Afrika Korps War Crimes - The "War Without Hate" Myth
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- Опубліковано 14 лют 2022
- The North African campaign is often described as 'war without hate" due to the decency shown by the combatants to each other. But the Africa Korps committed many war crimes, most of which are unknown today, sullying its reputation and that of its illustrious commander Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.
Dr. Mark Felton is a well-known British historian, the author of 22 non-fiction books, including bestsellers 'Zero Night' and 'Castle of the Eagles', both currently being developed into movies in Hollywood. In addition to writing, Mark also appears regularly in television documentaries around the world, including on The History Channel, Netflix, National Geographic, Quest, American Heroes Channel and RMC Decouverte. His books have formed the background to several TV and radio documentaries. More information about Mark can be found at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fe...
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"War without hate" has got to be one of the most armchair general things I have ever heard.
Krieg Ohne Hass: Afrikanische Memoiren
Lucie-Maria Rommel, Erwin Rommel, Fritz Bayerlein
401 pages | first published 1950
Well, the "War of the Northern Aggression" comes close but then there was "Andersonville" POW camp for Union POWs where many Yanks died from maltreatment.
@@GilmerJohn Some federal camps were just as bad.
@@patnor7354does that make any of it better???
@Pipes7472 no, it just means people need to stop trivializing wars as Black vs. White.
I think this myth stems from the fact that the Eastern Front was fought with such ridiculous brutality that the other fronts seem almost “without hate” in comparison, but people forget war is still war. Hate and atrocities are common in every single war in human history. Just because a front of a war isn’t as bad as another front doesn’t mean it was “without hate.”
It's not like there many jews in Africa and front line was changing on many miles under horrible heat, dessert. It's just not the place where a lot can be done, the area isn't that densely populated and we care more about what happened in Europe since we live there (+ USA)
% of dead vs nominal number
Actually the myth came from a "clean Wehrmacht" campaign conducted by the US after the war to boost West German army's popularity
Yeah even the phrase "war without hate" is literally an oxymoron because war is about humans killing each other
"Just because a front of a war isn’t as bad as another front doesn’t mean it was “without hate.”" Jees. What a f**king genius you are!
It's called "war". Just look at the Yanks in the Pacific. Or the Brits when they were actually combatants on the ground rather than immolating civilians from the air. Such garbage.
My ex-mother-in-law’s gentleman friend had been in bomb disposal & mine clearance in WW2. What he saw in the desert had a marked effect upon him & he rarely discussed it. On one occasion when I did get him to open up he said that amongst the horrors he had to deal with was checking bodies for booby-traps. Doing so in knocked-out tanks was bad enough but the worst was having to be lowered down wells where dead soldiers had been deposited, frequently booby-trapped. Imagine it. In the searing heat, down a narrow shaft inspecting decaying bodies for explosive devices. This repugnant task HAD to be done though. Partly because of the risk of destroying or polluting a rare water source & of course to keep the local population as on-side as possible.
He also told me of one event whilst checking for mines. One moment he was working with his squad, probing the sand. Then there was a loud ‘click’ under his foot. When he looked around, he was all alone. The rest had scarpered. Luckily for him, once he’d cleared the sand to examine exactly what type he was standing on, this mine would only detonate when the weight was removed from the top plate, so as long as he stood on it he was ‘safe’. He knew that the only way to delay the detonation was to insert a certain size of split-pin between the top & bottom plates & most fortunately, he had one. It did the job & gave him just enough time to reach a safer distance before the mine detonated.
Another tale from the London Blitz was how a story in the U.K. press that a large Luftwaffe bomb had been defused thus saving St.Paul’s cathedral alerted the Germans to a flaw in the design. This was rectified so that as the main fuse was unscrewed it could set off a new hidden fuse. It cost the lives of several bomb disposal personnel to discover this.
He was the only one from his squad to make it through the war.
If you’d seen this chap working in his own little local newsagents shop, the thought, ‘I wonder what he did in the war?’ wouldn’t enter your mind. How many tens of thousands of ex-servicemen ~ & women ~ move amongst us unregarded & unknown?
We owe each & every one of them a debt that can never be repaid ~ and our everlasting respect.
As I look at society today, I fear we shall not see their like again.
My Uncle was a engineer in North Africa in WW2, when checking for mines he heard a ‘click’. Luckily his engineers mates diffused it.
@@eizol568 Your uncle was lucky; Sid’s mates did a runner. Regardless of that, any soldier/engineer who deals with uxb’s of any sort must have balls of titanium.
The jumping mine type very rarely missed its victims.
Your ex-father-in-law (my apologies) was truly
competent to know how to deal with it.
Well,
booby-trapping corpses that's no mean feat !
@@Charlesputnam-bn9zy I don’t think it can have been an S-Mine. Staying standing on one wouldn’t have prevented the ejection charge from executing. Most soldiers wouldn’t even be aware that they’d triggered it by brushing against the three prongs or tripwire that initiated detonation. It might have been a schuh mine, but he wouldn’t have been heavy enough to set off a teller mine. Now I’ll never know. I’ll have to look into Italian mines ~ although given it was the desert it could equally have been an Allied one, given how often the same ground was fought over. Whatever it was, a split-pin saved his life ~ that & of course his knowledge of what to do in a situation that the word ‘stressful’ doesn’t begin to cover. And nowadays people complain of stress because they don’t get enough ‘likes’? Most people don’t know how lucky they are!
I am from Alexandria Egypt, and i had the honor to find 3 german helmets brought to me by someone who lives in ElL Alamein were the Africa Corps fought in the war, the helmets were well preserved probably because of the desert atmosphere that kept them safe all this time. I now live in the United States, and i will definitely find a way to get them here.
Hi. Did you ever get those helmets back.?
Would you sell it to me?
@@yaakovyoni2505Hi! The original commenter got them into the states and actually donated them to me! Unfortunately while I was moving my wife accidentally sold them at a yard sale, thinking they were toys our son got last Christmas. There whereabouts are now unknown but on the plus side she sold them for $5 a piece so I at least got $15 total for them!
There's another area where the Yanks didn't show up, but claim false honour.
I worked in the Western Desert from Alexandria to Mersa Matruh including El Alamein. I met and conversed with many of the elder Bedouin who would regale me with stories of the conflict. From their perspective they had equal admiration for Montgomery and Rommel but a special hatred for the Italians who they said treated them very badly indeed. Many parts of the desert there are strewn with old shell casing and pieces of shrapnel. The minefields are still there and still deadly.
The admiration for germany is very high in all of africa compared to the menace of the anglosaxon occupations. The italians were definitely the worst of all.
Maybe beside the belgians in the congo led by Leopold the first aka "the hitler of congo''
I imagine the dry conditions would preserve them for quite some time to come, every story like this makes me thankful I live in a country where the only things you need to locate before digging are cables and pipes.
Grandad fought in Norway, North afrika, and Europe. He said when a German surrendered, that was it, he surrendered.
He also said the Italians were not to be trusted, and would hide a knife or other weapon and attempt to attack afterwards...
He also volunteered for the Rangers as soon as they were a thing. Man I miss that man..
@@scallie6462 Your granddad was part of what is called the Greatest Generation,men like him saved us. Did you ever record his stories? God bless him
@@AbuHajarAlBugatti some folks in Namibia might disagree
"War is a crime. Ask the Infantry and ask the dead." -- Ernest Hemingway
Thank you. I was going to post the same thing.
Pretty ironic that the quote is from a War Criminal...
@@rwps3677 well, they have expiriences with that…
@@rwps3677 Hemingway's experiences with war were as an ambulance driver & later a journalist.
What war crimes?
Hemingway made lots of mistakes. War as self defence is not a crime.
The Afrika Korps shot my grandad in combat, then having captured him, patched him up and released him within reach of his own lines.
[Citation Needed]
Did they give him a beer and a packed lunch too? You're not fooling anyone
@@DeadManSinging1 Actually, they did!
@@DeadManSinging1 Not as far as I'm aware. His name was Sergeant William Bonner of the Royal Engineers. I don't know if there is an official record of what happened, all I know is what he passed down to me. I have no reason to believe he was trying to fool anyone, he was always truthful as far as I'm aware, and I have no reason to doubt his testimony.
@@DeadManSinging1 you have seen too many hollywood movies
@@michaelmusson5736 there’s good and bad on every side. I’m sure your grandfather was telling the truth. The losing side of any war is painted as evil. No doubt many were. But not all.
Probably the most believable of the "apologist" histories insists that Rommel had a blind spot for the atrocities being committed by Nazi Germany. That he was able to compartmentalize his mind and focus on fighting the war without really thinking about the regime he was fighting for.
This got presented as a kind of excuse but I prefer to see it as a cautionary tale. You can't just say "That's not my business" when you're a Field Marshall commanding entire armies. You have the power to find out what's happening under your command and (to a certain point) the ability to stop or mitigate it.
Wilful blindness doesn't absolve you of what happened, and popular consensus won't save your soul.
well stated
Regardless of the case of Rommel specifically, we should not take the German generals at their word when claim any sort of big distance between themselves and the „nazi“ leadership. After the purging of the SA the army officers were one of if not the support pillar of Hitler‘s regime*, and they were tremendously influential in the Nazi government. Also on a military level, Hitler went along with the Generals pretty much most of the time.
The infamous divisions in the German leadership, especially the Army only really appeared after 1943 when the war was obviously lost and every side was scrambling to save their skins. None of these were differences of principle.
*along with the Prussian landowner class, but really the two aren‘t even separate groups.
Utter Bollocks!
what about how he literally died because he was complicit in the plot to kill Hitler and end the war
@@Rick-zw9kp even if he had been: the people who tried to kill Hitler (in the main) were other fascists who had decided that continuing the war was no longer advantageous to Germany.
But that’s irrelevant because Rommel wasn‘t complicit in that plot. He was just considered as a threat by Hitler due to his popularity (which Hitler had helped create).
I just had a chance to visit El Alamein this last December and as Dr. Felton has mention previously, they have a great little war museum there which I highly recommend. It is well organized and maintained; signage is in clear English and Arabic; lots of cool artifacts including some donated by the Rommel family. One thing that jumps out right away is that the Italians had very poor equipment but very cool uniforms and plenty of them! In fact the Italian gallery is dominated not by weapons but by their many colorful uniforms. If the war in North Africa had been settled by a contest of military parades the Italians would have won immediately.
As an example: one of the Italian machine guns used in the desert had quite an interesting operation. It used a rectangular magazine which was "walked" through the firing mechanism. For each firing, the mechanism extracted the round from the magazine, pushed it into the breech, closed the breech and fired the round, then extracted the empty cartridge case from the breech ... and put it back into the magazine! The gunner's mate had to strip hot empty cartridge cases from the magazine and then load fresh rounds into it. Also, the case would expand in the breech upon firing (too much back pressure) which would cause it to jam ... so the designers put in an oiling mechanism to make the cartridges easier to extract. But in the desert, when the oil mixed with the sand it formed something akin to a grinding paste which locked the case in the breech and sometimes would result in the rear of the case being torn off and rendering the weapon useless until an armourer could remove the rest of the case stuck in the breech.
Well of course Italians had great looking uniforms. Just look at some the names of famous clothing designers like Armani, Dolce, Gabbana, Versace, Pucci and others all Italians!!!
@@vk2ig Perhaps the Italians should have stuck with designing uniforms not weapons.
The Italian Breda machine gun was one of the finest of the war.
The Italians in fact did the dirty work for the nazis in North Africa,
& got only Rommel's scorn & contempt & jettisoning at Alamein,
while they fought to hold back the pursuing 8th Army.
I am not pro-Italian, but we must remember that there are no cowardly nation as a whole.
@@AVB2 The Italians had the best designed uniform for Africa too
The SS Officer at 0:40 is SS Obersturmbannfuhrer (Lt. Colonel) Michael Kneissl. He was leader of SS Wachbattalion Prag (Prague) where he was in charge of SS guards at the local concentration camp and prisons. In his position here he personally attended over 100 executions of men, women and children. The video depicting him here is called the "Lost German Girl" film, which was taken at the end of the war near Epjovice POW camp, where he was held. After the war he was handed over to Czech Authorities who executed him by hanging for his crimes.
Glad he was executed ,so many of the. got away with murder and lived long happy lives.
He seems quite arrogant in the footage. Look at his men gathering around him.
I cannot belive that the Germans killed children. I will never believe.
@@gordonsylvester8457 I am German, my father and grandfather fought in the war, I can assure you that hundreds of thousands of children were murdered by my countrymen.
@@gordonsylvester8457 It's very obvious that the Germans killed TONS of children, along with their parents. Do you think they sent women and men to concentration camps and their children off to summer camp? No, the children were killed too. There was also a great deal of experimentation performed on children which amounts to torture and murder - go read about the war crimes of Josef Mengele.
Thanks for outing these atrocities, Dr Felton. My father fought at El Alamein and although he passed away some years ago, he was quite open about his experiences in North Africa. This was certainly no gentlemanly fight. I've always been sceptical about the myth of the "clean" AK. Why would the wehrmacht behave any differently in the North African theatre than they did everywhere else?
UA-cam and all public forums need more intelligent, well-researched and balanced commentary such as yours.
Mark's become the modern day equivalent of the court historian.
The behaviors of soldiers is dependent upon the lower ranking supervisors.
My father fought at El Alamein with the New Zealanders
He was a sergant on a 25 pounder.He went on to be wounded at Monte Casino.He sometimes mentioned the night and day fighting at El Alamein.He was a heavy smoker said they lit their smokes on the hot gun barrel
You mentioned Monte Casino. Have you ever heard of Wojek the cigarette smoking, beer drinking Brown bear that served in the Polish Army? I found out about him a couple of years ago. He was promoted from private to corporal for his actions in during the battle.
@@scottyjordan9023 No I havent.We went to Casino 3 years ago and looked through the museum there
Am pretty sure it was the Poles who finally captured the monastry hill
Respect for your father and his enemies in that war.
@scottyjordan9023 I havent heard of him.But I know that the Poles were the ones that finally broke through at Monte Casino
A FEW YEARS AGO we went to Casino and a lovely Polisg girl guided us through the museum.
There was a group of Texans who fought at Monte Casino. I emailed there basi in Texas but nevet heard back from them.
The main reason the Afrika Korps didn't have widely known massacres was because the civilian population was so sparse, and it was easy to hide things in the desert before the days of spy satellites and the internet. Even today, various Middle Eastern and North African conflicts have forgotten massacres. Now footage of one atrocity can be intentionally misattributed to another, too. Like Gulf War footage being billed to the Syrian Civil War.
They didn't have the logistics for it. Rommel didn't have any fuel for his tanks let alone to divert for rounding up the Jews.
Another thing is that this myth was actually created by Western Allied just to increase West Germany's rearmament to fight the Communists
Abu Ghraib???
@@erniefrijole2618 Abu Garib.
@@Kalashnikov413 Similar thing happened with Japan where a lot of their war crimes, even ones against the US, were swept under the rug by the US to get some support for the Cold War
my grandfather had two brothers in the 8th army, he told me about british soldiers who beat up locals, raped women, and in a sick game repeated decades later by black water mercenaries in iraq, some of the truck drivers in the supply conveys would run over or clip careless locals, then when they got to their destination they would tally up to see who had won.
All leads me to the conclusion that where ever you get soldiers, you get brutality, and those prone to sadism, violence or criminality will often exploit the situations they find themselves in.
You are either evil or you are not. I guess war determines which one you are.
There is also a sense of superiority held by some who come to places like Africa and the Middle East.
The example in modern history which sticks in my mind is just after the Americans took Baghdad. They were cutting down the statue of Saddam Hussein. The locals all looked on with interest and some sense of joy. Finally, the statue hits the ground and ... a US serviceperson covers it with an American flag. You could see the locals' opinion immediately switch from considering the Americans as liberators to occupiers. That's what a sense of superiority can do.
@@davidlynch9049 Exactly. Wherever there is oppression by any force....the evil in society will exploit the situation.
Just another sad facet of "human nature".....Yet we consider ourselves above animals.
Of course this is true, but again, some soldiers could carry on the crimes but they must not tarnish the reputation of the entire 8th Army, as shouldn't a few DAK members tarnish the DAK,
But overall there is some level of truth, this was a war, and not all was black and white, but overall both sides fought with honor there, something who was not the same in the rest of the war
My grandfather said something similar. He was in the U.S army artillery in north Africa. He also said the American and British soldiers were constantly fighting each other over petty things.
I can see many comments where the crimes committed by the Allied armies are put on the same level as those committed by the German armies. You must differentiate between crimes perpetrated by isolated individuals and crimes perpetrated in the name of a state ideology.
carpet bombing, ethnocide, and hanging in show trials werent committed by individuals?
@@Grenzhobel Carpet bombing was done to further end the war, Dresden was a huge cite of both resources and troop movements, and even though the bombings weren't successful, it was still needed to damage German supply lines which would help greatly to the Soviets in the east. Ethnocide is a very ironic word to use since Germans literally did that all throughout the war, murdering Jews in many of the countries they occupied and many soviet civilians in the east. Lastly, Nuremberg and the many other trials after the war weren't show trials, they were trials held against individuals who played a part in a warmongering state with a hunger for territory and an extreme sense of racial superiority.
@@thenotorious_kermito4416 english planned carpet bombing civilians in the 30s before they declared war to germany, russian deported ethnic germans (volga germans) before Nazis deported jews, germans never annexed foreign territory like russians did eg. just reinstalled pre Versailles conditions. it was not only showtrials it was even against the fundamentals of law because you cant hang someone if you invent the law post fact. racial superiority is no crime btw....
how many people did the the British killed in Asia Africa India China America Middle East Australia Do you have a number or even a rough estimate Uk is the last nation on earth to accuse any other nation of crimes against humanity The British are the biggest criminals tha step a foot on this earth and it was not individuals it was the state ideology it was colonialism and to this day they call that criminal record (history )
Just look up Abu ghraib which took place in the 2005. The allies were just as guilty as the Soviets and germans
Your channel has quickly become one of my favorites. Good narration, writing, and film. Keep up the good work.
I disagree that Rommel would have been prosecuted for war crimes after WW2. Rommel was seen as a class act -- especially by the Brits. He would have been a perfect political tool for the USA during the Cold War similar to what happened with Wernher von Braun. You recently did videos on ex Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht generals who later worked for the Bundeswehr. They even got to wear sanitized versions of their Knight's Cross. Rommel was legendary -- the Desert Fox. The Americans and Brits would easily and conveniently have overlooked the few war crimes that you found. Then add in the fact that Rommel was possibly anti-Hitler re the July 1944 plot and you've got a potential post-war, Cold War, rehabilitated German hero -- not a war criminal.
Had he been captured he could probably have charmed his way out of the gallows just as Albert Speer did.
I did read once when he had captured some British soldiers he addressed them before they were marched of to POW camps with words to the effect 'Today you are my prisoners, tomorrow I maybe yours'.
@@Mackeson3
Yep. Albert Speer charmed his way out of the gallows. Rommel was already a hero while the war was still going on -- even to his enemies. Likely Rommel would have been a Cold War poster child.
Frankly he was seen as a "class act" because he topped himself. If he had survived longer, he may have fought and sanctioned crimes on other fronts - we don't know and can never say for sure. After the war, he almost certainly would have been prosecuted, but I think then had his sentence commuted and would have been placed in the Bundeswehr.
@@maquettemusic1623
Certainly Rommel would have been investigated post-war had he survived, but seriously prosecuted is another matter. Of course we'll never know.
Suffice to say, if the USSR did not show themselves to be the b=stards they were, then the West German society would have been purged more effectively of Nazi and racist ideologies. I say racist ideologies seperate to Nazi because it's not as though what happened to the Hereros in Namibia was an expression of Nazi ideas, it preceeded the NSDAP. Sadly the Nazis and half Nazis had to be co-opted in West Germany and the Wehrmacht whitewashed and all evils blamed on spacemen called Nazis so that we could have a strong ally as Germany.
Fascinating book on this topic: "The SS: Alibi of a Nation" by Gerald Reitlinger - describes how the Army via the General Staff was complicit with much of the extermination policies because it allowed them to continue to run the armed forces. In many cases, army commanders like Walter von Reichenau were just as enthusiastic about extermination programs as the SS itself.
@@ScorchedEarth-cd5cl ,what are you?An apologist who wants to write his own version?
Great book. I have a copy buried in a box somewhere.
Reichenau was arguably even more enthusiastic than most of the SS about exterminating the Jews. He was ordering the 6th Army to publicly massacre all the Jews as they could get their hands on while the SS were busy trying to figure out a way to kill them in a less messy manner (what ultimately became the extermination camps).
@@ScorchedEarth-cd5cl Everyone is biased. A german author would be biased, just as a russian, american or british writer would be biased.
Excellent book. Another is 'Ordinary Men' by Christopher Browning if you want to see just how complicit the German Army and Order Police were in the crimes committed, from the top levels all the way down to the lowliest grunt.
I am so glad you posted this video. I see so many comments on other videos of people saying the Wehrmacht isn't the SS, and didn't commit any atrocities.
Everyone committed atrocities and "atrocities", the only difference is that one side committed them for Europe and for God while the other committed them out of jealousy, inferiority or due to having been lied to by their goverment and their overseas puppet masters.
SS Men were either Evil or Not.
Regular Wehrmacht Men were mostly either lesser evil or just conscripts.
SS Men were either Murderers or not, Wehrmacht Men as same.
Not all SS Men were Murderers and even more didnt were it in the other Units.
Thanks for posting this. Rommel's martyrdom as the result of his tardy and marginal involvement in the July 20 plot saved him from closer scrutiny. The point is well made that even generals - and field marshals - trembled before the SS butchers. Another fine work.
The point is that all nazis are nazis, including rommel
@@christophmaier4397 seems easy enough to understand
Well, Rommel refused to have any SS troops in his army. He also punished many soldiers who committed crimes or atrocities against the local populations. This is all well documented. But no General can keep watch on hundreds of thousands of soldiers & must rely on local commanders. Overall Rommel was a decent man.
“Martyrdom”. What an a.h.
My father left detailed war diaries. As background, he volunteered, aged 19, as soon as the war started, trying to join the Royal Engineers (his father's WW1 corps, and as he had started training as a civil engineer). Eventually accepted, he did bomb disposal in the London Blitz, then was to be commissioned to build roads from Turkey to Russia for road convoys, but volunteered to get out of that and into the action in Egypt, thus joining 50th Div in north Africa. Went through El Alamein and then on to Sicily. Then back to the UK for D-Day, and was in the first wave on Gold Beach. Carried on to Holland, where an FW-190 dropped a butterfly bomb on him, landing him in hospital for a couple of years. He came out of it with far more respect for his 'enemies' than for his commanders. He really respected the average DAK soldier as a warrior, but he would have known nothing about the treatment of Libyan Jews. As a senior NCO (who had gone on a charge a couple of times for refusing a commission), he disliked watching his men be sacrificed by 'instant lieutenants' when he felt if those kids had listened to him he could have got the job done with less loss of life. That's probably an old story among the ranks, but after four years of volunteering for everything dangerous for all the old public schoolboy reasons, he felt like a failure in the end when he decided that his incompetent commanders meant he had to choose survival over heroics. That was a shame in all senses. I doubt he ever considered that the average DAK soldier may have had similar feelings about their own leaders, but they probably did.
Very interesting, Christopher. Thank you for that.
The average DAK soldiers have a great opinion of their comander, but a horrible opinion on the theater commander, the Italian government and the Nazi government.
There were of course some who acted like Nazis but as shown here not so many.
Your Parent was a hero by the ways , fought in the 2 wars all the way to Normandy, wow, thanks for his service.
Blessings to you and yours.
Your father was a great, great man.
We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the entire allied war machine, it’s noteworthy flaws notwithstanding.
Thank you!
Perhaps if he had accepted the commission he might have saved some of those lives he felt were sacrificed.
Nobody gets “charged for refusing a commission”.
Africa is constantly overlooked and this is why Felton is brilliant, for highlighting these unknown cases.
Also Italy. The invasion of normandy over shadows alot of it. Alot of massacres happened in Italy after they dropped out.
Its only overlooked because it would be ridiculous to cover thousands and thousands of small stories simply to much.
@@americanmilitiaman88 which also the Western allies commit a war crime by bombing the international protected church
@@Shiroya_Rumika typical whataboutism spewed by neo-Nazis. When did you become a disciple of Adolf Hitler?
Not really when I go to the history section in my nearby book store I think the North African campaign occupies more than its fair share.
Mark is so informative and his videos are so interesting. It's a pity there's not more of this stuff that we can learn from.
Thank you sir for making this video. It's a great pleasure to watch one of the most lesser known atrocities during WW2 brought to light.
You cannot become a favourite of Hitler's and not have some blood on your hands. Thanks for bringing this to light.
Charlie Chaplin would disagree...
We respect allied generals that did warcrimes. Rommel was on par with them.
@@TheLastPariah89 how so would Chaplin disagree?
@@mdj354 the brits (probably including myself) are not really european anyway but more related to the pharaohs of egypt. Hence no moral problems of exploitinh and destroying europe
@@mdj354 bruh, im saying we should cutt Rommel some slack and that he was a typical western general for the time.
I appreciate Dr Felton delving into all aspects of WWII. There were so many things happening in so many places and the war fought in Africa is often overshadowed by European and Pacific events. It was, after all, a world war.
I'd like to see more about General Slim's "Forgotten" Fourteenth Army in India and Burma.
Felton is biased
@@dannybird4996 anyone with a conscious and a brain should be biased on this topic
". . . but like German soldiers elsewhere in the world, war crimes were never far away." BANG on, Mark. Thank you for specifically taking on this myth.
I dont understand can you explain
@@fuxihutterer8088 Whenever the German soldier went in WW2, war crimes follow him, or rather, he did a war crimes.
@@modest_spice6083so did every other army, so what's your point?
@@Foxrich99Not to the extent of what the Germans did. They were the worst of the worst.
@@modest_spice6083 someone has clearly never looked into soviet or japanese war crimes
Try shutting your mouth if you know nothing about a subject
Mark as always your videos are well informed entertaining and as an avid fan of history no matter the time period I salute your hard work.
A fantastic book "Supplying War: Logistics From Wallenstein To Patton" dispelled the myth of "Rommel-God-of-war" to me. Then, I began to read more on Rommel. I encountered the opinion that the Allies needed a German hero after the war in order to build the future German army around impecable, heroic German. Rommel was a good choice: no attrocities in the East, forced to commit suicide by Hitler. And thus a former captain of Hitler's bodyguards became honorable general.
Interesting, thanks for sharing
I’m going to say something likely not Politically Correct. But with the 20/20 hindsight of History, and looking at all of the abysmal ideological attempts at “Nation Building” in modern times. The decision to reform Rommel, to quietly absolve and reform Hirohito, to take pieces of the existing political and social infrastructure, for good or I’ll, and use them as the foundation to build a better more stable society, was probably the better, wiser, decision than we give credit for. How well did deBathification turn out in Iraq? How often have we created our own worst enemies by dismissing them on ideological or moral grounds? Castro? Ho Ci Minh? They came to us hat in hand first.
@@andrewtaylor940 excellent point made sir
@@andrewtaylor940 Rommel had by far the most scruples out of the Reich mob. He had his dark spots, but the good parts easily made him redeemable even in the eyes of his enemies. He was an excellent candidate to lift up as the best of the bad. And then the pragmatic approach was to leave the bad alltogether.
@@andrewtaylor940 We know more about Germany WW2 than the US in Iraq, Yemen, or Syria. SIIX of nine "security forces," being trained by US forces in Africa in the last 30 months, have seen their govts. brought down by these newly trained forces in coups that toppled the existing govt.
I'm at the stage where I hit that like while the opening credits are rolling and before I've watched the upload, Mark Felton is a legend.
So do I
Of all Mark's videos I've watched over the years I can honestly say I've enjoyed every single one of them
Agreed. Dr. Felton never fails to both educate and entertain.
I do the same. You just know it's going to be absolutely amazing.
Legend
@NotAnonymous the like is more of a UA-cam analytics feature of the youtube algorithm. The more likes a video has, the more appreciated it must be. Consequently UA-cam might feature it higher in search results or on a trending page meaning more expousure to a larger audience and more possible views, thus helping the channel make money.
Another excellent and well researched Dr. Felton production. Thank you sir!
I hear that familiar musical score and settle back for a quick lesson from Mark Felton. Well done, as always…
Whilst on leave from the Australian Army in 1983 in Austria, I felt honoured to have been present at an "alte kamaraden" Afrika Korps reunion in a tiny Gastatte between Salzburg & Innsbruck. (Happenstance; they spotted my slouch hat hanging off my backpack.) They wouldn't let me buy a beer; I felt embarrassingly welcome.
The small group stated they'd been captured by Australians at Tobruk, (hence their close bond) & were quite open to tell me their version & hear my version as passed to me directly by Australian veterans of North Africa.
I urged them to come to Australia before they die & attend ANZAC Day.
Hope they did.
What a great story
They should feel ashamed of themselves for feeling a bond to the foot soldiers for communists and bankers.
as a Greek thank you for mentioning the crimes commited in Greece from Wermacht units and anihilating the myth of the "honorable" German paratroopers.
My grandfather was in the Greek resistance
My Grandfather was in the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force that fought the Italians and Germans in mainland Greece. As he was an artilleryman, the heavy equipment got left behind at Piraeus. So he was evacuated off Crete to Egypt before the German invasion. When I visited Crete in 2002, once the locals knew I was from New Zealand the welcome was fantastic.
@@asterixdogmatix1073 We never forget the sacrifice of you Kiwis and the rest of the allies in defence of our land. Be proud of your grandfather as i am for mine an officer in the Cavalry who let his 7 days old daughter ,my mom , to fight against the nazis.
Lest We Forget.
@@scpsputnik9730 how so? i mean your name does not sound Greek... anyway be proud of him. We should all be proud of a generation of men who stood up against nazism and fascism.
@@chrisvoulgaridis8385 My mother's side is Gadiris
These videos are so important.
Thank you very much for making them
Ahh the good German myth. Tale as old as time
“A gentleman’s war” what a ridiculous concept. Thankfully we have seemed to wake up the idea that war is hell
The rich's war and the poor suffer the consequences, not a single rich man's child on the frontline.
Kinda puts into perspective that complaining about war crimes at all is stupid. If you can't make a war clean then you can't make it dirtier than it already is.
Negative IQ take. @@Saxton_Hoovy
I grew up believing Rommell to be a decent German officer. This kinda hurts. How many times have wehrmacht shouted 'it was not us'
How many times have the hebrews shouted, "oh we are nothing but innocent victims who keep getting picked on by evil naziz". Meanwhile, they create communism and bankrupt countries and starve people to death.
Same with the Germans themselves. We as a people continue to deflect blame and try to blame others for our atrocitirs that we were never brought to justice for.
@@gh87716
If I recall correctly, the Germans were the ones to let Communism rise when they sent Lenin back to the Russian Empire so that they could destabilise the country and let Germany win the war.
Communism rose out of GERMANY'S own actions.
@@youraveragescotsman7119 Well, that's more bullshit. Marx, the founder of communism, was a hebrew, along with all the other bolsheviks who were already there taking power before Lenin even came there. And even if they did willingly send him back, which is doubtful, an egregious error on the Germans' part, they are still not to blame for communism, as it was created and promoted by hebrews solely.
@@gh87716 that's super interesting except that he wasn't a practicing Jew and his father had converted. Lutheranism I think. It's a stone cold fact that german high command sent Lenin in to disrupt the Russian empire and it worked.
Quite the scandal that a guy like Rauff was able to just die in peace from a heart attack in Chile in 1984.
As others have noted, this is an excellent channel and we are in debt to the efforts of Mark Felton. I must also commend the many commenters who add thoughts, personal recollections, family stories and more. This adds greatly to the overall content. Mark attracts a very sharp class of viewers.
In debt? Oh please....the guy only shares politically correct view points and winners of war history.
@@Dman3827please share with us your portfolio of award winning documentary
@@Dman3827 so enlighten us on the so called truth that he's afraid to say?
A video about Walter Rauff's postwar life would be interesting viewing. He had some strange bedfellows during his successful escape from justice.
Rauff ended up in Chile , where he died peacefully inn1985. An international campaign was spearheaded by Simon Weisenthal to get him extradited. However he was given protection by his client Augusto Pinochet for whom he had done some consultancy work designing concentration camps and torture methods.
@@tylerdunn9683 live in hope that one day nobody will come after you saying the same thing about fascists…
@@tylerdunn9683 You certainly sounds like a one, that’s for sure!
@@tylerdunn9683 You will upset the commieaboos with that statement.
@@rodintoulouse3054 o
I believe that there were many chivalrous acts occurred on both British and German sides in the North African conflict, but a few chivalrous acts shouldn't take anything away from the fact that it was still a bloody and often merciless conflict.
Why do you seek equal blame, when one side was following a policy of genocide, and the other clearly not.......?
Well said. I've heard that the Wehrmacht were absolutely brutal to the Soviets and even committed some war crimes against our American forces (though the SS did among the worst crimes such as the massacres of American POWs in December 1944).
the wehrmacht was a genocide machine mate -- it was more than a "bloody and often merciless conflict." the german war machine was pure evil, both sides are not even close to equally guilty
There's a Nazi apologist in every thread.
I have this theory, that wars can't really be fought very effectively without hate. I'm not an expert here, but if I had to punch a guy in the face, it might be easier if I hated the guy.
Thank you for addressing the "Clean Wehrmacht" myth. It's extremely prevalent online.
@Cl1nton Body count Keep coping, Wehraboo
@Cl1nton Body count coping wehraboo detected
@Cl1nton Body count lol Triggered wehraboo spergs out for everyone to see.
@@MichaelCasanovaMusic its like the hero "clean" soviets, the clean wehrmacht is also a myth
Even the clean allies
@Cl1nton Body count The Wehrmacht were involved on an institutional level in war crimes and mass murder. This makes them not clean. Simply because every single soldier or unit did not individually partake in a war crime does not change this, and you do not have to establish that they did in order to prove the Wehrmacht were not clean.
Thanks for highlighting these events from the North African campaign. There's tendency to venerate Rommel as a result of his generalship but it should be remembered for whom and what he and the Afrika Corps were fighting for. In his memoir 'Fighting with the Desert Rats', Major Samwell MC comments that the Italians were far more unpleasant than the Germans. He goes on to say that the British were to encounter 'another sort of German altogether' when there were to land in Sicily and Italy.
what a BS call by a non-combatant, IF you have never been in a war what the hell can you know about anything except what yoy read by other authors who have never been there, Ole USN vet
@@jimmyhaley727 Well I haven't read the book but on the cover it clearly says infantry officer. So Ill just doubt that he never saw any kind of combat whatsoever
I am reminded of WW2 history of my country Serbia, as part of former Yugoslavia. After nazi invasion in April 1941, there was a massive armed uprising of Serbs against the occupation in summer 1941. Germans had to send in significant forces to crush the resistance. Wilhelm Keitel issued a directive, or order that gave German military units, not SS, freedom to shoot 100 Serbian civilians including Jews and Gypsies for every German soldier killed by partisans or chetnics. So soldiers of regular German army committed mass killing of civilians in Serbia.
..and all over europe the same formula...
Sure
no difference to the 1990s..
You will have people on Quora defend that saying those people were 'terrorists' because they obstructed the authority which was at that stage Germany.
@Goran Nesic...thank you for your post Goran...the historical truth is Important
A colleague of mine was German Jew who's parents sent him to college in the UK when the NAZIS rose to power. The British Army used him as a spy in North Africa. He was dressed as 2nd Lt and would go into German camps to collect intelligence. He said he passed because was German and the UK had briefed him well.
A Lithuanian Jew who left home before WW2 by crewing on freighters, ended up in Mandatory Palestine. He lived in Tulkarm and all his friends were Arab. When WW2 started he joined the British Army and was sent to Greece, then Crete and finally evacuated to Egypt without seeing combat. He did see combat in North Africa and in the 1948 war. Tulkarm was inaccessible so he did not see his friends until after the 1967 war. Then he visited regularly. He was called up in 1973 but did not see combat. He then moved to the USA.
These 2 were the exceptions to Jews from Europe, and they were exceptional people and very lucky to survive WW2
What about all of the Jewish communists who were trying to overthrow all of Europe?
@@JohnPiper04 What about all the European white communists who were trying to overthrow regimes in Europe?
@@JohnPiper04 classic WHATABOUTISM often spewed by antisemitic trash
Excellent clip. Though I know a lot of WW2 history, I learned some new things here about the Africa Korps.
Thanks, Mark, for publicising that the Germans were - largely unsuccessfully! - trying to bring their "Final Solution" also to North Africa, from Morocco to Libya. A closer study of the role of the Italians in all of this is still needed, though.
@Messer Schmidt pretty much all of them of only partial Jewish descent, enough to not legally be classified as Jews by the German government.
Tell me is that supposed to change the fact that the Nazis by picky murderer 6 million innocent Jewish men, women, and children?
Italy, Germany's ally, also committed war crimes decades before, in Libya, and in subsequent parts wherever they invaded.
How insane do you have to be to accuse people based on rules that not only did they not agree to but weren't even existing at the time?
@@user_____M He is right.
Fuferito's statement is based on commen sense.
The Allies were just as much guilty of warcrimes.
But as we all know, Allied warcrimes were simply sweeped under the carpet never to see the daylight of justice again.
Italy's "pacification" in Libya was a cause célèbre in the Arab world at the time. Many Arab papers wrote extensively about the massacres the Italians were committing in Libya, and Libyan resistance leader Omar al Mukhtar was widely considered a hero.
Sadly many countries committed war crimes in fact it happened from the first time war ever started
@@starfthegreat that’s right. And italy after the war had ceased its belligerent attitude towards other countries.
I can’t say the same for the Libians who have been financing numerous terrorist organizations worldwide for many decades.
My dad ( a transport pilot) talked with a tank commander who confessed to ordering the murder of surrendering Italians. What could he do? having outrun the infantry and wanting to get on with the pursuit could you just leave these "surrendered" guys to pick up their weapons after you have gone on? My dad was digusted though now I wonder if it might be because the Italians would have been Catholic, like he was.
That happens in every war.
So they were both groups of people who lied about most innocent human beings burning consciously in fire for all eternity for simply having different beliefs from them?
Executing unarmed people should never come down to what else could he have done
Place their guns on the floor in front of the tank and drive over them
Asking out of curiosity , has any Allied general been court martialed when troops under his command committed war crimes ?
One of Mark's most important videos. If Rommel had taken Israel, SS engineers were already in toe to construct extermination camps in the area, to annihilate the Jewish population and other selected ethnic and political minorities.
There was no way for Rommel to take Israel unless he had a time machine. Modern Israel, the nation, was founded in 1948, on land that during WW2 was considered to be part of Palestine.
@@michaellyczak9337 Partially correct, but palestine was an artificial empire construction made with random lines by the british and french empire. It has no ethnic or legal relevance. From the turkish viyalet of beirut to previous empires, the area of Israel, or Roman Judea if you will, was always distinct from the original roman conquest and then extermination compaign under Titus in 73ce, and always had a major Jewish population. There were Jewish battalions, sourced from Israel, who fought for the British against Rommel during the war. They were clear that it was a war of survival. If Rommel had taken Israel, as Dr Felton has noted in this video, Jews would have been exterminated.
@@ThePurple1968 regardless of what your stance on Germany's gamer move was, "Israel wouldn't exist anymore" isn't as compelling an argument as you might think.
Thank you for another brilliant episode..
My father was in the 9th Signals part of Monty's 8th Army, in North Africa and his unit's job was to search for and locate radio transmissions of the Afrika Korps. At home, we had an Afrika Korps hat band and pith helmet which my father had brought back as souvenirs. He had a lot of respect for Rommel.
Yes, in fact this video do not contradict Rommel greatness but put forward some questions, yet without having him as "guilty".
I believe who while it is partially true it deflect the issue only to questionate a what if...? About Rommel
My Grandfather served in the air force in North Africa and later Italy. He was a mechanic, but only had good things to say about Rommel too.
Just to add, this is no way any slight on Dr Felton, who's work is fantastic and thorough.
@@armadillomaster Adie, I don't think anyone would construe it that way. Indeed Mark Felton alludes to the reputation of Erwin Rommel in this and other videos. And the only reason we are here is because we're HUGE fans of Dr Felton's impressive work! Every new video gives me new insights I didn't have before.
yeah, my father was in the 4th Royal Horse ( anti tank ) involved in Benghazi, Gazala Gallop and Alamein, the entire NA campaign from Auchinleck to the half wit Alexander, to Montgomery, and massively respected Rommel and the A Korps, and the soldiers he captured; the only types he 'hated' ( or despised, to his dying day) and in the following order, were the Americans ( in Tunisia, whom he had to rescue), then the Italians. He would have been very disturbed about the claims in this vid, and more disturbed about the slant on Rommel. Then again todays rewriters of history will likely call this myth "After having an easy war, things have now got much more difficult." A colleague is supposed to have told him to cheer up, at which point Montgomery said "I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about Rommel'' I can assure, that is correct.
Wasn't the Stardom of Rommel actually tarnished during the Battle of France. There were some unauthorised killing of French Colonial troops, both Sudanese and French-Indochinese.
And it was the troops who was in command of the troops who perpetrated these killings.
Heinz Gudurian was the head of that front. Rommel led just a division in that theatre and became famous for thrusting furthest the quickest (ghost division). In Africa, he was the field Marshall.
Those "crimes" were perpetrated by the 3 SS totenkop division,
Even in his papers he talk about "troops of color being engaged and disarmed or taken prissoners, like the whites"
@@tamilly7941 Why are you putting crimes in quotations?
@@tamilly7941 they weren’t a number at the time. They where just the Totenkopf motorized Division.
@IG Farben That happens in all wars: To the Victor, the spoils. They get to make the rules.
My uncle was aboard the USS Missouri battleship and was a former Navy SEAL turned chef. The ship was once hijacked by rogue CIA operative William Strannix and his mercenaries. My uncle, an unassuming chef with elite military skills, became the unlikely hero. Using his combat expertise and knowledge of the ship, he stealthily combated the terrorists to prevent them stealing nuclear weapons, thus also saved the crew and averted a massive catastrophe.
They should make a movie out of his experience. Anybody would do except Segal.
😂
Was Gary Busey his XO😂
You KNOW you're going to get the facts with this bloke.
and the wehraboos can't cope with that
It would be interesting to see an episode on Rauf and his postwar career. The still photo that you show of him was taken in Northern Italy in 1945, where he surrendered, along with his staff, to the Americans.
Rauff ended up in Chile , where he died peacefully inn1985. An international campaign was spearheaded by Simon Weisenthal to get him extradited. However he was given protection by his client Augusto Pinochet for whom he had done some consultancy work designing concentration camps and torture methods.
@@rodintoulouse3054 Allen Dulles took good care of his friends.
Very surprised that the Mossad never tried to take him out at any time. They surely had the means to do it, and have very long memories...
@@Jreb1865 it was well known that he was there. Didn’t even change his name and lived a normal public life. His son even has his name and was in the Chilean navy for a while.
@@rodintoulouse3054 I think his son played for Arsenal and was called Liam Brady.
Here we are once again listening to facts over feelings !
Nooooooooo! My second favorite nazi general is being slandered. Aaahahahhahahaaaa
Grrrr but you cant spread factual information about my favorite genocidal general
Facts are h(a)ram. Now take your 25th injection.
@@Driemma0 Sounds like something a redditor would say about their ally commie generals.
Who cares.
Genocide is based.
Cope and seethe
@@MG-ql8sg ew, reddit
What an important video from Mark Felton. Unfortunately I see this myth perpetuated often in the comments of your videos, and I genuinely think it’s the most dangerous historical misconception out there. The reality is that the german army was well aware of Jewish massacres and the intentions of the nazi leadership. This myth that the German soldier was “valiantly protecting his country” and “doing his duty” is so frustrating to see everywhere. The average german soldier WAS an anti-semite, knew and participated in the massacres of civilians/non-combatants/Jews, and was conscious of the fact that he was engaging in an ethnic conquest of the world for German domination. Thank you for standing up against these dangerous ideas Dr. Felton.
The Afrika Korps did basically nothing lmao. Oh they killed 67 people and starved 500 more during a war where millions died? Such crimes pale in comparison even to the crimes of the Western Allies, let alone the crimes of the Soviets or Germans on the Eastern Front.
Very enlightening.
Will you be doing a similar segment on British war crimes?
Probably not. The only historic bad guys were the germans.
Unlikely, no one ever heard of a British Prime minister having to apologize for the murder of innocent civilians by British soldiers, so that never happened.
Stop Voris You should start a list and make it public so we see how soon you make a fool of yourself. Put up or shut up.
wehraboo detected
Members of my family fought in North Africa as part of the 2NZ Div. My father said that Germans got massacred at times. It happened.
There is no 'clean' anything in modern warfare...
"It is one of the melancholy aspects of human nature - you notice it with boys who love to break windows to hear the glass tinkle - but there are a great many soldiers who take a great pleasure in destroying people and wasting things. I find this kind of aspect of human nature not discussed enough but it is surely one of the causes of warfare" - Quote from 'The World at War', Episode 26, Dr. J. Glenn Gray - U.S. philosopher, author of 'The Warriors - Reflections On Men In Battle' and WWII Army Intelligence Officer.
The crimes of war are as old as war itself. It is a gateway for both the worst an best of humanity to appear.
True, I'm afraid. If we put the Allies under the microscope, we will find inconvenient home truths such as the rapes committed by American troops in France - although African Americans seem to have been the only ones found guilty or even charged - and the frightening conduct of the Goumiers attached to the Free French forces in Italy.
@@rolandscales9380
And yet it dosent even come close to what the Germans and Japanese did.
@@danielogats 25mil killed under Stalin alone would like to have a word with you
@@Godsservant778 nice whataboutism, but hitler killed around the same amount as Stalin, and he "succeeded" at this in just a few years unlike the soviet union which lasted around 70 years.
One hardly has to go into this detail, valuable as it is, since it is obvious to the slowest observer that the Africa Corps was fighting to spread the filthy politics of their Nazi govt. What more do you need to condemn them!
My great grandfather was in the Deutsche Afrika Korps and was wounded in Tunisia. He would be quite opposed to “the gentleman’s war.” His stories sent chills up my spine still to this day.
My grandfather was a member of the Afrika Korps. I never got to hear any stories from him because a British sniper shot him in the throat during the first Battle of Tobruk. All I heard were the stories from my grandmother about what a good man he was. Maybe that was true, but the fact remains that, knowingly or not, he was fighting for a monsterous cause. Unless they were among the few to resist the Nazi regime, no German soldiers had any reason to be proud of their service.
@@Alterfritz1763 that's not true brother. You must look at things from their perspective. They were fighting for their families, country and way of life.
They sacrificed everything. You can't judge the common soldier like that.
@@orielsy Disagree strongly. By your logic, the Russians in Ukraine are fighting for the same things. The Germans were the aggressors, not the victims.
@@orielsy Brother, you absolutely can judge them. They were fighting a war of aggression for a regime which prompted a horrid racial ideology.They knew what they were fighting for and most did so willingly. Please do not repeat this myth that they didn’t know what they were fighting for or the myth that they were simply fighting to defend their home any more.
@@nicolasprodger5297 same goes for the Colonial troops of UK that invaded half of the world and engaged in loot,rape and plunder
As unpopular as it would be a video on war crimes committed by Allied troops would be interesting. It's not like it didn't happen and you have always seemed to be brilliant at reporting facts over opinions. As always excellent work keep it up.
If he had to do a video about allied war crimes he would get cancelled. Because noone questions "the liberators"
So true
I think the difference between the two sides is the state approved war crimes and forced labor, as well as ethnic cleansing which were perpetuated by Germany and Italy. While the Allies hands aren’t clean (especially on the Eastern Front in regard to Poland and German POWs), In the West I would argue that any crimes were more isolated and not directly encouraged by the military and its leadership in the same way that more common to the Axis. However, of course there are always exceptions.
@@ryandavis8045 yeah not really. "Take no prisoners" is quite the definite command... or killing prisoners of war during d-day because you dont want to get slowed down. But yeah, let's not dwell on spoiling the myth of the great and just liberators.
@@morbionicle still, the war crimes committed by the allies pale in comparison to what the germans and japanese did
It's incredible how carpenters, doctors, shopkeepers etc can become ruthless killing Machines While others suddenly become more heroic and see the misdeeds in war i think that besides from those in charge You can not make stigmas of grunts since they seem to mostly act on their own from my observation
Military experts have found that "elites" like fighter aces, tank aces, and special forces are born as much as trained. It's the same with psychopaths. A man can spend his whole life as a humble farmer, kill one man, and suddenly realize hes a killing machine like the White Death or Enrich Hartmann
True enough, but those SS guys were hand picked from Hitler youth programs, and drilled from teenage years, indoctrinated etc.. Bad bunch, for sure.. I don't think Rommel's Wermacht was too brutal, there's a story of Rommel coming across a British aide statin and actually helping with the wounded to the surprise of the medics etc..
He could have had them wiped out , but probably did it in the hope the same mercy would be afforded his men.. War is war, maybe Rommel brought a small bit of humanity to a situation he could control..as for being a clean commander.. no matter what he though, the SS would always be around, reporting back to Himmler..
You also praise soviets (As its in your name) who were horrible killers as well I'm not saying this to undermine the German atrocities but they were worse in comparison.
@@bn8268 hmm no it's literally just a meme, and to be honest I see none to be worse than the others they all had good and bad
@@bn8268 the germans and Japanese were pretty insane but the US got so many Germany scientists because they were terrified of the Soviets. The Soviets killed vast numbers of their own citizens and sent them on suicide assaults for things as petty as saying something bad about their CO. They were known to accept enemy soldiers surrendering and then massacre everyone of them. The Soviets were worse then some of the axis members in terms of war crimes, even aimed at civilians.
One story that always stuck in my mind was after the battle of berlin: a journalist would hear women meeting in the street and saying numbers to one another without context (one would say "6", then the other would say "9") and then leave, so he asked them what the numbers meant. It was how many Soviet soldiers had raped them since the last time they'd seen one another.
Thank you Mr Felton for telling it like it was, especially in a time where some people hope to change it to what they want. Rock steady .
Hilarious!🤣
@@jamescollier847 laugh it up Jimmie you're easily amused and easily confused, just like a lost little puppy 🐶 down boy ! 😆🤣😂
It's not hilarious. It's sad.
Great video, love your work. Thanks & keep it up!
The "Clean" Wehrmacht Myth has a depressing amount of staying power. No matter how many people I correct about it online, more people spring up spouting it. Thank you for contributing to educating the public on this subject.
Its like saying the u.s in ww2 was "clean" nobody was.
@@josereyesheronot sure what you're trying to say. Many retired German generals spread the clean Wehrmacht myth through their memoirs after the war, and numerous historians took their claims at face value because the memoirs made for juicy primary sources. So, many people have been saying this kind of thing for many years. Hence the myth's staying power.
I would go further and argue that there is not a single army in history that is "clean". Without a doubt, members of the Wehrmacht and especially the SS committed many atrocities during the war, especially on the eastern front and against Jewish people. But the investigation sometimes seems to go in just one direction. That often paints a black and white image which doesn't exist.
@@Brendissimo1 The myth of generalization.
@@Brendissimo1 its basically true they were as clean as the u.s military war crimes always are gonna happen.
It’s popular to do war crime videos committed by Germany (which many they did), but they were not the only country that committed them. When I was a kid, my father was a state commander for the D.A.V. (disabled American Veterans). He served and was disabled during WWII. Hundreds of times in the 1960’s when I was growing up, I would be at the local D.A.V. Club house where many disabled veterans gathered. I must have heard hundred of horror stories, were these veterans would tell each other what they witnessed that our side did to others. Many times these disabled veterans would whisper and tell each other to shut up as the kid (myself) was around and he did not need to hear the atrocities that happened that we did. I can remember many anguishing disabled veterans crying over what they did or saw that we did to others, and they would tell me, America is a very good country, and be proud of your country, but sometimes we are not the Cowboys with the white hats and sometimes we would be cowboys in the black hats who did very bad things. These disabled veterans would always tell me that history is written by the winners, but it might not always be true.
So when Germany invaded Poland, they already had lists of intelligentsia they would call forth and execute on the spot. And they did. The intention was to decapitate the Polish society to make the working classes and peasants be easier to control. When the non-Soviet allies took Germany they did no such thing. A few Nazis were hanged after Nuremberg, but many Nazis were given amnesty and ordinary Germans including intelligentsia and elites were spared, as were the working classes. So yes fighting men can become sadistic but there was no organised policy, of mass murder the way the Germans had in WW2. We should compare like with like. I don't deny that sometimes young men become sadistic or take revenge on others, but this was not revenge what cool headed, winning Germans were doing to so many people. Read up about it. Germans shot dead many thousands of doctors, engineers, clergy, university professors, policemen etc in the opening weeks of the war in Poland. They already had lists of these people made even before the war started.
@@peterc.1419, yes, the Germans were brutal in many respects, but don't let the Soviets off the hook. Stalin had his own killers who massacred a lot of Poles in the portion the Soviet Union took over.
The sad thing is you believe what you write about the Soviets. Anyone who could be a problem was liquidated. Anyone who might have been a Nazi was arrested. They killed their own who had been pow's. They murdered and raped millions. They were no better than the Nazis they replaced in all the nations that fell under Soviet control and in Russia itself. They started out as the Soviets ally.
@@oscarwildeghost what took Stalin over 30 years to kill took Shitler less than 10
@@nevsky69420 What? Stalin killed more then Hitler did.
Mr. Felton, your stuff is top notch!
"Are we the baddies?"
"I mean, we have skulls on our caps!"
My father was an artillery forward observation NCO in the desert. He claimed they took a bunch of German prisoners during an armed night patrol. The German officer commanding spoke perfect English and harangued them about the Geneva Convention and demanding special treatment. My Dad says his best mate pulled out a service revolver and shot him dead in the head.
Later on my old man was very badly wounded and the Germans thought he wasn't going to make it, so took a photo to pass on to the Red Cross. He got the picture as a present when he did. Not looking happy in it. After recuperating in Italy he was locked up in Goerlitz Stalag VIII -A where he witnessed brutal treatment of Slav prisoners.
So your dads friend was a war criminal.
@@leoamenssen753 yeah lol that's a bit mad to be frank though I'm pretty sure in most cases germans and Italian pows were treated well by the western allies hopefully this story is the exception.
@@leoamenssen753 Aye - its also a warning to people to be careful how and what they say if they don't know how the other party will react.
@@arjunghanekar6140 actually just the officers. But they also had concentration camps to put German PoWs in it.
@@leoamenssen753 Nah his dad's friend did the world a service exterminating nazis
Mark You never fail to provide high quality videos whenever I feel the need to learn something from WW2.
After 55 years of reading WW2 history I also thought the Wermacht in North Africa was "clean". Untill now . Thank you!
I can only assume that the Italian Army also committed atrocities. I doubt the Allies were saints either. This does not excuse the war crimes committed by anyone, Allied or Axis.
My father got captured by the Italians in the dessert and never complained
Great video about these despicable acts.
I am British but live in Europe on the German border. I have heard many stories from old people about how in 1944 /45 there would be minor resistance from a German unit and then every building would be burnt down by the allies with no prisoners taken and many civilians killed. The Canadians had a reputation for it - unsurprising given the SS massacres of Canadians in Normandy in another of Dr Feltons videos.
The attitude seems to have been that late in the war in the west, Allied soldiers could not understand why the Germans hadn’t simply surrendered, and were infuriated that they were still taking casualties. I have heard these stories from enough people to accept that there must be some truth in them, even though it’s not the good guy / bad guy version of history that I learnt in school, and no different from the justification for strategic bombing.
None of this takes away from the guilt of the Wehrmacht. I only raise it in the interests of balance.
The Canadian gained a reputation for not taking prisoners upon the D-Day landing.
Why would you cross the ocean to a foreign country and then die to save some buildings by fighting on the defenders' terms? Canadian or US troops with 6 weeks fighting experience vs Germans with 6 years experience fighting against all of Europe's armies? Just pull back after contact and call in the artillery, there was always plenty available. Spend treasure before blood if you can. Still horrible for the civilians either way.
@@unclefester6501 I love the way the excuses and justifications go for one side based on the context, but not the other .
@@FuelAirSparkTime 3,000,000 Soviet POWs starved to death in German captivity. How many Germans starved to death in US or British captivity?
Certainly well balanced. Thanks for sharing.
Always gotta love it when you hear "misteriously, the gold disappeared"
I lived in Germany for 3 years, in the 80's. Yes, there was a certain level of "convenient amnesia" amongst the older populace. "Adolf WHO?" Thankfully, the younger Germans didn't hide their contempt for German behavior in WW2. They were pretty frank about it.
Wheraboo, and rommel fan boys are going to hate this. Nicely done sir.
@@stokes8626 what's a churchill fanboy?
Oh yeah, the official state narrative. 😎
That's the term. I always say Werhmachtroos. I need to learn Wheraboo.... TIK has some stuff about that too. :)
@@peterjones5243 Cope
@@stokes8626 Cope
Excellent video as usual Mark. Your ability to dispel WWII myths is without rival. One subject I think could use your investigative skill is the rumored Japanese nuclear test in Hungnam, Korea in 1945. I had a co-worker insist that it happened based on a History Channel show from 2005. So far as I can tell it's based on one Japanese officer's account after the war; not helped by the fact the Soviet Union captured the area soon after preventing any investigation. Hope you'll consider it some day.
The History Channel? I'd be very sceptical of anything on that channel in recent years.
I seem to remember Rommel personally ordered a French officer shot because he refused to divulge details of French Army plans in 1940. Rommel did not have a clean record.
He also ordered his men to commit perfidy in France during 1940 as well.
I disliked some of your videos due to gratification of german soldiers, considered that was a loss of critical approach, but this video turned out to be great comeback. Thanks.
Honestly, when you hear about how great a system that promotes modern day slavery is 24/7 you should probably look at what fascism stood for more closely.
@@shelbyspeaks3287 Fascism stood for that + genocide and totalitarianism
Dr. Felton - A question, if I might. At about the 2:11 mark in the video you show a short clip of a German flag, but it's shape is more of a banner and most interestingly, it almost appears to be of a camouflaged background.
Do you have any information on this particular flag?
As always, your videos are an excellent source of knowledge.
Thanks!
If it was colorized it would probably have been desert coloured, with the stripes being dark brown as a desert camo.
It looks like it had been rolled up and set down in oil to me. The Germans never besmirched their beloved crooked cross.
I remember hearing a story about a Rommel counter attack in the African campaign which was so lightning quick, they pushed the Brits back so fast that the field hospitals quickly found themselves in what was suddenly German territory behind enemy lines. Rommel visited the field hospital and asked the Brit medics to request whatever they needed from the German forces to treat the injured, plus whatever food and water needed, and promised that under no circumstances would any allied personnel, whether fighting or medic, be mistreated or harmed in any way. He gave strict orders for his forces to treat the allied/Brit forces like their own, and from what I know, that happened. I cannot say for sure this is true, but I seem to recall hearing this from a trusted source. Perhaps Mark knows something about this? Great video, as always.
Afaik they did not want war with the brits in the first place, english is a germanic language you know,
Heard that too. Actually it was his close friend and personal doctor who Rommel made responsible to take care of wounded bits in field hospital
Sounds like a potential Felton video subject: Rommel safeguards Brit hospital.
@@metagen77 what makes you think that? Genuinely curious seen that there was plans for an invasion of England plus all the bombing done by the Germans there.
For our Germanic brothers, they sure liked invading us (Netherlands)
The real story is much more funny, because Rommel missed the path and his visit was accidentcial. The hospital under command of a polish doctor? Rommel had enough Humor and time to take a Sitrep
Excellent work Mark. As always!
Once again Mark shows why he’s the best in the business!
Hi this was very interesting there has never been much spoken of SS within the Atria Corps belief it wouldn't have allowed or have anything to do with them. Concerning Italian atrocities many years ago on Channel 4 there was a programme detailing their crimes across Africa and the Balkans before and in the war many of the top Italian commanders especially General Badoglio had committed terrible crimes in Libya. I can't remember if they were put on trial after the war maybe this make another investigation for our war sleuth Doctor Mark Felton.
Marshall Badoglio had a checkered past to say the least and it goes way back. It was he whom I believe the Austrians cabled on November 4 1918 asking Italy for an armistice in WWl. He remained in the Italian army and was given the command of the Italian forces who defeated the Ethiopians in May 1936. He was especially liberal in his usage of poison gas. He was appointed prime minister of Italy in July 1943 by King Victor Emmanuel lll and remained in that position until about the end of the war to be replaced because he was so treacherous. He is also the person who gave the Germans the location of hiding place where Mussolini was being kept by the royalist government. It was a quid pro quo so the Germans would allow His Majesty and his family to embark south to safety in Brindisi in the heel of Italy which at the time was just being occupied by the British. He was known for his fervent royalist views and thus had a deep hatred of Mussolini. It is almost accepted fact that he was also on the payroll of the British as a spy and thus caused the deaths of thousands of Italians needlessly to cause the downfall of Mussolini. It was because of him that the British knew of planned Italian operations before their officers themselves. His dismissal as prime minister was so a person more amenable to the allies could be selected. He was never tried and lived quite a comfortable life until the mid 1950's. Interestingly enough one of my relatives was able to take a snap shot of him standing next to the Hereditary i.e. Crown Prince Humbert ll probably sometime in 1944. Humbert reigned for only one month in 1946 when voted out by a referendum when Italy was occupied by Americans and British forces. It is largely believed that they turned a blind eye towards the Communists stealing the vote in favour of a republic. The American attitude changed markedly two years later when they strongly supported the Christian Democrats in Italy's first parliamentary elections and went on to win a decisive victory. In all a very sad chapter in the history of my ancestral homeland which I love so much. Hope this helps as painful as it is.
@@allanrinaldipaone9850
Thank you.
Blessings.
An interesting "what if" emerged always regarding the figure of Rommel: my opinion about his treatment if he would survived the war is he would surely have been discharged of any crime responsability. His prestige and popularity among the western powers should have been enough and probably have been even more popular than Manstein and Werner von Braun together...
I think he would've been the first field marshal of the bundeswehr.
@@Brecconable oh most certainly though german leftists would be calling for whatever honors be stripped later down the road
I'm told that his tactics are still taught at the US Army War College.
@@Brecconable Yeah, probably
agreed with you sir. over 70 years since ww2 end I don't see the purpose of this video. in war there always atrocities happened. even on allied side. remembered history are written by the winners not the loser.
Wehraboos when Dr MArk FeLton makes a video about German war crimes(suddenly they don't praise him anymore)
It's like clockwork, isn't it?
I hate your pfp
say the line catjak!
@@hi_c.v7289 Hear meow-t.
Hi,
Does anyone know where to get WW2 footage? There is lot of it in Mark Felton's videos, so I wonder where he gets his footage.
A few weeks ago as a community nurse I meet a 98yr German ex prisoner of war he was captured outside Caen in D-Day 4 or 5. I assumed he was just Wehrmacht. But in his bedroom he has metal sign it shows a key in a metal shield with the words SS Panzer Division Liebstandarter SS Adolf Hitler.
The picture of him in his service uniform also has the right collar lapel inked out. He won’t tell me where he was in the war other Caen and Stalingrad with Field Marshall Paulus. He did say after internment and re education he couldn’t go back to Germany as his home was in the east and he would have sent to a gulag if he had returned home. A really fascinating man Meeting him for me must be what it felt like to meet The Apollo 11 crew or the last survivor of the titanic. A true link with a history we can’t really imagine.
not all WAFFEN SS , where dead squads, total nonsense, there where EXCELLENT sodiers believing
in doctrination, Is the American army Or Russian army any different??
it has nothing TO do being heros
just , cannon fodder , so called good soldiers?
The Kriegsmarine also committed war crimes in Latvia where they rounded up and killed the local Jewish population
there is a saying that applies to practically all the germans of the time: we are all naked in the (communal) bath.
Thank You. This adds greatly to my WWII education. My father was a company commander of a tank battalion and served under Patton some times, and fought in Africa and the European theaters of war.
I remember a female neighbour I knew once told me that during the 1960s a number of men modified her house and that one of them admitted that when he was in the 8th Army that himself and others with him machine gunned a group of Italian soldiers who attempted to surrender to them as they had not enough water of food to keep them.
interesting
As always I find Dr. Felton's videos full of interesting facts and always full of intriguing questions. I also love to read the commenters as many of them have interesting stories and anecdotes to share. I always recommend this channel to friends of mind that appreciate good historical content. Thank you Dr.Felton, and thank you commenters!
Another myth shattered.
Your channel is really good!