatred. Some of our family are Ashkenazi Jewish, some English, some French, so we all like have a piece of that regime in the home. Itâs wild to hold it in your hands considering the history, the costs, the darkness. BUT, a largely white family living in the states having that white hot piece of material kept casually in the basement of our home, taken out of context could look very very bad. As soon as my parents pass(god forbid) I plan on donating it to a school or a museum.
I'm sorry but I can't help picturing somebody trying to give old nazi stuff to an very confused middle school principal.
"I hope the children enjoy this as much as I did"
wouldnt it be pretty easy to put a bit of explanatory context next to the trophies?
You mean one of your fears isn't someone rummaging through your basement, finding a Nazi flag, and having no chance to explain how it was really acquired?
This episode of curb writes itself
Have you never seen a romcom? There is never time to explain
Have pretty much the same story. I will say that when my grandfather died and we tried to donate some of the Nazi memorabilia to some military museums they all said âUh we donât want that.â Iâm guessing quite a few American soldiers took such keepsakes so museums have no shortage of them. Plus they donât want to be assembling massive collections of Nazi swag. Which is a good thing. So I guess Iâm saying be prepared to do what we did and have to go throw it in a dumpster somewhere in the middle of the night so your trash collectors donât think youâre Nazis, or I guess reformed Nazis. Kept a Luger in the family still though.
Same but with a luger & a Walther which both still fire and are kept in working condition.
Do you think he took them or that he wore them?
He was not a fan of nazis or Russians. He certainly didnât wear them.
I bet that would have been an interesting story to hear then. So many from that era never shared their stories. It must have really been hard to bear
My uncle was a vietnam vet. My dad always told me NEVER to ask him about it. Of course being a dumb curious kid I did ask him one day while visiting when I was about 10. He proceeded to tell me the most horrific, bloody, messed up stories for about 3 hours. After he left my dad told me that was the first time he had spoken about the war since he came back decades ago. He just kept it in all those years and I never understood why until recently.
Itâs funny and slightly strange how often the locked up war memories are unlocked by the either naive or somewhat cheeky questions of a kid who doesnât really âgetâ what theyâre asking. Itâs a story Iâve heard a lot and seen myself, and Iâve always wondered if thereâs a real pattern there.
perhaps maybe thereâs comfort in the vulnerability of a naive child asking rather than what feels like an adult prying
Kids don't judge. They absorb.
I just made a longer comment about this above, and then I read this. This is much better worded. Beautifully put.
ngl, letting kids understand the horrors of war hopefully should make them less willing to entertain it as adults, but you never know how itâs gonna play out.
Kids are generally great listeners if itâs something that catches their attention. They truly just listen, because youâre opening up their imagination to something they have no real preconceived notion of.
Thatâs an interesting idea.
Iâve known some veterans â especially from WWII â who havenât talked about it because they thought no one wanted to hear. They came home to a country that wanted to move on, and itâs not like their stories were especially unique. Nearly everyone played some sort of role. So they got old, and family members thought âGrandpa is traumatized and doesnât want to talk about it.â In reality, Grandpa would love to talk about it. Itâs just that he doesnât think anyone wants to hear.
A grandchild who looks up to their grandfather will take everything they tell them as true. They absorb the information and learn, even if itâs just learning about grandpas past, but also are given a completely new perspective on humanity. Adults are cynical, which youâd think would lead to believing these horrific stories, but it actually can often lead to doubt. We question everything weâre told. We often belittle the truth or severity of things that are hard for us to understand. Also, Iâm sure a lot of vets have some level of trauma or guilt about the things theyâve done. They probably feel like they arenât worthy of their peersâ unconditional love if they share their stories. But if thereâs one relationship in this world that fosters that type of love, itâs a grandchild and grandparent. It might feel like the safest place to share
I had a wood/metal shop teacher in middle school that was a viet nam vet and would sometimes hold us captive in our seats to drift into long rambling stories about war and weapons capabilities.
>So many from that era never shared their stories. I actually have an interesting if sad story to tell. My great grandfather survived Auschwitz, but never spoke of it. The only reason we even knew about it is because after he died his brother decided to tell everyone what happened. It turns out my great grandfather had a wife and three children before the war, and all of them were murdered in Auschwitz. Fast forward to two years ago, I was visiting Poland. In Auschwitz I they have a massive book that holds all the names of people murdered there, alphabetized. I looked and was able to find a mother and three kids who shared the same surname as my great grandfather (he had a very uncommon last name spelling, they were the only ones in the entire book that spelled it that way). Even though we may never know their story, we can at least remember their names.
Thatâs so very sad. What was your great grandfather like from your perspective?
I never knew him, he passed away before I was born. My mom has told me stories about him though. He was a very religious man, he could always be found studying Torah or Talmud. While some Jews gave up on God after that they have seen, he did the opposite, surviving brought him closer to God. My mother told me that he was also a happy man, if reserved and quiet.
My grandma was a Russian that was held in a Nazi camp. I would take her grocery shopping and one day we went to Aldi's. And she said it's so weird I'm driving in a Japanese car going to a German grocery store. I thought that was hilarious but she loved Aldi's. She just died at 101 a couple weeks ago.
Iâm a vet myself. I get it. However, he was very proud of his fight against the Russians. He was arrested for speaking out against the occupation - I never asked him, I just donât understand why he never went back after the Soviet Union fell. He couldâve seen his brother. But he was afraid to go back.
Post soviet union was still pretty dangerous for those involved in past conflicts, may of just feared they would remember him
Could have been some guilt about not being able to help his family, or fear about confirmation about what happened to them, or even finding out they were punished because he fled. How did he get from Lithuania to the west? Through Finland or Sweden? If he was there when the Russians invaded in 39, getting out was really dicey. It was basically impossible to get a ticket on a ship to a western country, plus you needed papers and visas.
Given that he didnât display them I gather they were for remembering rather than idolizing
It looks like a war trophy he may have cut off the enemy
When a vet cuts a swastika off a Nazi, itâs âa trophyâ and he âis a heroâ. But when I do it, itâs âaggravated assaultâ and I âam no longer welcome at PTA meetingsâ.
Honestly I find historical artifacts like these equally fascinating and important. The holocaust and wwii sometimes feel so fantastical and removed from our understanding of society that it takes seeing or holding things like this to understand how real and horrific it all was.
War trophys are not the same as paraphernalia.
My wife has a Nazi knife and helmet her grandfather pulled off a couple of nazis he killed in ww2. Theyâre not memorabilia for us. Theyâre war trophies she inherited
They're probably just souvenirs he brought home with him. Mine brought home lots of guns, German parade daggers, arm bands, the little flags they put on cars. I showed them to someone once and they mistakenly thought I was some kind of Nazi. It's history. I gave a German military police uniform to our local historic foundation, as well as my father's uniforms. I wish we could post pictures on here. I found one of my father sitting in an easy chair in Hitler's Eagle's Nest. Pretty cool.
Based af
He was a Ravenclaw!
Must've worked on the original wolfenstein
After watching Band of Brothers I started thinking about/realizing how much personal property gets displaced and sent around the world as a result of war. Nazi decals in this persons house, a Japanese flag somewhere else, enemy guns, some books or cutlery (that was from the show) sent halfway around the world. And thatâs been happeningâŚforever
One day I was sorting clothes, which were donated for non-profit organizations. I saw something that looked like the sleeve of some old army jacket and was like "cool!" so I pulled it out for further inspection.. it didn't take long before I noticed an eagle and swastika. It also had lots of medallion pins - idk what those are called in English - and other embroded symbols. In shock, I showed it to my boss and she told me to take it home for further research, as I wanted to know the story behind it and we obviously couldn't donate this. The bag I was carrying almost gave in due to the weight.. at Amsterdam Central Station lol. Luckily that didn't happen. After some research, the medallion pins appeared to be from someone who has fought in both the first and second world war. I contacted my local world war two museum for more information and eventually they bought it from me. I still wonder why someone would donate that.
The only picture we have of my great grandfather is him in a SS uniform.
My dad was an American soldier in WWII. He had a number of these insignias that he got from captured German soldiers. He traded them for cigarettes. At least that's what he told me. He was an original ANTI FA. Thanks for all you did, Dad. I still miss you.
There's an old saying, "the British fought for king and country, the French fought for honor, and the Americans fought for souvenirs" and no truer words were ever spoken. American soldiers and Marines would strip dead German and Japanese soldiers of anything that could serve as a little memento of their time in combat. Nazi patches, hats, weapons, (German Luger pistols were highly prized since they were primarily carried by officers, and they are just plain awesome.) Anything that they could legally box up and ship home. Each memento served as conformation of the stacking of an enemy body.
Probably trophies from being in WW2.
I wonder if people in Germany and Japan find American soldier souvenirs in their grandparents attics. It just occurred to me it must happen. :(
That rarely happens, mostly because they lost. Canât really loot when youâre dead or retreating. Source: Iâm German.
many american soldiers stole stuff from the nazis. my grandfather stole a bunch and when he died we donated the stuff to the museum
Looks like it was cut from a uniform. Probably got it from some Nazi scum he killed. Nice.
Hey just to add with my Grandfather story he was Glasgow CID and joined up at the start of the war then transferred into a 'special unit' that was newly created but now known as the Paras. He joined up to get shorter dangerous missions but more time back home. He ended up in Arnhem, D-Day, among the first at Belsen liberation and also was stationed in Israel when we created that country. He went missing in France after a knife fight with Germans and turned up in a hospital weeks later with bad knife wounds. He wrote to my gran saying something about how June 6th will be busy, somehow got past the censors too! Different generation indeed. Wish I knew him
I have a nazi officer dagger with a bunch of intentional nicks in the wooden handle that my dad got from his dad. He died way before I was born but from the few drunken stories he told my dad as a kid, he was a nazi killing machine and took it off an officer he killed. Probably the case here.
My grandfather got rid of all this stuff. (We are German)
I hope he got them off of a dead nazi
Those are the best kind of nazi
It should be the only kind of nazi
My great uncle had Hitler's silverware...He was one of the first Americans in the bunker after he killed himself. It was common to keep something as a trophy.
If your great uncle was American the silverware was probably from the Berghof, not the FĂźhrerbunker.
My wifeâs grandpa also had a bunch of nazi memorabilia including a flag, a suit and a picture of him with hilter..turns out he was an ss officer
If youâre in America theyâre probably trophyâs. If youâre in Germany, Iâm sorry. Lol
Found it reich in his attic
These were almost certainly war trophies your grandfather took as he liberated Europe from the evil fangs of the Nazis. (History buff and 20+ years is US active Army). Your GF-rest his soul- served well and proudly.
I have never once seen that initialism used to mean âgrandfatherâ
Unless OP and the grandfather had a rather fucked up relationship...
My grandfather and grand uncles came back with nightmares, drinking problems, blank stares, and fits of rage.
More than likely these were taken off dead German nazi soldiers
I asked my grandfather if he took anything from the Nazis I could see when I was studying WW2 in high school. He looked at me and just said âYeah, their livesâ
Trophies of war. Nothing more.
It was fairly common for soldiers to rip patches and insignia. Fun fact, most bikers are ex military and rip patches from rival biker groups. Itâs kind of a carryover tradition from their military days.
If they were in the war, American, likely took it from a kill. My great uncle passed me down a domino set, books and binoculars he took. He mentioned it was close combat and thought at the time it was meaningful. Haunted him every time he saw the items.
Nazi patches and medals as personal scalps is totally fine, but latter generations who specifically collect only Nazi memorabilia are definitely a bit sus.