I worked with a woman whose dad was a German POW captured in France and who had been in Russia. He was sent to the UK then onto the US where he was sent picking cotton 12 hours a day. He said this was the happiest time in his life - plenty to eat, never cold, no one trying to kill him and good bosses. He married a local girl and had a bunch of children - anytime they were naughty, her mother would say, ‘that’s the German in you coming out’, her dad would just laugh and say, “your mother’s alway right”.
The same happened to POWs sent to Canada. Camps up in Northern Ontario, but plenty of food, decent quarters and warm clothing as they cut trees for the duration. Many of them stayed on and married local women. Neys provincial part was the location of one of these camps, I worked there one summer. Everything is gone but you can still find bits of fence posts and barbed wire, and foundations for the camp buildings.
@@PeterNebelung Ditto for the German POW Camps in the Rocky Mtns West of Calgary. Many of the POWs were from the Africa Corps captued in Libya. It was like a holiday camp. Great food, like they hadn't had since they left home. Old WW1 Vets as guards, who understood frontline troops. They built Roads & Trails in the Parks around Banff. I wonder if they got in any skiing? Many returned as Immigrants after the war ended. They mostly became solid Cdn Citizens.
An old Italian patient in a general practice in Florence told me once that for a little act interpreted as insubordination was sent in Africa as Italy started the war. There he was captured and sent in Scotland to work for a farmer. He treated him as a son and he had the best memories of that period. The rest of his company in Florence was then sent in Russia and no one made it back home.
My uncle joined the Eastern front in May 1942 19 yrs old. He was with the 14. Panzerdivision which had two Infanterieunits. Panzergrenadier Regiment 103 and 108. He was with 103. My uncle was Obergefreiter. He was in the battle for Charkov and after that they headed down to Stalingrad. The 14. PD reached the Wolga as the first German Unit south of Stalingrad. My uncle got hit in the head by a sniper and survived. After a long stay in Hospital he was with Panzergrenadierregiment 1028. In February 1944 his Unit was sent from Germany to Anzio by train. When the train drove into the station near the front it was completely destroyed by American carpet bombing raid, so he died in the train at age of 21. He is buried south of Rome in Pomezia......
My father was at ANZIO WITH THE BRITISH ARMY 1944 HE WAS BADLY WOUNDED SO THAT WAS THE END OF HIS WAR HE SURVIVED BUT SADLY DIED IN 1968 HE WAS ONLY 47 HIS BROTHER WAS KILLED IN ACTION AT ST VALERY JUNE 1940 HE WAS WITH THE BLACKWATCH ROYAL HIGHLANDERS WITH THE 51ST HIGHLAND DIVISION
@@thomasshepard6030 Sorry I'm confused did you also post the comment above about an Uncle who was at Stalingrad injured then killed on a train to Anzio? both posts look to be under same name
My grandfather got lucky he was in the 6th Army, as they approached Stalingrad. He developed acute appendix@@ and send back for operation & recuperation.
@k.k.9011 Well he survived the war. 7 years of war 4 of those years on the Eastern front where he got 2 Iron Crosss. I'm sure he had seen his share of falling Russians ?
Stories such as these always remind me of my great-uncle Tommy, a butcher & horse-trainer, who ended up volunteering for the AIF ( Australian Army ) after having received a ‘white feather ‘ in the letter box. A member of the Anglo-Australian-Dutch ‘Sparrow Force’ in Japanese - occupied Portuguese Timor ( now Timor Leste ) , he was wounded & captured by the IJA. And spent years in captivity under the delicate auspices of the Japanese Army in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Thai / Burmese border. I shan’t detail what little that he told us, his family, about it, it’s simply too dreadful to recount,…he’d go decades without speaking about it, attended no marches, reunions, or memorials,.and I believe that, like my grandfather, a veteran of the Greek , Syrian, and New Guinea campaigns , he burned anything given to him by the Army in a backyard incinerator. He had welt - like scars absolutely covering the skin of his back that were gruesome to see, and he’d always claim that he got them due to some sort of ‘accident’ as a naughty boy. He was mistakenly declared as dead in some sort of error made by the Red Cross, and his first wife remarried whilst he was a POW due to this. He claimed that he managed to live partially due to the bravery & kindness of a decent Japanese camp guard, who used to sneak handfuls of rice and vegetables to some of the prisoners in the dead of night, at mortal risk to himself. My uncle was a bare few kilograms in weight upon liberation, and spent many months in intensive care & recuperation upon returning to Australia. Some of his mates did not survive after being liberated, & died days, weeks, and some even months after the collapse of the Japanese empire. I wish that he’d lived long enough to see the development of oral histories recorded with WW2 veterans as featured online. Who knows ? Perhaps he might, finally, have conceded to talking about it all if I could’ve convinced him to do so.
if he had received 2 white feathers, would that have been sufficient to join the RAAF? A feather each side to assist flight? Anyway....from the behaviour about him, that you have described... maybe he should have got mental or pychological help. I mention this as this sort of behaviour was common among the fellows with PTSD from traumatic experiences, like near death, or being in amongst the the killings.... and then surviving, after evryone or almost everyone else has been killed. Common consequences of drinking / drugs too much, spousal relationship problems etc etc.... it wears them (everyone involved) down... Anyway, I am sorry to hear about your uncles WW2 service and capture experiences in the Pacific.... the starvation and disease......... and bayonet practice on some groups of POW by the Japanese (REF: @ Tol Plantation, East New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea) was just unimaginable. These small detachments like Sparrow, Lark and suchlike were very much on their own.... no supplies, no back up, no nothing...... and once they got caught, your life expectancy was very much reduced, either from being murdered by the Japanese, or starvation by them. Execution by beheading with a sword in PNG and neighbouring island territories by the Japanese forces was also a feature for those small independent (Australian, but you are on your own) forces, if they got caught............If wounds or disease didn't get you first. Photo's and articles are on the internet.....
My father and his older brother were POWs captured by the Soviets. My father was captured near the end of the War, in Czechoslovakia, then transferred to Romania and then Ukraine. It lasted 18 months for him, from mid 1945 until late 1946. His brother was at Stalingrad and was taken prisoner as well. He spent 4 years in various places from 1943 until 1947. He lost a leg during that time, but he never complained. He used the time better than my father did, by learning Russian, Hungarian and Romanian. My father, who was uninjured, was always whining and complaining about everything. They had 2 very different personalities. There were 2 other brothers as well who were in Poland. They were wounded but returned. They also never complained.
I couldn't imagine shitting on my father for complaining about being a POW and being in the most deadly war of human history. If that's not something to complain about, then I don't know what is. Your dad brothers for sure complained, and you're naive to think they didn't.
First of all I am not shitting on my father. You don't k now what you are talking about. I have met all of my uncles. Their stories were worse than his but they never whined about it. You keep your infantile mouth shut. Got it, kid? @@Madlux14
These diary readings are haunting and eerie. My grandfather was in the Italian navy during the time of Mussolini and WW2. When the allies landed in Sicily he knew it was over. He left his post and walked 40 kilometers all the way home. Dodging German patrols.
@insideimagery133 Too bad Franco of Spain and Salazar of Portugal failed to realize how the world would turn out if Germany lost the war. IMO, if they could've seen the future, I think Spain and Portugal would've gone to the wall for Germany in WW2.
A friend I was working with years ago told me his grandfather's WW2 experience. He ended up in Marine boot camp at 19yrs.old.Upon completion of bootcamp he was sent to S.F., eventually put on a troop ship headed for the S.Pacific to fight the Japanese. The time came, he was put on a LST to storm a beach. When he went to jump into water a Japanese bullet struck him in the ankle. A medic pulled him back into the LST. He was sent home after recovery. He added that he was a lucky one.
I bet he did think that he was a lucky one, with a "million-dollar" wound, as the G.I.'s used to call it--because getting sent home, with such a non-disabling wound, or injury, in combat--was worth a million dollars...to them! He might have had trouble walking, he might have been limping for the rest of his life, but everything else--including his mind--was still intact. Plus, he was a Purple Heart veteran, who everybody looked up to, limping or not. Very few guys ran or deserted, but many hoped they'd get a wound like a stray enemy bullet in the ankle, or a few slugs in the ass, in combat, so they could legitimately get out of the hell and horror of combat. And yet, many often left hospitals, not fully recovered, to go back to that same hell--because combat was their destiny--the only thing that they knew, and wanted. And whether they lived or not, very few shrank from it. Nothing in civilian life can ever begin to compare to it, nor ever will. How long did John Basilone sell war bonds, as a decorated hero, before running back, as quick as he could get it, to the most dangerous job on earth (knowing that his luck was about to run out, too, didn't matter to him)? During WWII, unlike later wars, most guys rushed to enlist, and if they tried and were rejected, it was such a disgrace, that a few killed themselves, if they couldn't get in. There was even a 14 year old, who lied about his age, just to get into the Navy, and saw combat, manning an anti-aircraft gun on a carrier, during the battle of Santa Cruz, during the Guadalcanal campaign.
@@michaeltotten7508 I read the story of Audie Murphy and his fellow infantry men who had survived over 200 days of near constant combat. These guys had charged machine gun nests, tanks and all manner of combat danger. Yet they survived. It was estimated that less than 7% made it through what they did. I saw Audie Murphy's movie, To Hell and Back and it didn't show even 25% of what he actually did in the war. If they did it would have looked too over the top.
@matchrocket1702 yeah, Audie Murphy was one helluva hero, and real good combat infantryman, for sure! Too bad that he had to die, ironically enough, in a plane crash--especially after becoming a famous movie star--despite living through all of that horrific combat. And, I believe that he was initially rejected by the military, for being too small, too! What a great Texas hero!!!
My teacher in secondary school in Denmark, von Hahn, was an officer in Division Wiking on the East Front. When he told his stories from the front, we all became quiet and listened. We all loved him. He was a good man. I think he is the reason I understand German almost as well as English today. And that I respect the sacrifices on the battlefield on both sides.
FRED, my lil Nazis friend. The 5th SS Panzer Division "Wiking" was a bunch of massmurders and war criminals, for christ sake ! Not your German average Wehrmacht soldier, damn ! Never forget that, never, danke sehr. 🤮🤢
@@freebird3348 Yes, the horror was incomprehensible. My father was in the resistance for 3 years. He was very harmed by the war. My point is that there were good people on both sides. I don't know where you are from, Mr. Bird, but much of Europe suffered greatly in that war.
@@fredmidtgaard5487 I have so much respect for your father that mere words are useless. I am fairly knowledgeable about the history of WW2 and am under no illusions as to what would have been your father’s fate had he been caught. That sort of courage is very rare. Oh, and I am Australian. Many of my relatives were involved in both world wars. Fortunately most survived, with some tragically lost. I mention a cousin somewhere in these comments. His name and rank were Flight Sergeant Ronald Sillcock RAAF. He and his entire crew were killed when he attacked the infamous U505. There’s a little more detail in my comment. Worth Googling U505. My great uncle went through almost the entirety of WW1 as a trench runner, (the most dangerous job) and at the end received barely a scratch. His mate wasn’t so lucky and was killed beside my uncle when they were delivering an urgent package to a high ranking officer. The package contained dry socks. My uncle was awarded the military medal. 60,000 Australian soldiers were killed in WW1along with around 135,000 injured. At the time Australia had a population of less than 5 million. And they were all volunteers! That level of national sacrifice is almost unbelievable to me in this day and age. So many were lost and disabled that many women never found a husband.To my knowledge us Aussies were the only volunteer army of WW1.Another great uncle and my grandfather served in WW1. And we produced the greatest general of the war, Sir John Monash. He was the man most responsible for breaking the horrific deadlock that was trench warfare, utilising for the first time a combined arms approach. A true military genius. And yes, there were absolutely good people on both sides. My heart breaks when I think of the most beautiful and innocent- children. Apologies for writing a novel here, and thank you very much for reaching out. I am 58 years old and live in Melbourne with my partner and two small children. How about you? I would be fascinated to hear some stories of your father!
My German teacher in high school was Austrian and Jewish. He and his wife survived the Holocaust and eventually made their way to America. He didn't speak of the horror but there was a silent reminder that he had experienced something. I haven't thought of him for years...thanks for your comment.
When the first German POW's arrived in the US, they said the same thing. This was after seeing the skyline of NYC and it took them days to get to the camp. How would they defeat an enemy so far away and so vast.
Did all of them say that at the same time, in unison… 🧐 Did anyone record this wondrous event? 🧐 And oddly, most pows arrived via Halifax, Nova Scotia. That’s a good thousand miles away. So these Germans must have had collective good eyesight, cherub. In short, don’t perpetuate silly urban myths. Pip pip.
“When I arrived in Stalingrad I realized I was wearing a WW1 uniform and had actually transported back in time from the set of Netflix all quiet on the western front remake from 2022….”
At first I thought, how can a channel called "WW2 memoirs" make such a mistake? When in fact, why would this one be different? It's not a mistake. We've been baited here not to learn something new but to grow the view count.
I'm from South Africa so part of the UK My uncle went to war and fought in North Africa and Italy My father was to young but he was on the side of Hitler For more than 10 years he never spoke to my uncle until the day my grandfather died They made peace on that day but there was always an underlying animosity between them I have learned a lot of the war from my uncle He was injured in Italy and had a plate in his head His wife was a airplane mechanic and they got married in 1946 My father's sister got married to a guy who was in the interrogation corps here He also had a lot of stories to tell
German Soldiers fought because they were told communism would destroy Germany and the world. Sound familiar??? The Cold War started the day WWII ended picking up where the Wehrmacht left off. Who was the real enemy?
The Americans with the Domino Theory! First, Korea, Viêt Nam, Cambodia, Chile, Cuba, and now Chekhoslovakia . Plus, plus, plus! All failed policies and how many lives? Severe brain drain! .
I saw an interview with WW1 veterans taken in the 60s. They asked one old soldier if fighting in the first world war had been worth it. The old soldier emphatically answered 'NO!'. He said if he had his time again there is no way he would have volunteered for the war. But back then many young men volunteered for the war, but they had been sold a lie. This old soldier said the things that him and his army mates went through was utter hell. He said those that survived all thought it was not worth it. This soldier believed that absolutely nothing was achieved in WW1 except the brutal slaughter of a generation of young men.
That bloody war has clearly left an indelible mark on many of us for generations to come, judging by the comments here. Both world wars in fact. I’m Australian and many of my relatives were involved, unfortunately. One example is a cousin, Flight Sergeant Ronald Sillcock. He and all of his crew died while attempting to sink U 505. That damn boat was cursed. It now sits in a museum in the US. Worth a google. One of its crew wrote a book about it, ( Steel Hulls, Iron Hearts). He is very complimentary about the courage of my cousin and his crew, but quite frankly, reading his description of their demise left me sick to my stomach.
War is terrible. And in all human history, there hasn't been a worse front than WW2 Eastern Front. And Stalingrad must have been THE worst place to be in that front! Hearing these memoirs makes it clear that skill and courrage had not much to do with the final outcome. It was a game of chance and only pure luck would get you through the day.... Old-man Aeschylus, in perhaps the first anti-war play ever written, his "Persians", comments: "Too much blood and too much gore! The mountain of corpses will be seen by the eyes of even the third generation of their children. It will be a silent but stark lesson for them. That mountain of corpses will tell them that mortals should not be overly proud." There is a hidden message if we read between these lines: according to him, the stark lesson lasts for three generations! After that, comes oblivion! And damned oblivion sows the seeds of the next war to come. Unfortunatelly, we humans forget too soon for peace to last........
Thank you for these stories. And all the interesting replies you get! Hard to imagine what so many have endured during such wars, so these accounts lend a truly human, first-person touch.
I had three great uncles that served in the Italian arm, two who were captured in North Africa and another who survived "Russia". The two captured by the Western allies had a choice, to either be imprisoned for the duration by the USA or UK. The best was the one who went to USA and he chose that destination because it was such a good place to emigrate according to prewar stories. "AMERICA" was where you wanted to be. It was beautiful from the start. They were not even in prison. Being Italian and by then had surrendered, mostly, were treated as minor combatants, could travel in town, come and go as they pleased and were not under armed guard unlike the Germans. He ate steak and ice cream almost every day, used flour, yes pounds and pounds flour to mark the lines of a soccer field to play. This is when Italians were starving and scraping every last little speck of flour treating it more precious than gold dust even before the war. Satisfied with how much easier and better life was, as the "lowest" life form (POW of defeated nation) had it so great especially compared to back home he never went back to Italy, married and raised a family in Chicago. Note he was fat a lot of his life but he was proud to say it started as a POW thanks to generous American bounty (difficult to call such plenty "rations") and starved so much as a young man and child he never wanted to go back to eating "just a little". He died in his early 80's maybe 20 years ago The second chose the British because well of the hoity toity reputation of high civilization because the British drink tea and speak with that fancy accent or whatever. He was shipped off to India, worked in a forced labor camp, got Malaria, ate gruel sometimes when there actually was food as many times there wasn't, drank unclean water because that's all they had, was half starved to death, ridden with disease, and while not brutalized barely survived the war due to the fact that India (and Britain) were so poor and backwards. He came back a barely alive skeleton, he had bad stories to tell and went back to his hometown opening up a small butcher shop. He died in his late 70's in the late 90's. I visit his grave and that of many relatives every time I visit. The third was stationed in Russia and nearly froze and starved to death. He had it the worst. Only in recent years with that generation finally dead in Italy is Russia not an ugly word. And not like Communism as a lot of the Communists think Russia is great. But when you say Russia to anyone who had the displeasure to fight the war there or any of their relatives served and most likely died if not came back mentally, physically and spiritually destroyed they would get sick just hearing the word. If spoken in Italian "La Russia" I still cringe thinking of that front even though I was born decades after the fact. After his unit fell apart he made it on foot hiking across Europe from the Stalingrad area all the way to the Slovenian/Italian border where he was accosted by some Slovene Nazi loyalist fanatics. They gave him a choice: he could join them and would get fed fighting on their side, or they would spare his life letting him go into Italy but he would give them all his clothes down to his underwear and socks. He chose the latter and hiked his way to Italy naked the winter of 43-44. Anyhow he made it on foot all the way back to his mountain town in Italy dodging Fascist patrols which by the time he arrived over a year after Stalingrad was in the process of being liberated. He lived a modest life and never told his stories to me until the early 2010-'s the last few times I saw him visiting the homeland and died in 2014 in his early 90's.
Incredibly precious memories... thank you for those... and after all that there are some Italians who even now, during the brutal russian war in Ukraine, are on the russian side and support dubious russian "cultural" events in Italy, promoting and allowing russian propaganda on Italian soil (((. What a shame and disgrace!!!
The true enemy is international finance, the privatized central banks, the debt based currency with all the machinations the shadow government employs to keep external enemies afoot in a seemingly endless war for endless profit, endless power and never ending control. Now we are a bit wiser to it than in generations past as we can look past the pain of those who suffered from this evil plot and figure out the "why". But its not an easy pill to swallow. The suffering of my ancestors was definitely in vain, at least directly but at least I am wise to that and do not let myself get wrapped up in neither the fake news nor the propaganda. I only take the humanist side valuing life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and eternal peace @@nikpravdin8213
Yes, it should be credited to Gunter Koschorrek and his memoire "Blood Red Snow". I always wondered if his account was a tad "embroidered", as with so many other German accounts. It seems extraordinary that his group somehow penetrated the soviet encirclement on the day that the two soviet army groups met, and then fought in the action at Chir/Don high road, which was at the very apex of the enemy consolidation. The majority of German supply echelons such as his fell back north east to unite with their own regimental combat units in Stalingrad.
Even when they were completely surrounded by Russian troops in the middle of winter, with no food, no winter clothing and little ammunition, the German soldiers came out of their shelters and mocked the Russian soldiers, daring them to attack. (Stalingrad, by the English historian Antony Beevor). Most of the German soldiers at the end of the siege at Stalingrad were only skin and bones and many died of starvation as necropsies showed. The VI Army and IV Panzer Army that attacked Stalingrad on Hitler's orders advanced too far, leaving no cover on the flanks and ended up surrounded. Hitler did not allow the German troops to break the siege and withdraw. They were far from supply lines and hope of help in the snow-covered fields.
My German wife's grandfather was in a tank regiment on the Eastern Front. He died after the war. aged 53, from injuries received in battle. Both my (Scottish) grandfathers were declared unfit for service. One was blind (from the age of 7), the other was kicked in the head by a horse as a child and was deaf in one ear.
A difference in belief's!!!!! You have NO idea what you are talking about, try the MURDER of more than 10 MILLION civilian innocent men, women and children slaughtered for only being people the Nazi's hated. Difference in belief's, your lack of knowledge shames and makes a trifle of these people's death's.
@@tombristowe846 Yep I can’t disagree, it certainly is very good descriptive writing. Probably too good. Reminds me a bit of Sven Hassel. Probably about as truthful as well. And yes, the robot voice is incredibly annoying. I stopped listening.
Newsflash on the video thumbnail. Those are WWI German Helmets. Although many WWI helmets were being used as “transitional” helmets as late as 1939, they never made it into actual field service. Please update your thumbnail to reflect historic accuracy.
You can stuff that attitude where the sun doesn’t shine! I’m an Aussie and can confidently state on behalf of most other Aussies that we would say to Caesar in no uncertain terms, “ You can go first, mate. Don’t worry, we’ll be right behind you!” Oh and you misspelled SALUTE.
You'd think that AI would know how to acknowledge punctuation, or at least be able to properly pronounce words with nore than 2 syllables. To each their own, but for me this AI stuff is ruining audiobooks and documentaries. I can't stand to listen to it longer than a few minutes. It's quite disappointing too, i was interested in the story at first.
I saw past that and other little production issues, and thought it was a great story. If you are doing a christian story or school play, do you really expect to get the real cross, or a copy? Honestly you need to check your expectations of a freely given show...
The German high command was insane to believe that they could defeat the Soviet Union! The largest nation on Earth with the largest population? And while you were engaging Britain, France, and the US. They should have checked Napoleon's history.
Stalins Organ and not Orgel Was the name given to the rocket launcher they devised because it look like church organ pipes - I know it's AI read, from so many mispronounciations but still good listening, mostly lol
Interesting/informative/entertaining. Excellent photography picture 📷 as the new graduates fearlessly charge into harm's way. In hopes of receiving that " Iron Cross " . 😉 more then likely a wooden cross!!! 😇 The war on the Eastern Front was over after the failed blitzkrieg invasion attempt to conquer Moscow. Sending troops/equipment to North Africa. Weakened the German armies advances giving General Zhukov his opportunity to stall German General Gudarian's panther , & infantry division.
@@WorldWar2Memoirs: The foto at 0:01+ is from October 16, 1942. By the sunken road outside the northeast perimeter of Barrikady gun factory. The trees at right are just outside the factory fence.
_The Germans liked soldiering. We [British soldiers] didn't._ --Brigadier Edgar "Bill" Williams, senior British Army intelligence officer during the Battle of Normandy: His remarks were made in explanation of the superior on-average man-for-man effectiveness and battle-worthiness of the British Army's German adversaries from North Africa to the Normandy campaign.
Thank you for your feedback. Your opinion is highly valued and will significantly contribute to the enhancement of our subsequent videos, especially as we are in the initial stages.
Battle of Stalingrad, (July 17, 1942-February 2, 1943), successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), Russia, U.S.S.R., during World War II.@@timothyirwin8974
@@WorldWar2Memoirs I have scimmed over a few videos and had a look at the channel description. Still no source. And the other videos immediately starts with the narration of the story. No source given on the origin of the stories. Just give me a freaking source
Sorry for the inconvenience, I was at the beginning when I posted this video and I made some mistakes, now I have improved the content and I will try to make it even better to offer you the best content and relax listening to these memories of the soldiers who must be heard. Thank you for the feedback, sir
@@user-gl9iz1bp1r The devil is in the details my friend. Even it's response to my comment was clearly by a bot. This entire UA-cam channel may be an AI creation.
Sorry but if my Government put me in a jam and got me surrounded, I’m OUT so I’m able to fight another day, I don’t give a 💩what the uppers are saying…….
You have chosen Stalingrad, this was a second world war battle, so why do you use a picture from a first world war movie as your thumb nail? Another uoader who can not be bothered to be correct
as this battle played and as berlin/hitler refused to let the german army retreat and as a result the german army suffered an unbelievable defeat of enormous losses did the german army lose confidence in berlin/fascist leadership
My grandad was there he used to throw grenades and could lob them for miles he threw one which hit winston churchill in downing st thats how far he could throw
Interesting. I hate the computer reading this very human narrative. Something important is being stolen from us, so you get a thumbs down from me. To whoever produced this, please do the right thing and read the text yourself. The content is compelling but the delivery is just wrong. Please delete your channel.
I worked with a woman whose dad was a German POW captured in France and who had been in Russia. He was sent to the UK then onto the US where he was sent picking cotton 12 hours a day. He said this was the happiest time in his life - plenty to eat, never cold, no one trying to kill him and good bosses. He married a local girl and had a bunch of children - anytime they were naughty, her mother would say, ‘that’s the German in you coming out’, her dad would just laugh and say, “your mother’s alway right”.
I am glad that some German POW managed to rebuild their lives after the war, we are glad that you shared this experience with us
The same happened to POWs sent to Canada. Camps up in Northern Ontario, but plenty of food, decent quarters and warm clothing as they cut trees for the duration. Many of them stayed on and married local women. Neys provincial part was the location of one of these camps, I worked there one summer. Everything is gone but you can still find bits of fence posts and barbed wire, and foundations for the camp buildings.
@@PeterNebelung
Ditto for the German POW Camps in the Rocky Mtns West of Calgary. Many of the POWs were from the Africa Corps captued in Libya. It was like a holiday camp. Great food, like they hadn't had since they left home. Old WW1 Vets as guards, who understood frontline troops. They built Roads & Trails in the Parks around Banff. I wonder if they got in any skiing? Many returned as Immigrants after the war ended. They mostly became solid Cdn Citizens.
Thats great to hear
An old Italian patient in a general practice in Florence told me once that for a little act interpreted as insubordination was sent in Africa as Italy started the war. There he was captured and sent in Scotland to work for a farmer. He treated him as a son and he had the best memories of that period. The rest of his company in Florence was then sent in Russia and no one made it back home.
My uncle joined the Eastern front in May 1942 19 yrs old. He was with the 14. Panzerdivision which had two Infanterieunits. Panzergrenadier Regiment 103 and 108. He was with 103. My uncle was Obergefreiter. He was in the battle for Charkov and after that they headed down to Stalingrad. The 14. PD reached the Wolga as the first German Unit south of Stalingrad. My uncle got hit in the head by a sniper and survived. After a long stay in Hospital he was with Panzergrenadierregiment 1028. In February 1944 his Unit was sent from Germany to Anzio by train. When the train drove into the station near the front it was completely destroyed by American carpet bombing raid, so he died in the train at age of 21. He is buried south of Rome in Pomezia......
My father was at ANZIO WITH THE BRITISH ARMY 1944 HE WAS BADLY WOUNDED SO THAT WAS THE END OF HIS WAR HE SURVIVED BUT SADLY DIED IN 1968 HE WAS ONLY 47 HIS BROTHER WAS KILLED IN ACTION AT ST VALERY JUNE 1940 HE WAS WITH THE BLACKWATCH ROYAL HIGHLANDERS WITH THE 51ST HIGHLAND DIVISION
My dog was a black lab and got a bad hip when she slipped on some ice one time. Really nice dog!
@@etemytradel4509was it a German Shepard?
@@thomasshepard6030 Sorry I'm confused did you also post the comment above about an Uncle who was at Stalingrad injured then killed on a train to Anzio? both posts look to be under same name
@@stevek343Apologies you are both called Thomas
My grandfather got lucky he was in the 6th Army, as they approached Stalingrad. He developed acute appendix@@ and send back for operation & recuperation.
How many villages did he burn?😐
@k.k.9011 Well he survived the war. 7 years of war 4 of those years on the Eastern front where he got 2 Iron Crosss. I'm sure he had seen his share of falling Russians ?
@@k.k.9011 e quanti villaggi stanno bruciando adesso gli stupidi russi in Ukraina ?
Stories such as these always remind me of my great-uncle Tommy, a butcher & horse-trainer, who ended up volunteering for the AIF ( Australian Army ) after having received a ‘white feather ‘ in the letter box. A member of the Anglo-Australian-Dutch ‘Sparrow Force’ in Japanese - occupied Portuguese Timor ( now Timor Leste ) , he was wounded & captured by the IJA. And spent years in captivity under the delicate auspices of the Japanese Army in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Thai / Burmese border. I shan’t detail what little that he told us, his family, about it, it’s simply too dreadful to recount,…he’d go decades without speaking about it, attended no marches, reunions, or memorials,.and I believe that, like my grandfather, a veteran of the Greek , Syrian, and New Guinea campaigns , he burned anything given to him by the Army in a backyard incinerator. He had welt - like scars absolutely covering the skin of his back that were gruesome to see, and he’d always claim that he got them due to some sort of ‘accident’ as a naughty boy. He was mistakenly declared as dead in some sort of error made by the Red Cross, and his first wife remarried whilst he was a POW due to this. He claimed that he managed to live partially due to the bravery & kindness of a decent Japanese camp guard, who used to sneak handfuls of rice and vegetables to some of the prisoners in the dead of night, at mortal risk to himself. My uncle was a bare few kilograms in weight upon liberation, and spent many months in intensive care & recuperation upon returning to Australia. Some of his mates did not survive after being liberated, & died days, weeks, and some even months after the collapse of the Japanese empire. I wish that he’d lived long enough to see the development of oral histories recorded with WW2 veterans as featured online. Who knows ? Perhaps he might, finally, have conceded to talking about it all if I could’ve convinced him to do so.
Omg 😢😢😢😢
if he had received 2 white feathers, would that have been sufficient to join the RAAF? A feather each side to assist flight?
Anyway....from the behaviour about him, that you have described... maybe he should have got mental or pychological help. I mention this as this sort of behaviour was common among the fellows with PTSD from traumatic experiences, like near death, or being in amongst the the killings.... and then surviving, after evryone or almost everyone else has been killed. Common consequences of drinking / drugs too much, spousal relationship problems etc etc.... it wears them (everyone involved) down...
Anyway, I am sorry to hear about your uncles WW2 service and capture experiences in the Pacific.... the starvation and disease......... and bayonet practice on some groups of POW by the Japanese (REF: @ Tol Plantation, East New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea) was just unimaginable. These small detachments like Sparrow, Lark and suchlike were very much on their own.... no supplies, no back up, no nothing...... and once they got caught, your life expectancy was very much reduced, either from being murdered by the Japanese, or starvation by them.
Execution by beheading with a sword in PNG and neighbouring island territories by the Japanese forces was also a feature for those small independent (Australian, but you are on your own) forces, if they got caught............If wounds or disease didn't get you first. Photo's and articles are on the internet.....
My father and his older brother were POWs captured by the Soviets. My father was captured near the end of the War, in Czechoslovakia, then transferred to Romania and then Ukraine. It lasted 18 months for him, from mid 1945 until late 1946.
His brother was at Stalingrad and was taken prisoner as well. He spent 4 years in various places from 1943 until 1947. He lost a leg during that time, but he never complained. He used the time better than my father did, by learning Russian, Hungarian and Romanian.
My father, who was uninjured, was always whining and complaining about everything.
They had 2 very different personalities.
There were 2 other brothers as well who were in Poland. They were wounded but returned. They also never complained.
It sounds like a good book.
@@jackwoods535
imagine if your father learnt all these languages..... he could then complain in them all of those languages!!!!
You've got that right!
@@colonelfustercluck486
I couldn't imagine shitting on my father for complaining about being a POW and being in the most deadly war of human history. If that's not something to complain about, then I don't know what is. Your dad brothers for sure complained, and you're naive to think they didn't.
First of all I am not shitting on my father.
You don't k now what you are talking about. I have met all of my uncles. Their stories were worse than his but they never whined about it.
You keep your infantile mouth shut.
Got it, kid?
@@Madlux14
These diary readings are haunting and eerie. My grandfather was in the Italian navy during the time of Mussolini and WW2. When the allies landed in Sicily he knew it was over. He left his post and walked 40 kilometers all the way home. Dodging German patrols.
Just how I remember Italians, lol.
@@DutchGuyMike Hey, what is going on Dutch, not much.. upstairs apparently ..lol.
@insideimagery133 I know, someone who talks like that is just total a fool, ignorant troll.
@insideimagery133 Dutch have nothing to be proud of.
@insideimagery133 Too bad Franco of Spain and Salazar of Portugal failed to realize how the world would turn out if Germany lost the war. IMO, if they could've seen the future, I think Spain and Portugal would've gone to the wall for Germany in WW2.
A friend I was working with years ago told me his grandfather's WW2 experience. He ended up in Marine boot camp at 19yrs.old.Upon completion of bootcamp he was sent to S.F., eventually put on a troop ship headed for the S.Pacific to fight the Japanese. The time came, he was put on a LST to storm a beach. When he went to jump into water a Japanese bullet struck him in the ankle. A medic pulled him back into the LST. He was sent home after recovery. He added that he was a lucky one.
7:13
I bet he did think that he was a lucky one, with a "million-dollar" wound, as the G.I.'s used to call it--because getting sent home, with such a non-disabling wound, or injury, in combat--was worth a million dollars...to them! He might have had trouble walking, he might have been limping for the rest of his life, but everything else--including his mind--was still intact. Plus, he was a Purple Heart veteran, who everybody looked up to, limping or not. Very few guys ran or deserted, but many hoped they'd get a wound like a stray enemy bullet in the ankle, or a few slugs in the ass, in combat, so they could legitimately get out of the hell and horror of combat. And yet, many often left hospitals, not fully recovered, to go back to that same hell--because combat was their destiny--the only thing that they knew, and wanted. And whether they lived or not, very few shrank from it. Nothing in civilian life can ever begin to compare to it, nor ever will. How long did John Basilone sell war bonds, as a decorated hero, before running back, as quick as he could get it, to the most dangerous job on earth (knowing that his luck was about to run out, too, didn't matter to him)? During WWII, unlike later wars, most guys rushed to enlist, and if they tried and were rejected, it was such a disgrace, that a few killed themselves, if they couldn't get in. There was even a 14 year old, who lied about his age, just to get into the Navy, and saw combat, manning an anti-aircraft gun on a carrier, during the battle of Santa Cruz, during the Guadalcanal campaign.
@@michaeltotten7508 I read the story of Audie Murphy and his fellow infantry men who had survived over 200 days of near constant combat. These guys had charged machine gun nests, tanks and all manner of combat danger. Yet they survived. It was estimated that less than 7% made it through what they did. I saw Audie Murphy's movie, To Hell and Back and it didn't show even 25% of what he actually did in the war. If they did it would have looked too over the top.
@matchrocket1702 yeah, Audie Murphy was one helluva hero, and real good combat infantryman, for sure! Too bad that he had to die, ironically enough, in a plane crash--especially after becoming a famous movie star--despite living through all of that horrific combat. And, I believe that he was initially rejected by the military, for being too small, too! What a great Texas hero!!!
My teacher in secondary school in Denmark, von Hahn, was an officer in Division Wiking on the East Front. When he told his stories from the front, we all became quiet and listened. We all loved him. He was a good man. I think he is the reason I understand German almost as well as English today. And that I respect the sacrifices on the battlefield on both sides.
FRED, my lil Nazis friend. The 5th SS Panzer Division "Wiking" was a bunch of massmurders and war criminals, for christ sake ! Not your German average Wehrmacht soldier, damn ! Never forget that, never, danke sehr. 🤮🤢
Wow. Coming from a Dane that says a lot. That damn war was a blight on humanity. So many people lost. To quote Conrad, the horror…
@@freebird3348 Yes, the horror was incomprehensible. My father was in the resistance for 3 years. He was very harmed by the war. My point is that there were good people on both sides. I don't know where you are from, Mr. Bird, but much of Europe suffered greatly in that war.
@@fredmidtgaard5487 I have so much respect for your father that mere words are useless. I am fairly knowledgeable about the history of WW2 and am under no illusions as to what would have been your father’s fate had he been caught. That sort of courage is very rare. Oh, and I am Australian. Many of my relatives were involved in both world wars. Fortunately most survived, with some tragically lost. I mention a cousin somewhere in these comments. His name and rank were Flight Sergeant Ronald Sillcock RAAF. He and his entire crew were killed when he attacked the infamous U505. There’s a little more detail in my comment. Worth Googling U505. My great uncle went through almost the entirety of WW1 as a trench runner, (the most dangerous job) and at the end received barely a scratch. His mate wasn’t so lucky and was killed beside my uncle when they were delivering an urgent package to a high ranking officer. The package contained dry socks. My uncle was awarded the military medal. 60,000 Australian soldiers were killed in WW1along with around 135,000 injured. At the time Australia had a population of less than 5 million. And they were all volunteers! That level of national sacrifice is almost unbelievable to me in this day and age. So many were lost and disabled that many women never found a husband.To my knowledge us Aussies were the only volunteer army of WW1.Another great uncle and my grandfather served in WW1. And we produced the greatest general of the war, Sir John Monash. He was the man most responsible for breaking the horrific deadlock that was trench warfare, utilising for the first time a combined arms approach. A true military genius. And yes, there were absolutely good people on both sides. My heart breaks when I think of the most beautiful and innocent- children. Apologies for writing a novel here, and thank you very much for reaching out. I am 58 years old and live in Melbourne with my partner and two small children. How about you? I would be fascinated to hear some stories of your father!
My German teacher in high school was Austrian and Jewish. He and his wife survived the Holocaust and eventually made their way to America. He didn't speak of the horror but there was a silent reminder that he had experienced something. I haven't thought of him for years...thanks for your comment.
When the first German POW's arrived in the US, they said the same thing. This was after seeing the skyline of NYC and it took them days to get to the camp. How would they defeat an enemy so far away and so vast.
Did all of them say that at the same time, in unison… 🧐
Did anyone record this wondrous event? 🧐
And oddly, most pows arrived via Halifax, Nova Scotia. That’s a good thousand miles away. So these Germans must have had collective good eyesight, cherub.
In short, don’t perpetuate silly urban myths.
Pip pip.
@@robertcottam8824actually diaries were kept although I have no idea what port was involved.
The Germans were not numerically inferior to the Russians at Stalingrad until the last weeks.
“When I arrived in Stalingrad I realized I was wearing a WW1 uniform and had actually transported back in time from the set of Netflix all quiet on the western front remake from 2022….”
At first I thought, how can a channel called "WW2 memoirs" make such a mistake? When in fact, why would this one be different? It's not a mistake. We've been baited here not to learn something new but to grow the view count.
BC this is nothing more than AI - generated BS. It disrespects the memories of all the people touched by WW2 so that the OP can cash out on youtube.
I'm from South Africa so part of the UK My uncle went to war and fought in North Africa and Italy My father was to young but he was on the side of Hitler For more than 10 years he never spoke to my uncle until the day my grandfather died They made peace on that day but there was always an underlying animosity between them I have learned a lot of the war from my uncle He was injured in Italy and had a plate in his head His wife was a airplane mechanic and they got married in 1946 My father's sister got married to a guy who was in the interrogation corps here He also had a lot of stories to tell
You father supported Hitler. Wow! No need to ask if HE favoured apartheid or not… 🧐
I hope he didn’t pass on his ghastly views to you, mevrou.
Did your father living with his foot on blacks in South Africa make him love Hitler?🤗
German Soldiers fought because they were told communism would destroy Germany and the world. Sound familiar??? The Cold War started the day WWII ended picking up where the Wehrmacht left off. Who was the real enemy?
And they burned villages with their inhabitants for sport.
The Americans with the Domino Theory! First, Korea, Viêt Nam, Cambodia, Chile, Cuba, and now Chekhoslovakia . Plus, plus, plus! All failed policies and how many lives? Severe brain drain!
.
@@ЗлобныйприцепIf this is all you have to say , your just copying what has been said before. Give it a rest you sound like a mo*one.
I saw an interview with WW1 veterans taken in the 60s. They asked one old soldier if fighting in the first world war had been worth it. The old soldier emphatically answered 'NO!'. He said if he had his time again there is no way he would have volunteered for the war. But back then many young men volunteered for the war, but they had been sold a lie. This old soldier said the things that him and his army mates went through was utter hell. He said those that survived all thought it was not worth it. This soldier believed that absolutely nothing was achieved in WW1 except the brutal slaughter of a generation of young men.
An intense depiction of what he experienced in Stalingrad ... Thank you!
@@semproniodensso3353 Thank you for the information. I haven't known this.
That bloody war has clearly left an indelible mark on many of us for generations to come, judging by the comments here. Both world wars in fact. I’m Australian and many of my relatives were involved, unfortunately. One example is a cousin, Flight Sergeant Ronald Sillcock. He and all of his crew died while attempting to sink U 505. That damn boat was cursed. It now sits in a museum in the US. Worth a google. One of its crew wrote a book about it, ( Steel Hulls, Iron Hearts). He is very complimentary about the courage of my cousin and his crew, but quite frankly, reading his description of their demise left me sick to my stomach.
War is terrible. And in all human history, there hasn't been a worse front than WW2 Eastern Front. And Stalingrad must have been THE worst place to be in that front! Hearing these memoirs makes it clear that skill and courrage had not much to do with the final outcome. It was a game of chance and only pure luck would get you through the day.... Old-man Aeschylus, in perhaps the first anti-war play ever written, his "Persians", comments: "Too much blood and too much gore! The mountain of corpses will be seen by the eyes of even the third generation of their children. It will be a silent but stark lesson for them. That mountain of corpses will tell them that mortals should not be overly proud." There is a hidden message if we read between these lines: according to him, the stark lesson lasts for three generations! After that, comes oblivion! And damned oblivion sows the seeds of the next war to come. Unfortunatelly, we humans forget too soon for peace to last........
Thank you for these stories.
And all the interesting replies you get!
Hard to imagine what so many have endured during such wars, so these accounts lend a truly human, first-person touch.
It is the world's senior citizens who tell us we should not do war; sadly we do not listen.
I had three great uncles that served in the Italian arm, two who were captured in North Africa and another who survived "Russia". The two captured by the Western allies had a choice, to either be imprisoned for the duration by the USA or UK.
The best was the one who went to USA and he chose that destination because it was such a good place to emigrate according to prewar stories. "AMERICA" was where you wanted to be. It was beautiful from the start. They were not even in prison. Being Italian and by then had surrendered, mostly, were treated as minor combatants, could travel in town, come and go as they pleased and were not under armed guard unlike the Germans. He ate steak and ice cream almost every day, used flour, yes pounds and pounds flour to mark the lines of a soccer field to play. This is when Italians were starving and scraping every last little speck of flour treating it more precious than gold dust even before the war. Satisfied with how much easier and better life was, as the "lowest" life form (POW of defeated nation) had it so great especially compared to back home he never went back to Italy, married and raised a family in Chicago. Note he was fat a lot of his life but he was proud to say it started as a POW thanks to generous American bounty (difficult to call such plenty "rations") and starved so much as a young man and child he never wanted to go back to eating "just a little". He died in his early 80's maybe 20 years ago
The second chose the British because well of the hoity toity reputation of high civilization because the British drink tea and speak with that fancy accent or whatever. He was shipped off to India, worked in a forced labor camp, got Malaria, ate gruel sometimes when there actually was food as many times there wasn't, drank unclean water because that's all they had, was half starved to death, ridden with disease, and while not brutalized barely survived the war due to the fact that India (and Britain) were so poor and backwards. He came back a barely alive skeleton, he had bad stories to tell and went back to his hometown opening up a small butcher shop. He died in his late 70's in the late 90's. I visit his grave and that of many relatives every time I visit.
The third was stationed in Russia and nearly froze and starved to death. He had it the worst. Only in recent years with that generation finally dead in Italy is Russia not an ugly word. And not like Communism as a lot of the Communists think Russia is great. But when you say Russia to anyone who had the displeasure to fight the war there or any of their relatives served and most likely died if not came back mentally, physically and spiritually destroyed they would get sick just hearing the word. If spoken in Italian "La Russia" I still cringe thinking of that front even though I was born decades after the fact. After his unit fell apart he made it on foot hiking across Europe from the Stalingrad area all the way to the Slovenian/Italian border where he was accosted by some Slovene Nazi loyalist fanatics. They gave him a choice: he could join them and would get fed fighting on their side, or they would spare his life letting him go into Italy but he would give them all his clothes down to his underwear and socks. He chose the latter and hiked his way to Italy naked the winter of 43-44. Anyhow he made it on foot all the way back to his mountain town in Italy dodging Fascist patrols which by the time he arrived over a year after Stalingrad was in the process of being liberated. He lived a modest life and never told his stories to me until the early 2010-'s the last few times I saw him visiting the homeland and died in 2014 in his early 90's.
Incredibly precious memories... thank you for those... and after all that there are some Italians who even now, during the brutal russian war in Ukraine, are on the russian side and support dubious russian "cultural" events in Italy, promoting and allowing russian propaganda on Italian soil (((. What a shame and disgrace!!!
The true enemy is international finance, the privatized central banks, the debt based currency with all the machinations the shadow government employs to keep external enemies afoot in a seemingly endless war for endless profit, endless power and never ending control. Now we are a bit wiser to it than in generations past as we can look past the pain of those who suffered from this evil plot and figure out the "why". But its not an easy pill to swallow. The suffering of my ancestors was definitely in vain, at least directly but at least I am wise to that and do not let myself get wrapped up in neither the fake news nor the propaganda. I only take the humanist side valuing life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and eternal peace @@nikpravdin8213
This is from ‘Blood Red Snow’ the memoirs of a German machine gunner. It’s a fantastic read.
Yes, it should be credited to Gunter Koschorrek and his memoire "Blood Red Snow". I always wondered if his account was a tad "embroidered", as with so many other German accounts. It seems extraordinary that his group somehow penetrated the soviet encirclement on the day that the two soviet army groups met, and then fought in the action at Chir/Don high road, which was at the very apex of the enemy consolidation. The majority of German supply echelons such as his fell back north east to unite with their own regimental combat units in Stalingrad.
23:06 Advancing across Krasnyi Oktyabr'. --Toward the southern corner near the oil depot.
The computer generated audio is not so good for 2023.
The cover of this video is a picture of a movie from the WWI with the typical Stahlhelm with horns from this moment, not WW2 and Stalingrad.
No it's not. Stalingrad at the Red October Tractor factory.
My mother remembers seeing German POWs being transported by train through southern Illinois duribg WWII, The Germans would wave at her.
Friendly nazi?😂😂😂
So why show a lead in image taken from a WW1 film?
ai generated channel, all of this might be Bullshit
24th Panzer Division, the Leaping Horseman; leaping horse in a circle.
Even when they were completely surrounded by Russian troops in the middle of winter, with no food, no winter clothing and little ammunition, the German soldiers came out of their shelters and mocked the Russian soldiers, daring them to attack. (Stalingrad, by the English historian Antony Beevor). Most of the German soldiers at the end of the siege at Stalingrad were only skin and bones and many died of starvation as necropsies showed. The VI Army and IV Panzer Army that attacked Stalingrad on Hitler's orders advanced too far, leaving no cover on the flanks and ended up surrounded. Hitler did not allow the German troops to break the siege and withdraw. They were far from supply lines and hope of help in the snow-covered fields.
My German wife's grandfather was in a tank regiment on the Eastern Front. He died after the war. aged 53, from injuries received in battle. Both my (Scottish) grandfathers were declared unfit for service. One was blind (from the age of 7), the other was kicked in the head by a horse as a child and was deaf in one ear.
An unfortunate but nevertheless interesting family history. Thank you for sharing.
when ahh was in moms womb a horse kicked her there. and had weird birth
AI generated channel? Can you post details about the diaries?
exactly
yes I think so......... some of the words pronounced with North American accents, of words that don't exist......
I can't listen anymore. God. It's awful. Those poor humans on both sides, just because we have differences in beliefs.
No, just because we have stupid, insensitive, leaders.
A difference in belief's!!!!! You have NO idea what you are talking about, try the MURDER of more than 10 MILLION civilian innocent men, women and children slaughtered for only being people the Nazi's hated. Difference in belief's, your lack of knowledge shames and makes a trifle of these people's death's.
It isn't, and wasn't, just about beliefs: It is about those that force their beliefs on the vanquished.
@@ole5539 That is still about beliefs though.
Why use a thumbnail from All Quiet on the Western Front?
Excellent 👌
Great descriptive writing. I can visualize what this guy is saying.
Pity about the robot voice though. It spoils it.
@@tombristowe846 Yep I can’t disagree, it certainly is very good descriptive writing. Probably too good. Reminds me a bit of Sven Hassel. Probably about as truthful as well. And yes, the robot voice is incredibly annoying. I stopped listening.
Newsflash on the video thumbnail. Those are WWI German Helmets. Although many WWI helmets were being used as “transitional” helmets as late as 1939, they never made it into actual field service. Please update your thumbnail to reflect historic accuracy.
My Opa spent 3.5 years in a POW camp in Russia
Do you think he is burning in h--?
Why are the troops, pictured in the title picture, wearing World War One helmets?
because those were the helmets they were F^*King given..... don't complain, do your training and FK off...........
Why you using a screenshot of a dude in ww1 uniform/all quiet on the western front image?
for illustrative purposes only
@@WorldWar2Memoirsit’s ok brother !
WAR MONGERS WILL ALWAYS PICK UP THE DETAILS ! 😢
as the roman Gladiators used to say to Caesar: WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE SOLUTE YOU!
@@GG-jw8pt no it was usually 👎🤣
You can stuff that attitude where the sun doesn’t shine! I’m an Aussie and can confidently state on behalf of most other Aussies that we would say to Caesar in no uncertain terms, “ You can go first, mate. Don’t worry, we’ll be right behind you!” Oh and you misspelled SALUTE.
Thumbnail from a WW1 movie
Smh. I'm always happy to hear about Stalingrad from those who were there
You'd think that AI would know how to acknowledge punctuation, or at least be able to properly pronounce words with nore than 2 syllables.
To each their own, but for me this AI stuff is ruining audiobooks and documentaries.
I can't stand to listen to it longer than a few minutes. It's quite disappointing too, i was interested in the story at first.
Great video, but please use a WW2 image in the thumbnail. Already too much confusion on that end.
I saw past that and other little production issues, and thought it was a great story.
If you are doing a christian story or school play, do you really expect to get the real cross, or a copy? Honestly you need to check your expectations of a freely given show...
The German high command was insane to believe that they could defeat the Soviet Union! The largest nation on Earth with the largest population? And while you were engaging Britain, France, and the US. They should have checked Napoleon's history.
History has no telling in the mind of an idealogue, especially one such as Hitler.
They Almost did Defeat the soviets. 1 hair away. Had the logistics been better planned the outcome could have been different.
I think the story is from the 24th Panzer Division
Stalins Organ and not Orgel Was the name given to the rocket launcher they devised because it look like church organ pipes - I know it's AI read, from so many mispronounciations but still good listening, mostly lol
“Iron Gustav?” Never heard that before…
Funny they used a pic from all quiet on the western front as their title page. Didn’t even watch it if they couldn’t even get the top pic right.
Interesting/informative/entertaining. Excellent photography picture 📷 as the new graduates fearlessly charge into harm's way. In hopes of receiving that " Iron Cross " . 😉 more then likely a wooden cross!!! 😇 The war on the Eastern Front was over after the failed blitzkrieg invasion attempt to conquer Moscow. Sending troops/equipment to North Africa. Weakened the German armies advances giving General Zhukov his opportunity to stall German General Gudarian's panther , & infantry division.
Whose memoir? Have some respect and name the soldier this is from.
This is an extract from Blood Red Snow by Gunter K Koschorrek
Judging by the WW1 gear from the thumbnail, I'm not surprised!
Can't they EVER HAVE more pictures..or even some short video for-ttage? ...instead of endless "Narration" that just drones on for 37:46 minutes??
he talks about feet and yards. Germans use meters. This probably is a fake.
You have never heard of the term "translation"?
So which memoir does this excerpt come from? It's the most fascinating depiction of war I've ever read.
_Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front_ by Günter K. Koschorrek. Amazon still carries it.
The narrator pronounces Ivan like Evon which totally ruins that passage for me. 😒
I apologize for this mispronunciation, in the next videos we will improve the videos
AI
They have WW1 helmets and uniforms on your thumbnail.
A war historian said the attack on Stalingrad was the greatest mistake of Hitler in ww2.hiow true can it be?
So many lives were lost in Russia that are never spoken about
So many commercials 😫 😩
@ 30mins sounds like the guys name is "Dumb Sh#te" ha ha...
A rousing speech (lies) from our Commander and then he sent us all to our almost certain death
*DeMonicRATS who OWN U-666-Tube, Keep ExTeeeer Minating My Postings!!!*
*U .666.Tube, AI-BOTS ARE Ex . Ter . Minating the TRUTH, More than Ever!!!*
Is this a bot narrating? Amunit-I-on…
Nice ww1 thumbnail
Got what you wished for
God do some research. Don’t use WWI helmets for your pictures
I don't understand what you are talking about, the picture was taken in 1942
@@WorldWar2Memoirs: The foto at 0:01+ is from October 16, 1942. By the sunken road outside the northeast perimeter of Barrikady gun factory. The trees at right are just outside the factory fence.
@@WorldWar2Memoirs The preview thumbnail looks like a screen grab from the Netflix remake of All Quiet on the Western front. WW1
@@WorldWar2Memoirs that photo is from the new remake of All Quiet on the Western Front. The bolts on the helmet show that this is a WWI German helmet.
@@markprange4386 no it is from the new remake of All Quiet on the Western Front
The A.I. on this one makes it basically unlistenable.
Thank you for sharing this. Such an interesting time in history.
listening to a fairy tale from the black forest ..
_The Germans liked soldiering. We [British soldiers] didn't._ --Brigadier Edgar "Bill" Williams, senior British Army intelligence officer during the Battle of Normandy: His remarks were made in explanation of the superior on-average man-for-man effectiveness and battle-worthiness of the British Army's German adversaries from North Africa to the Normandy campaign.
Thanks for doing this ....but you talk a bit fast .
Thank you for your feedback. Your opinion is highly valued and will significantly contribute to the enhancement of our subsequent videos, especially as we are in the initial stages.
Try playing at a slower speed .75
It’s AI, not a human reader
went for like 300 days,, germans got surrounded and got starved out
Divide that in half. Just over five months, end of August to the beginning of February.
Battle of Stalingrad, (July 17, 1942-February 2, 1943), successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), Russia, U.S.S.R., during World War II.@@timothyirwin8974
Why not a German accent? Slapdash.
...I noticed that too...
@@daleburrell6273 Or even just a clipped English one. Freddie Starr Hitler would be perfect.
English accent is appropriate, too.
And you sink ve Germans are having no sense of the humor ja?
Da oder ya...
Die Deutsche leuta sind nicht ganz lustig..
Es bissien veilicht...
No one can imagine what these battles were unless they were really there.
I dont know this channel so are these stories real? Where is the source? I dont want to waste my time listening to fictional story
is based on the diary of a German soldier
@@WorldWar2Memoirs what soldier? What was his name, his rank, his date of birth, when did he die? Why aren't you including those informations?
@@NeiyMaritz you can find more information in the other videos on the channel
@@WorldWar2Memoirs I have scimmed over a few videos and had a look at the channel description. Still no source. And the other videos immediately starts with the narration of the story. No source given on the origin of the stories. Just give me a freaking source
Just post the details here, if it’s fiction just say it@@WorldWar2Memoirs
Nah You Can Keep The Stalingrad Marathon
If you can't use a real person to narrate then I'm not watching. I am not interested in hearing a robot speak dramaticularly.
Sorry for the inconvenience, I was at the beginning when I posted this video and I made some mistakes, now I have improved the content and I will try to make it even better to offer you the best content and relax listening to these memories of the soldiers who must be heard. Thank you for the feedback, sir
Nitpickers of the world unite!
@@user-gl9iz1bp1r The devil is in the details my friend. Even it's response to my comment was clearly by a bot. This entire UA-cam channel may be an AI creation.
Sorry but if my Government put me in a jam and got me surrounded, I’m OUT so I’m able to fight another day, I don’t give a 💩what the uppers are saying…….
of course they had a chance, they almost had the entire town...silly Adolf diodn allow their Generals to move on
No. REALISED.
What a rat war.
Probably the same through for the Russians in Ukraine
Do you wonder whether he is burning in hell?🤔
With god on their side. Just ask them.
the Nazis lost good job.
Inresing accont
🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁LION c LIKE No. 460
You have chosen Stalingrad, this was a second world war battle, so why do you use a picture from a first world war movie as your thumb nail?
Another uoader who can not be bothered to be correct
it is for illustrative purposes only
the reich was to last 1000 years. sadly it missed by 988 years
Not a very immersive AI Narrator
Stalin Orgel???
as this battle played and as berlin/hitler refused to let the german army retreat and as a result the german army suffered an unbelievable defeat of enormous losses did the german army lose confidence in berlin/fascist leadership
Read by an AI robot that has some pronunciation problems.
The AI reading this is annoying.
AI narrator pronunciation of basic words is laughable
Chat GPT
Hello :)
Horrible computer narration over stock footage. Down Vote.
it's the first video, it's normal to make mistakes
My grandad was there he used to throw grenades and could lob them for miles he threw one which hit winston churchill in downing st thats how far he could throw
This AI voice is very poor.
Interesting. I hate the computer reading this very human narrative. Something important is being stolen from us, so you get a thumbs down from me. To whoever produced this, please do the right thing and read the text yourself. The content is compelling but the delivery is just wrong. Please delete your channel.
Nazi lose the two front ware