When I Landed In America I Realized That .Germany Did Not Stand A Chance In War.
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- Опубліковано 21 вер 2023
- Step into the past with us as we explore the intimate diaries of a German POW in American captivity during WWII. In this captivating episode, "When I Landed In America I Realized That .Germany Did Not Stand A Chance In War." witness history through the eyes of a prisoner as he reflects on the fate of his homeland.
Experience the emotional journey, insights, and revelations that shaped his perspective during this pivotal moment in history. This is a firsthand account you won't want to miss!
Dive into the full diary series by subscribing and hitting the notification bell. Join us as we uncover the untold stories of wartime captivity and resilience.
Share this unique historical perspective with fellow history enthusiasts and anyone interested in WWII. Don't forget to like, comment, and share to support our channel and honor the POW's narrative.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Part 3 of diary of a German POW who belonged to Rommel's Famous Afrika Korps and was capture from North African Theater of World War 2, This is link of the playlist
ua-cam.com/play/PLGjbe3ikd0XEGGEZbAHnM8jQdw_v7SWS-.html&si=J548-M16EslC8t3W
This is Part 1 ua-cam.com/video/7Ny8CJkvh10/v-deo.html
This is Part 2 ua-cam.com/video/V3auLKCFR5Q/v-deo.html
This is Part 3 ua-cam.com/video/7hLd1qjiPME/v-deo.html
This is Part 4 ua-cam.com/video/B9I088HgY7g/v-deo.html
This is Part 5 ua-cam.com/video/DCokEDdYYn4/v-deo.html
This is Part 6 ua-cam.com/video/pMFDr_vw3k0/v-deo.html
Please Subscribe to Our channel and Help Us Grow ,so that we may continue improving and upload more great content for World War 2 enthusiasts !
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Where's the sequence to these videos that allows one to continue on to the next video? It's not evident. Some cataloging needs to be done.
I am trying to make heads or tails of this channel, trying to find out if it is catalogued by the writer, soldier.
what is the name of the soldier
Please learn how to speak before attempting to narrate another's words...
My grandfather was a guard at a German POW camp in Illinois he told me about a prisoner asking him, how come this camp has no fencing? He replied because everyone of these houses has guns the way you prisoners walk and talk you stick out like a sore thumb you most likely will be shot on site if you escape so your more safe here then anyplace else 🤷 My grandfather said when the war ended most of the prisoners wanted to stay in America because they knew from the news and the photos they have seen Germany was in ruins
In Louisiana, my grandfather had German prisoners working on his farm from the local prison camp. A lot just stayed after the war.
Was it Camp Ellis near Bernadotte? I grew up around there, but only read stories including that it had no fences and the prisoners worked as field hands at neighboring farms.
@@ureallyannoyme Warm food, In the middle of the country and an ocean away, and the removal of threat of death. Thats a damn good reason for a fence to mean nothing. Like what are you going to do, run to Canada... LOL
i wish life didnt get hard for civ'z but they needed it
@@spencercliffI like this kind of chill.
I live near the American POW Camp in Hearne, TX. The local University used the camp as an archaeology project, then made it a museum. It's fascinating! The Germans built an amphitheater to perform concerts, they harvested onions for the local farmers & created art in prison. Several prisoners never went home because they liked Texas better.
@aday9159 That's a truly remarkable piece of history! The stories of how some German POWs made the most of their time in captivity, even developing an appreciation for Texas, are quite fascinating. The fact that they created art and contributed to the local community in various ways is a testament to the human spirit's resilience and adaptability. The museum and archaeological project are excellent ways to preserve and share this unique history. Thanks for sharing this interesting tidbit!
@@WW2Tales read Lone Star Stalag
@@aday9159 Sir will definitely read it , so kind of you for the suggestion , we would love to hear from you time and again , have a great weekend ahead
@@WW2Tales Camp Hearne also held Japanese prisoners but they never mingled with the Germans. I ask people "have you ever seen an American POW camp?" They say "No, of course not!" ... I say "well, there is one right down the road!" ... People are amazed to realize we held "prisoners of war" right here in our community. A visit to the camp is an enlightening experience. Camp Hearne even held Rommel's personal orchestra as prisoners.
Keep in mind, there was a large German population in Texas prior to WWII. Entire cities were settle by Germans, so it wouldn’t be too hard for a German national to find a kindred community.
Texas BBQ is epitomized by brisket…second to sausage (aka hot links or Texas hot guts) which is made from the brisket trimmings. This is a part of Texas’ German heritage. Sausage is significant part of Texas culture
I’m told by my grandma that German POW’s were borrowed from the local camp to help on their farm. At the end of the day, they were given beer and returned drunk.
Always glad that as Americans we were able to be civil and humane to POWs. Germany Japan and Soviets were downright sickening in their treatment of prisoners.
France was pretty bad too after ww2. The public anger towards them allowed a more brutish mentality.
Well, considering the Germans treated the Soviets about as well as they did Jews. You come to understand why they were treated the way they were. Even at that German POWs were still treated way better compared to what the Germans were doing to Soviet POWs.
The Soviets were fighting against extermination after all.
Americans have committed many war crimes. We are not as innocent as you think
Yeah, well, I guarantee if the war was fought on American soil and our land was pillaged and our resources were drained and you saw your people, families, children, the elderly, women brutalized, tortured, raped, butchered and murdered, this treatment of german POW's would have been very different and perhaps would have matched the brutality and inhumane nature of the german, soviet and japanese POW camps. The US Civil war wasn't too long ago and many veterans were still alive and could tell you how equally inhumane Americans can be. Read up on the Andersonville Civil War POW camp. Not to mention the japanese internment camps during ww2 and the way African Americans and Native Americans were treated. And all these people were American, imagine what Americans are capable of doing to immigrants and foreigners. We are far from good!
depends of where u were from. Germany treated western euro countries well, and the east bad.
For anyone curious, this guy was named Heino Erichsen, and he wound up in Texas after the war (until he passed away in 2018)
The true story of a soldier on the losing side is such an amazing perspective that's often lost in most historical records, across the centuries.
@chadh8132 very much true
History is written by the victors.
@@drew9759Precisely.
That's why hearing the losing side's story is so priceless and invaluable.
What sucks too is a lot of the young men of the losing side were tricked and manipulated by the older men. They were blinded by nationalistic pride and the promises of honor and glory in battle. Besides, what young man doesnt have testosterone and adrenaline pumping through his veins? The promises of a tough battle and the heart thumping nature of a fire fight sounds enthrawling. That is until night after night you watch as your brothers fall, the higher ups saying come one, come all. Hunkered in a bombed out building all you can think of is how this isnt what you were promised. What was once said proudly, to Germany we hail, now feels like one big betrayal.
@synshenr
on798
Treating your enemies like human beings is the best medicine possible to change hearts and minds and contradict government propaganda.
The only Germans that were treated well were the ones that came to America! Look up the Eisenhauer death camps!...What happened to the Germans after they surrendered was pure evil!
Hasn't worked for Ukraine
We had Geman POWs working our family's sugar cane fields in South Louisiana. They were well treated and never gave the guards any trouble. Some of them were so taken with the area that they moved there after the war and settled down. My dad met some of them and they were nice. Seemed to be grateful for being out of combat
I can confirm this. My grandpa was one of the youngest pows (nebraska). Drafted with 16 a few months before end of war. He only had positive words for his time in the US. Working on a farm and was treated respectful. Of course he told also some more or less funny stories. In the first months some older "front pigs" stole the riffle of a warden (they didn't like him) sleeping under a tree while they worked on the field. They handed it over to the commander of the camp. Guard transferred, problem solved 🤣 ... the older pows saw so much shit and went through hell at several fronts - and the wardens were mostly unexperienced soldiers. After a few months they had been sent to local farmers without wardens - there was no need for them. So my grandfather joined a family who would have liked to keep him on as a worker.
When he told me these stories I was 16 and not really interrested. Now as an adult I have so many questions and would ask the shit out of him - but he rests in peace.
For some years we had american neighbours (NATO staff) and lots of fun with them ( bbqing, parties). They came from nebraska. Fathers were farmers. Gosh.
Any Axis solder who was caught and ended up in an American POW camp were the lucky ones. For them the war was over and they were in better circumstances than any other soldier in WW2.
While stationed in Germany I met a man who had a similar story. He was given a small chalkboard indicating he was a prisoner of the French. It was marked "FR". He and his buddy knew they would be sent to work in the salt mines in Africa, so they found some chalk and changed them to "USA". They were shipped to a POW camp near Windsor, Colorado. When my mother was young, her family visited the camp and when I was younger we lived next to where the camp had been located. The American Legion in town is one of the old POW barracks which we also lived next to. My mother met with the man when she came overseas to visit us and did a full page story that was published in the newspaper. Small world!
Just moved to that side of the state, what's the name?
@@userJohnSmith POW Camp 202 has only a historical marker remaining which located on Highway 257 about a 1/4 mile past 95th Avenue. If you go about a mile north on 95th Avenue around the bend on the left is a hill that once was a ski area called Sharkstooth. While in the military a common question was where someone was from. When I said Colorado, many would ask if I lived near a ski area. Because I lived near Sharkstooth, of course, I said I did! What they didn't know was that it was not in the Rockies! If you want me to send you what I have written about the POW Camp and my family experiences, let me know your email.
Dude that’s your Dad!
Damn, from African salt mine to Colorado living all on account of some chalk and quick thinking. Not bad.
That’s crazy! I drive by that place every day for school, all that’s left is two brick posts and a couple of information signs. It backs right up to a farm. It’s camp #202 right?
My Aunt and Uncle had 15 German pows work for them on their farm. They didn’t want to go back to Germany. They wanted to stay in America
becuase life was better in the USA at that time than any other nation on the planet
My father and relatives then were an amazing generation. The love and appreciation of our Country was strong. I just remember them being good honest loyal people. It really was The Greatest Generation….
Mr. Arnt was a German POW. He would come and speak at our high school in Indiana. He was a German POW here in camp atterbury located in Indiana. He would come and talk about his time in the POW in camp atterbury. He said he was treated better as A POW in America then what he was treated as a German soldier. He said after the war was over they just released him he went back to Germany got his family and come back to Indiana. He had a house and land only 8 miles away from camp atterbury where he was a POW. My house was about 1 mile away from his. They always spoke German but would talk English to me. They was always so nice to me as a child. I never knew that he was a POW until he spoke at my high school. It always amazed me how he was a POW and still be treated better as a POW then as a German soldier. There children was a little younger then me but they all still live around there still.
I can't put my finger on it, but I'm getting the uncanny feeling that Mr. Arnt might have been a POW at some point.
Good story!🇺🇸
My grandparents lived near a German POW camp in Lamont, California. The German prisoners would work at various orchards, cotton fields, and orange groves during their time and they became well known in the area. They received better living conditions and farmers brought them copious amounts of food for their help in the fields. When the camps closed in 1946, some of the Germans stayed, but most went home. My grandmother told me that a few of them had gotten fat before returning home, the true American way. Lol
my great grandparents on my mother's mom's side were both polish immigrants who fled polan during the nazi infestation in the late 30s. they were just there long enough to witness attrocities happen to their friends. when they came over here, they said it was an entirely new world compared to europe. everyone was polite here, almost even outgoing to hold conversations. they were absolutely dumbfounded that they were almost immediately able to own firearms and protect themselves with them if need be. behind ever blade of grass in america lies two things and they always told us they werent sure which there was more of. guns, and opportunities.
And now it is stagnant and slowly tipping over on itself. The politics are backwards and the conflicts between the people of colors are increasing, not to mention the insane brainwashing that goes on through the media and TV and what not. Back then the US was ahead of its time, right now it is just as stagnant as the USSR was in the 80s.
@@ploopploopploopboop1887Boo Boo poor you!
@@ploopploopploopboop1887Well, this is 1930-40 US. Wasn’t quite the oligarchy we have today yet.
i went to the US as a child the first time from Hungary at 93' and this was still true. We were culture shocked about how people acted with us and with each other. It was so different then what we had here.
My great uncle had a map he kept of his campaign thru Germany. Notes were marked at parts saying things like charred woman with child, piles of bodies, town completely destroyed. Lost Freddy to a mine, Steve shot by sniper. I can not express my appreciation to him nor to all of the remaining members of the greatest generation enough. You all carried us thru a time a can only imagine. It breaks my heart to see what the nation has become.
Yes it does.😭 Insurrectionists wanting to put a dictator over us being lauded as patriots!😱🤮🤬😭
I like how he starts to fall asleep and then does another rail and comes back super amped.
i was in the army from early 1969 - early 1971, late 69 to early 71 i was stationed in Germany, the old American Western movies and tv shows were popular, they thought that was how we still lived. i had several people ask me if we were still fighting indian wars
.
Akira Kurosawa was inspired to become a film maker by American westerns.
The Japanese didn't send their soldiers care packages like Americans did, so in most cases all a Japanese soldier had for entertainment was stuff looted from captured American positions. So they read American books and magazines, played American games, listened to American music, and watched American movies. Film projectors and reels were highly prized by the Japanese and they'd always look for them when they took a base.
Kurosawa fell in love with cowboy movies and wanted to make his own when he returned home after the war. But Japan never had a frontier era like the US, so Japanese cowboys didn't really make sense, and no Japanese person wanted to watch a movie about America in the 40's.
But, they might not have had a frontier era, but they DID have the warring states period (which, fun coincidence, partially overlapped with the wild west; the sengoku jidai ended in the mid 1800's) and they might not have had cowboys, but they did have samurai. And this is why you see a lot of the same themes and tropes cropping up in his movies and old westerns alike.
Actually, a few years ago The Magnificent Seven came out. That's a retelling of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, which was inspired by westerns, as a western.
You'll STILL get that nonsense if you're from the plains states and visit either coast.
we in berlin got alot of those sort of storiese from the osties when the wall came down..... had several encounters with former POW and with battle of berlin surviviors
@@Siege924 That's ridiculous. No American living still thinks we're fighting Indians. I've been to California a multitude of times. The only Indians an American is fighting in 2023 is when you argue with the guy at the gas station.
Yes there are stupid people there, but not THAT stupid.
"Your teutonic mind is overworked" lol love that
I think a part of why Germany has so readily come back to stand alongside the other western nations rather than holding a grudge for their defeat is how humanely we seemed to have treated many of their POWs. If any of them had any experience with how their own nation had treated POWs, im sure the mercy we showed them must have been a shock. Obviously not all of them, im sure many were treated poorly especially in nations theyd successfully occupied previously, but the west did not in general sink to the level of barbarity the Axis powers had when they had the upper hand.
1000% right! Stalin executed 3.7 MILLION Soviet POW’s. When gauging all countries, chose where you would most like to be a POW or in Prison. Western Europe, Canada and US would be too choice to anyone knowing the difference.
The Japanese Americans got a raw deal though.
@@diabeticmonkeynot nearly as bad as Allies held in Japanese POW camps tho.. and in Nanking and those experimented on by unit 731
@@diabeticmonkeySome Japanese ate American POWs.
@@shadowling77777 That's not entirely relevant. The Japanese killed members of my family during the war. I saw photos from the Rape of Nanking when I was a kid. My family is Chinese and my great-grandfather who I had the privilege of knowing fought the Japanese when they invaded his homeland.
But Japanese were Americans were...you know, Americans. They had as much to do with the Japanese POW camps as the average Midwestern American had to do with 9/11
39:47 "He was really old, about 35" OOF
i did TEN years in Federal Prison. It's amazing how earily familiar this story feels.
So many parallels. I actually got out with a sense of patriotism after that l. This country and it's people are blessed. Sometimes it takes losing everything to see it.
80% of Russian boys died by the end of the Great War! 11M Red Army soldiers, while the US lost 300K! The Red Army fought 200+ German divisions, the Sand Britain, Ten! By the time the Red Army crushed the Germans at Stalingrad, they had killed off 80+% of all the Germans, soft when D-day came the German military force was depleted and softened up. When The Red Army smashed Berlin and stuck the Soviet Flag at the top of the Reichstag and Won the War, 27-30M Soviets died and 400K Americans. So you are correct the Soviets almost lost its entire male population to defeat the Germans and saved the world from NAZI power.
you mean save the current power structure. germany just wanted to be left alone/not have the versailles stuff. the soviets were teh baddies.@@thehealthychefri
@thehealthychefri unfortunately look what the Soviets did afterwards , not much better
Then the reds went on to kill even more of their own countrymen.
@@thehealthychefri
The African theatre was WHERE American military might was born. We learned so much about command structures from myriad mistakes vis-a-vis infighting and poor communication. We fortified those lessons in the European theatre.
Rommel made men out of the US military...
German soldiers observed about the American Army that they had never encountered an army that 1) started out knowing so little and 2) learned so quickly.
There was a prisoner of war camp sighted very close to where I grew up in Middlesex. It was turned into a temporary school after the war. Apparently the guards used to open the gates every morning and the prisoners would march out to their jobs on the local farms. In the evening they would all return to the camp. None tried to escape. They were happy to be out of the war. A chap I knew said that he and other kids went up there and the prisoners gave them rides on their tractors.
My mother was a young girl in Illinois during the war. There was a pow camp outside of town and she said the Germans would wave at them.
Listening to a story sometimes gives us a much better picture than an actual picture. I always enjoy the comment section, much history in this section also.
What picture? They were defeated and treated better than our prisoners. Dude is from Tunisia and complaining about the Texas heat? Seems a little self-centered, buy hey, it's a German with a diary, what to expect?
When I was a teenager I spent 4 weeks during the winter living in an old POW barracks in Battle Creek Michigan. It was part of a free GED program I had volunteered for as a teenager, thinking I'd save myself some money. When we arrived we were told the barracks buildings that all of us were being quartered in were the ones that hadn't been been changed yet since the German POW's were there in World War 2 other than fresh paint and a more modern heater, we even had the same bed frames just newer mattresses. There were a lot of troops there at the time for some reason doing training exercises so basically we got what was left and us girls happened to get the one the heater was broken in. We slept in all the clothing we'd been given or had had to bring with us including coats and hats and nobody had to hurry us through showers 😆 but luckily we still had hot water. It wasn't too bad and I thought the beds are comfortable and luckily we didn't have to stay there as long as most groups that cycled through because they had too many more men coming in that needed the barracks we were using. I'd been learning about World War 2 since I was a young child so I considered it pretty neat to get to stay in a piece of history like that the way it had been before they changed them. It snowed nearly every day for the first 2 weeks we spent there.
That's Fort Custer. I trained there a few times while in the Marine Corps back in the 90s. The barracks were still old and the heater didn't work in our building.
Thanks for the post. I've always been fascinated by both sides of a conflicts.
Very balanced video. 😊
Thank you for telling their story!My father in the US Navy and brother with the Army " Red Ball Express". Dad toll me about how to treat POW'S. REMEMBER American POW'S are helded in their camps. BM2 (Sw-Aw) Herndon, William USNRET.
Thank you for the narration of a great tale of the German POWs. There has been very little that I have read about them.
@noahkleugh9323 Sir You're most welcome! I'm glad you enjoyed the story about German POWs. It's essential to shed light on lesser-known aspects of history. If you have any more topics or stories you'd like to explore, feel free to let me know. Thank you for your interest and support!
You may enjoy the book titled "Fish Out of Water: Nazi Submariners as Prisoners in North Louisiana During World War II"
you can also watch youtube video on it , but its not as detailed as the book.
It's about Camp Ruston - according to Wikipedia Camp Ruston in Louisiana was an "Area Camp with 9 Branch Camps. Capacity for 4800 at main camp. 3 POW compounds, 2 Enlisted, 1 Officer, Hospital Compound, American Compound.
Housed diverse groups of POWs ranging from Afrika Corp troops, Italian, Yugoslavian, Chechen, Russian conscripts and others. Later known as an anti-Nazi camp where many intellectuals, artist, writers were among the POWs.
The U-505 crew was kept incommunicado in NE compound. Only 1 escapee that was never recaptured who returned to Germany via Mexico.
Extensive archive collection of photographs, interviews, art, stone castle, and other memorabilia housed in LA Tech archives provided by Camp Ruston Foundation."
@@mrmookypooky Sir is this book based on memoirs of submarine crew and do you think its worthy to have a full complete series made on it ,if yes please let us know ,we would love to have a series on it
@@WW2Tales Yes, I think it would be worth it. It's more about what life in the camp is like than what their experience on the subs was though.
The book I mentioned does come with some images. I'm sure there are other images and perhaps memoirs of this time in other writings. The book I mentioned is great, but a very short read and it might be difficult to do a comprehensive video, but I believe you are a good story teller so go for it!
A note of thanks to the producers of this series. The stories have the ring of truth. The narrator does good work, hopefully making a living doing this. German accented American English? British?
During the first great war American troops were transported to Europe aboard converted passenger liners, among these was the impounded German liner called "Vaterland." The US renamed her "Leviathan."
This ship had a tendency to pitch and roll uncomfortably, causing much sea-sickness. The standard joke; "We are being torpedoed!" The reply; "Thank God."
I read that in a book about ocean liners.
@andywomack3414 "Thank you so much for your kind words and for sharing this interesting tidbit about the 'Vaterland' turned 'Leviathan'! We truly appreciate your support and are delighted to know that you find our series authentic. Our narrator is indeed doing great work ,his accent is British , and your encouragement means a lot to us. Stay tuned for more fascinating stories, and feel free to share any more insights you may have. 😊
I think the narration is computer generated. Too many words mispronounced in the series.
@@brucecaldwell6701 If it was, AI is scarier than I thought. I am not a pronunciation purist, and now I will listen for that. Thanks.
Lol hilarious😂😂
AI is now the norm in our world.
My father was second in command of an Italian POW camp in Colton, California during the war. He said the POWs loved it in America, and didn’t want to go back at war’s end.
Whenever countries make fun of the US, heres one thing they don’t realize:
The United States is so big that you can fit east and west Germany inside of California.
So whenever people make fun of how the US is being managed, remember that Europe was brought to its knees by the equivalent to a couple of counties in California and they’re wondering how one guy is having such a hard time managing the US.
Saskatchewan can fit 2 germanys (after they had 1/3 of their land stolen) inside of it and still have a bit or room left over
On one hand, America number 9ne for having to save Europe, but on the other hand saying Joe Biden is having a hard time because the US isn't the size of California is massive lefty cope.. If he cant handle being the president of the United States, why do you all still want him in office?
Don’t forget the 340 million people in the US too. Were the third largest by population, only behind China and India.
That's no excuse for stupidity, corruption, and treason.
And we are not supposed have a one-man government in the first place.
@@sanniepstein4835we don’t have a one man gov. Dumb people just set their expectations as such because the media has only ever cared about presidential elections. people listen to emotionally charged media, and believe it eventually. The nation has accepted beaming propaganda into people’s houses for decades and your surprised their ideas are bad? Their parents and grandparents brains are rotted and their children’s brains are melting at rates never seen before with TikTok and UA-cam.
how neat! I have visited that POW camp museum in Hearne with my Mother-in-law. The lady than managed the museum was full of great stories that mirror this former POW!
My grandfather was fortunate enough to have really crap eyesight during WW2,(He worked the oilfields in Oklahoma at the time, which made his job a much needed necessity for oil production to fuel the American homeland. His younger brother signed up and served in the 82nd though. According to my great uncle, once he and his fellow troops found the train cars and camps, it was hard to take prisoners..
At 43:02, he mentions 'Corn Flakes" for breakfast.....I live in Battle Creek MI, home of Kellogg's, maker of Corn Flakes, my dad worked there for 35 years! Crazy!
Our school visited the Kellogg's plant. It was heaven. We got several mini cereal boxes. The sweet kind my parents never bought.
My Great Uncle was a General in the Afrika Corp under Rommel. While the other side of my family was in the US srmy and landed in Italy and France.
i'm happy this channel showed up in my feed and i honestly enjoyed hearing what some German Servicemen thought of the U.S.
I'm Subscribed and happily so... Cheers
Awesome, thank you Sir
This is such a fantastic perspective to listen to.
@doodoopoop435 Glad you liked it
From what I've been told my grandfather was a very nervous man. He was also about the nicest most kindest, and honest individual you probably would ever meet in your life. The story goes that my grandfather was so crippled by his anxiety and nervousness that they actually requested my grandmother to come live, or live closer, to the camp he was based at in order to help him. Among the duties that my grandfather was assigned to was attending to the officers uniforms and clothing ironing them, mess hall duty, and also prisoner guard duty. He told my mom once that he handed his rifle to a German POW so that he could tie his boots/shoes. I remember thinking to myself yep that is definitely Grandpa Joe.
My grandfather was also Jewish. Another interesting thing that was told to me, was that on occasion the army officers would ask or request him to remove his hat/cap. It seems to request was to identify whether or not he had "horns on his head." When he told me that he would always laugh about it.
It seems the only time that he ever actually went on the front line was during the German offensive in the The Battle of the Bulge. I think they pretty much threw everyone on the font line. I'm not sure if it was him or what the case was, but I think he convinced his company or a good portion it to go on half rations in order to help feed people in Holland. Both Americans and locals were starving at that time. One village in particular was mentioned but I don't remember the name. All I have of him now are just stories and memories. The story of the German POW holding his rifle so that he could tie his boots was definitely best one.
In other words, the German prisoners were treated well, unlike our prisoners
POW treatment always goes with the resource available. There were account of British POWs taken by Japanese in Malaysia and Singapore. Those in Singapore have access to clean clothing but always staved while those in Malaysia lacked everything except food and water.
For that comment 2 weeks in the Cooler. Just like Steve McQueen 😅
The problem with that assessment is how FDR mistreated the Japanese-Americans into camps after Pearl Harbor (which Elinor Roosevelt and half the US public thought was horrible to imprison Japanese who are now American) and that despite the ideology by Hitler, elements of the US public still to some degree respected the ordinary German who wasn't exactly aligned with the Nazis.
For example, elements of the former Austrian-Hungarian Empire and the Habsburgs fought against the Nazis, yet the common Allied foot soldier didn't know the difference between the different Germans. The Battle at Castle Itter in 1945 showed that NOT all Germans were fanatics like Hitler. Yet, since 1945, the victors of WW2 have written the story.
@@SolidAvenger1290I think you’re comparing apples and oranges, especially comparing civilian detention to POW’s. Now if you compared US treatment of their own civilians to Germany’s treatment of their own civilian during ww2, it’s obviously a pretty stark contrast. Not everything can just be blamed on the “victor” writing history.
Not really, only Russians were treated abysmally, Americans/British/French (especially officers and higher ranks) had good treatment if they could afford it even the SS adhered to it until late in the war when they could no longer permit taking units to the rear in their final showdowns.
My wife's father was a corpsman on a hospital train in North Africa, Italy, and France.
My dad was in Africa based in Egypt as a young officer in 1939-1945 with the British Indian Army.
Thank you for sharing. Story's like this is what really gives perspective.
I remember being served dinner in the mess hall at Camp Devens by German POWs. Everybody treated them respectfully. 1945.
@edwardgabriel5281 Sir thank you so much for sharing your memories with us ,please check our latest series ,its about a German Pow who escaped from Camp Deming, New Mexico
No more brother wars
@@stevencooper4422we're all brothers.
I can understand that you were an enemy but still a person doing your duty as a soldier. God help a soldier. Awful people were on both sides. This is sad and shows the horrendous side of war. Save us Father from the hate given by men
There are always evil and good people on every nation in every war. Most wars are started by few ambitious and greedy men.....and tens of thousands or millions pay for that ambition.
@@freedomfirst5557politicians fight and soldiers die
It’s not that simple lol
makes me happy to be an american knowing we treated these young pow men well
My uncle was an MP and did a couple of trips across the Atlantic ferrying PWs to the US. I got the impression that the PWs were well behaved on the whole. Many were farm kids and used to hard work.
Several submariners in Tempe, Arizona escaped with the idea of floating down the Gila River to the Sea of Cortez. Unfortunately for them, the river is dry much of the year. One held out for quite a while by stealing food and clothes from the locals.
My father in law was in the military in WW2. He was in Intelligence. When him and his wife were stationed in Florida there was a German PoW camp there. She said the men were all polite and handsome folk. They ate food that the barracks fixed for them.
This story would make a compelling movie...
My grandfather lived in a town where German pows would come in to a camp in Nebraska. They would come in the middle of the night and everyone had to turn their lights off so no pow would know his way around. The camp had their own soccer team and they would play other pow camps.
I lived in FT Meade VA domiciliary in the family housing, they had houses and building that went back to Custers last stand. The building i stayed in once housed German Pows, they built some of it and the basement had all handmade German wood designs it was really cool. There wasn't a lot of guards and the German Pows never tried to escape because the local were all armed cowboys. Many of the German Pows just worked around the fort mostly unguarded and help in the hospital. From what i was told many of the Germans tried to stay or went to Germany and tried to bring their family back. I think they were quietly glad to be out of the war it was a slaughter for them, and they knew it, they were never a problem and did what they were told to almost unguarded.
At camp Atterbury in Indiana my grandfather use to take me there to learn how to drive. He showed me where the German pows were kept and also showed me a church that the Germans built while there.
Fun fact african American soldiers had to ride on older worse trains than the German pow and had to be segregated, basically black soldiers were treated worse than German pows
Forced on suicide missions, such as physically clearing minefields with no gear, being bait to reveal the enemy positions, and having to serve German pows as if they are of higher status.
There’s a few documentaries about this, despite this fact African American soldiers did some of the most influential missions that they never get credit for
I think a lot of this had to do with Operation Paperclip as well to gain favor with German specialists in the aftermath of WW2 as a lure to surrender to us instead of the Soviets.
I always thought they hired the German pows into nasa
@@kcflick6132 every one of them? So some tailor before the war? No brother it was just a few scientists from Italy and Germany. Most of which were considered undesirables by the nazis but an asset so they would have been treated quite horribly, they knew even if forced to make weapons for the Americans, at least they would be safe and have a full belly in America
Did you hear that from actual veterans or from academic 'activists'? Most black soldiers were kept away from combat functions, working in supply or service units, there's lots of evidence of discrimination and segregation, but this stuff about clearing minefields with no gear or 'being bait to reveal enemy positions' is pure bullshit.
German prisoners had better treatment than Japanese Americans who didn't fight for the enemy
my grandfather worked for the army air corp during the war as a civil servant . used to deliver parts and supplies to camp ellis , a pow camp /airfield . he went to have lunch in the base cafeteria. he said he could not believe the menu and food served the pows . he politely told not to say anything , because the civilians were food and gas rationing. willy ( pronounced villy ) an ethnic friend of ours escaped from camp ellis . he told us that the trip from the east coast , to illinois took over a week by rail . a trip that usually would take only a few days . but that the rail lines were so clogged with traffic carrying military ordinance the were stopped and side lined over ten times . willy said he didn't know why in the hell he and seven others decided to escape . they got good food , cloths , boots and warm quarters and a bunk . plus local farmers would pay them to work . instead of escaping south to mexico , they went north to chicago or anywhere else there was a victory war plant , and worked till the end of the war. overtime , was not paid until the end of the war with interest . when germany surendered they turned them selves in to the authorities. with germany in ruins , they supported their families back home for years .
I live in Houston and have passed the Hearne camp many times. Hearne was chosen due to its large German population.
Now I wanted to watch a movie like this, An Ordinary German Soldier captured and sent to America as a POW, focusing on the daily life of being a prisoner there.
Really old he was 35. Only a 19 year old would say that.
I like the humanity displayed by these "enemy" fellows.
We are all the same.
When he recited the the inscription on the Statue of Liberty,
shivers.
Just imagine what those immigrants felt inside when they first laid eyes on that monument to human compassion.
My Dad, Ray A Johnsen ,was a Naval officer on a troop ship in WW2, and was picking up german POW's in north Africa. He also was a the invasion of siclly, and then D Day, He was off the Noth Korean course during The Korean war, after being at the Fourth atomic bomb explosion in july 1946, at bikini atoll. Dad was 11,000 yards away, and contacted a cancer from it that killed Him in 1987, The US Goverment sent me 75K in resteration, just last month....
The japanese realized they had no chance when they foundout we had naval ships dedicated soley to MAKING ICE CREAM. the germans found out when they found a bunch of supply trucks filled with fresh cakes while they were rationing whatever they could get their hands on
My home town had a pow camp. I live in a small town in northern Iowa called algona. Our airport was a pow camp back during ww2 and my middle school had a bomb shelter in the basement. The pows were treated so well they actually hand carved a nativity scene. You can still visit this nativity scene to this day! If you ever want to check something cool out in the mid west this area has a lot of cool hidden secrets!
Proud to be an American 🇺🇸
Great account, great narration. Nazi Germany had to be defeated. But because of the evil of Naziism, common grunts and civilians like this teen suffered horrible lives…and ugly deaths sometimes. He was just a common grunt.
Will defeated the lesser of 2 evils! Communism was and is still the greater evil! At least for anglos it is! Nazis didn’t hate my for simply existing! Communist do! And honestly? WW2 had no good guys! The Allies committed the same atrocities as the Axis did! We destroyed Germany for wanting a ethno state. Just so the jews could spend the next 70 years destroying Palestine trying to form a ethno state? If you agreed with the former? Your labeled a bigot. If you disagree with the ladder? Your labeled a bigot? Can we say hypocrisy and double standards!
People like the look back and pretend every soldier was a willing participant. If the U.S had a draft, i dont know why theyd think Nazi Germany wouldn't, and once Germany had started losing and Allied troops were overtaking the country I doubt the military cared very much how people felt about having to fight.
It’s all too easy to forget that all sides in war use regular people like us to fight their wars. Humanity is universal.
This account right here is why I absolutely hate the "every member of the Wehrmacht was inherently bad" narrative.
We had a POW camp for german officers and airmen near my small town in Ontario Canada. Theres a small museum (now closed) with some momentos and pictures life at the camp. Few pictures of the guards tryin to teach them to play hockey😂 there is also a preserved mural of a map of the world one of the germans painted from memory.
I'm really confused, why is the audio levels getting lower and lower over time? 21 minutes in and I have the volume at 100% but can barely hear anything.
Why did you not post the sequences of the stories..I loved hearing the other side of the war, but find it hard to locate the next in line....
Excellent i felt i was with the narrator
@jackpirie7382 sir thanks for liking :)
This need to be a movie. Stories on Axis side mainly involving idividuals who saw the cruelty and still remianed with their humanity. Like the story of Castle Itter in Austria its also know as "The Battle of Castle Itter".
Great narration, very interesting but have this sense of being an unfinished story. Great, none the less.
@ernestothebesto.8357 sir we are gonna upload the next part in a short while
The best example of this is the German officer eating German Chocolate Cake.
Excellent recount of the experiences of a German POW. Terrible volume - was glad of the CC button!
Growing up as a military brat (born 1945), I had the opportunity of seeing quite a few POW camps in Eastern and Central USA. Much better than the camp I saw in Britain, 1951-52.
Really enjoying these; even with the AI narration sometimes hilarious pronunciations "A man nae-med Rolf" "A City closed (close) to my homey town he was a Quie-et older man who'd been a teacher. We heeded out....." @ 37.24-27
I love this channel, and the storeis. And also marvel at the narrator, who has a great voice, clear pronounciation.He sounds like a very british and bit posh. Then suddenly at certain points pronounce certain familiar words like "named" or "Hometown" in a very avantgarde ways. :)
It's a computer generated voice.
@@briancarton1804 Figured as much. I chuckle everytime i hear it pronounce something very common, in very uncommon ways.
My father served as a guard on one of those liberty ships, bringing pows back to the US.
I live right next to a German pow, in Roswell nm. There is even a park called iron cross park where the pows made a iron cross out of stone against a wall of a ditch
Interesting and informative. Excellent photography picture 📷 of the ( POW's).Enabling viewers to better understand what the orator was describing. Nice cleanly looking prisoner outfits/probably comfortably fitting foot wear to ( Boot ). Very humanly treated/well fed/medically tended to/decently sheltered. Had other German soldiers knew of the above mentioned amenities. 1000's more would have voluntarily surrendered while there was still time. (POW) Destiny wasn't as pleasurable amongst French captives. I certainly wouldn't have been too home sick. To return to bombed out/devastated Berlin.
@asullivan4047 beautifully summed up by you
INdeed. That is the value of treating POWs humanely and with care, without torture and abuse.
@@NathanTarantlawriter "Absolutely! Treating POWs with humanity and care is a testament to our shared values of compassion and respect, even during challenging times
My grandfather's brothers were farners in Kansas and they had German soldiers working for them during the war. Their own father had emigrated from to the US from Germany, and they could speak to the prisoners without an interpreter. They said ther Germans liked it in Kansas, it was much like where a number of them had come from.
30:40 the Germans being passed through Texarkana the town of my birth is pretty cool.
Both my parents were in WW2 in the US Coast Guard and my father was on a Coast Cutter given to the Russians (when they were considered Brothers In Arms) lt was a tragedy that we ever helped Stalin out ! It was Josef Gobbels who stated that Stalin would control Bulgaria Poland Romania Hungary and East Germany ! Stalin was just as bad as Hitler ! My great dream (i was born on May 15th 1951) was that Germany would be reunited as one nation again ! I hated & still hate Comunisium more than anything else in this world and willto my dying day !
@StevenBaird-lq9st Thank you for sharing your family's connection to WWII, and your perspective on the historical events. It's evident that the impact of that era has left a lasting impression on you. The complexities of alliances during the war and the aftermath have indeed been a topic of much debate. Your strong sentiments against communism are noted, and it's clear that these historical events continue to shape your views. Your input is valued.
29:14 the mention of food, maaaan those POWs must have felt like the luckiest people in the world when they saw real food
could you fix the volume issue? it fades out at some point and then comes back normal. not the first time i noticed
@jean-francoislemieux5509 sir the issue is fixed in the later videos ,please check the other videos in playlist
When the Germans made it to the states they had it on easy street.
Tough life in America as a POW… Homesickness was brutal… wonder how the comrades in Siberia were fairing.
sort out your audio levels please!
I've seen several of these stories where the headlines is a statement made by a German pow but they never make the statement in the story.whats with that??
this guy is so German. Tells a nurse that him and her would be having a party if he was back in Germany and can't understand why she reacted negatively!
"Your tectonic mind is overworked" lol
My father and 2 of my uncle’s were there, U.S army .
@MegaRiffraff Sir Huge respect for the services of your father and uncles. Can you kindly share some of their memories with us here ,like there units name ,regiments ,Battles where they participated .Regards
My grandfather was there as well he was a military chaplain Milford Barrick
My father was a master sergeant, the last survivor of his unit in the Battle of the Bulge. He rounded up other survivors and kept fighting, earning a Purple Heart and another battle star. I have very few happy memories of him because of what is now called PTSD. I won't reveal more, but I suspect that our GIs were not the only ones to suffer, even well after the end of the war. It's grim, but more needs to be said, on all sides.@@WW2Tales
Not that prisoners should be treated like animals but they certainly had it good. They were treated better than any other POW in the world and treated better than our own destitute.
Listening to this makes me pray even harder for no more brother wars. The more astute among us know well and good who started them based on who they ultimately benefited
You mean the rich European nobles that set the groundwork for both world wars?
What's a 'brother war'? I'm worried with you saying there's some sort of shadowy group who set-up these wars and then ('ultimately') benefited from them that there may be some WW2-era views alive and kicking!
@@SamDurkSheff I think it’s pretty self explanatory - and why so worried? Because Mr shekelberg in Hollywood told you how scary and evil they were your whole life? Moreover, for expressing concern about my people killing eachother in the millions, thereby shrinking our even smaller global presence, I’m the bad guy? I’m the one with the views that make you ‘worried’? I’m simply interested in the preservation of my people.
This was recorded by having the narrator chase a microphone tied to a truck.
my man you gotta regulate the volume. it is so quiet at points that should an ad come up it nearly blows my speakers, and then at other times it is extraordinarily loud.
You really need to get the volume ironed out. It was up and down all the time. and when it was low i had to get a volume booster addon. Just for your videos.
Watching one of the parts to this, the German prisoner had stated about a difference in the German soldiers in his camp and what he was saying, sounded like like a German POW was saying in the 1990 movie The Incident starring Walter Matthau. Matthau was his lawyer defending him for murdering a camp doctor and the POW blamed the killing on the Lager-Gestapo who were also prisoners of that camp. He then tells Matthau's character that if he's going to hate Nazi's, he should learn who killed the doctor and another POW. He then says that in Berlin, it's 1944 but in camp, it's 1941. He then alludes that they believe North Africa has been re-captured by Rommel, Stalingrad has been renamed Hitlergrad and many American cities have been destroyed. This created huge conflicts by those who don't know the reality of what happened since their capture in 1941 and those who were captured in 1944 and do know.
22:21 - holy crap, had to crank the volume just to hear anything... Then it's like "SHOUTS IN TWO LANGUAGES RANG OUT ABOVE"
@tetsujin_144 Sir it was a bug ,which we were unable to fix despite all the efforts in initial days of this channel ,it was fixed in subsequent playlists ,kind regards
Interesting video, thank you. In West Michigan, a German POW escaped on a Sunday and then gave himself up at a farmhouse. The Michigan family fed him Sunday dinner and then drove him back to the POW camp. I don't know if this is "lore" but I guess it's interesting, as most Americans are of German descent. Thank you.
I wouldn't say most are of German decent. Not sure about the 1940s, but right now it's about 12% of the total population. Michigan has some large German settlements though, so that may skew one's view.
Interesting story, well narrated. Volume maxed on YT and PC. It's a shame I could not hear several minutes of the dialog. I think you need to do much better with your audio.
@charlesferris2317 sir you would not find this issue in upcoming videos ,gonna fix it
In the mean time, earbuds/headphones.
I am close to being deaf, so I use the closed captions feature. It works well and if you enable it you won't miss a thing.
I had a number of audio fluctuations as well.
A good suggestion for some, but the headphones with my desktop were unhelpful.@@spikespa5208
whats wrong with the volume?
He's was really old, 35...
Shots fired :(