Today we are looking at the letters and diary entries of General Gotthard Heinrici. He was a Corps Commander on the Eastern Front. Enjoy, Ladies And Gentlemen! Here is the playlist: ua-cam.com/play/PLyuEmb1VavZBKfl-N5nkxCZAmpIV1ORm3.html
@@DavidSmith-bd8dd Yes, but it was a concius decision by the Nazis. They preferred to have foot and consumer goods at the home front, before friends in the Ukraine (beside the Ukraine nazis, which joined them in jue hunting). After all, the war in the east was a war of extermination, for "Lebensraum im Osten".
@@DavidSmith-bd8dd Yeah, imagine Germany with no Hitler, no SS, no nazi party. Imagine Russia occupied by aliens from mars and then Germany "entered Russia" and liberated it from aliens. Yeah, that would be nice.
Everyone you just don't get better than this class of a narrator. If he can tell the story in this particular diary and you close your eyes and you are there it is priceless.
Nigel Patterson one of the best narrators ever! ...you guys should look up on audible.... Best German soldier dairy I ever read was... "Blood and snow"
@@christopherroa9781 but in this video I did not k ow what book it was... Do you know.. The guy uploading these videos dose not like to credit source or give book titles clearly
@@myview5840 I'll have to look that up I like to see all the small struggles the soldiers meet in their day to day lives that you wouldn't even think of, really can't beat the insight a first hand diary gives
Excellent narrative of the fall of Berlin. I have Ryan’s trilogy and appreciate them all. I believe though that of the three, ‘A Bridge Too Far’ is my personal favorite. Heart wrenching.
Holy cow does it get dark at the end.. I really only study the eastern front when it comes to the Great War and every single time it never fails to shock me how gruesome, desperate, absolutely horrible it was. It’s unfathomable
100% the vastness of Russia (crushing logistics) and brutal weather knocked the snot right out of the most efficient fighting machine of the 20th century. The journal entries bring that to reality with great clarity.
I agree. It was terrible. What's really unfathomable is that we apparently haven't learned any lessons from that catastrophe! We seem to be on course to do it all over again!
Heinrici was such a brilliant defensive strategist - the premier defensive expert of the Wehrmacht, as well as an offensive mastermind. He was not a Nazi; a true German at heart, Prussian from birth. He was a Protestant and regularly attended church with his family which the Nazis hated. He was ordered to not attend but dismissed that and attended anyway. He eschewed everything the Nazis held dear, from the Party to their core values. He was anti-Nazi in his dress, preferring his worn WWI uniform and sheepskin lined coat, and he wore his button WWI leggings instead of jackboots which he thought were ostentatious and not field worthy, which of course he proved correct on that. He cared about his men, he was ‘Unser Giftzwerg:’ “our venomous dwarf,” “our nasty little man”to his men who loved serving under him because they would survive under his tactics. He saved lives, prevented extensive losses that other commanders expected and took as acceptable losses. His defensive positions for the 4th Army near the Orsha region in Belarus temporarily halted the advance of the Western Front against Gen. Vasily Sokolovshy, and during the retreat Heinrici’s troops inflicted heavy losses on the Red Army. He refused to destroy Smolensk by burning it to the ground citing he’d have had no routes for his troops to retreat. That got him booted out for a “rest cure” by Hitler at the urging of his generals. Heinrici’s 4th Army was all but destroyed after that. He was a brilliant strategist and an upstanding man; he just didn’t fit in with his Nazi peers, which was good for us, the Allieds. Still, I have respect for this man, for his talent and for who he was as a person. He was better than the Nazis. Heinrici was a cut above. Thanks for this segment. I save all these but when I saw the title on the thumbnail on my homepage, I immediately knew who this was about. I’m as American as I can be, but I’m a Henrici fan. ‘The Last Battle’ probably did more to make that happen, Cornelius Ryan personalized the man so much.
@@ike637 He was a devout Protestant who regularly attended services and read daily devotionals even in the field (he was ordered not attend church services but refused to follow that order).
I agree completely. If there’s any one man in the German military I can say I respect during WWII, it’s Heinrici. Idk if you’ve seen this video with recreated conversations with the German High Command, but it shows Heinrici debating with them on how to go forward. Really eye-opening for me. (Also it’s part of a series of really good vids) ua-cam.com/video/8atAD-MSu5M/v-deo.html
@@fridayenjoyer Thanks, no I’ve not yet, but I will. Much appreciated. Heinrici was the best defensive tactician in the field. Hitler knew that and that’s why he didn’t remove him from his staff though everyone else detested him and made fun of his WWI dress. He saved many lives and that’s why his men were so loyal to him. He’d move his men back a mile from the line in the dark, the Russians thought they had Heinrici’s army sighted for their artillery. They weren’t there, come morning, so they were blasting away at where they were dug in the night before. ‘Our poison dwarf.’
I read once of a captured German general, held in UK, who opined that the drive to Moscow did not succeed because, as a result of the partition of Poland, Army Group Centre had to travel an extra 200 km to get there. Couple this with the fact that their Quartermaster General had told the General Staff he could not guarantee being able to provision that offensive beyond Smolensk, and then only for a force of two-thirds the size of that actually empliyed,
And after that some accuse Stalin why he concluded M-R pact 😅 As one modern russian historian Alexei Isaev is saying: without partition of Poland we would get Guderian in Lvov in 1939.
The drive to Moscow failed before it even started. Hitler failed in his attempt in defeating England which is a mere 100 miles away. Thinking he could defeat Moscow over thousand miles away was more than optimistic, it was delusion of grandure. If he had hoped for the best and prepared for the worst... adequate preparations would have been made before starting the attack. They were not... so when worst case happened, fare was inevitable.
German generals are the most biased delusional people from the Second World War. Listen to their battle planning but anything else throw in the trash and set on fire
He was assuming, like all the other German generals that once they got to Moscow the Soviets would obligingly hand it over to them. Like most everything else in Barbarossa, it was based upon half-baked, wildly improbable assumptions and Hail Marys.
Which enabled them to murder many more millions of innocents, Jews, etc. I lack your enthusiasm for their well documented defensive abilities. In addition many more millions of Germans died during that time period, so, lose lose for everyone.
@allanbarr6876 You failed to detect that I was being ironic. Yes, the German's "defensive genius" was nothing of the sort. It was curse that caused untold suffering to the German people and allowed the Reich time to inflict horrors at home and abroad that may never be forgotten.
How! This whole story has the aura of 'famous last words' to it. There's the count down to General Winter showing up and revealing his affects. Then there's the count to Dec. 7, 1941, which it does even get to. I was on the edge of my chair listening to this.
A Competent General who would in a few short years time would be called upon by His Furher to Defend the Fatherland in its last Battle against the Russians outside the gates of Berlin on the Seelow Heights
In what's seems like irony he was assigned the impossible task to defend the gates of Berlin that April of 1945 and then when those broken german forces failed against the Russian juggernaut, he was summoned to drive to Berlin where he likely would have been shot, save for his driver who persuaded him to drive to Plon and later surrender to the British.
I can't even imagine what the soldiers on both sides had to endure on the fronts fighting under these winter circumstances, pure madness!!! Still, it must have been worse yet, again on both sides, for those that wound up in captivity.....
I worked with an older nazi a few years. When they were west of Moskva they hardly got nay food. They instead produced sometimes very bad alcohol and his kidneys were destroyed by that. He died in an ealy age by that.
@@jensholm5759 I also worked with an old Wehrmacht soldier when I was 19, living for one year in Munich, Germany (now I'm 74), and this guy was one of the few, I think 6 000 all together out of millions, that made it back home after years in russin Gulags, and he used to tell veeery interesting stories at lunch breaks, although unfortunately in my then age, I wasn't so interested occupying my head mostly with chickens🧐, today I probably would spent hours or even weeks with him just to hear those stories in details....
@@conceptalfa Its very interesting knowing about all sides of the the history. He didnt talk much about the suffering and figthings. he told a lot abpout nazisme and he had no parents. He was still a nazi inside. We had hotelporters uniforms - nice but old. But at Hitlers birthday and some of their victory days in east he he was dressed up nicely and even has a golden tire. And he was a nice person t me as well as colleges and hotel guiest and often got tips. Many would wish him as uncle or cousin.
@@conceptalfait's annoying to realize how youth doesn't understand very much. I went to lots of islands in the Pacific when I was 19 but I didn't understand I'd never see them again.
@jensholm5759 well the "nazis" had at least some stuff right. First to implement animal protection laws, banned animal testing, first to implement environmental protection, re-routed the autobahn several time to avoid destruction of critical wildlife habitats.
Some of the biggest reasons for the German defeat in Russia were: 1. The lack of intelligence and understanding of Russian culture and ability. 2. Hitler’s unwillingness to see past his on ideology 3. Hitler surrounding himself with political hacks and yes men 4. Their weakness in their logistics and supply chain, coupled with the vast wilderness, lack of usable roads and vast distances. 5. The underestimating of the will of the Russians to fight. Hitler and his generals thought all they had to do was kick the door in and the whole mess would come crumbling down. They couldn’t have been more wrong!
Hitler being unable to defeat England a hundred miles away, yet thinking he could defeat thousands if miles of Russia. Russia unlike England had huge domestic natural resources, as well as a huge population (ie manpower). A fool in logical thinking.
@@laulaja-7186: True, but the Russians were better prepared for it. In 1941, because of Hitler’s over optimism the German soldiers were not provided with winter uniforms, proper anti freeze or oils to deal with the cold!
@@barryb7682well, in all fairness, he never attempted to defeat England. It was finally in response to the firebombings of German cities going on for months.
Then Russia starts their counteroffensive two days later!. Trying to follow these diaries on google Earth proves difficult. Due to the pronunciation and the closed caption spelling of the cities and areas mentioned it is hard to find them. If there was anyway you could toss in a map or two in to show where these armies and units are, that would be great! I was able to follow some of the diaries from the western theater right down to individual buildings that were used for headquarters etc. My knowledge of western European geography and being familiar with the way French and German could be misspelled or mispronounced was helpful. With Russian geography, language and spelling, that is a different story. Thank you for the time taken and effort put forth to narrate these diaries. I usually fall asleep to them and wake up the next day and have to backtrack to where I dozed off and finish them. Beats counting sheep.
Time ago i read differents italian books, i'm italian, about the ARMIR, italian army spedition in russia to help the germans as a 'thanks" for the help in Greece, one of the division was the 'giulia" and it was an ALPINI division, it means soldiers trained and equipped to fight in the Mountains Alpi in North of Italy, but im mountainous terrain, they were sent there with rope and all the kit for it but to fight in the russian plane, they had shoes that broke after 10/15 days and the officer who had some money brought good shoes buyed in italy, becouse of the corruption, and th weapons were from first world war and before. just that it was a shame, an old man from my small village came back walking from bulgaria till Italy, helped from local partisan becouse they were good with people and fought too with germans becouwe were treated as shit, my grandmas uncle was prisoner to the soviet, they had to march many many km just to get tired without water and eating salty fish, there were bomb craters with mud and water and it was so a torture and temptation, he jumped in it and was shot, luckly not deadly but he just didn't move and stay to bleeding, fooling the guard, after time he drank and change his clothes with another death man there, and it came to his mother at home the letter that he was death, after 1,5 year he came back and near the village people saw him and run at his mother home to tell her to take the bike that his son is coming and to help him and pick him up, she didn't believe in it, but when she saw him there are no words. She had 4 sons in war and all came back, ill, injured and broke, this was the last one, all were prisoners. It was bad, we and the young didn't want the war, but the fascist obligated them or were shoot. I ear so many stories from he amd other that were brought in Germany as prisoner at Auschwitz after Italian surrender and I can't believe in it, but i do, those man were so signed about, they died all at 90/100 years old becouse all the hardship they lived made them hard as steel. One found his brother there as prisoner and dint recognize him but he told was from this village, and he said who are you your name? And he said i'm ulisse Mosca, and the other was his brother that were 3 years they didnt saw and knew about. Find him ther at thousands of km as prisoner in the ass.of the world. My god. They were so poor than the he had to draw his feet black with coal when he went to church so it seems he had shoes.
I read about Alpini and the story of their retreat from the front. And I belive it to be the truth. They were probably the best of Italian forces. Thats why Russians never thought about Italian soldiers as "the bad ones", like English and Americans did. Russians respected Alpini's bravery and stamina in the fight.
@@janezjonsa3165 an old man from my small village came back from near moscow to venice italy walking starving freezing but he came back, i don't know the numbers esactly buy very very few came back, thay had sommer clothes and becouse of corruption the shoes after few week broke down and had paper inside. My grandma uncle was prisoner of the soviet and he could escape when they were marching them for exhaust them without water and feed them just one salty dry fish, and marching near bomb craters with some water and people couldn't resist and jump to drink but were immediately shot, and he too but wasn't killes but he remain as still and the guards went away, ha changed his jacket with another one and when a body was foind with his jacket a letter was sent to his family that he had died as POW, he took 1year and 9month walking hidden and frim soldier from partisan, many people helped him with some food or a place, if the Italian army found him he would be treated as an escaoed soldier , the soviet would shot him, and many Communist partisans too. When he was near his village some people saw him nd rum to his mother to tell her to ho to pick him up with bike that he is back but she wouldn't believe it, buy once she saw him and my grandma would always cry about it, she went crazu from happiness
@@fabioxxx8513 my grandad was first blood Tito's partisan. Held in concentration camp in Italy from 41 to 42. They let him go, as he had tifus. Then partisans took him to partisan hospital Franja. Google it. He was wounded by Italian and then German soldiers, but survived the war. On the day of liberation, he was in the very same village, that I'm writing to you now. I live now in the same village, i'm 51.
Soon as I read the name I knew. He wasn't the best that they had but he was up there with the best. Russia combined with the British Commonwealth and the USA was too much for the Germans. But as one American General is supposed to have said, " you have never fought anyone at all until you've fought the germans"
@@karlheinzvonkroemann2217 it was General Patton who said this, trying to justify a hypothetical war with the Soviets right after Nazi capitulation. Patton was racist though and it probably influenced him saying this. Also Patton: “We have destroyed what could have been a good race [ethnic Germans] of people and we are about to replace them with mongolian savages and all of Europe with communism.” Patton’s personal beliefs undoubtedly aligned more with the Nazis than with the Soviets. I mean, the Nazis routinely referred to the Soviets as “asiatic hordes”. If the Allies had listened to Patton and went to war with the Soviets right after the Nazis, the resulting conflict would have been catastrophic for Europe. imo, Patton’s “wrong enemy” quote makes him look pretty stupid and brash, if the goal of the Allied high command was to end WWII as soon as possible.
The Germans caved as the western allies approached their western borders just as the French had done five years prior. Have you seen photos of literally thousands of well-armed German soldiers tossing their weapons and marching into captivity. Nobody, but nobody could compare with the soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army in toughness.
Interesting and informative. Excellent photography picture 📷. Enabling viewers to better understand what/whom the orator was describing. Class A professional research project!!! Special thanks to the " so called defensive genius ". Sharing personal information/combat experiences.Making this documentary more authentic and possible. What happened to pre invasion reconnaissance??? What happened to invading & conquering the main objective of Moscow??? Invading 30 days late. Turned the horse 🐎 & buggy infantry into a catastrophic failure. A wonderful delay for Zhukov to reorganize his demoralized forces. Secure Moscow's perimeters/defenses. Preventing Guderian from completing the original invasion plans to invade &reside in the Kremlin. The disillusioned leadership in Berlin. Didn't seem overly concerned about the predicaments of the German armies.
I enjoy all these narrations. But i find it hard to believe that these diaries are so detailed. I would have expected short bullets or brief details. I think there is some creative fillers. Also how did these ledgers survive POW camps and hasty retreats at the end. But nevertheless i enjoy these presentations.
Interesting that Heinrici was of the opinion that the Greece campaign thwarted the Russia one. Chances are but for that 8 week delay the Germans would have taken Moscow before the autumn rains slowed them down and then the winter cold halted them on the outskirts of the city.
It certainly set them back but even if the Germans secured the Georgian oil fields after their capture, they still would not have been able to produce enough oil to maintain European and German economy while prosecuting a war against the Russians behind the urals and the Americans and British and resurgent France. Germany and Europe simply didn't have the industrial capacity, it was majorly destroyed by German invasion and German socialist bloodsucking. The US and Britain had ridiculously more productive capacity, there was literally no winning all Germany ever could have hoped for was a negotiated peace which was never going to happen, especially after they invades russia
So much success and yet they lost. I remember a saying from a soviet series on Zhukov. "It is not enough to kill a russian. You must first knock him down." Don't know if the original russian version makes a better sense.
I've always thought that the war became winnable for the Russians when they decided that the Japanese would not attack them in the Far East and those troops were able to work their way over to be deployed against the Wermacht. The Germans had the numbers in their favor until then but they never would again. Many of these troops were part of the build up that became Operation Uranus.
@@paulstewart6293 LOL. The phrase is a matter of speech. However we are genetically hardwired to believe in a higher power to help us in a vicious and dangerous world , otherwise we would have perished as humans long ago. Just saying 🙂
If the Wehrmacht command structure would have been based on merit as in Imperial Germany instead of ideologically based the Germans would have won the war handedly. The neglect of winter clothing for ideological reasons is one example of this.
It would have taken longer, but the Axis forces simply didn't have the logistics and manufacturing capacity to compete against the combined resources of the USSR, the British Empire, and America.
Many silly remarks below. If you can read I suggest the books "The Chief Culprit" and "Icebreaker", both by Viktor Suvotov. You also may find the book "Polish Atrocities Against the German Minority in Poland" informative.
The second one, what does it mention besides Bydgoszcz/ Bromberg reprisals of 4IX 1939 against subverisves and 5th column, in forms of court martial and firing squads ?
@@brookeshenfield7156 More exactly about NATO encroachment. Have you been paying attention since 2014 what Viki Nuland and the US State Dept have been doing? It's NOT well hidden.
Col. General Heinrici is without a doubt the most capable, brilliant genius of any modern time wars tactical defensive mainly but also offensive when needed military commander ever to exist. On the other hand he was not truly a Nazi at all but more so old Prussian true soldier. Finally he he was by no means and in general did not tolerate the troops under his command and any point in time during the war to commit war related crimes towards his enemy combatants and certainly not ever to the civilian population he and his troops encountered during the war. That no means that crimes were not committed by his troops during the war but for sure never sanctioned nor allowed by him when event like this reached him. One of a kind. May the great COL. GENERAL/ COMMANDER HEINRICI RIP FOR EVER!!!
Here is a very good video covering Heinricis actions during the last days of the battle for Berlin (Seelow Heights). ua-cam.com/video/04ZErI4xf2Y/v-deo.html
There were roughly one million German + their allies army personnel in Army Group South most were heading towards the Caucasus with more than 300,000 actually attacking Stalingrad. Years ago the Russians admitted they lost one million soldiers at Stalingrad meaning they must have had way over one million army personnel involved in the battle.
@@ColinMor-fj3qc it's the name of the bloodiest battle in history. Yet all i've seen up until now is a bunch of soldiers trying to survive, instead of a million soldiers vs another million. That's what Stalingrad is suposed to be.
@@anandnairkollam Yeah, that's exactly what that means. When your logistiticans tell you in 1934, you can't win because you don't have the material resources to pull it off; and you go in anyway, you give up your genius card.
The Germans surrendered by the hundreds of thousads. The Japanese fought to the death and out am army of 130,000 on Okinawa approx. 7 surrendered. Now tell me again how ferocious the "Aryans" were". Lmao They were nowhere near as tough as the Japanese. 🪬
The Japanese military was arrogant and brutal and needed to have the hammer come down hard on them. Those who would surrender would have been killed by their own. They lost. Im just sad that so many innocent Japanese had to suffer.
"I liked to shoot women pushing prams": Secret Nazi tapes shocking Germany Horrific new transcripts reveal ordinary soldiers and airmen bragging about their role in the Hiler's atrocities Game: A Luftwaffe boss reveals shooting children was a sport (Image: Getty) 00:00, 22 Sep 2012 IT wasn’t their fault, has been the lame excuse. Ordinary German soldiers had nothing to do with the atrocities committed by Hitler and his hardcore Nazi henchmen. But now a disturbing - and at times horrifyingly graphic - new book has laid to rest the myth that only the likes of the SS and Gestapo were responsible for war crimes and acts of rape, murder and genocide. And the German people have been forced into reassessing their past. Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing and Dying: The Secret Second World War Tapes of German POWs, which is published in English for the first time next week, contains shocking transcripts of ordinary soldiers, sailors and airmen condemning themselves from their own mouths. We are printing some of them here to highlight how widespread the bloodlust was among German troops. British intelligence hid microphones among POWs at Trent Park detention centre in North London, captured every boast, offhand remark and sick joke about the killing of children and new mothers, women being raped and the mass extermination of Jews. The transcripts from tape recordings of 13,000 inmates over four years, form the most unique and bleak look inside the mind of war-time German forces ever published. Before the book by historians Soenke Neitzel and Harald Welzer came out in Germany, people there assumed that their fathers and grandfathers did not have blood on their hands. Monster: Hitler's role is well known ( Image: PA) But now it has become clear how the Nazi regime dehumanised so many of their own troops, they are taking nothing for granted.Soldiers speaking of the “fun” and “pure enjoyment” of killing civilians and fleeing troops litter 150,000 pages of transcripts. And while Germany still remembers the mass rapes when the Russians later invaded their homeland, it is clear they, too, were guilty of the same terrible crime. When the German POWs began to talk about their own atrocities in Russia - where 27 million Soviet citizens were butchered - counsellors were called in to give support to the translators. In the recordings one junior German officer boasted in October 1944 about what he and his men did to a woman they thought was a Russian spy… “We beat her on the t**s with a stick, clobbered her on the a*** with a pistol, then all eight of us f***** her, then we threw her outside and shot at her. And as she lay there, we threw grenades at her. Every time one of them landed near her body, she screamed.” From the tapes British intelligence learned how difficult the SS killing squads in Russia found it to shoot children. At first they believed this could have been a moral dilemma. Then one day they listened into a conversation which revealed the real problem... the children would not stay still. Intelligence officers who devised what became informally known at Trent Park as Operation Eavesdrop, soon began to realise the material they gathered was of limited military value but gave them a deep understanding of the psyche of the enemy. And the transcripts also reveal the holocaust of the Jews was widely known about among Germany’s 20 million servicemen. In one recording, POW Major General Walter Bruns is heard recalling a “typical Jewish action” he witnessed in Russia… BRUNS: “The trenches were 24 metres long and roughly three metres wide. They had to lie like sardines in a tin, heads towards the middle. Above, six machine gunners delivered the neck-shots. “When I arrived, the trenches were pretty full already and the living had to lie on top before they got the neck-shot. They were all arranged beautifully so not too much space was wasted. They had already been robbed before they got here. On this Sunday I saw a half-kilometre-long queue shuffling forward step by step, the line-up for death. As they got nearer, they saw what awaited them. Around about here they had to give up their suitcases and their sacks of valuables. A little further on, they had to strip, and they could only keep on a shirt or a slip. They were mostly women and children, not much older than two.” Trigger happy: A German firing squad in Russia ( Image: AP) Author Neitzel says: “The extermination of the Jews was known in the world of the soldier far more than recent investigations of the topic have suggested.” Other times, ordinary German soldiers boasted of contacting men they knew in SS units to ask when executions at this or that village were scheduled. Then they would take picnics and booze, and go along to watch for a grand day out. Again, the following transcripts make disturbing, often harrowing reading... JANUARY 3, 1941 FOCKE-WULF FIGHTER PILOT BUDDE AND CORPORAL BARTELS ARE OVERHEARD LAUGHING AND JOKING ABOUT THEIR FAVOURITE WARTIME ESCAPADES BEFORE THE FORMER WAS SHOT DOWN IN THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN AND THE LATTER WAS CAPTURED AS BRITISH TROOPS FELL BACK TOWARDS DUNKIRK IN 1940. BUDDE: “I flew two spoiling attacks. In other words, we shelled buildings.” BARTELS: “But not destructive attacks with a specific target, like we did?” BUDDE: “Naah, just spoiling attacks. We encountered some of the nicest targets, like mansions built on a mountainside. When you flew up at them from below and fired into them, you could see the windows rattling and then the roof going up in the air. There was the time we hit Ashford. There was an event in the market square, crowds of people, speeches given. We really sprayed them! That was fun!” JULY 14, 1942 The microphones, hidden in the wooden joists of the prisoners’ huts, pick up the words of an unnamed Luftwaffe Oberleutnant, captured on July 17, 1940, after baling out over Kent. PILOT: “It became a need in me to drop bombs. It tingles me, gives me a fine feeling. Just as beautiful, in fact, as shooting at someone.”
Today we are looking at the letters and diary entries of General Gotthard Heinrici. He was a Corps Commander on the Eastern Front. Enjoy, Ladies And Gentlemen!
Here is the playlist: ua-cam.com/play/PLyuEmb1VavZBKfl-N5nkxCZAmpIV1ORm3.html
It may of been very different 4 Germany? If they entered Russia as liberators rather than
conquers !
@@DavidSmith-bd8dd Yes, but it was a concius decision by the Nazis. They preferred to have foot and consumer goods at the home front, before friends in the Ukraine (beside the Ukraine nazis, which joined them in jue hunting).
After all, the war in the east was a war of extermination, for "Lebensraum im Osten".
@@julianfitz806 yes. of course u r quite correct but I can't help wondering what if
he was famous near the end.
@@DavidSmith-bd8dd Yeah, imagine Germany with no Hitler, no SS, no nazi party. Imagine Russia occupied by aliens from mars and then Germany "entered Russia" and liberated it from aliens. Yeah, that would be nice.
Everyone you just don't get better than this class of a
narrator. If he can tell the story in this particular diary and you close your eyes and you are there it is priceless.
He needs to learn how to pronounce German names. He frequently gets them wrong.
It's an AI narrator.
It's text-to-speech 😅
Lol, “he” puts me to sleep
😂😂😮
He eventually rose to command Army group Vistula at the end of the war
Nigel Patterson one of the best narrators ever! ...you guys should look up on audible.... Best German soldier dairy I ever read was... "Blood and snow"
Blood and snow was good, it was up on UA-cam for a while.. got me interested in all these memoirs
@@christopherroa9781 but in this video I did not k ow what book it was... Do you know.. The guy uploading these videos dose not like to credit source or give book titles clearly
Gay Brit being a British Soldier doesn't really work out well.
Thank you for doing all this. Heinrici is one of my favourite ww2 generals. I can sense how much respect he has for von Reichenau
👅👅👅👅👅👅
Really brings a whole other look on the war these first hand accounts are amazing would love to hear some WW1 diaries if they're any around
Napoleon War diaries are really interesting.
It's easier to just call people "evil" and leave it at that. Something the media and historians have been doing since the mid 1970's.
look up "a german deserter's war experience" on youtube for a ww1 diary.
@@myview5840 I'll have to look that up I like to see all the small struggles the soldiers meet in their day to day lives that you wouldn't even think of, really can't beat the insight a first hand diary gives
@@blorblor5438 thanks mate will give it a search appreciate it
For more details about Gotthard Heinrici, read The Last Battle (1966) by Cornelius Ryan.
Excellent narrative of the fall of Berlin. I have Ryan’s trilogy and appreciate them all. I believe though that of the three, ‘A Bridge Too Far’ is my personal favorite. Heart wrenching.
Amazing very well presented
Holy cow does it get dark at the end.. I really only study the eastern front when it comes to the Great War and every single time it never fails to shock me how gruesome, desperate, absolutely horrible it was. It’s unfathomable
100% the vastness of Russia (crushing logistics) and brutal weather knocked the snot right out of the most efficient fighting machine of the 20th century. The journal entries bring that to reality with great clarity.
I agree. It was terrible. What's really unfathomable is that we apparently haven't learned any lessons from that catastrophe! We seem to be on course to do it all over again!
Thank you again for organising your material into playlists - it helps a great deal. Very good content on this channel.
It's absolutely essential.
The weather for the time of year spoken sounds just like central Alberta Canada when I worked up there for a year once.
This channel is a gem.
Heinrici was such a brilliant defensive strategist - the premier defensive expert of the Wehrmacht, as well as an offensive mastermind. He was not a Nazi; a true German at heart, Prussian from birth. He was a Protestant and regularly attended church with his family which the Nazis hated. He was ordered to not attend but dismissed that and attended anyway. He eschewed everything the Nazis held dear, from the Party to their core values. He was anti-Nazi in his dress, preferring his worn WWI uniform and sheepskin lined coat, and he wore his button WWI leggings instead of jackboots which he thought were ostentatious and not field worthy, which of course he proved correct on that. He cared about his men, he was ‘Unser Giftzwerg:’ “our venomous dwarf,” “our nasty little man”to his men who loved serving under him because they would survive under his tactics. He saved lives, prevented extensive losses that other commanders expected and took as acceptable losses. His defensive positions for the 4th Army near the Orsha region in Belarus temporarily halted the advance of the Western Front against Gen. Vasily Sokolovshy, and during the retreat Heinrici’s troops inflicted heavy losses on the Red Army. He refused to destroy Smolensk by burning it to the ground citing he’d have had no routes for his troops to retreat. That got him booted out for a “rest cure” by Hitler at the urging of his generals. Heinrici’s 4th Army was all but destroyed after that. He was a brilliant strategist and an upstanding man; he just didn’t fit in with his Nazi peers, which was good for us, the Allieds. Still, I have respect for this man, for his talent and for who he was as a person. He was better than the Nazis. Heinrici was a cut above.
Thanks for this segment. I save all these but when I saw the title on the thumbnail on my homepage, I immediately knew who this was about. I’m as American as I can be, but I’m a Henrici fan. ‘The Last Battle’ probably did more to make that happen, Cornelius Ryan personalized the man so much.
I've read he was catholic? Is that not correct?
@@ike637
He was a devout Protestant who regularly attended services and read daily devotionals even in the field (he was ordered not attend church services but refused to follow that order).
I agree completely. If there’s any one man in the German military I can say I respect during WWII, it’s Heinrici. Idk if you’ve seen this video with recreated conversations with the German High Command, but it shows Heinrici debating with them on how to go forward. Really eye-opening for me. (Also it’s part of a series of really good vids)
ua-cam.com/video/8atAD-MSu5M/v-deo.html
@@fridayenjoyer
Thanks, no I’ve not yet, but I will. Much appreciated. Heinrici was the best defensive tactician in the field. Hitler knew that and that’s why he didn’t remove him from his staff though everyone else detested him and made fun of his WWI dress. He saved many lives and that’s why his men were so loyal to him. He’d move his men back a mile from the line in the dark, the Russians thought they had Heinrici’s army sighted for their artillery. They weren’t there, come morning, so they were blasting away at where they were dug in the night before. ‘Our poison dwarf.’
He served the Nazis and knew exactly what they were doing, ergo A NAZI.
Again , fantastic work , I’ve subbed , deffo one of the very best , military history sites on the net , 👏 keep up the good work
This channel’s entire content is from Panzer Ace: From Barbarosa to Normandy, an audiobook that has been free on yt for years.
I read once of a captured German general, held in UK, who opined that the drive to Moscow did not succeed because, as a result of the partition of Poland, Army Group Centre had to travel an extra 200 km to get there. Couple this with the fact that their Quartermaster General had told the General Staff he could not guarantee being able to provision that offensive beyond Smolensk, and then only for a force of two-thirds the size of that actually empliyed,
And after that some accuse Stalin why he concluded M-R pact 😅 As one modern russian historian Alexei Isaev is saying: without partition of Poland we would get Guderian in Lvov in 1939.
The drive to Moscow failed before it even started. Hitler failed in his attempt in defeating England which is a mere 100 miles away. Thinking he could defeat Moscow over thousand miles away was more than optimistic, it was delusion of grandure.
If he had hoped for the best and prepared for the worst... adequate preparations would have been made before starting the attack. They were not... so when worst case happened, fare was inevitable.
German generals are the most biased delusional people from the Second World War. Listen to their battle planning but anything else throw in the trash and set on fire
He was assuming, like all the other German generals that once they got to Moscow the Soviets would obligingly hand it over to them. Like most everything else in Barbarossa, it was based upon half-baked, wildly improbable assumptions and Hail Marys.
@@barryb7682 napoleon got into Moscow.
I applaud Germany's defensive genius.
It allowed them to continue fighting a war they'd lost for an additional two years.
Which enabled them to murder many more millions of innocents, Jews, etc. I lack your enthusiasm for their well documented defensive abilities. In addition many more millions of Germans died during that time period, so, lose lose for everyone.
It's gives you "Wood"?
@allanbarr6876 You failed to detect that I was being ironic. Yes, the German's "defensive genius" was nothing of the sort. It was curse that caused untold suffering to the German people and allowed the Reich time to inflict horrors at home and abroad that may never be forgotten.
@@Waltham1892 Well, the Russians have provided the world with a new evil to despise.
How! This whole story has the aura of 'famous last words' to it. There's the count down to General Winter showing up and revealing his affects. Then there's the count to Dec. 7, 1941, which it does even get to. I was on the edge of my chair listening to this.
Remarkable. Back when men were men and testosterone wasn't so low
A Competent General who would in a few short years time would be called upon by His Furher to Defend the Fatherland in its last Battle against the Russians outside the gates of Berlin on the Seelow Heights
Here to remind everyone that the Simpsons has been running longer than the Third Reich ever did.
I laughed at the soldier complaining about the outdated russian map. Some things never change 😂
try Google maps. You are welcome
What are you talking about?
This guy narrated “Blood Red Snow” I like his narration more than deeper “radio voices”
In what's seems like irony he was assigned the impossible task to defend the gates of Berlin that April of 1945 and then when those broken german forces failed against the Russian juggernaut, he was summoned to drive to Berlin where he likely would have been shot, save for his driver who persuaded him to drive to Plon and later surrender to the British.
I can't even imagine what the soldiers on both sides had to endure on the fronts fighting under these winter circumstances, pure madness!!!
Still, it must have been worse yet, again on both sides, for those that wound up in captivity.....
I worked with an older nazi a few years. When they were west of Moskva they hardly got nay food. They instead produced sometimes very bad alcohol and his kidneys were destroyed by that. He died in an ealy age by that.
@@jensholm5759 I also worked with an old Wehrmacht soldier when I was 19, living for one year in Munich, Germany (now I'm 74), and this guy was one of the few, I think 6 000 all together out of millions, that made it back home after years in russin Gulags, and he used to tell veeery interesting stories at lunch breaks, although unfortunately in my then age, I wasn't so interested occupying my head mostly with chickens🧐, today I probably would spent hours or even weeks with him just to hear those stories in details....
@@conceptalfa Its very interesting knowing about all sides of the the history. He didnt talk much about the suffering and figthings. he told a lot abpout nazisme and he had no parents.
He was still a nazi inside. We had hotelporters uniforms - nice but old. But at Hitlers birthday and some of their victory days in east he he was dressed up nicely and even has a golden tire.
And he was a nice person t me as well as colleges and hotel guiest and often got tips.
Many would wish him as uncle or cousin.
@@conceptalfait's annoying to realize how youth doesn't understand very much. I went to lots of islands in the Pacific when I was 19 but I didn't understand I'd never see them again.
@jensholm5759 well the "nazis" had at least some stuff right. First to implement animal protection laws, banned animal testing, first to implement environmental protection, re-routed the autobahn several time to avoid destruction of critical wildlife habitats.
I'd like to see a good historical treatment in book form of WW 2 German defensive strat & tactics
Some of the biggest reasons for the German defeat in Russia were:
1. The lack of intelligence and understanding of Russian culture and ability.
2. Hitler’s unwillingness to see past his on ideology
3. Hitler surrounding himself with political hacks and yes men
4. Their weakness in their logistics and supply chain, coupled with the vast wilderness, lack of usable roads and vast distances.
5. The underestimating of the will of the Russians to fight. Hitler and his generals thought all they had to do was kick the door in and the whole mess would come crumbling down. They couldn’t have been more wrong!
Hitler being unable to defeat England a hundred miles away, yet thinking he could defeat thousands if miles of Russia. Russia unlike England had huge domestic natural resources, as well as a huge population (ie manpower).
A fool in logical thinking.
Don't forget American lend and lease act to aid Russia
Shouldn't "Winters get worse the further East you go in Europe" be on that list.
@@laulaja-7186: True, but the Russians were better prepared for it.
In 1941, because of Hitler’s over optimism the German soldiers were not provided with winter uniforms, proper anti freeze or oils to deal with the cold!
@@barryb7682well, in all fairness, he never attempted to defeat England. It was finally in response to the firebombings of German cities going on for months.
Then Russia starts their counteroffensive two days later!. Trying to follow these diaries on google Earth proves difficult. Due to the pronunciation and the closed caption spelling of the cities and areas mentioned it is hard to find them. If there was anyway you could toss in a map or two in to show where these armies and units are, that would be great! I was able to follow some of the diaries from the western theater right down to individual buildings that were used for headquarters etc. My knowledge of western European geography and being familiar with the way French and German could be misspelled or mispronounced was helpful. With Russian geography, language and spelling, that is a different story. Thank you for the time taken and effort put forth to narrate these diaries. I usually fall asleep to them and wake up the next day and have to backtrack to where I dozed off and finish them. Beats counting sheep.
Time ago i read differents italian books, i'm italian, about the ARMIR, italian army spedition in russia to help the germans as a 'thanks" for the help in Greece, one of the division was the 'giulia" and it was an ALPINI division, it means soldiers trained and equipped to fight in the Mountains Alpi in North of Italy, but im mountainous terrain, they were sent there with rope and all the kit for it but to fight in the russian plane, they had shoes that broke after 10/15 days and the officer who had some money brought good shoes buyed in italy, becouse of the corruption, and th weapons were from first world war and before. just that it was a shame, an old man from my small village came back walking from bulgaria till Italy, helped from local partisan becouse they were good with people and fought too with germans becouwe were treated as shit, my grandmas uncle was prisoner to the soviet, they had to march many many km just to get tired without water and eating salty fish, there were bomb craters with mud and water and it was so a torture and temptation, he jumped in it and was shot, luckly not deadly but he just didn't move and stay to bleeding, fooling the guard, after time he drank and change his clothes with another death man there, and it came to his mother at home the letter that he was death, after 1,5 year he came back and near the village people saw him and run at his mother home to tell her to take the bike that his son is coming and to help him and pick him up, she didn't believe in it, but when she saw him there are no words. She had 4 sons in war and all came back, ill, injured and broke, this was the last one, all were prisoners. It was bad, we and the young didn't want the war, but the fascist obligated them or were shoot. I ear so many stories from he amd other that were brought in Germany as prisoner at Auschwitz after Italian surrender and I can't believe in it, but i do, those man were so signed about, they died all at 90/100 years old becouse all the hardship they lived made them hard as steel. One found his brother there as prisoner and dint recognize him but he told was from this village, and he said who are you your name? And he said i'm ulisse Mosca, and the other was his brother that were 3 years they didnt saw and knew about. Find him ther at thousands of km as prisoner in the ass.of the world. My god. They were so poor than the he had to draw his feet black with coal when he went to church so it seems he had shoes.
I read about Alpini and the story of their retreat from the front. And I belive it to be the truth. They were probably the best of Italian forces. Thats why Russians never thought about Italian soldiers as "the bad ones", like English and Americans did. Russians respected Alpini's bravery and stamina in the fight.
@@janezjonsa3165 an old man from my small village came back from near moscow to venice italy walking starving freezing but he came back, i don't know the numbers esactly buy very very few came back, thay had sommer clothes and becouse of corruption the shoes after few week broke down and had paper inside. My grandma uncle was prisoner of the soviet and he could escape when they were marching them for exhaust them without water and feed them just one salty dry fish, and marching near bomb craters with some water and people couldn't resist and jump to drink but were immediately shot, and he too but wasn't killes but he remain as still and the guards went away, ha changed his jacket with another one and when a body was foind with his jacket a letter was sent to his family that he had died as POW, he took 1year and 9month walking hidden and frim soldier from partisan, many people helped him with some food or a place, if the Italian army found him he would be treated as an escaoed soldier , the soviet would shot him, and many Communist partisans too. When he was near his village some people saw him nd rum to his mother to tell her to ho to pick him up with bike that he is back but she wouldn't believe it, buy once she saw him and my grandma would always cry about it, she went crazu from happiness
@@fabioxxx8513 my grandad was first blood Tito's partisan. Held in concentration camp in Italy from 41 to 42. They let him go, as he had tifus. Then partisans took him to partisan hospital Franja. Google it. He was wounded by Italian and then German soldiers, but survived the war. On the day of liberation, he was in the very same village, that I'm writing to you now. I live now in the same village, i'm 51.
Soon as I read the name I knew. He wasn't the best that they had but he was up there with the best. Russia combined with the British Commonwealth and the USA was too much for the Germans. But as one American General is supposed to have said, " you have never fought anyone at all until you've fought the germans"
One American Leutenant General aid "we fought the wrong people".
Yes the germans have won only one war againts the French, Two time losers!
Yes, it took the rest of the world to beat Germany. What other nation can say that?
@@karlheinzvonkroemann2217 it was General Patton who said this, trying to justify a hypothetical war with the Soviets right after Nazi capitulation. Patton was racist though and it probably influenced him saying this.
Also Patton:
“We have destroyed what could have been a good race [ethnic Germans] of people and we are about to replace them with mongolian savages and all of Europe with communism.”
Patton’s personal beliefs undoubtedly aligned more with the Nazis than with the Soviets. I mean, the Nazis routinely referred to the Soviets as “asiatic hordes”.
If the Allies had listened to Patton and went to war with the Soviets right after the Nazis, the resulting conflict would have been catastrophic for Europe. imo, Patton’s “wrong enemy” quote makes him look pretty stupid and brash, if the goal of the Allied high command was to end WWII as soon as possible.
The Germans caved as the western allies approached their western borders just as the French had done five years prior. Have you seen photos of literally thousands of well-armed German soldiers tossing their weapons and marching into captivity. Nobody, but nobody could compare with the soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army in toughness.
Interesting and informative. Excellent photography picture 📷. Enabling viewers to better understand what/whom the orator was describing. Class A professional research project!!! Special thanks to the " so called defensive genius ". Sharing personal information/combat experiences.Making this documentary more authentic and possible. What happened to pre invasion reconnaissance??? What happened to invading & conquering the main objective of Moscow??? Invading 30 days late. Turned the horse 🐎 & buggy infantry into a catastrophic failure. A wonderful delay for Zhukov to reorganize his demoralized forces. Secure Moscow's perimeters/defenses. Preventing Guderian from completing the original invasion plans to invade &reside in the Kremlin. The disillusioned leadership in Berlin. Didn't seem overly concerned about the predicaments of the German armies.
'The Russian is completely passive. He does what he is told to do'
Nothing has changed there. They are still dirty and sloppy.
And yet they didn't lose that war. Food for thought.
Not you think that was their choice,we don't want to listen to stupidity,that they lose and changed their minds.
I enjoy all these narrations. But i find it hard to believe that these diaries are so detailed. I would have expected short bullets or brief details. I think there is some creative fillers. Also how did these ledgers survive POW camps and hasty retreats at the end. But nevertheless i enjoy these presentations.
Almost seems as if they added details
Interesting that Heinrici was of the opinion that the Greece campaign thwarted the Russia one. Chances are but for that 8 week delay the Germans would have taken Moscow before the autumn rains slowed them down and then the winter cold halted them on the outskirts of the city.
It certainly set them back but even if the Germans secured the Georgian oil fields after their capture, they still would not have been able to produce enough oil to maintain European and German economy while prosecuting a war against the Russians behind the urals and the Americans and British and resurgent France.
Germany and Europe simply didn't have the industrial capacity, it was majorly destroyed by German invasion and German socialist bloodsucking. The US and Britain had ridiculously more productive capacity, there was literally no winning all Germany ever could have hoped for was a negotiated peace which was never going to happen, especially after they invades russia
Too many commercials
The genius Commander of Army Group Vistula
So basically, this is considered a video because you show a photo while reading a diary. Seems more like an audible book.
So much success and yet they lost. I remember a saying from a soviet series on Zhukov. "It is not enough to kill a russian. You must first knock him down." Don't know if the original russian version makes a better sense.
I've always thought that the war became winnable for the Russians when they decided that the Japanese would not attack them in the Far East and those troops were able to work their way over to be deployed against the Wermacht. The Germans had the numbers in their favor until then but they never would again. Many of these troops were part of the build up that became Operation Uranus.
pretty crazy stuff. of course, you need to read between the lines here. they knew everything was screened.
Taking the piss with the adverts.
What a terryfing window on such a barbaric age. God save us!
God? Being decent human beings maybe. We shouldn't need a hypothetical nonsense to save us.
@@paulstewart6293 LOL. The phrase is a matter of speech. However we are genetically hardwired to believe in a higher power to help us in a vicious and dangerous world , otherwise we would have perished as humans long ago. Just saying 🙂
Seeing these arrogant war criminals slowly turning desperate and realizing they themselves were the inferior people will never get old.
The general commented that categorical decisions are mostly wrong. Many of Uncle Adolf's decisions were categorical, and totally wrong.
Anything further? Or is that still coming?
Early December 1941 is the most interesting part of WW2 for me.
The greatest defensive genius in the history of warfare.
Complete rubbish comment. When events like the siege of Malta, 1565 are there for consideration. The Battle of Kapyong. Agincourt. I could go on.
Eliminated знаете восстановите оригинальный геном
If the Wehrmacht command structure would have been based on merit as in Imperial Germany instead of ideologically based the Germans would have won the war handedly. The neglect of winter clothing for ideological reasons is one example of this.
It would have taken longer, but the Axis forces simply didn't have the logistics and manufacturing capacity to compete against the combined resources of the USSR, the British Empire, and America.
The madman hitler defense lol😊
Ohhhh, yesssss 🤤. You did it again. And another full hour. You're scratching an itch i din't even know I had!
Many silly remarks below. If you can read I suggest the books "The Chief Culprit" and "Icebreaker", both by Viktor Suvotov.
You also may find the book "Polish Atrocities Against the German Minority in Poland" informative.
The second one, what does it mention besides Bydgoszcz/ Bromberg reprisals of 4IX 1939 against subverisves and 5th column, in forms of court martial and firing squads ?
When reading the title I thought it was Model.
Sadly, 75 years later, the EXACT same garbage is happening in the Ukraine.
If you mean warmongering then you have a point.
It's on a much smaller scale.
Russia are now the nazis
Thanks to the USA.
@@brookeshenfield7156 More exactly about NATO encroachment. Have you been paying attention since 2014 what Viki Nuland and the US State Dept have been doing? It's NOT well hidden.
you dont know. you were not there. I did 20 years in the US Army.
always good
The same English voice overall these episodes, it would better if he was German. If he can't speak English, I read subtitles.
If you want someone who can't speak English try an American.
Dem black folks built da world.
We waz Kangz
Hahahah the worst race by far
Col. General Heinrici is without a doubt the most capable, brilliant genius of any modern time wars tactical defensive mainly but also offensive when needed military commander ever to exist. On the other hand he was not truly a Nazi at all but more so old Prussian true soldier. Finally he he was by no means and in general did not tolerate the troops under his command and any point in time during the war to commit war related crimes towards his enemy combatants and certainly not ever to the civilian population he and his troops encountered during the war. That no means that crimes were not committed by his troops during the war but for sure never sanctioned nor allowed by him when event like this reached him. One of a kind. May the great COL. GENERAL/ COMMANDER HEINRICI RIP FOR EVER!!!
the thumbnail does not fit with this video.
Defensive genius? Couldn't tell considering they unconditionally surrendered.
1 man can't win a war by himself
Thats like saying napoleon was dumb because he got beat in the end
@@Linus1871 thats exactly what im saying, altho he was smarter than the German Military in WW2.
@@lenny9040 I see. 🤡
In Russia old father Winter always wins.
Diary of Unser Giftzwerg.
Whose this guy?
General Gotthard Heinrici, he commanded Army Group Vistula at the end of the war.
Here is a very good video covering Heinricis actions during the last days of the battle for Berlin (Seelow Heights). ua-cam.com/video/04ZErI4xf2Y/v-deo.html
Is it so hard to make a movie about a million soldiers vs another million? That's what the Battle of Stalingrad was.
There were roughly one million German + their allies army personnel in Army Group South most were heading towards the Caucasus with more than 300,000 actually attacking Stalingrad. Years ago the Russians admitted they lost one million soldiers at Stalingrad meaning they must have had way over one million army personnel involved in the battle.
@@alexbowman75821.2 million. 200k survived. Its staggering.
@@alexbowman7582they also lost 1milion men in the battle of Moscow, and the battle of Kiev.
Because even with the best of everything, they suck and their ideologies were garbage. That is why they lost.
@@ColinMor-fj3qc it's the name of the bloodiest battle in history. Yet all i've seen up until now is a bunch of soldiers trying to survive, instead of a million soldiers vs another million. That's what Stalingrad is suposed to be.
Too bad they don't LEARN
Einfach Schlimm...
👍👍👍!
Genius is a misused word.
letter from the "pure evil nazis"
Wehbros😂
o7
Defensive Genius? Who won? So much for genius
So you mean heinrici, manstein, rommel, hoth, model guderian wrre not military geniuses just because they lost the war?
Doesn’t mean they weren’t geniuses…was no possible way to win. Between the size of the Allie’s and there own terrible government
There is genius for getting yourself out of trouble, then there's a genius for getting into trouble.
@@anandnairkollam Yeah, that's exactly what that means. When your logistiticans tell you in 1934, you can't win because you don't have the material resources to pull it off; and you go in anyway, you give up your genius card.
He was an excellent defensive Commander, but unfortunately for him he had a boss named Hitler who tended to handicap his Generals.
What a choice. Bolshevik or Nazis. .Stalin or Hitler. Hitler as nuts as him and his military were seemed like evangelicals to Stalin.
Don’t forget another factor, if you are Jew or none Jew?
You're correct. Thanful everyday I was blessed to live and be born in America.
Senseless suffering.
Trump
The Germans surrendered by the hundreds of thousads. The Japanese fought to the death and out am army of 130,000 on Okinawa approx. 7 surrendered. Now tell me again how ferocious the "Aryans" were". Lmao They were nowhere near as tough as the Japanese. 🪬
The Japanese military was arrogant and brutal and needed to have the hammer come down hard on them. Those who would surrender would have been killed by their own. They lost. Im just sad that so many innocent Japanese had to suffer.
"I liked to shoot women pushing prams": Secret Nazi tapes shocking Germany
Horrific new transcripts reveal ordinary soldiers and airmen bragging about their role in the Hiler's atrocities
Game: A Luftwaffe boss reveals shooting children was a sport (Image: Getty)
00:00, 22 Sep 2012
IT wasn’t their fault, has been the lame excuse. Ordinary German soldiers had nothing to do with the atrocities committed by Hitler and his hardcore Nazi henchmen.
But now a disturbing - and at times horrifyingly graphic - new book has laid to rest the myth that only the likes of the SS and Gestapo were responsible for war crimes and acts of rape, murder and genocide.
And the German people have been forced into reassessing their past.
Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing and Dying: The Secret Second World War Tapes of German POWs, which is published in English for the first time next week, contains shocking transcripts of ordinary soldiers, sailors and airmen condemning themselves from their own mouths.
We are printing some of them here to highlight how widespread the bloodlust was among German troops.
British intelligence hid microphones among POWs at Trent Park detention centre in North London, captured every boast, offhand remark and sick joke about the killing of children and new mothers, women being raped and the mass extermination of Jews.
The transcripts from tape recordings of 13,000 inmates over four years, form the most unique and bleak look inside the mind of war-time German forces ever published. Before the book by historians Soenke Neitzel and Harald Welzer came out in Germany, people there assumed that their fathers and grandfathers did not have blood on their hands.
Monster: Hitler's role is well known ( Image: PA)
But now it has become clear how the Nazi regime dehumanised so many of their own troops, they are taking nothing for granted.Soldiers speaking of the “fun” and “pure enjoyment” of killing civilians and fleeing troops litter 150,000 pages of transcripts.
And while Germany still remembers the mass rapes when the Russians later invaded their homeland, it is clear they, too, were guilty of the same terrible crime.
When the German POWs began to talk about their own atrocities in Russia - where 27 million Soviet citizens were butchered - counsellors were called in to give support to the translators.
In the recordings one junior German officer boasted in October 1944 about what he and his men did to a woman they thought was a Russian spy…
“We beat her on the t**s with a stick, clobbered her on the a*** with a pistol, then all eight of us f***** her, then we threw her outside and shot at her. And as she lay there, we threw grenades at her. Every time one of them landed near her body, she screamed.”
From the tapes British intelligence learned how difficult the SS killing squads in Russia found it to shoot children. At first they believed this could have been a moral dilemma. Then one day they listened into a conversation which revealed the real problem... the children would not stay still.
Intelligence officers who devised what became informally known at Trent Park as Operation Eavesdrop, soon began to realise the material they gathered was of limited military value but gave them a deep understanding of the psyche of the enemy. And the transcripts also reveal the holocaust of the Jews was widely known about among Germany’s 20 million servicemen. In one recording, POW Major General Walter Bruns is heard recalling a “typical Jewish action” he witnessed in Russia…
BRUNS: “The trenches were 24 metres long and roughly three metres wide. They had to lie like sardines in a tin, heads towards the middle. Above, six machine gunners delivered the neck-shots.
“When I arrived, the trenches were pretty full already and the living had to lie on top before they got the neck-shot. They were all arranged beautifully so not too much space was wasted. They had already been robbed before they got here. On this Sunday I saw a half-kilometre-long queue shuffling forward step by step, the line-up for death. As they got nearer, they saw what awaited them. Around about here they had to give up their suitcases and their sacks of valuables. A little further on, they had to strip, and they could only keep on a shirt or a slip. They were mostly women and children, not much older than two.”
Trigger happy: A German firing squad in Russia ( Image: AP)
Author Neitzel says: “The extermination of the Jews was known in the world of the soldier far more than recent investigations of the topic have suggested.”
Other times, ordinary German soldiers boasted of contacting men they knew in SS units to ask when executions at this or that village were scheduled. Then they would take picnics and booze, and go along to watch for a grand day out.
Again, the following transcripts make disturbing, often harrowing reading...
JANUARY 3, 1941 FOCKE-WULF FIGHTER PILOT BUDDE AND CORPORAL BARTELS ARE OVERHEARD LAUGHING AND JOKING ABOUT THEIR FAVOURITE WARTIME ESCAPADES BEFORE THE FORMER WAS SHOT DOWN IN THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN AND THE LATTER WAS CAPTURED AS BRITISH TROOPS FELL BACK TOWARDS DUNKIRK IN 1940.
BUDDE: “I flew two spoiling attacks. In other words, we shelled buildings.”
BARTELS: “But not destructive attacks with a specific target, like we did?”
BUDDE: “Naah, just spoiling attacks. We encountered some of the nicest targets, like mansions built on a mountainside. When you flew up at them from below and fired into them, you could see the windows rattling and then the roof going up in the air. There was the time we hit Ashford. There was an event in the market square, crowds of people, speeches given. We really sprayed them! That was fun!”
JULY 14, 1942 The microphones, hidden in the wooden joists of the prisoners’ huts, pick up the words of an unnamed Luftwaffe Oberleutnant, captured on July 17, 1940, after baling out over Kent.
PILOT: “It became a need in me to drop bombs. It tingles me, gives me a fine feeling. Just as beautiful, in fact, as shooting at someone.”
Too many commercials