Is there anywhere I can watch this without the censorship of the dead bodies? Morbid I know but I think to get the real feel of this horrid war one must see the true devastation.
I just watched it, well worth the wait. There are endless documentaries on You tube about the war, but very few first hand narrative accounts like this that really bring it to life, Sander, the diarist, give his narration such a humanist tone, teaching us all what he'll war can be 🧐
There's a book called Windswept Lies of War, and it talks from censored history and hidden secrets to lost files and classified documents about World War II, it's the real deal.
My granddad fought in Stalingrad with the 14th Panzer Division, he was captured and came home in 1953. Het died in 2015 at the age of 95. Before he died he told me that wanted to be cremated and not buried as he never wanted to feel the cold soil again.
My grandfather was captured by the Lithuanian collaborators, confined in a ghetto, had most of his family murdered, eventually, liberated by the American army from Dachau. He died at the age of 97 in the USA. Buried according to the Jewish tradition. Cremation is what he had avoided in Dachau.
My husband's father also fought, for Germany, do not ever let anyone, be disrespectful too your Granddad, war, changes all men...many would say your Granddad, and my father in law, were heartless monster's...much respects, to your Granddad, and to my Father in law..there is so much I would enjoy telling you, about how the war started.
@@michaelmelamed9103 Condolences to your granddad. I hope he lived a good life after the horrors of the war. My great uncle was an anti-aircraft gunner working a four-barrel .50cal. He had three confirmed kills on Luftwaffe aircraft, and one unconfirmed kill on a Nazi sniper on the ground. Despite fighting and killing Nazis, it still upset him to see dead ones, especially the one time they brought him out to one of the downed aircraft (to confirm). Though they were his enemy, he was disturbed by it.
@@michaelmelamed9103Try with Lithuanian freedoms fighters. We all know the families of Schiff and Rothschild financed the communist revolution and got the Tzar Nikolai II and his family murdered in cold blood 🩸 Who is keep pushing for a war in Ukraine and Russia?
It’s crazy to me how people read about the death and destruction of war, and watch the movies yet never realize how difficult the loss of life is. Not just seeing it but the sounds and smells. Having someone begging you to help them and you know nothing you do can save them. Telling them anything you think can comfort them and knowing they are already dead. What haunts me is the look on someone’s face. As a medic they believe that you are going to save them and they have that hope when you are there. Only those who don’t know death want war.
Only thoes who want war don't understand death? That might tell you a lot about politicians! I once looked at memorial in front of a High School in Mobile, Alabama. It was dedicated to 7 classmates who were drafted to serve in Vietnam. Think about it. Your 18 or 19 child who had his whole life in front of him , was suddenly sent across the world to fight in a jungle and asked to give his life for our country.
I don't think we can say that actually; I don't think "...only those who don't know death seek war" is a good qualifier. Look no further than the primary belligerents of WW2. Adolf Hitler himself survived 4 years of absolute carnage and human suffering during WW1. Same can be said for Herman Goering, an ace pilot war hero. Benito Mussolini also served as a sniper for Italy in WW1. Hideki Tojo in Japan also had previous combat experience. These leaders were the ones who were most aggressive at pursuing war in the 1930s. And we can't forget about French general Charles De Gaulle. Churchill and Roosevelt considered him a stubborn hawk determined to have his moment of glory, and he had extensive combat experience in the trenches in WW1. On the other hand, you have Neville Chamberlain, FDR, and Josef Stalin. They were trying to avoid war at all costs through appeasement policies, non-aggression pacts, and strict isolationism just to kick the can down the road long enough for someone else to eventually have to deal with it instead of them. We can also extrapolate this out to other wars. Many will argue that the Korean War was the most pointless and unnecessary war in US history. The president who gave the green light for that war was Harry S. Truman, an artillery commander in WW1. Vietnam festered under Eisenhower, and finally acted upon by Kennedy- a naval gunboat captain who fought in the Pacific theatre of WW2. So I don't agree with your statement that only the oblivious want war. The veterans seem pretty damn motivated to pursue conflict too.
I've been an amateur WWII history fanatic since the 1980's and have been watching the same information over and over, and still enjoy those documentaries, but the diaries are new to me and fascinating. Showing the film and reading the diaries like this is a great idea and I hope to see many more.
These personal diaries paint a far more detailed picture of what it was like to be in that war than some dry map movement accounts you often see in WWII documentaries. It also gives us an inside in what was going on in these soldier's minds in these campaigns.
My great grandmother that died just 3 years ago, was in Leningrad during the siege and starvation. Life has brought us apart so I could not ask her in detail during my adult years, how was this time in person, but I have been told by my dad and grandmother about her time there. She suffered immensely as did people in the city, some even went as far as cannibalism, as the hunger sometimes makes people insane with it. Seeing dead bodies on the streets was just another normal day, people collapsed. To the last day she died she never allowed anyone or herself to waste a crop of bread. She miraculously survived and was captured by Germans and sent to Berlin for forced labour. It's insane, literally every Russian and Soviet family was affected by this war, EVERY single one.
And yet, look at the horror the Russian people are now inflicting on Ukraine. They have learned ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the horrors of war or about compassion and respect of a sovereign nation. All the Russians involved are complicit in mass war crimes - if you're a Russian living in Russia, it is your obligation to NOT participate in this war and your duty to oppose Putin, a megalomaniacal, hateful war criminal. It saddens me to say this, but I never want to see Russia. Unless there is huge upheaval, but from most of what I've seen, all the people who disagree with the evil of the Kremlin have left. There is only evil, the spineless and the fearful left.
Imagine what will happen when the next war starts, we won't be needed for forced labor because robots can do that. What value will we have then? This history into human nature should frighten even the stoic person when contemplating the technological revolution of today's age and what that implies when it comes to the darker world were barreling into. I'm glad your grandma got out to make a good impression. Let her RIP, it's our time to see some crazy things, beyond her wildest dreams.
My father was In Barbarossa, was wounded by a Russian sniper in the leg, he fell in the snow and both his feet froze and gangrene took one foot and half of another. He spent the rest of the war in his hometown of Emden getting bombed at night by the British and by day by 5h3 Americans. Survived the war, married my mother and emigrated to the USA where my mother had relatives who sponsered them. Lived to age 86 ….mom to age 98. Both had good lives here in the USA.
My Grandfather, born 1910 in Northern Germany near Hannover, was in the RAD too before volunteering for the Wehrmacht in 1938. He was eventually wounded out of the war in 1943 in Russia. It’s so apparent from these accounts and from what he told me how different and more difficult things were in the invasion of the Soviet Union. You can sense from this diary that even within a week things were going wrong and badly off schedule.
You need to make more documentaries like this. I am tired of seeing productions that revolve around the presenters. Excellent work and thanks a lot for sharing it with us. ❤
great question its not what we are taught here in U S A WE ARE TAUGHT WHAT THE MEDIA WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE just like HITLER KILLED HIMSELF which he didnt
Most of ours has been contracted out to private companies which won't bear well in a real war as nothing will be fixed on the front line. Just in the rear if lucky enough for them to be there charging by the hour.
I have never understood how Germany thought they could have won a war against the USA. I guess Adolph thought we were still cowboys. They didn’t do their homework with the US or Russia.
This is a remarkable and gripping presentation of the diary bringing out not only battle effects but also the mental attitude that provided drive that led to clash between the two powers. The philoloshy and ideology that steeped the two opposing societies leaving no room for compromise. This made war in East most brutal. Very educative and valuable diary . Merits wide circulation. Mahj Gen IA
D. Anderson, USMC, Hotel Company, 2dBn, 9th Marines, 3d MarDiv, 2/9/3, 68-69 Operation Dewey Canyon. In memory of 58,281 men including 8 women, all nurses, 16 clergy members and 160 Medal of Honor recipients who served in the Vietnam War and later died as a result of their service. We honor and remember their sacrifice. Many carry a sense of having been betrayed by civilian and military leaders and by society generally. Be-trayed by politicians who resorted to war under false pretenses and took advantage of their patriotism and youth (the average age of a soldier in Vietnam was 19) and who placed constraints on war strategy that set them up for failure. It's easy to forget that those who served in Vietnam grew up in a time when politicians were seen as statesmen focused on the common good. Most trusted their leaders when told that war was necessary to stop the spread of communism. Despite stereotypes to the contrary, most volunteered. They were part of a generation raised with stories about how their fathers and uncles had accepted the duties of citizenship and won the Great War. These soldiers realized quickly that their fathers war was very different than the one into which they had been led. Their fathers had typically fought as parts of large coordinated forces against a massed enemy, taking and holding territory and attaining measurable strategic objectives, each of which moved them closer to victory. This was not true in Vietnam. Due to geopolitical constraints there would be no invasion of North Vietnam. Rarely would they face a massed force fighting in conventional fashion. In Vietnam, the enemy was often invisible, attacking then slipping away. Though the Army of North Vietnam was a conventional guerilla force, the Viet Cong were often indistinguishable from civilians. A rotational system of deployment that constantly shuffled around the membership of units and which some believed undermined unit cohesion and morale, negative media stereotypes of American soldiers, exposure to conditions of intense privation, chronic feeling of being under threat with no safe place to go, and faulty equipment that broke down under fire. Others were stung by leadership claims that the war was necessary to liberate the people of South Vietnam only to find, as one veteran put it, "Those people just wanted us out and some wanted to cut my throat." I've known many who continued to resent what they saw as lies told by military and civilian leaders claiming progress was being made when the experience on the ground suggested they were stuck in a quagmire. Then there was the betrayal of the homecoming. Though the antiwar movement had broad roots composed of people who genuinely wanted to stop the war, there was a segment openly hostile not just to the war but to the troops who fought it. Returning veterans who had given everything they had and who simply wanted to return home were often met with hostility. Vets often say things such as, "We were spat on, called baby killers, treated like dirt when we arrived back home." Others remember subtle hostility: "I was afraid to wear my uniform in public because of the looks I'd get." Many contrast their experience with an earlier generation. "Those World War 2 guys got parades and ticker tape; we got stabbed in the back." D, Anderson USMC 2/9/3 68-69
@@seniordavidmanderson9232 And now, OBiden wants Americans to fight some half-assed European Civil War that's been going on for over 100yrs? Or, is it going to be in the Pacific, again? Some rich S.O.B.'s silicon factory? How is the U.S. going to fight a war when politicians have sold-off, or, depleted Strategic Fuel Reserves & most of the weapons?
@Senior David M Anderson from my husband Vietnam Era Navy Corpsman.... Your words,ALL of them ring true,unfortunately our.youth don't give a flyin frog what happened THEN. See how many will show up on the next unavoidable DRAFT.!Better all have passports.... WTF was up with all the VETERAN TRAITORS ON J6?? KMA! THIS is what he fought for...Fascist republican morons in Megamall? NO!!
The diaries and footage paint an honest picture of the Eastern front. Sure there are extracts from the diaries which describe people and situations which in todays terms are unacceptable, but hey, this is a good thing as it is honest and a true historical reflection of that period in history. The last thing we should be doing is editing history to appease the sensitivities of today’s cultures. An excellent historical documentary - Bravo.
"which in todays terms are unacceptable", ha, you think so? maybe in mainstream polite society it seems that way, yeah your right, thankfully we can watch a neutral unbiased documentary and make our own minds up, which is how it is supposed to be. ✌🏻🌹♥️🌹 Love Edda
Such a brutal and heart aching experience from a single soldier in a war so incomprehensible in size. Lest we forget, I take gratitude in living a peaceful life. Listening to diaries like this can truly shift ones perspective.
This is a gem. The system of 2 narrators works very well - it maintains the vital distinction between the textual and the supra textual thus providing greater depth to the work. The context to the experiential coverage of events, is thoroughgoing and mutually supportive.
Yeah they needed the second narrator for propaganda purposes, otherwise the Germans would look too good and not the monsters they have been portrayed to be.
"Am I too much of a materialist if I claim that the upper levels of a population can bear their ideational loss better than the working class can bear the material loss? That's saying it carefully. I don't want to be classed as a Bolshevist..." What a crucial insight into the often ponderous mind of a front line soldier/officer.
Что плохого в большевизме? Это он сломал хребет фашизму. И создал первое в мире госурство рабочих и крестьян. Беда в том, что этому государству с начало его основания всё хотели уничтожить.
Yes, this really is amazing. Everything I've watched and read over the years stressed how one-sided the battle was for the Germans in '41--smashing through the hapless Red Army, huge encirclements, victory almost assured until Hitler interfered. But then, in the spring of '42 it's almost glossed over that the Germans had lost a million men the year before...one third of their army. Even with the terrible retreat from Moscow, that casualty count seemed incongruous. Here, from the German side, we see how that happened; a slug fest, all the way from day one. Brutal indeed.
I have German relatives who fought in Stalingrad and one often recited the disgust in how decent Germans due to hunger and desperation, during the winter, if a comrade died from freezing/fatigue, everyone would quickly rush his body for any food/items they can salvage in a sort of every man for himself style. And how 1 minute that’s a friend and next minute he’s just a “body” and how impersonal it gets. Another relative developed severe PTSD from the Katyshas (Stalins Organs) and would wake up at high shouting take cover in full panic and on his deathbed relived that moment before passing.
Sudden death can be like that. You don't need to be freezing and starving or even cold or hungry. One evening we were planning what we would do in the coming months. Then within half an hour my lively outgoing wife turned from being in my plans to being a body in my arms.
@@AwesomeDude272 Thanks. It was a cold feeling, realising how much the world had lost in one person. The intentions, the care for others as well as part of my life left and I was left holding a husk that was once a person. Sorry if I have saddened you but this happened to many more people later on. A young woman later sent me the last photo of her mother alive as they tried to let her sip cold water.
Max Hastings interviewed a old German soldier once who said that when he was moved from the Eastern front to the western front he thought he was a holiday compared to what he had experience.
The real problem is. That any graphic images under news media or documentary content. Does not need to be censored. It upsets me when it is censored. Because it goes against the reason why our soldiers fought and died for. If someone is disturbed by images can change the channel or just deal with it. But when censorship starts taking over the truth of anything. That's when we lose our freedom and trust in news media. Which is already happening.
Yes, I agree. I'm searching the faces of the soldiers to see if I can identify my father. He survived the war and died in 1973. My parents had divorced in 1943 and I had seen him only 3 times in my life. My mom who had gone to her parents home in East Prussia in 1943, fled from the Russians to Duesseldorf, the British Zone in 1945 and married an English soldier who took her to England. I, her daughter, was raised by foster parents and after searching for her for many years, found her through the German Red Cross living in England in 1975.
This documentary is fascinating. I've read many firsthand accounts of war on the Eastern front, and this man's story brings out the true horror of war as well as any of them.
Germans was right! History show that. USA and England should not support and safe rusians and let the germans do what they have to do for goodness Germans ❤❤❤❤!
It's interesting to hear that Russian soldiers regarded German soldiers as "beasts" and murderers. Considering the Wehrmacht was complicit with actions conducted by the Einsatzgruppen and similar SS formations, as well as the fate which awaited almost three million Russian POWs, they were right to think this way.
The Germans were told the Soviets were subhuman, yhe Sovieta were told ghe Germans were beasts etc. It was done so that neither wwould want to surrender
@@confusedbadger6275 The NKVD murdered 20,000 Poles, deported and murdered some thousand Baltic people and about 100,000 "political enemies" during the first 2 weeks of the German soviet war. Take this and all those mutilated German POW in the first days of German-Soviet war and you know why German soldiers did not NEED any propaganda to believe this war is going to be cruel. But its intersting to see how these inconvenient facts disappeared from history book (or never made it in there)....
I often note my grandfather being shot whilst up a tree deep in Russia somewhere seeing where the Russians were (and surviving) as a moment of how close we are to not being here in the first place. Got sent back east when recovered and almost blown up. Survived and we played golf. My grandmother's brother, 20 yr old kid, got a one way trip to Stalingrad. No winners eh.
The reason why you are obsessed with WW2 is simply because your mind can't wrap itself around it. You are missing the central point. 🧬 Around 1900 the Zionists movement declared that they want to create a Jewish country. All the world leaders refused them. Eventually after the years of despair, Nazis needed help to power and they made a pact with the Zionists in the early 1920' Zionists instructed Hitler on blood science and he agreed to help them to create Israel. They were deporting Jews from Hamburg and Bremerhaven to Palestine. All the info is in the newspapers 1932-1939
My grandma lived in occupied Norway. She said that it became part of normal life. German Soldiers would share their rations with locals and play with kids in the snow in the winter. She said she threw snowballs at them and even spat on a soldier from a tree once, but they were never punished
@@pomodorostudyclub Right, I'd imagine life wasn't so bad in Nazi-occupied Norway considering the country is quintessentially Aryan (if not more so than Germany) and had the lowest Jewish population of the territories invaded. Still, 1/3 of its Jews were deported to the camps. I don't think Norway is the best example of the reality of Nazi-occupied territories.
@@Mildain2000 you’re right, I probably should have added that context myself. Just wanted to share a personal memory that came to mind when I saw this video and comment.
My Dad fought in Patton's Third Army, 4th Armored Division from the end of July, 1944 until the end of the war. He then stayed on as part of the American occupation forces until February of 1946. He saw it all, from the race across France to the Battle of the Bulge, into southern Germany with a quick stop to help liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp and then onto Czechoslovakia. We knew some of the horror that he had seen and been a part of. Buchenwald came back to haunt him in the early 1980's when some idiot was on a TV talk show and was telling the audience that the Holocaust never happened. I had been working nights and woke up to him yelling at the TV with tears in his eyes. He was yelling "No, NO! I WAS THERE!" When I came into the TV room to see what was going on, he looked at me and said, "Kelly, I was THERE! The bodies were stacked like logs Kelly! Kelly, THE OVENS WERE STILL WARM!!" That last sentence will stay with me until I die - "The ovens were still warm!" In the 25 years that I hung out with my Dad, I never saw him cry, and after that outburst, I never saw him cry again. War is a dirty, haunting business. Only the ones who never fought in one think it's somehow glorious...
Wow.....isn't it so sad that too many want to wipe the Holocaust away and pretend it never happened. This is why so many survivors have come forward to tell their stories of what they went thru... I went to college with a Jewish gal whose father was in a concentration camp. He somehow escaped and was able to walk across Europe until he found the Allies. He was barely alive and weighed 70 lbs. My college friend said she was woke up nightly by his screams in the night. Soon they will all be dead but their stories will live on....
Yeah, the issue with this comment and a well-meaning one, at that... His outbursts after seeing the man on TV saying it never happened appears to be coming from a place of guilt. For something that is "true", one wouldn't have such outbursts at those who say it never happened but ignore the people who claim to have been a survivor (of which, many have been exposed for lying) and get caught lying about their victim status while benefiting financially from their lies in their books, documentaries, or speeches at schools. If it is illegal to question this event or deny it.. Should it not be equally illegal to lie about it? Should you return the money made from the lies? Not only do I make this observation based on that, I also make this observation because: 1) By the time FDR recognized the Soviet Union government in 1933, Stalin had nearly 20 million Russians and Ukrainians executed, sent to slave labor camps (millions died in the slave labor camps) and death camps (even more millions killed in these camps) scattered throughout Soviet Union Russia. Once FDR recognized and established relations with Stalin, he worked in overdrive to cover up their genocide in the Soviet Union and Ukraine purging any and all mentions of it. He appointed Stalin-linked agents as his advisors in the WH and appointed more to positions of influence in the US government. 2) You are told that before WWII, Hitler was rounding up Hebrews in Germany and having them killed. This is quite a bold lie meant to be smoke and mirror to divert attention away from Stalin's genocide in the Soviet Union and Ukraine and even his mass executions numbering 700,000 Of Russians in government, the military (the soldiers family were also executed if their child gets falsely accused of treason), and many civilians based on "lists of names" and quotas for the NKVD to meet in regards to the executions of Russians, prior to WWII in the '30s. In Germany, Hitler did NOT use violent means to force Hebrews out of Germany nor mass arrests and executions. He made it illegal for them to hold positions of power, education, media, financing, and such. 1933-39, 2/3s of German Hebrews left Germany with their wealth and possessions. This is known as the Transfer Agreement of which Hitler and Hebrew Germans negotiated and signed. The worldwide Hebrews screeched and yelled about this agreement and did everything to prevent this agreement from carrying out, calling for even more boycotts against Germany. The infamous "Crystal night" was a reaction by the Germans after news of the German diplomat in Paris being assassinated by a Hebrew communist. 3) "Tonight, you have the opportunity to go to the big city (Berlin) and to light a fire in the belly of the enemy and burn his black heart." - orders from Churchill on RAF terror bombings. "We owe the Germans no sympathy, no understanding, we owe them nothing. You ask what is our policy? I will say to you: We have nothing to offer the Germans, but blood, sweat, toil, and tears. It is to wage war by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us." From the launch of the RAF's night time terror bombings and shortly the American day time terror bombings of German civilians, the Allied powers dropped nearly two million tons of incendiaries and bombs on German civilians who had NOTHING to do with the war. Your father, under the impression he was “liberating” Buchenwald, absolutely did NOT liberate the camp. The allied powers bombed that camp and killed many. The UK dropped phosphorus bombs along with incendiary bombs with heavy bombs onto many Germans in cities throughout Germany. Many cities contained UK POWs and refugees that were fleeing from the Soviet Union. This did not stop the RAF from bombing these cities. Many of the refugee camps and POWs were connected to hospitals. The Uk bombed the hospitals and strafed the refugee camps. Killing many civilians and refugees. The Germans trapped in basements were literally in a “oven” because of the flames from the phosphorus bombs and incendiary bombs that burned them to ashes with human fat being turned into liquid. Bodies were stacked and still hot to the touch. The bodies belonged to the victims who were sucked into the mile(s) wide infernos. 4) Your father believed he was fighting evil but in reality, his nation allied with the very evil nation (soviet union) that was responsible for millions of Europeans being butchered and burned alive before WWII, before the Allied powers invaded Europe to “liberate” the Europeans from Hitler and Germany, they knew of the mass arrests and executions of Poles in Poland and the 1941 NKVD massacre that killed 10,000 to 40,000 (or more) Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Hebrews, and other nationalities. He knows that he was lied to and he feels guilt for his role (unbeknownst to him) in the millions killed by the Soviet Union that his leaders covered up and blamed Germans and Hitler. They were busy arming and sending 11.3 Billion (130 billion today) in funds and military equipment and supplies for the Red Army. Italy, Finland, Romania, Spain, Czech, Cossacks, tartars, French, British, Lithuanians, Ethiopians, Dutch, Ukrainians and Russians fought along side Germany for Europe and to defeat Bolshevism that sought their destruction. If I was your father, I wouldn’t want my children to know the truth and have them curse me as I lay in my grave. After finding out how the Allied powers helped evil and aided this evil in their mass murders and mass r**e of European women and girls. The mutilation of European men and boys. That your nation had policies in the war that ordered AF pilots to bomb and strafe any moving target, whether civilian or military, in the country side. Killing many children and women in trains fleeing from the Soviet Union as they began their advance towards Germany. The trains which carried wounded refugees and POWs to Germany because had they stayed behind, the Soviet NKVD would kill them. How America and the West turned over 5 million Russians, military and civilian, to the Soviet’s to appease Stalin. Which he promptly had them murdered along with their families. And turned a blind eye as Stalin’s NkVD that forcibly deported Germans citizens and soldiers to via death marches or cattle trains to Serbia where 5.8 million Germans were killed.
Agreed, Seems like we are rarely shown the German attitude and position, very humanizing, something that most documentaries fail to do, it’s usually just “the Germans where animals”.
@@somniumisdreaming it’s easy if you understand that human nature is basically evil if left unchecked, I’m not saying they are human in a good way, I’m saying we should all be able to see that we are capable of the same if left to our own rationalization. It’s the people that don’t realize their condition, that are likely to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Absolutely love to hear the German and Soviet perspective that has mostly been lost to history. Understanding though the causes they were fighting for were vastly different, the horrors and trauma of war were the same. Cannot wait to see the second episode!
Sorry. No Soviet perspective. Because Soviet/Russian archives, and Stalin and the Communists are baddies. And, you know: Mongols... Enjoy the magnificent and truthful historical narrative, carefully selected by Halder and his group, after being captured by the Allies, and footage from Die Deutsche Wochenschau, where there practically are no horses and wagons at all.
@@Ailasher, what are you writing? Are you crazy? Stalin and the Communists saved the world from destruction. Millions of communists died so that you could be born and live. They volunteered to go to the front and died for you. Their children were orphaned or were not born at all, but you were born and live happily. You are just an ungrateful stupid illiterate person, a victim of anti-communist propaganda or a scoundrel. You are spreading vile lies here. Communism is justice, humanity and freedom. Read the authentic works of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and not false interpretations about them. Что вы пишите? Вы сумасшедший? Сталин и коммунисты спасли мир от гибели. Миллионы коммунистов погибли ради того, чтоб вы смогли родиться и жить. Они добровольцами шли на фронт и погибали ради вас. Их дети остались сиротами или вообще не родились, а вы родились и живёте счастливо. Вы просто неблагодарный тупой неграмотный человек, жертва антикоммунистическтй пропаганды или негодяй. Вы распространяете здесь гнусную ложь. Коммунизм - это справедливость, человеколюбие и свобода. Читайте подлинные труды Маркса, Ленина, Сталина, а не лживые интерпретации о них.
@@Ailasher both nazis and soviets are baddies. Both started ww2, slaughtered millions and caused suffering. Except one of them were tried and made some changes in their society, while the other's results can be seen even today.
I am mesmerized by this fellow's lack of self-awareness. He has no idea why the common folk would be so kind and gracious to an invading army with a bunch of tanks and guns, and barely a breath later has no idea why enemy soldiers would be so cruel to an invading army with a bunch of tanks and guns. How dare people defend their homes and lives against invaders. Boggles the mind. "Ive never before seen so many corpses." Well, this is what happens when you want to exterminate people. Excellent documentary with very good footage. I do wish you wouldn't blur things out, but UA-cam will be UA-cam. Please upload part 2 soon.
Germans on the western front did surrender quite a few times, mainly because the allies weren't fired up with propaganda to destroy all and anything german. Also, in case it didn't come to mind.. people were conscripted, perhaps not automatically fond of the political ideas presented to them (imagine that old jewish WW1 veteran next door suddenly becoming part of a demonized religious group), perhaps there was propaganda that showed the jews were treated all right in the camps, I don't know.
As a 2-war combat vet who was disabled in my tour of service, I can definitely relate to the miserable rain, mosquitoes, filth of not bathing & mud almost up to your knees!
@@stanleybroniszewsky8538 The part you forgot is that the Neocons who started all of these wars never sent their kids or if they did they made sure they had cushy jobs and got medals. They also made plenty of money and are laughing. There is nothing honorable in fighting for a country which starts wars and can't win them. The US hasn't won a war since Korea. The Neocons are pushing for your children to be drafted to fight Russia and China. The worst part of all this is the OP who was disabled in his tour of service and if it was a recent war he was a victim of an IED. Good luck with the VA Hospital. They have the worst and most incompetent doctors who graduated from third world medical schools. You're better off with a Witch Doctor than a VA doctor.
My grandfather was a truck driver with a panzer regiment. He went all the way to Moscow. Got shot through the shoulder in 1945, met my grandmother in Halle then fled home to the west and survived
My maternal great uncle served in the German Navy during WW2. I didn't learn much even though he survived the war. I just know in the early 50s, my mother went with her dad to visit relatives in Germany. Looking at the pictures taken, it seemed so surreal looking at people my mother knew but didn't say much.
I’d like to see a real well done high budget series covering the entirety of WW2 from all perspectives. With good actors and cinematography and CGI. Like Game of Thrones format but WW2
I agree, surely people should be cautioned about the truth of war. The real horror. However, the powers that be will always need cannon fodder and can't let the lie of a 'boy's own adventure' die.
@@jasonpip5417 I disagree. The brutality of war kills, maims and destroys people. It shouldn’t be akin to a computer game that is sanitised. Real war isn’t like that.
How many ethnic Russians (read: white Christians) died as a result of the revolutions in Russia? From what I've read it was over 100 million. A literal corpse-nation. Weird coincidence that they were both white and Christian too, huh?
When I was growing up WWII vets were everywhere. I see them so rarely now its terrible. My 4yo son and I ran into a Army Ranger in a wheelchair last week in the store with a WWII hat. I knew we had to talk! I even took a pic of him with my boy. It's so sad my son will grow up without these heros in his life like I did. My sons will never really know how hard these guys were/are. Different Era. I cherish what little time I can create to listen to these old boys now.
I grew up with them, and my father and uncles were some of those great men. I’m glad you got that photo of the man and your little boy, and I hope that he cherishes it.
My Godfather fought with Patton. Patton said we fought on the wrong side after having observed the situation in Europe, and I agree. We were duped into helping the enemy. Patton wanted to take out the Soviets but traitors Truman and Eisenhower wouldn't let him. We could have been spared the whole cold war and massive nuclear proliferation. I still respect the valor and sacrifice of those vets, even if we did fight on the wrong side and hurt ourselves in the long run. I had lunch with my godfather every 2 weeks until he passed, and heard many war stories. He had severe PTSD.
What stuck me is how the German soldier believed they were the kind natured group. A stark reminder that each side believe they are on the side of the righteous
@@fukuswii4370 People who starved in German camps died because of the aggressive use of siege tactics by the Allied forces in the final 2 years of the war. What's the Soviet excuse for the over 2 million accounts of rape of German Women? By all means though, keep parroting that mainstream kosher dogma like broken record...
A few years ago I watched a documentary about young Russians who had been exhuming German war dead and sending them back to be re-interred in Germany. In many cases, you could tell the guy was buried where he fell. Sometimes two or three men were buried together and they had to separate the bones. It was…somber.
theres heaps of russian youtube channels dedicated to metal detecting around the swamps of Russia. The amount of crap they find it seems the ground is fertilized by the dead . They'll find an 80 year old rifle in some mud and be disappointed because it's only a common mosin
This is really good content to explore the history of WW2 from a completely different angle. I used to discuss WW2 at length with a D Day veteran that went on to cross Europe and went right to Berlin. He was a despatch rider attached to a tank regiment. As they crossed France, they had no idea if the next village was occupied by the Germans. So they sent him to scout on his motorbike. If he was met by gunfire, the CO deduced that the village was Nazi occupied. They'd then call in air recon, followed by air strikes if necessary, and the tanks would roll forward into decimated forces. You don't get this picture without first hand accounts.
How does this veteran feel about the state of 'his' country now during a time where, say, trans kids and the like are not only being tolerated, but encouraged? ua-cam.com/users/shorts70v0wwgB5vo ua-cam.com/video/wcnQJd_XRQQ/v-deo.html
Is there a version of this documentary that doesn't have half of it "fuzzed" out??? Very annoying to have someone deciding what I can and cannot see. (Don't get all up in my face telling me it's for my own good...just point me in the direction of an uncensored version of this excellent documentary. Thank you.)
This was very well done in every way. The diary contrasted with the obvious crimes against humanity. Then, the footage so well matched to the text. Effective history in the best sense
Good to hear Artur! Look after yourself first and foremost, and never feel guilty for taking a day off if you need it. Nowdays people are far more understanding, plus just watching all those gory videos day in and day out can have an impact. Stay happy and safe! 😊
This documentary was both fascinating and horrifying. Personally I am old enough to not have bad scenes blurred out. If I'm going to watch warfare in its entirety, that must include the horrifying parts of it as well. I am looking forward to the second part of this documentary. This diary series is explosive in its "on the ground, in your face" truth from a German tank officers perspective during the actual time of his involvement in operation Barbarossa.
The people who survived all this horror were the most staunch supporters of peace. They could endure everything, their requirements for the comforts of life were simple: "If only there was no war".
Funny... I remember several soldiers who had fought in WW1 making the same speeches about just that. How they did not want war as they had fought on the front lines. All of them warned about bankers and organizations trying to undermine nations and citizens using a system of debt and usury. They wanted to change a world full of drugs and poor people in debt slavery. What is happening now? Yet these men were all executed. Some in unimaginably brutal ways. If not, then slandered until they may as well have been or thrown into camp, prison or the Gulag.
It's interesting that he doesn't have enough self reflection to understand the Russians were probably likewise stating the same comments he repeatedly makes, "they will pay for this" Or the fact, it was their country he was intruding within
With the atrocities the soldiers were willingly committing, to hear them talk about beautiful countryside makes me feel ill. “Lucky me not to die in the tank following the cruise in the beautiful hills on my way to abuse and butcher Jews…I can’t wait to write home about how heroic I am.” Just sickening. I greatly appreciate this content and the Allies who stopped the twisted minds.
The British and USA were just as sick in the head if not worse. Notice how it's all tiny hat people talking about white Europeans being the biggest threat to democracy? The wrong side won the war.
The guy who is disgusted because "these pigs" defend their home against his gang of invaders. And the way he just assumes he's better than the local people. He's an arrogant a$%^hole.
The letters sent back from the war are heartbreaking. One specific chain starts with a gung ho attitude of "We'll be home by Christmas" and ends with a bit for his daughter saying "You won't have a father soon"
excellent work, thank you for posting. Very interesting to get a first hand account. The sheer human waste of it all is exhausting. You look at all those rockets blasting into air, the three million men involved, all could have been put towards building hospitals in Germany or helping the poor.
Weird, little inconsequential fact about the German build up to Barbarossa: None of the soldiers that had taken part in the campaign on Balkan in '41 and who made up the bulk of Armeegruppe Süd, had gasmasks in their gasmask cannisters, having ditched the gasmasks all around Greece and former Jugoslavia in the excessively hot summer of 1941. Instead they used the sturdy metal cannisters for storing food and booze supplies. This caused a minor meltdown in Armeegruppe Süd's military police attachment as when they first went out to reinforce army regulations of what was supposed to in a gasmask cannisters (a missing cannister by those regulations was punishable by death as sabotage of the war effort and usually would result in disciplinary housearrest and a hefty fine), they discovered they had close to 350.000 suspected saboteurs on their hands - and no army if they went ahead processing them all. So they had to let it slide and just hope the Russians wouldn't start using gas defending themselves.
Fascinating listen and much appreciate the upload. Liked and subscribed! My family has fought in the Wehrmacht during the second world war. My Grandfather was in the 6th army 44th infantry division and saw action in Poland, France and Kharkov. He was later captured along with thousands of men at Stalingrad. He ultimately lost over 100 ounds of body weight moving around different Russian labour camps post war before finally returning home to Germany in the 1950 and lived a long peaceful life. His younger brother started off the war in the East as part of the 439th Regiment of the 134th Division and was at the battle of Moscow then later he was one of 9 survivors out of 1,000 men in his regiment to die in the battle of Kursk where he was injured and furloughed as a result. He survived heavy allied bombing and returned to active combat in the end as part of the 512th heavy tank destroyer battalion as a loader for the Jagdtiger when he surrendered to the Americans in May 1945. The eldest brother out of the 3 served in the German navy as an officer. He was on submarine U-107 which sank British ship Colonial off Guinea, French West Africa; the entire crew of 100 survived and rescued by HMS Centurion.
Interesting story thank you for sharing. Most of the generals of the 6th army were turned by the Soviets during their internment. They were sour about what they considered their betrayal at Stalingrad. Many of these generals later came to be the cadre of the East German army and their leader maintained Wehrmacht traditions: marches, regalia, and toughness. Mark Felton did a video about what happened to Von Paulus generals.
did your grandfather share with you stories of atrocities german soldiers committed against civilians? besides horrors that happened to him i m sure in Stalingrad, did he speak of horrors he brought with him to the land he dared to conquer? at one point of the documentary, they mention how many soviet soldiers died in captivity. would be interesting to see the statistics of how many captured german soldiers lived a "long peaceful life" vs soviet soldiers after the war ended. my grandpa was never captured, he fought all the way to berlin. he lived in stalingrad (volgograd) after the war for the rest of his life. he never talked about the war. but since the youngest age i was always taken to Mamaev kurgan. ps. nothing against you personally here. but whatever you call fascinating, i find very tragic. after all, 30-50 000 000 people, citizens of a single country killed is the greatest tragedy. the saddest part is that a lot of these soldiers who committed crimes against humanity, escaped their punishment or served mininum, returned to their families, and lived a long peaceful life.
I had several great- uncles fighting on the eastern front , I still remember some of their stories , how BRUTAL it was , freezing almost to death at stalingrad , with hardly any food , and the combat and diseases like dysenterie !!
I remember my Great Great grandfather talking about german soldiers he would get quite, grit his teeth, and say german soldiers are tough people. He survived d day but was shot in the hip sometime later he told me they would have to stay in foxholes freezing while artillery was going off he said they didnt know where it was coming from. He said a lot of the people that didnt have family or anything to go home to couldnt take it and they would run out of the fox hole and get killed. He talked about praying when he had to run out and get supplies. He had a good life after the war, he bought 100 acres of land and died at 85 we still have the land.
I have always wondered what would have happened if the Germans had treated the Baltic States and Ukraine as liberators rather than conquerors. Many, many people despised the Soviets....
I can't imagine ever having this kind of pride and bravado in invading another country, killing those who dare defend that country and doing so with such righteous arrogance
@@matthewosburn Not at all similar. To just name one small difference, the USA and its allies did not intend to eradicate the population and settle the land with their own people. Oh, another comes to mind, the military campaign was won in a matter of weeks, all subsequent misery was the result of Iraqi sectarian and tribal infighting, their utter inability to just form a democratic government after their dictator was gone.
@@nelus7276That was Germany’s plight. They needed the spoils of WW2 in order to fight WW2. Barbarossa was intended to make Germany a superpower and break its dependency of the Soviet Union.
look up Come and See, and The Painted Bird. But be prepared, they are very grim and hit like a couple of sledgehammers. Come And See is Russian and paint the Germans as sadistic monsters. The Painted Bird is Czech and doesn't have much love for the Red Army or the Nazis.
My grandpas friend was sent to/went to the eastern front with the panzer division SS Wiking but during the winter he got so frostbiten that he couldn’t walk at all and he was sent to a hospital
Oh that was immense, hard to imagine what it was like being there but this is a pretty good depiction. I went to St Petersburg in 1986, stunning place.
Man's inhumanity to his fellow man has no limits. It will happen again, except it will be worse. One day, humans will be extinct. My very young son asked: "Dad, isn't war killing of your own kind?" I hugged him tightly.
It is a good documentary. I would like to hear and see more about what actually happened at that time from the German side. I had two grandfathers who survived Russian captivity only just and they had no animosity toward the Russians at all. They claimed most Russians were half starved themselves and had almost nothing and in view of that they had no complaints. Both claimed they were treated fairly. They related how cold it was and yes the insects and mosquitos were terrible.Both were just ordinary soldiers sent to the Russian front. Most of their comrades did not make it home. They were part of the small groups to survive and go back home. Interesting also is what happens to the body with long term starvation. The body eats itself and digestion is forever abnormal. Mosquitos also caused Malaria.
Interesting bit about the starvation - I’ve had to cut weight for sports (wrestling) for so long, sometimes eating less than 1000 calories a day. 35 now and my stomach is totally different than it was just 3-4 years ago. Could it be from extreme dieting? Perhaps. Thanks for the response
@@guccimane623 if you dont eat at all you fuck up your gut bacteria. i dont know if you can get it back to what it was before before but if you eat right no sugars etc it will get much better. ive had similar issues and things def got better after eating as much protein / greens as i could for a while.
Amazing. Seldom is the German point of view explored. To hear a first person account from a front line tank crew member is remarkable. I hope you post the rest of it.
It's fascinating to listen to how he thinks of himself and Germany, not knowing how contradictory reality is to his idealistic beliefs about his "cause". 1:27:33 "If only we could look into the future". Indeed.
Well done, in my 57-year study of Military History this may be the frankest most descriptive documentation of what war was like for the German soldier on the Russian front, there's a lot of painful psychological expression without shame in this, then there's compassionate admiration and humanity from both sides.....this exists in any War
🤬I just hope ^the author suffered immensely while on the eastern front. He shoots unarmed enemy soldiers in a foxhole for no reason, then absolves himself of responsibility, by blaming others for his actions. He justifies invading and stealing their land, by saying that the landowners weren't as good at farming as German farmers, therefore they deserve to have their land stolen by people who'll farm it more effectively. What an evil fool this soldier is.....
@@HighlanderNorth1 he was young, do you not understand the lengths hitler and the nazis went to just to get the youth on their side. Of course he would think that way when thats all he had been told since he was in his early teens
My dad served in that army and as I was born 20 November 1941 in Oberhausen/Rhld I would have liked to have read about the events at that time but unfortunately the diaries ended in September 1941.
The best man lost🌹♥️🌹 Thanks for these docs, they are amazing, music is very beautiful, Love Edda 🌹♥️🌹 Apocalypse the 2nd world war 2009 is amazing also 🌹♥️🌹
About time the horrors of the Eastern Front in WWII come to light to a broader audience. In contrast to the Western Front, this was so much more devastating, inhuman, apocalyptic than everything what happened in the West. Just look at the numbers of casualties...
It's ironic that the writer of the diary considers himself to be both culturally and intellectually superior to everyone he encountered in the East yet he remains committed to a doomed ideology and was defeated by the very people he looked down upon.
Sounds like you drank an entire bowl of the establishment koolaid. The NSDAP worldview was far from a doomed ideology. It's still alive today in people you marginalize as the _fringe_ of society despite there being millions more of us than you realize. Not to worry though. The truth is that we don't believe even a fraction of what the Hollywood hucksters have accused us of. You'd know that if you switched off the _"History"_ Channel and read some actual NSDAP literature. Don't go in expecting anything crazy though or you'll be disappointed. It's mostly ideas about how to rebuild a manufacturing-based economy and end debt slavery (oooooo scary... lol). If you get offended hearing someone talk at length about how parliamentarians are morons though, don't ever read Hitler's personal writing, because he wasn't a fan of the _Justin Trudeaus_ of his day.
Doomed ideology in your modern eyes. For a German going from first world country to a country where people cannibalised themselves in gulags, there was a shock yeah.
@Bahamut3525 First world? The same place where the disabled were forcefully sterilized? The same place with severe restrictions on free speech and political affiliation? First world my ass
The wait is over... PART TWO of Barbarossa: The Lost Diaries has just been made available 👉ua-cam.com/video/ia1sv3vJWYs/v-deo.html
Is there anywhere I can watch this without the censorship of the dead bodies? Morbid I know but I think to get the real feel of this horrid war one must see the true devastation.
Why are images blurred?
Germans should pay for this, how much money costs 1 livie?
,0😊⁸😊😊
I just watched it, well worth the wait. There are endless documentaries on You tube about the war, but very few first hand narrative accounts like this that really bring it to life, Sander, the diarist, give his narration such a humanist tone, teaching us all what he'll war can be 🧐
There's a book called Windswept Lies of War, and it talks from censored history and hidden secrets to lost files and classified documents about World War II, it's the real deal.
What does it says, where can I find it
The likes… the recent date… the lack of replies… I smell a bot
@@XXXTENTAClON227no such book , can’t find it
My granddad fought in Stalingrad with the 14th Panzer Division, he was captured and came home in 1953. Het died in 2015 at the age of 95. Before he died he told me that wanted to be cremated and not buried as he never wanted to feel the cold soil again.
My grandfather was captured by the Lithuanian collaborators, confined in a ghetto, had most of his family murdered, eventually, liberated by the American army from Dachau. He died at the age of 97 in the USA. Buried according to the Jewish tradition. Cremation is what he had avoided in Dachau.
My husband's father also fought, for Germany, do not ever let anyone, be disrespectful too your
Granddad, war, changes all men...many would say your Granddad, and my father in law, were heartless monster's...much respects, to your Granddad, and to my Father in law..there is so much I would enjoy telling you, about how the war started.
@@michaelmelamed9103 Condolences to your granddad. I hope he lived a good life after the horrors of the war. My great uncle was an anti-aircraft gunner working a four-barrel .50cal. He had three confirmed kills on Luftwaffe aircraft, and one unconfirmed kill on a Nazi sniper on the ground. Despite fighting and killing Nazis, it still upset him to see dead ones, especially the one time they brought him out to one of the downed aircraft (to confirm). Though they were his enemy, he was disturbed by it.
@@michaelmelamed9103Try with Lithuanian freedoms fighters. We all know the families of Schiff and Rothschild financed the communist revolution and got the Tzar Nikolai II and his family murdered in cold blood 🩸 Who is keep pushing for a war in Ukraine and Russia?
That's 11 years as a POW, 8 of them after the end or hostilities
It’s crazy to me how people read about the death and destruction of war, and watch the movies yet never realize how difficult the loss of life is. Not just seeing it but the sounds and smells. Having someone begging you to help them and you know nothing you do can save them. Telling them anything you think can comfort them and knowing they are already dead. What haunts me is the look on someone’s face. As a medic they believe that you are going to save them and they have that hope when you are there. Only those who don’t know death want war.
Only thoes who want war don't understand death? That might tell you a lot about politicians! I once looked at memorial in front of a High School in Mobile, Alabama. It was dedicated to 7 classmates who were drafted to serve in Vietnam. Think about it. Your 18 or 19 child who had his whole life in front of him , was suddenly sent across the world to fight in a jungle and asked to give his life for our country.
Scale of war in eastern front was insane. Both largest armies going at it 100%.
Pretty sure Hitler personally saw lots of death up front in the trenches and essentially masterminded this whole war.
Everyone knows death. It haunts everyone at every turn, and it will eventually conquer every living creature on this earth.
I don't think we can say that actually; I don't think "...only those who don't know death seek war" is a good qualifier. Look no further than the primary belligerents of WW2. Adolf Hitler himself survived 4 years of absolute carnage and human suffering during WW1. Same can be said for Herman Goering, an ace pilot war hero. Benito Mussolini also served as a sniper for Italy in WW1. Hideki Tojo in Japan also had previous combat experience. These leaders were the ones who were most aggressive at pursuing war in the 1930s. And we can't forget about French general Charles De Gaulle. Churchill and Roosevelt considered him a stubborn hawk determined to have his moment of glory, and he had extensive combat experience in the trenches in WW1.
On the other hand, you have Neville Chamberlain, FDR, and Josef Stalin. They were trying to avoid war at all costs through appeasement policies, non-aggression pacts, and strict isolationism just to kick the can down the road long enough for someone else to eventually have to deal with it instead of them.
We can also extrapolate this out to other wars. Many will argue that the Korean War was the most pointless and unnecessary war in US history. The president who gave the green light for that war was Harry S. Truman, an artillery commander in WW1. Vietnam festered under Eisenhower, and finally acted upon by Kennedy- a naval gunboat captain who fought in the Pacific theatre of WW2. So I don't agree with your statement that only the oblivious want war. The veterans seem pretty damn motivated to pursue conflict too.
I've been an amateur WWII history fanatic since the 1980's and have been watching the same information over and over, and still enjoy those documentaries, but the diaries are new to me and fascinating. Showing the film and reading the diaries like this is a great idea and I hope to see many more.
Since 1980 dam u need to do better. Research
@@ortegaJfk So you would call yourself a professional even if you've never made a dime and have zero recognition outside of your preferred hobby?
@@rsmetz88 yes
This video is based on book Im sure of it, Ive listened to 3 books atleast that begin with invasion of russia, not sure the name tho
@@ortegaJfkit's tough to call yourself a professional at something if you don't do it as a profession.
These personal diaries paint a far more detailed picture of what it was like to be in that war than some dry map movement accounts you often see in WWII documentaries. It also gives us an inside in what was going on in these soldier's minds in these campaigns.
The narrator always adds in his propaganda against the German soldiers though
@@djharto4917 where? because all of the german accented voiceover you hear is literally reading from german soldier diaries.
Plenty was said off script. Our masters are always mentioned aren’t they?? Something that supposedly happened them.
I think both are quite useful actually
@@djharto4917 Sure, the German soldiers were such sweet people who only wanted to help the poor Soviet people especially the JEws, right? /s
Captivating.
In my humble opinion, this Era is one of, if not the most monumental, of modern times.
The insight these accounts allow, is priceless.
My great grandmother that died just 3 years ago, was in Leningrad during the siege and starvation. Life has brought us apart so I could not ask her in detail during my adult years, how was this time in person, but I have been told by my dad and grandmother about her time there. She suffered immensely as did people in the city, some even went as far as cannibalism, as the hunger sometimes makes people insane with it. Seeing dead bodies on the streets was just another normal day, people collapsed. To the last day she died she never allowed anyone or herself to waste a crop of bread. She miraculously survived and was captured by Germans and sent to Berlin for forced labour. It's insane, literally every Russian and Soviet family was affected by this war, EVERY single one.
And yet, look at the horror the Russian people are now inflicting on Ukraine. They have learned ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the horrors of war or about compassion and respect of a sovereign nation. All the Russians involved are complicit in mass war crimes - if you're a Russian living in Russia, it is your obligation to NOT participate in this war and your duty to oppose Putin, a megalomaniacal, hateful war criminal.
It saddens me to say this, but I never want to see Russia. Unless there is huge upheaval, but from most of what I've seen, all the people who disagree with the evil of the Kremlin have left. There is only evil, the spineless and the fearful left.
Was die Wehrmacht in Leningrad veranstaltet hat, ist ein Kriegsverbrechen und das sage ich als Deutscher.
So was everyone else's 😢
Imagine what will happen when the next war starts, we won't be needed for forced labor because robots can do that. What value will we have then? This history into human nature should frighten even the stoic person when contemplating the technological revolution of today's age and what that implies when it comes to the darker world were barreling into. I'm glad your grandma got out to make a good impression. Let her RIP, it's our time to see some crazy things, beyond her wildest dreams.
horrorfying the germans were not human
My father was In Barbarossa, was wounded by a Russian sniper in the leg, he fell in the snow and both his feet froze and gangrene took one foot and half of another. He spent the rest of the war in his hometown of Emden getting bombed at night by the British and by day by 5h3 Americans. Survived the war, married my mother and emigrated to the USA where my mother had relatives who sponsered them. Lived to age 86 ….mom to age 98. Both had good lives here in the USA.
USA is the greatest
Wasn’t he tried for war crimes?
@@MazxxiHe was not a War criminal obviously,learn some history...
@@Wilt8v92 how do you know that historian?
@@Mazxxi I don't get drawn into debates with trolls and idiots,goodbye...
Watched this when it first came out and am glad to see it back. One of the best history documentaries on UA-cam and I can’t wait for part 2!
Cheers Jan! Glad you enjoyed
@@HistoryHit Yeah, you guys do great work!
Part two is already avaliable, link in the video description.
Massive mistake- The Nazi Symbol was Haken Cross, A European catholic Christian symbol, not Swastika. Kindly apologize immediately and rectify.
@@vishwajeetbhardwaz9576 And what kind of "catholic christian symbol" should that be?
My Grandfather, born 1910 in Northern Germany near Hannover, was in the RAD too before volunteering for the Wehrmacht in 1938.
He was eventually wounded out of the war in 1943 in Russia.
It’s so apparent from these accounts and from what he told me how different and more difficult things were in the invasion of the Soviet Union. You can sense from this diary that even within a week things were going wrong and badly off schedule.
how many Poles or Russian granpa kill ?? Did he never mention it? Or, like every German, he was a "knight" and only the SS kills innocent poeple ?
Luckily it went very bad for those Coward germans…..are you looking for pity here?
Evil bloodline. Tfu
Must be good to have a nazi grandad? I'd love it
@@baabun-ssd Your comment shows that you are capable of the same evils as the national socialists..
Excellent! The co-ordination between the diary extracts and the footage is outstanding.
You need to make more documentaries like this. I am tired of seeing productions that revolve around the presenters.
Excellent work and thanks a lot for sharing it with us. ❤
I’m glad to see a German documentary about ww2 as you rarely see anyone talking about the axis or soviet sides of the war in-depth. Great video 👍🏻
great question its not what we are taught here in U S A WE ARE TAUGHT WHAT THE MEDIA WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE just like HITLER KILLED HIMSELF which he didnt
Axis and Soviet perspectives are all over the internet, all you have to do is look for them.
Leider sehr einseitig und Geschichtsverfälschend.
@@heinzjoachim7907 Was meinst du?
@@t.j.payeur5331 not to this extent tho.
The logistics involved in Barbarossa were absolutely INSANE!!!!
yes, yes they were
@@dubya85 never underestimat the importance of the logistics regiments / logistic soldiers.
Most of ours has been contracted out to private companies which won't bear well in a real war as nothing will be fixed on the front line. Just in the rear if lucky enough for them to be there charging by the hour.
I have never understood how Germany thought they could have won a war against the USA. I guess Adolph thought we were still cowboys. They didn’t do their homework with the US or Russia.
This is a remarkable and gripping presentation of the diary bringing out not only battle effects but also the mental attitude that provided drive that led to clash between the two powers. The philoloshy and ideology that steeped the two opposing societies leaving no room for compromise. This made war in East most brutal. Very educative and valuable diary . Merits wide circulation. Mahj Gen IA
D. Anderson, USMC, Hotel Company, 2dBn, 9th Marines, 3d MarDiv, 2/9/3, 68-69 Operation Dewey Canyon. In memory of 58,281 men including 8 women, all nurses, 16 clergy members and 160 Medal of Honor recipients who served in the Vietnam War and later died as a result of their service. We honor and remember their sacrifice.
Many carry a sense of having been betrayed by civilian and military leaders and by society generally. Be-trayed by politicians who resorted to war under false pretenses and took advantage of their patriotism and youth (the average age of a soldier in Vietnam was 19) and who placed constraints on war strategy that set them up for failure.
It's easy to forget that those who served in Vietnam grew up in a time when politicians were seen as statesmen focused on the common good. Most trusted their leaders when told that war was necessary to stop the spread of communism. Despite stereotypes to the contrary, most volunteered. They were part of a generation raised with stories about how their fathers and uncles had accepted the duties of citizenship and won the Great War.
These soldiers realized quickly that their fathers war was very different than the one into which they had been led. Their fathers had typically fought as parts of large coordinated forces against a massed enemy, taking and holding territory and attaining measurable strategic objectives, each of which moved them closer to victory. This was not true in Vietnam. Due to geopolitical constraints there would be no invasion of North Vietnam. Rarely would they face a massed force fighting in conventional fashion. In Vietnam, the enemy was often invisible, attacking then slipping away. Though the Army of North Vietnam was a conventional guerilla force, the Viet Cong were often indistinguishable from civilians.
A rotational system of deployment that constantly shuffled around the membership of units and which some believed undermined unit cohesion and morale, negative media stereotypes of American soldiers, exposure to conditions of intense privation, chronic feeling of being under threat with no safe place to go, and faulty equipment that broke down under fire. Others were stung by leadership claims that the war was necessary to liberate the people of South Vietnam only to find, as one veteran put it, "Those people just wanted us out and some wanted to cut my throat." I've known many who continued to resent what they saw as lies told by military and civilian leaders claiming progress was being made when the experience on the ground suggested they were stuck in a quagmire.
Then there was the betrayal of the homecoming. Though the antiwar movement had broad roots composed of people who genuinely wanted to stop the war, there was a segment openly hostile not just to the war but to the troops who fought it. Returning veterans who had given everything they had and who simply wanted to return home were often met with hostility.
Vets often say things such as, "We were spat on, called baby killers, treated like dirt when we arrived back home." Others remember subtle hostility: "I was afraid to wear my uniform in public because of the looks I'd get." Many contrast their experience with an earlier generation. "Those World War 2 guys got parades and ticker tape; we got stabbed in the back."
D, Anderson USMC
2/9/3 68-69
@@seniordavidmanderson9232 And now, OBiden wants Americans to fight some half-assed European Civil War that's been going on for over 100yrs?
Or, is it going to be in the Pacific, again? Some rich S.O.B.'s silicon factory?
How is the U.S. going to fight a war when politicians have sold-off, or, depleted Strategic Fuel Reserves & most of the weapons?
@Senior David M Anderson from my husband Vietnam Era Navy Corpsman.... Your words,ALL of them ring true,unfortunately our.youth don't give a flyin frog what happened THEN. See how many will show up on the next unavoidable DRAFT.!Better all have passports.... WTF was up with all the VETERAN TRAITORS ON J6?? KMA! THIS is what he fought for...Fascist republican morons in Megamall? NO!!
The diaries and footage paint an honest picture of the Eastern front. Sure there are extracts from the diaries which describe people and situations which in todays terms are unacceptable, but hey, this is a good thing as it is honest and a true historical reflection of that period in history. The last thing we should be doing is editing history to appease the sensitivities of today’s cultures. An excellent historical documentary - Bravo.
"which in todays terms are unacceptable", ha, you think so? maybe in mainstream polite society it seems that way, yeah your right, thankfully we can watch a neutral unbiased documentary and make our own minds up, which is how it is supposed to be. ✌🏻🌹♥️🌹 Love Edda
Such a brutal and heart aching experience from a single soldier in a war so incomprehensible in size. Lest we forget, I take gratitude in living a peaceful life. Listening to diaries like this can truly shift ones perspective.
War is brutal for all involved.
I learned about this in the Europa the last battle documentary.
Yeah, given the admissions of war crimes I don't feel too bad for this twat.
Qa
Not so peaceful if you’re in Ukraine
Cheers
If it wasn't history; one can hardly comprehend the stupidity of war that causes so much suffering for no gain at all but a descent into barbarism.
Stupidity ? Evolution of man from monkey to human? Laughable. They're currently in Ukraine snorting yabba yabba doo
World war 2 caused the end of colonies
Makes more sense than this Ukrainian conflict
Pray that Ukraine will stop sending untrained men into the grinder.
@@HonorableBeniah-A prayer is the lazy man's way of not actually doing anything.
This is a gem. The system of 2 narrators works very well - it maintains the vital distinction between the textual and the supra textual thus providing greater depth to the work. The context to the experiential coverage of events, is thoroughgoing and mutually supportive.
Much appreciated!
Yeah they needed the second narrator for propaganda purposes, otherwise the Germans would look too good and not the monsters they have been portrayed to be.
@@huwhitecavebeast1972 Don't get Nazis and the SS mixed up with the Wehrmacht!! It shows your complete ignorance.
judging from the prose and reoccuring keywords these are the words of the same solider...if so, he merc'ed mad bodycount
"Am I too much of a materialist if I claim that the upper levels of a population can bear their ideational loss better than the working class can bear the material loss? That's saying it carefully. I don't want to be classed as a Bolshevist..."
What a crucial insight into the often ponderous mind of a front line soldier/officer.
Что плохого в большевизме? Это он сломал хребет фашизму. И создал первое в мире госурство рабочих и крестьян. Беда в том, что этому государству с начало его основания всё хотели уничтожить.
This is amazing, never heard this detailed of a German perspective during Barbarossa. Absolutely brutal.
Yes, this really is amazing. Everything I've watched and read over the years stressed how one-sided the battle was for the Germans in '41--smashing through the hapless Red Army, huge encirclements, victory almost assured until Hitler interfered. But then, in the spring of '42 it's almost glossed over that the Germans had lost a million men the year before...one third of their army. Even with the terrible retreat from Moscow, that casualty count seemed incongruous. Here, from the German side, we see how that happened; a slug fest, all the way from day one. Brutal indeed.
I have German relatives who fought in Stalingrad and one often recited the disgust in how decent Germans due to hunger and desperation, during the winter, if a comrade died from freezing/fatigue, everyone would quickly rush his body for any food/items they can salvage in a sort of every man for himself style. And how 1 minute that’s a friend and next minute he’s just a “body” and how impersonal it gets.
Another relative developed severe PTSD from the Katyshas (Stalins Organs) and would wake up at high shouting take cover in full panic and on his deathbed relived that moment before passing.
Sudden death can be like that. You don't need to be freezing and starving or even cold or hungry.
One evening we were planning what we would do in the coming months.
Then within half an hour my lively outgoing wife turned from being in my plans to being a body in my arms.
Sh-t like that doesnt tend to happen if you avoid invading other peoples countries.
Glad our country hasn’t done that.
@@20chocsaday I'm sorry for that. Terrible
@@AwesomeDude272 Thanks. It was a cold feeling, realising how much the world had lost in one person.
The intentions, the care for others as well as part of my life left and I was left holding a husk that was once a person.
Sorry if I have saddened you but this happened to many more people later on. A young woman later sent me the last photo of her mother alive as they tried to let her sip cold water.
Max Hastings interviewed a old German soldier once who said that when he was moved from the Eastern front to the western front he thought he was a holiday compared to what he had experience.
Восточный фронт для фрийцев был наказанием. 😂Мои соотечественники защищали свою Родину СССР.
@@Дмитрий-х9з4г before that you guys invaded Finland and Poland, stop trying to act all innocent
We are all adults stop blurring the images
Do you not understand how censorship works?
The real problem is. That any graphic images under news media or documentary content. Does not need to be censored.
It upsets me when it is censored. Because it goes against the reason why our soldiers fought and died for.
If someone is disturbed by images can change the channel or just deal with it.
But when censorship starts taking over the truth of anything. That's when we lose our freedom and trust in news media. Which is already happening.
YT is too busy making everything child’s proof. They like children.
We need an adult YT…I PAY for premium to avoid adds. So stupid. 😡
What "blurred" images?
This was one of the best documentaries I have every seen on UA-cam....the side from the German perspective was so revealing. Please do more of these!
Yes, I agree. I'm searching the faces of the soldiers to see if I can identify my father. He survived the war and died in 1973. My parents had divorced in 1943 and I had seen him only 3 times in my life. My mom who had gone to her parents home in East Prussia in 1943, fled from the Russians to Duesseldorf, the British Zone in 1945 and married an English soldier who took her to England. I, her daughter, was raised by foster parents and after searching for her for many years, found her through the German Red Cross living in England in 1975.
I don't know the circumstances but how did she leave you behind?
The real German stories are far superior to the fictional Hollywood garbage . Part 1 is Fascinating.
Correct.
Everything is far superior to Hollywood propaganda
Cheers
Fascism is fictional garbage.
Hollywood just depicts Germans as monsters. There were a lot of great German people who had to follow orders.
A nazi would say!
This documentary is fascinating. I've read many firsthand accounts of war on the Eastern front, and this man's story brings out the true horror of war as well as any of them.
Germans was right! History show that.
USA and England should not support and safe rusians and let the germans do what they have to do for goodness
Germans ❤❤❤❤!
russians =🦧🦍🐒
Germans was right!
History show that.
Germans ❤❤❤❤!
Really love seeing those tanks and troop carriers!
It's interesting to hear that Russian soldiers regarded German soldiers as "beasts" and murderers. Considering the Wehrmacht was complicit with actions conducted by the Einsatzgruppen and similar SS formations, as well as the fate which awaited almost three million Russian POWs, they were right to think this way.
The Germans were told the Soviets were subhuman, yhe Sovieta were told ghe Germans were beasts etc. It was done so that neither wwould want to surrender
@@confusedbadger6275Soviets raped 2 millions German women.
From 6 to 97 yo.
To be fair, while it was still propaganda, it wasn't entirely wrong considering how few Soviet PoWs actually survived.
My name is David Umbongo-Olyufemwe-Olyufemwe I am from Nigeria and I stand with Israel 🇮🇱
@@confusedbadger6275 The NKVD murdered 20,000 Poles, deported and murdered some thousand Baltic people and about 100,000 "political enemies" during the first 2 weeks of the German soviet war. Take this and all those mutilated German POW in the first days of German-Soviet war and you know why German soldiers did not NEED any propaganda to believe this war is going to be cruel. But its intersting to see how these inconvenient facts disappeared from history book (or never made it in there)....
I often note my grandfather being shot whilst up a tree deep in Russia somewhere seeing where the Russians were (and surviving) as a moment of how close we are to not being here in the first place. Got sent back east when recovered and almost blown up. Survived and we played golf.
My grandmother's brother, 20 yr old kid, got a one way trip to Stalingrad. No winners eh.
Golfing Nazis. who knew?. we have a few of those Nazi's still playing golf and wanting to play president again..Pretty pathetic.
I am obsessed with WW2 and this was an exceptional documentary, thank you.
The reason why you are obsessed with WW2 is simply because your mind can't wrap itself around it. You are missing the central point.
🧬
Around 1900 the Zionists movement declared that they want to create a Jewish country.
All the world leaders refused them.
Eventually after the years of despair, Nazis needed help to power and they made a pact with the Zionists in the early 1920'
Zionists instructed Hitler on blood science and he agreed to help them to create Israel.
They were deporting Jews from Hamburg and Bremerhaven to Palestine.
All the info is in the newspapers 1932-1939
Perhaps some of us were there in person in another life if you believe in reincarnation.
I hope we don't make same mistakes again.those days there were no nukes.this time around it will affect everyone
@@uldos3193 Yes, those people were in a form of hell, and we should learn from what happened then never forget.
i am from India and obsessed too. This has been through all my teenage years. I loved Commando comics.
It's insane to think that a soldier was upset that a population he was invading was upset he was there
There is a point when occupation necessitates the population be civil if they know what's good for them. It's that simple.
My grandma lived in occupied Norway. She said that it became part of normal life. German Soldiers would share their rations with locals and play with kids in the snow in the winter. She said she threw snowballs at them and even spat on a soldier from a tree once, but they were never punished
@@pomodorostudyclub great illustration of an occupied country. No need to escalate things every second.
@@pomodorostudyclub Right, I'd imagine life wasn't so bad in Nazi-occupied Norway considering the country is quintessentially Aryan (if not more so than Germany) and had the lowest Jewish population of the territories invaded. Still, 1/3 of its Jews were deported to the camps. I don't think Norway is the best example of the reality of Nazi-occupied territories.
@@Mildain2000 you’re right, I probably should have added that context myself. Just wanted to share a personal memory that came to mind when I saw this video and comment.
My Dad fought in Patton's Third Army, 4th Armored Division from the end of July, 1944 until the end of the war. He then stayed on as part of the American occupation forces until February of 1946. He saw it all, from the race across France to the Battle of the Bulge, into southern Germany with a quick stop to help liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp and then onto Czechoslovakia. We knew some of the horror that he had seen and been a part of. Buchenwald came back to haunt him in the early 1980's when some idiot was on a TV talk show and was telling the audience that the Holocaust never happened. I had been working nights and woke up to him yelling at the TV with tears in his eyes. He was yelling "No, NO! I WAS THERE!" When I came into the TV room to see what was going on, he looked at me and said, "Kelly, I was THERE! The bodies were stacked like logs Kelly! Kelly, THE OVENS WERE STILL WARM!!" That last sentence will stay with me until I die - "The ovens were still warm!" In the 25 years that I hung out with my Dad, I never saw him cry, and after that outburst, I never saw him cry again. War is a dirty, haunting business. Only the ones who never fought in one think it's somehow glorious...
DO YOU HAVE any roster of Patton’s Staff? MY UNCLE ARTHUR was on Patton’s personal Staff … went to Bastogne with Gen Patton
Wow.....isn't it so sad that too many want to wipe the Holocaust away and pretend it never happened. This is why so many survivors have come forward to tell their stories of what they went thru...
I went to college with a Jewish gal whose father was in a concentration camp. He somehow escaped and was able to walk across Europe until he found the Allies. He was barely alive and weighed 70 lbs. My college friend said she was woke up nightly by his screams in the night.
Soon they will all be dead but their stories will live on....
Yeah, the issue with this comment and a well-meaning one, at that...
His outbursts after seeing the man on TV saying it never happened appears to be coming from a place of guilt. For something that is "true", one wouldn't have such outbursts at those who say it never happened but ignore the people who claim to have been a survivor (of which, many have been exposed for lying) and get caught lying about their victim status while benefiting financially from their lies in their books, documentaries, or speeches at schools. If it is illegal to question this event or deny it.. Should it not be equally illegal to lie about it? Should you return the money made from the lies?
Not only do I make this observation based on that, I also make this observation because:
1) By the time FDR recognized the Soviet Union government in 1933, Stalin had nearly 20 million Russians and Ukrainians executed, sent to slave labor camps (millions died in the slave labor camps) and death camps (even more millions killed in these camps) scattered throughout Soviet Union Russia. Once FDR recognized and established relations with Stalin, he worked in overdrive to cover up their genocide in the Soviet Union and Ukraine purging any and all mentions of it. He appointed Stalin-linked agents as his advisors in the WH and appointed more to positions of influence in the US government.
2) You are told that before WWII, Hitler was rounding up Hebrews in Germany and having them killed. This is quite a bold lie meant to be smoke and mirror to divert attention away from Stalin's genocide in the Soviet Union and Ukraine and even his mass executions numbering 700,000 Of Russians in government, the military (the soldiers family were also executed if their child gets falsely accused of treason), and many civilians based on "lists of names" and quotas for the NKVD to meet in regards to the executions of Russians, prior to WWII in the '30s. In Germany, Hitler did NOT use violent means to force Hebrews out of Germany nor mass arrests and executions. He made it illegal for them to hold positions of power, education, media, financing, and such. 1933-39, 2/3s of German Hebrews left Germany with their wealth and possessions. This is known as the Transfer Agreement of which Hitler and Hebrew Germans negotiated and signed. The worldwide Hebrews screeched and yelled about this agreement and did everything to prevent this agreement from carrying out, calling for even more boycotts against Germany. The infamous "Crystal night" was a reaction by the Germans after news of the German diplomat in Paris being assassinated by a Hebrew communist.
3) "Tonight, you have the opportunity to go to the big city (Berlin) and to light a fire in the belly of the enemy and burn his black heart." - orders from Churchill on RAF terror bombings.
"We owe the Germans no sympathy, no understanding, we owe them nothing. You ask what is our policy? I will say to you: We have nothing to offer the Germans, but blood, sweat, toil, and tears. It is to wage war by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us."
From the launch of the RAF's night time terror bombings and shortly the American day time terror bombings of German civilians, the Allied powers dropped nearly two million tons of incendiaries and bombs on German civilians who had NOTHING to do with the war.
Your father, under the impression he was “liberating” Buchenwald, absolutely did NOT liberate the camp. The allied powers bombed that camp and killed many.
The UK dropped phosphorus bombs along with incendiary bombs with heavy bombs onto many Germans in cities throughout Germany. Many cities contained UK POWs and refugees that were fleeing from the Soviet Union.
This did not stop the RAF from bombing these cities. Many of the refugee camps and POWs were connected to hospitals. The Uk bombed the hospitals and strafed the refugee camps. Killing many civilians and refugees.
The Germans trapped in basements were literally in a “oven” because of the flames from the phosphorus bombs and incendiary bombs that burned them to ashes with human fat being turned into liquid. Bodies were stacked and still hot to the touch. The bodies belonged to the victims who were sucked into the mile(s) wide infernos.
4) Your father believed he was fighting evil but in reality, his nation allied with the very evil nation (soviet union) that was responsible for millions of Europeans being butchered and burned alive before WWII, before the Allied powers invaded Europe to “liberate” the Europeans from Hitler and Germany, they knew of the mass arrests and executions of Poles in Poland and the 1941 NKVD massacre that killed 10,000 to 40,000 (or more) Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Hebrews, and other nationalities.
He knows that he was lied to and he feels guilt for his role (unbeknownst to him) in the millions killed by the Soviet Union that his leaders covered up and blamed Germans and Hitler.
They were busy arming and sending 11.3 Billion (130 billion today) in funds and military equipment and supplies for the Red Army.
Italy, Finland, Romania, Spain, Czech, Cossacks, tartars, French, British, Lithuanians, Ethiopians, Dutch, Ukrainians and Russians fought along side Germany for Europe and to defeat Bolshevism that sought their destruction.
If I was your father, I wouldn’t want my children to know the truth and have them curse me as I lay in my grave. After finding out how the Allied powers helped evil and aided this evil in their mass murders and mass r**e of European women and girls. The mutilation of European men and boys.
That your nation had policies in the war that ordered AF pilots to bomb and strafe any moving target, whether civilian or military, in the country side. Killing many children and women in trains fleeing from the Soviet Union as they began their advance towards Germany. The trains which carried wounded refugees and POWs to Germany because had they stayed behind, the Soviet NKVD would kill them.
How America and the West turned over 5 million Russians, military and civilian, to the Soviet’s to appease Stalin. Which he promptly had them murdered along with their families.
And turned a blind eye as Stalin’s NkVD that forcibly deported Germans citizens and soldiers to via death marches or cattle trains to Serbia where 5.8 million Germans were killed.
@@MikeWilliamson-dp6cp yeah, then there is that... WTF dude! 🤦♀️
Your pal Adolph Hitler announced, that any new war would result in the destruction of European Jews. There is the direct evidence of the Holocaust.
This is some of the best WW2 related content I have ever had the pleasure of watching.
Right on brother! I'm gonna check it out, right nowwwwwww
Agreed, Seems like we are rarely shown the German attitude and position, very humanizing, something that most documentaries fail to do, it’s usually just “the Germans where animals”.
@@johnlescault3737 How can you humanize a Nazi when you see the terrified faces of the children and Jewish ppl being taken to slaughter.
@@somniumisdreaming it’s easy if you understand that human nature is basically evil if left unchecked, I’m not saying they are human in a good way, I’m saying we should all be able to see that we are capable of the same if left to our own rationalization. It’s the people that don’t realize their condition, that are likely to repeat the mistakes of the past.
@@somniumisdreaming imagine. They expect us to see them as lambs when we know that the wars they were fighting were all about racial genocide
Absolutely love to hear the German and Soviet perspective that has mostly been lost to history. Understanding though the causes they were fighting for were vastly different, the horrors and trauma of war were the same. Cannot wait to see the second episode!
Sorry. No Soviet perspective. Because Soviet/Russian archives, and Stalin and the Communists are baddies. And, you know: Mongols... Enjoy the magnificent and truthful historical narrative, carefully selected by Halder and his group, after being captured by the Allies, and footage from Die Deutsche Wochenschau, where there practically are no horses and wagons at all.
@@Ailasher English must not be your first language. Your comment is so choppy and vague.
@@Ailasher, what are you writing? Are you crazy? Stalin and the Communists saved the world from destruction. Millions of communists died so that you could be born and live. They volunteered to go to the front and died for you. Their children were orphaned or were not born at all, but you were born and live happily. You are just an ungrateful stupid illiterate person, a victim of anti-communist propaganda or a scoundrel.
You are spreading vile lies here.
Communism is justice, humanity and freedom. Read the authentic works of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and not false interpretations about them.
Что вы пишите? Вы сумасшедший? Сталин и коммунисты спасли мир от гибели. Миллионы коммунистов погибли ради того, чтоб вы смогли родиться и жить. Они добровольцами шли на фронт и погибали ради вас. Их дети остались сиротами или вообще не родились, а вы родились и живёте счастливо. Вы просто неблагодарный тупой неграмотный человек, жертва антикоммунистическтй пропаганды или негодяй.
Вы распространяете здесь гнусную ложь.
Коммунизм - это справедливость, человеколюбие и свобода. Читайте подлинные труды Маркса, Ленина, Сталина, а не лживые интерпретации о них.
@@Ailasher both nazis and soviets are baddies. Both started ww2, slaughtered millions and caused suffering. Except one of them were tried and made some changes in their society, while the other's results can be seen even today.
@@agirlisnoone5953 I'm trying to master the language of the Higher Race, thank you.
I am mesmerized by this fellow's lack of self-awareness. He has no idea why the common folk would be so kind and gracious to an invading army with a bunch of tanks and guns, and barely a breath later has no idea why enemy soldiers would be so cruel to an invading army with a bunch of tanks and guns. How dare people defend their homes and lives against invaders. Boggles the mind.
"Ive never before seen so many corpses." Well, this is what happens when you want to exterminate people.
Excellent documentary with very good footage. I do wish you wouldn't blur things out, but UA-cam will be UA-cam. Please upload part 2 soon.
Germans on the western front did surrender quite a few times, mainly because the allies weren't fired up with propaganda to destroy all and anything german.
Also, in case it didn't come to mind.. people were conscripted, perhaps not automatically fond of the political ideas presented to them (imagine that old jewish WW1 veteran next door suddenly becoming part of a demonized religious group), perhaps there was propaganda that showed the jews were treated all right in the camps, I don't know.
Excellent documentary. I've been a lifelong student of WWII history and I was quite pleased and surprised with how much I learned. Well done!!
As a 2-war combat vet who was disabled in my tour of service, I can definitely relate to the miserable rain, mosquitoes, filth of not bathing & mud almost up to your knees!
@@stanleybroniszewsky8538 The part you forgot is that the Neocons who started all of these wars never sent their kids or if they did they made sure they had cushy jobs and got medals. They also made plenty of money and are laughing. There is nothing honorable in fighting for a country which starts wars and can't win them. The US hasn't won a war since Korea. The Neocons are pushing for your children to be drafted to fight Russia and China. The worst part of all this is the OP who was disabled in his tour of service and if it was a recent war he was a victim of an IED. Good luck with the VA Hospital. They have the worst and most incompetent doctors who graduated from third world medical schools. You're better off with a Witch Doctor than a VA doctor.
Fighting goat headers is not being at war. Go to Bakhmut and maybe you can say that you have faught a real war
@@fukuswii4370 cool. Where did you survive combat?
@@justlucky8254 In his parents basement, Call of Duty.
@@fukuswii4370 I was done with my fighting by the time those wars came around. Yea, just curious. Where DID you serve?
My grandfather was a truck driver with a panzer regiment. He went all the way to Moscow. Got shot through the shoulder in 1945, met my grandmother in Halle then fled home to the west and survived
My maternal great uncle served in the German Navy during WW2. I didn't learn much even though he survived the war. I just know in the early 50s, my mother went with her dad to visit relatives in Germany. Looking at the pictures taken, it seemed so surreal looking at people my mother knew but didn't say much.
@@stanleybroniszewsky8538 he should have been captured and sent to Siberia
@@fukuswii4370 you should be quiet and sent to your room. No more basement for you!
What was he looking for there in the foreign country?
May we have an end to war in our lifetimes.
I would like to see more of these kind of documentaries but without the blurred images, its all part of history!
I’d like to see a real well done high budget series covering the entirety of WW2 from all perspectives. With good actors and cinematography and CGI. Like Game of Thrones format but WW2
I agree, surely people should be cautioned about the truth of war. The real horror. However, the powers that be will always need cannon fodder and can't let the lie of a 'boy's own adventure' die.
UA-cam guidelines won't allow.
No need to see dead people...
@@jasonpip5417 I disagree. The brutality of war kills, maims and destroys people. It shouldn’t be akin to a computer game that is sanitised. Real war isn’t like that.
40:10 poor guy. He’s hoping for a lack of mosquitos and horse flies, but has no idea the horror of the Arctic winter he is going to have to endure.
This is a historical gem. Very well-kept diary.
“We are a nation of culture. that’s cute, 17 million dead Soviet civilians would beg to differ
How many ethnic Russians (read: white Christians) died as a result of the revolutions in Russia? From what I've read it was over 100 million. A literal corpse-nation.
Weird coincidence that they were both white and Christian too, huh?
How many the Soviets killed
@@TheSultan1470 they were defending themselves
@@pyatig Sure
@@pyatig Russia invaded Poland and Finland. They weren't defending themselves then.
When I was growing up WWII vets were everywhere. I see them so rarely now its terrible. My 4yo son and I ran into a Army Ranger in a wheelchair last week in the store with a WWII hat. I knew we had to talk! I even took a pic of him with my boy. It's so sad my son will grow up without these heros in his life like I did. My sons will never really know how hard these guys were/are. Different Era. I cherish what little time I can create to listen to these old boys now.
I grew up with them, and my father and uncles were some of those great men. I’m glad you got that photo of the man and your little boy, and I hope that he cherishes it.
The great generation
@@alanaadams7440
*The Greatest Generation.
Yes indeed, they certainly were.
My Godfather fought with Patton. Patton said we fought on the wrong side after having observed the situation in Europe, and I agree. We were duped into helping the enemy. Patton wanted to take out the Soviets but traitors Truman and Eisenhower wouldn't let him. We could have been spared the whole cold war and massive nuclear proliferation. I still respect the valor and sacrifice of those vets, even if we did fight on the wrong side and hurt ourselves in the long run. I had lunch with my godfather every 2 weeks until he passed, and heard many war stories. He had severe PTSD.
@@donaldothomoson Rubbish! The communists were on the side of the goood guys, don'tcha know. Sarcasm off.
What stuck me is how the German soldier believed they were the kind natured group. A stark reminder that each side believe they are on the side of the righteous
True
Agree even in goebbles opening speech of babarrosa attack he evokes asks God for help to Victory
The sad part is all the young boys didn't know what he'll truly awaited them until they were already in the midst of it.
“Of the 5.5 million Soviet prisoners in captivity, 3.3 million did not survive the war.” That is stunning ...
.. and you still have Germans talking as if they were the victims when the Red Army stepped in Berlin..
@@fukuswii4370 People who starved in German camps died because of the aggressive use of siege tactics by the Allied forces in the final 2 years of the war. What's the Soviet excuse for the over 2 million accounts of rape of German Women?
By all means though, keep parroting that mainstream kosher dogma like broken record...
Yeah, but it will be always Stalin bad, not the germans who exterminated 14 million Soviet civilians
And narrator still thinks tah Soviet propaganda painted Germans too bad.
He said 5.7, not 5.5.
I ve never seen such a great documentary in my life. Congratulations!
Great documentary. It's interesting to hear the othersides' story and how they thought about things.
A few years ago I watched a documentary about young Russians who had been exhuming German war dead and sending them back to be re-interred in Germany. In many cases, you could tell the guy was buried where he fell. Sometimes two or three men were buried together and they had to separate the bones. It was…somber.
theres heaps of russian youtube channels dedicated to metal detecting around the swamps of Russia. The amount of crap they find it seems the ground is fertilized by the dead . They'll find an 80 year old rifle in some mud and be disappointed because it's only a common mosin
This is really good content to explore the history of WW2 from a completely different angle. I used to discuss WW2 at length with a D Day veteran that went on to cross Europe and went right to Berlin. He was a despatch rider attached to a tank regiment. As they crossed France, they had no idea if the next village was occupied by the Germans. So they sent him to scout on his motorbike. If he was met by gunfire, the CO deduced that the village was Nazi occupied. They'd then call in air recon, followed by air strikes if necessary, and the tanks would roll forward into decimated forces. You don't get this picture without first hand accounts.
How does this veteran feel about the state of 'his' country now during a time where, say, trans kids and the like are not only being tolerated, but encouraged? ua-cam.com/users/shorts70v0wwgB5vo
ua-cam.com/video/wcnQJd_XRQQ/v-deo.html
I've watched some diary videos recently that were completely bogus, but this one seems legit. Well read and nicely tied to film footage from the war.
Did you see those mosquitoes??? Alaskan mosquitoes!
Is there a version of this documentary that doesn't have half of it "fuzzed" out??? Very annoying to have someone deciding what I can and cannot see. (Don't get all up in my face telling me it's for my own good...just point me in the direction of an uncensored version of this excellent documentary. Thank you.)
Agree well said
The most brutal fighting and casualties in history took place during Barbarossa. Both sides treated each other's prisoners horribly
Unsurprisingly
This was very well done in every way. The diary contrasted with the obvious crimes against humanity. Then, the footage so well matched to the text. Effective history in the best sense
war is a real face of humanity - even tho we love to pretend innocent
Admittedly they are not very confidence inspiring? Well, I never? Viewpoint is noticeable!!
@@MrReymoclif714 Why do we even look widely when it's so hard to notice even our surrounding? A crime is always happening under our noses
The Nazis march into Russia makes me think of that scene from Return of the King. “You march to war, but not to victory…”
Good to hear Artur! Look after yourself first and foremost, and never feel guilty for taking a day off if you need it. Nowdays people are far more understanding, plus just watching all those gory videos day in and day out can have an impact. Stay happy and safe! 😊
This documentary was both fascinating and horrifying. Personally I am old enough to not have bad scenes blurred out. If I'm going to watch warfare in its entirety, that must include the horrifying parts of it as well. I am looking forward to the second part of this documentary. This diary series is explosive in its "on the ground, in your face" truth from a German tank officers perspective during the actual time of his involvement in operation Barbarossa.
Yes , now youtube is censoring videos,and the audio. I can only imagine what else they are censoring.
U cant see everything cos u have to think war is cool adventure
You guys need to do more of this! Eastern Front is so interesting!
The people who survived all this horror were the most staunch supporters of peace. They could endure everything, their requirements for the comforts of life were simple: "If only there was no war".
Yeah, the most common slogan in post WW2 Poland was "No more war"
@@abecadlo15 Poland today wants war with Russia 😂😂😂
@@fukuswii4370 No they DO NOT. They are pushing the evil away from Ukraine.
My God speak without neologism,If You are brave!
Funny... I remember several soldiers who had fought in WW1 making the same speeches about just that. How they did not want war as they had fought on the front lines. All of them warned about bankers and organizations trying to undermine nations and citizens using a system of debt and usury. They wanted to change a world full of drugs and poor people in debt slavery. What is happening now? Yet these men were all executed. Some in unimaginably brutal ways. If not, then slandered until they may as well have been or thrown into camp, prison or the Gulag.
Great documentary! Wished you didn't have to blur the images at some points! Keep up the good work.
It is amazing how softened and cultured has the narrative been made. The original diary text was more than savage.
What do you mean ?!
Where can I find the original text?
I would like to see it too as i loved the forgotten soldier audiobook
It's interesting that he doesn't have enough self reflection to understand the Russians were probably likewise stating the same comments he repeatedly makes, "they will pay for this"
Or the fact, it was their country he was intruding within
Russian has been killing ethnic germans in other countries like Poland , they didn’t just invade Russia for no
Reason . Plus they are commies.
"I need to stop thinking about ifs and whens. There's no use in that." Some powerful words right there.
With the atrocities the soldiers were willingly committing, to hear them talk about beautiful countryside makes me feel ill. “Lucky me not to die in the tank following the cruise in the beautiful hills on my way to abuse and butcher Jews…I can’t wait to write home about how heroic I am.” Just sickening. I greatly appreciate this content and the Allies who stopped the twisted minds.
The British and USA were just as sick in the head if not worse. Notice how it's all tiny hat people talking about white Europeans being the biggest threat to democracy? The wrong side won the war.
It's really quite shocking. Nazism is a cancer on the human mind.
The guy who is disgusted because "these pigs" defend their home against his gang of invaders. And the way he just assumes he's better than the local people. He's an arrogant a$%^hole.
The letters sent back from the war are heartbreaking. One specific chain starts with a gung ho attitude of "We'll be home by Christmas" and ends with a bit for his daughter saying "You won't have a father soon"
excellent work, thank you for posting. Very interesting to get a first hand account. The sheer human waste of it all is exhausting. You look at all those rockets blasting into air, the three million men involved, all could have been put towards building hospitals in Germany or helping the poor.
In other words a more Christian world
Fascinating study, and wonderful narration. Thanks for the rare moments of film and still photos.
Weird, little inconsequential fact about the German build up to Barbarossa: None of the soldiers that had taken part in the campaign on Balkan in '41 and who made up the bulk of Armeegruppe Süd, had gasmasks in their gasmask cannisters, having ditched the gasmasks all around Greece and former Jugoslavia in the excessively hot summer of 1941. Instead they used the sturdy metal cannisters for storing food and booze supplies. This caused a minor meltdown in Armeegruppe Süd's military police attachment as when they first went out to reinforce army regulations of what was supposed to in a gasmask cannisters (a missing cannister by those regulations was punishable by death as sabotage of the war effort and usually would result in disciplinary housearrest and a hefty fine), they discovered they had close to 350.000 suspected saboteurs on their hands - and no army if they went ahead processing them all. So they had to let it slide and just hope the Russians wouldn't start using gas defending themselves.
Fascinating listen and much appreciate the upload. Liked and subscribed!
My family has fought in the Wehrmacht during the second world war.
My Grandfather was in the 6th army 44th infantry division and saw action in Poland, France and Kharkov. He was later captured along with thousands of men at Stalingrad. He ultimately lost over 100 ounds of body weight moving around different Russian labour camps post war before finally returning home to Germany in the 1950 and lived a long peaceful life.
His younger brother started off the war in the East as part of the 439th Regiment of the 134th Division and was at the battle of Moscow then later he was one of 9 survivors out of 1,000 men in his regiment to die in the battle of Kursk where he was injured and furloughed as a result.
He survived heavy allied bombing and returned to active combat in the end as part of the 512th heavy tank destroyer battalion as a loader for the Jagdtiger when he surrendered to the Americans in May 1945.
The eldest brother out of the 3 served in the German navy as an officer. He was on submarine U-107 which sank British ship Colonial off Guinea, French West Africa; the entire crew of 100 survived and rescued by HMS Centurion.
Heroes
@Incognito they were nazis, not heros. Still soldiers, but on the wrong side
Interesting story thank you for sharing.
Most of the generals of the 6th army were turned by the Soviets during their internment. They were sour about what they considered their betrayal at Stalingrad. Many of these generals later came to be the cadre of the East German army and their leader maintained Wehrmacht traditions: marches, regalia, and toughness. Mark Felton did a video about what happened to Von Paulus generals.
@@funknasty9246 they had little choice...brain washed with the rest...
did your grandfather share with you stories of atrocities german soldiers committed against civilians? besides horrors that happened to him i m sure in Stalingrad, did he speak of horrors he brought with him to the land he dared to conquer? at one point of the documentary, they mention how many soviet soldiers died in captivity. would be interesting to see the statistics of how many captured german soldiers lived a "long peaceful life" vs soviet soldiers after the war ended. my grandpa was never captured, he fought all the way to berlin. he lived in stalingrad (volgograd) after the war for the rest of his life. he never talked about the war. but since the youngest age i was always taken to Mamaev kurgan.
ps. nothing against you personally here. but whatever you call fascinating, i find very tragic. after all, 30-50 000 000 people, citizens of a single country killed is the greatest tragedy. the saddest part is that a lot of these soldiers who committed crimes against humanity, escaped their punishment or served mininum, returned to their families, and lived a long peaceful life.
I had several great- uncles fighting on the eastern front , I still remember some of their stories , how BRUTAL it was , freezing almost to death at stalingrad , with hardly any food , and the combat and diseases like dysenterie !!
Many many froze to death. not almost but did freeze. Mostly civilians.
Poor nazis
Dysentery
Так им и надо. Кто их звал к нам? Или у них ума не хватало, что их тут не ждали
It amazes me how this soldier is doing such obvious evil deeds yet talks about it as if good, this is human kind
This is war
@@brandonhemphill5638NO excuse
No, it's perversion and sickness. The allies never spoke about doing evil as righteous, and they did very little evil.@@brandonhemphill5638
@@brandonhemphill5638War doesn't require genociding defenseless civilian populations.
There’s both sides to a story and only the the victors will tell the story
I remember my Great Great grandfather talking about german soldiers he would get quite, grit his teeth, and say german soldiers are tough people. He survived d day but was shot in the hip sometime later he told me they would have to stay in foxholes freezing while artillery was going off he said they didnt know where it was coming from. He said a lot of the people that didnt have family or anything to go home to couldnt take it and they would run out of the fox hole and get killed. He talked about praying when he had to run out and get supplies. He had a good life after the war, he bought 100 acres of land and died at 85 we still have the land.
This history is very important to remember and to understand. Thank you.
The problem is that we can remember history and never learnt from it. We keep repeating it all the time. Of what use is history to man in that regard?
I have always wondered what would have happened if the Germans had treated the Baltic States and Ukraine as liberators rather than conquerors. Many, many people despised the Soviets....
It would not change anything. Nazi Germany stood no chance against Allies in a long-term.
I've never seen this footage before! Incredible.
I can't imagine ever having this kind of pride and bravado in invading another country, killing those who dare defend that country and doing so with such righteous arrogance
There were no right or wrong sides. Very small minded
@@matthewosburn Not at all similar. To just name one small difference, the USA and its allies did not intend to eradicate the population and settle the land with their own people. Oh, another comes to mind, the military campaign was won in a matter of weeks, all subsequent misery was the result of Iraqi sectarian and tribal infighting, their utter inability to just form a democratic government after their dictator was gone.
@@NiccRochaThinking the Nazis were not the wrong side is a clear indication of mental and moral defect.
But do you know of an invasion that is similar to Operation Barbarossa? the invasion of Anglo-Saxons into native lands@@nelus7276
@@nelus7276That was Germany’s plight. They needed the spoils of WW2 in order to fight WW2. Barbarossa was intended to make Germany a superpower and break its dependency of the Soviet Union.
What an honest terribly relevant picture of the reality of something we just don't seem to learn from. Well made documentary.
look up Come and See, and The Painted Bird. But be prepared, they are very grim and hit like a couple of sledgehammers. Come And See is Russian and paint the Germans as sadistic monsters. The Painted Bird is Czech and doesn't have much love for the Red Army or the Nazis.
My grandpas friend was sent to/went to the eastern front with the panzer division SS Wiking but during the winter he got so frostbiten that he couldn’t walk at all and he was sent to a hospital
Oh that was immense, hard to imagine what it was like being there but this is a pretty good depiction. I went to St Petersburg in 1986, stunning place.
Think about the winter there sleeping in a fox hole with only summer cloths at 50 degrees bellow 0.
Man's inhumanity to his fellow man has no limits. It will happen again, except it will be worse. One day, humans will be extinct. My very young son asked: "Dad, isn't war killing of your own kind?" I hugged him tightly.
It is a good documentary. I would like to hear and see more about what actually happened at that time from the German side. I had two grandfathers who survived Russian captivity only just and they had no animosity toward the Russians at all. They claimed most Russians were half starved themselves and had almost nothing and in view of that they had no complaints. Both claimed they were treated fairly. They related how cold it was and yes the insects and mosquitos were terrible.Both were just ordinary soldiers sent to the Russian front. Most of their comrades did not make it home. They were part of the small groups to survive and go back home. Interesting also is what happens to the body with long term starvation. The body eats itself and digestion is forever abnormal. Mosquitos also caused Malaria.
Good to hear that your grandfathers survived
Interesting bit about the starvation - I’ve had to cut weight for sports (wrestling) for so long, sometimes eating less than 1000 calories a day. 35 now and my stomach is totally different than it was just 3-4 years ago. Could it be from extreme dieting? Perhaps. Thanks for the response
@@guccimane623 if you dont eat at all you fuck up your gut bacteria. i dont know if you can get it back to what it was before before but if you eat right no sugars etc it will get much better. ive had similar issues and things def got better after eating as much protein / greens as i could for a while.
@@derunsympath thanks Max.
@Max you are correct there are also a couple good supplements you can take also. I can't think of the names off the top of my head.
A grim wasted existence for so many otherwise interesting people on every side ...what a cynical tragedy
NerdFact: the soldier picture in the thumbnail is of a soldier in the Ardennes, not the Eastern Front; not even German, but Belgian.
This is an incredible find to hear "the other side" thank you.
Amazing. Seldom is the German point of view explored. To hear a first person account from a front line tank crew member is remarkable. I hope you post the rest of it.
The German perspective is aggressively suppressed because anything that humanizes Germans goes against the mainstream kosher narrative.
There’s a “good” and blatant reason for that
@@trey6892 go on then?
@@trey6892 Is this the part where you dogmatically parrot the mainstream kosher narrative as if we haven't all heard it a million times before? /Yawn
@@sandwichninja no it’s where I bring up how you should stop taking your family to dqst.
It's fascinating to listen to how he thinks of himself and Germany, not knowing how contradictory reality is to his idealistic beliefs about his "cause". 1:27:33 "If only we could look into the future". Indeed.
Did he make it through the war.? His snobbishness led to his cruelty.
Well done, in my 57-year study of Military History this may be the frankest most descriptive documentation of what war was like for the German soldier on the Russian front, there's a lot of painful psychological expression without shame in this, then there's compassionate admiration and humanity from both sides.....this exists in any War
🤬I just hope ^the author suffered immensely while on the eastern front. He shoots unarmed enemy soldiers in a foxhole for no reason, then absolves himself of responsibility, by blaming others for his actions. He justifies invading and stealing their land, by saying that the landowners weren't as good at farming as German farmers, therefore they deserve to have their land stolen by people who'll farm it more effectively. What an evil fool this soldier is.....
@@HighlanderNorth1 he was young, do you not understand the lengths hitler and the nazis went to just to get the youth on their side. Of course he would think that way when thats all he had been told since he was in his early teens
Respect
Here's how the Russians lived and died in the midst of Barbarossa.............ua-cam.com/video/GjKajpMoUxM/v-deo.html
This soldier was a cold blooded killer. The Russians were fighting for their land…..
If these are genuine german journal entries this is very important and should be preserved for history.
Why video distort the images of the dead? This is history. Leave it as it is.
DUMBEST COMMENT EVER.
Blame youtube.
Allways blur the truth. It must be seen and told the real truth.
UA-cam sucks.. that's why .... meanwhile comercials at gambling sites all good..
Well done one off the best eastern documentary i have ever watched.
"Fear the defeated Germans! If they failed to drown the world in blood, they will flood it with their tears..."
My dad served in that army and as I was born 20 November 1941 in Oberhausen/Rhld I would have liked to have read about the events at that time but unfortunately the diaries ended in September 1941.
Great piece of work guys, nice footage which really does give it justice in supporting the storyline ❤😊
This is awesome, thank you. Question: Why are some scenes blurred out?
The best man lost🌹♥️🌹
Thanks for these docs, they are amazing, music is very beautiful, Love Edda 🌹♥️🌹
Apocalypse the 2nd world war 2009 is amazing also 🌹♥️🌹
What a discovery - well worth a sub. Great work this one. How could it get any less personal, moment by moment brimming with human emotions.
About time the horrors of the Eastern Front in WWII come to light to a broader audience. In contrast to the Western Front, this was so much more devastating, inhuman, apocalyptic than everything what happened in the West. Just look at the numbers of casualties...
It's ironic that the writer of the diary considers himself to be both culturally and intellectually superior to everyone he encountered in the East yet he remains committed to a doomed ideology and was defeated by the very people he looked down upon.
Sounds like you drank an entire bowl of the establishment koolaid. The NSDAP worldview was far from a doomed ideology. It's still alive today in people you marginalize as the _fringe_ of society despite there being millions more of us than you realize. Not to worry though. The truth is that we don't believe even a fraction of what the Hollywood hucksters have accused us of. You'd know that if you switched off the _"History"_ Channel and read some actual NSDAP literature. Don't go in expecting anything crazy though or you'll be disappointed. It's mostly ideas about how to rebuild a manufacturing-based economy and end debt slavery (oooooo scary... lol). If you get offended hearing someone talk at length about how parliamentarians are morons though, don't ever read Hitler's personal writing, because he wasn't a fan of the _Justin Trudeaus_ of his day.
No it wasn't
Ll account yes yes it wad
Doomed ideology in your modern eyes. For a German going from first world country to a country where people cannibalised themselves in gulags, there was a shock yeah.
@Bahamut3525 First world? The same place where the disabled were forcefully sterilized? The same place with severe restrictions on free speech and political affiliation? First world my ass