Who Were the Last German Holdouts in WW2?
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2025
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At the end of WW2, some Germans refused to lay down their arms and fought on past their country's capitulation. In today's SideQuest, we'll learn what happened to these stragglers and who the last German holdout was!
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Further Reading:
“The End of the War” by Charles Whiting - www.google.com...
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BRUH
I believe the underground is a bunker world I'm calling super pedo Island and I think it's more ancient than modern history and because they do black magic you can't trust reality 🤬
while i'm not interested in the service, I didn't click off the video because you were honest and upfront about the sponsor not interrupting the video itself, so i'll let the algorithm think I payed attention during that part so you can keep the revenue ^_^
You should do a video about the Battle of Castle Itter. Where German soldiers teamed up with American soldiers to protect French officials who were imprisoned in Castle Itter from the SS.
All Wars are Fake.
I can only imagine the Svalbard garrison receiving a message that states "Hey guys, we kinda lost the entire war so you guys better surrender or something" but then radio contact was lost and they just sorta got stuck there until some random Norwegian dudes saved them
It was more kind of sudden stop of (the already sparse) radio contact and they kinda figured it was over. But they had no means of contacting anyone just had to hope somebody would find them or pick up their radio calls
You can just imagine the garrison at Minquiers just across the way from the Channel Islands watch liberation come on the 12th and by the 23rd of May had to beg a French fishman to take them over to surrender as they'd been forgotten
All nations have dark moments......
.....but only Croats had child. concentration camps.
I highly suggest reading up on WW2 in the arctic region. Almost exclusively weather stations and some convoy raiding north of Norway. Basically the Axis weather stations were like the expeditions of way back, using any old ship they could aquire, loading up a few men, supplies and light weapons. Especially Greenland was a game of hide and seek with Allied ski patrols. Often enough these stations were abandoned, leaving behind lots of equipment. The son of a commander of one of these garrisons used his fathers records to search for the station in the 80s, and lo and behold, all of the equipment that was left behind was still there, preserved by the cold weather in pristine condition.
Werent there three of you?
...No only two!
*Wipes mouth*
Fun fact, the last German garrisons in Greece was allowed to keep their side arms and submachine guns for few days although they tried to surrender because the allies didn't had enough troops to guard them 😏
Basically the allies told them to watch out for themselves until they come back 😂
😅👍
That's funny
Well, with the war being over anyway, why should they've kept on fighting or occupying just to be killed by an Allied Counter-Assault later?
As strange as it seems, it made sense.
Same occurred in France when german POWs had to cross Partisan infested areas. I remember even pictures with Germans carrying sten guns while marcuing
I don't take 'fun facts' from yt comments
Last battle of WW2 in Europe took place in todays Bosnia, in the city of Odžak where Ustashe had their final stand.
@@tliltocatlalbopilosa1513 ja ustah a svi oko mene ustaše
Nisam to znao
@Ras Voja`s Rasta, Retro and Resistance to Babylon chetninks are not nazis stop spreading communist propaganda
Last battle could of been Castle Itter
Mi smo za dom spremni, danas život dati, jer svetinje naše, Bog su i Hrvati !
It is worth noting that the garrison on Bornholm held out entirely because they had already officially surrendered to the British with the rest of the German forces in Denmark, and were waiting for British troops to come relieve them of duty. The Soviets however came and demanded surrender, which the German garrison were not ordered to do to the Soviets (and given the Soviet way of treating prisoners probably desperately didn't want to), so the soviets responded by bombing... the Danish civilian population on the island, until the Germans gave up.
10 Bornholmers and about 200 German refugees died in the Soviet bombing of Bornholm. In the year of soviet occupation that followed, 30 soviet soldiers died; 21 of accidents, 9 of alcohol poisoning.
To this day, the Russians either immense artillery bombardment or intoxicating levels of alcohol
Man the last days of the war were just wild. A shame really that the soviets much like the russians today really coudn't be bothered to at least spare civilian lifes. Altough it's seems like the natives at least got some form of ... redemption
9 of alcohol poisoning 💀
@@thewalkingmeat8523 'tis the vindictive brutality of a traumatized, exhausted, and alcoholic society. Whole thing's rather sad innit
@@thewalkingmeat8523 as if the allies bothered sparing civilian lives, im a bulgarian and my grand grandma's hospital was bombed while my grandfather was being born due to the allies bombing civilian centers on purpose :)
Finally! He gloriously returned!
It's not a good idea posting this on a video about WW2 Germany
@@boyboilNEO9055 he wasnt talking about side quest (JUST A JOKE)
Right? I subscribed a couple weeks back, and binged almost all the videos.
@@electrogaming6090 🧓
He was gone?
I do love that Texel got a mention and Schiermonnikoog turned into "another Dutch island", can't imagine what a nightmare that must be to pronounce for someone that doesn't speak Dutch.
I noticed that as well. And as a dutch guy, I understand why he wouldn't say Schiermonnikoog😂
Out of curiosity, how is it pronounced?
@@thomasrinschler6783 you know, as: Schiermonnikoog ;)
apart from the "sch" it doesn't look complicated for an english speaker to me
@@VoodaGod the "sch" is not much different from a "sg", the tricky thing is the sharp almost gutoral Dutch gggggg sound.
Actually there was ONE MORE island in the Channel Islands that kept the fight going. Nobody realised they were there until a French fisherman came across them one day and they made him go back to the shore to let the Allies know they wanted to surrender.
Britain quickly invaded so the French wouldn't try anything.
Crazy stuff.
That island has the most southerly public toilet in the British Isles
"Scattered pockets in Yugoslavia,where things got a little to graphic for our show" that's a good way to describe it..
Average day in the Balkans someone usually Serb or Croat is just causally committing genocide
Any good resources you know that I can find out more about this?
@@SSwami14 you can find out about reprisal killings in Yugoslavia at the end and after ww2 on wiki,the Bleiburg massacre and Foibe massacre are among the largest ones
@@SSwami14 Battle of Poljana and Bleiburg repatriations.
Isn't that kinda typical for any conflict in that area?
The last holdout is youtube comments
Underrated comment
Jahvol
😂 and now twitter
Lol
Real
Hi hi! I've noticed a slight mistake at 4:27. Frisius DID return home to to Germany, but he DID NOT return to Saxony, he did actually return to Lower Saxony, a different German state, ironically not near Saxony in the East but in the North-West. So this map shown at 4:27 is actually slightly wrong.
I thought it was weird the Soviets would just let him go back
I already thought so - because he definitely did not return to east germany. The socialists would've probably imprisoned him for life
@@leoe.5046 I saw it and thought the same, so I did the research on it and found the above information.
@@ESB2109 this was my first guess, as lower saxony and saxony are often being confused with each other or treated as one
Extra context for that naming anomaly: When two areas are named Lesser or Lower variants of each other it doesn't necessarily mean where they're arranged on the map but generally the elevation.
Regarding Schiermonnikoog, even though the Germans on the island refused to surrender, the Canadians who were responsible for that sector didn't actually attack to force them to surrender. Instead, it took weeks of negotiations for the German commander there to finally agree to acknowledge and accept the surrender and the Germans were evacuated to Wilhelmshaven in Lower Saxony.
And before WWII, the island was actually owned by a German! The island was first owned by the Stachouwer family. In 1859, they sold it to John Eric Banck, who would own it until 1892 when he sold it to a German count named Berthold von Bernstorff (but its citizens and the island remained Dutch). He died in 1917, and in 1940, his grandson inherited the island. After the war, the Dutch government confiscated it from him because he was German. In 1949, the island became an independent municipality (the least-populated municipality in the Netherlands) and part of the Province of Friesland. The grandson died in 1987 and is buried on Schiermonnikoog.
To add to that: it was mostly the Dutch SS and SD collaborators who fled from the mainland city of Groningen who refused to surrender. The regular German soldiers feared these fanatics and actually diverted their AA-guns away from the coast to aim them at the farmhouses these loyalists occupied. It was a rather tense situation and most of the German soldiers actually díd want to surrender.
@@martijnkrol842my great grandfather was among those who fled to the island as an NSB policeman in Friesland and eastern front SS veteran. He escaped to Venezuela after the surrender of the island.
Bro I see you everywhere
@@ifyouseekay1000 x2
You should make a video on the Japanese holdouts! Some stayed in the jungles of the Pacific for decades as they did not believe that Japan would ever surrender
😑
That was just one guy.
@@ferretyluv more than one
@@rodracer4567 I’ve only heard of the one guy in the Philippines, where they had to have his old CO fly out to tell him that he’s dismissed because he wouldn’t listen otherwise.
@@ferretyluv There were several. There is a whole Wikipedia page on them.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout
My Grandfather was in Norway with the German Army. It was not a "diehard holdout" the patiently waited for controlled transfer of power to the Norwegian government.
no one said it was a diehard holdout.
@@EirikXL not a lot of diehards thankfully. Werwolf failed to take off, and most of the Nazis and Germans just wanted to surrender to the western Allies. Though apparently there was a post war plot around bavaria? With 80 men - unknown affiliation but probably ss is my guess but open for any info on it - to purge some 300 post war officials in an apparent plot of assassination , but was found out in March? 1946
@@EirikXL the dude said there were some in the beginning of the vid
@@Big-Eich-für-Parlament He didn't say the diehard holdouts were in Norway though.
Why are you putting that in quotes? He didn’t say Norway was a diehard holdout
Cool story: My grandfather was a Norwegian resistance fighter and held quite a high rank in his district in Milorg. At the very end of the war when the germans were getting pushed back in mainland Europe, my grandfather and his group of guys were tasked with blowing up a railway bridge that was heavily defended so the germans south of them couldnt leave Norway to get back to germany and defend the motherland. They had fought for years to drive them out and now they had to keep them in. They attacked the bridge and killed several germans in the process(my father has said that my grandfather apparently killed a german that looked like he was 16 years old at this place and it haunted him for the rest of his life) and set the explosives at the pillars under the bridge. The guy who set the explosives had done some bad math or something so the fuze was alot shorter than it should have been and he almost blew them all up. They were mostly ok , but one guy could barely hear anything for the rest of his life.
Im very proud of my grandfather, if you couldnt already tell.
May he rest in peace.
Possibly - my grandfather was about 16 when he had to join the army at the end of the war... at that time the Germans already let everything fight that was somehow male.
@@jacksabschaum4799 What you are talking about is "volkssturm" which was started because there just wasnt enough soldiers in Germany at the time(partly because of actions like the one my grandfather took part in, but mostly because the soviets decimated them). There wasnt any German soldiers in Norway who were 16 years old..Maybe some had lied and said they were older, but thats about it. He probably just looked really young. Also..being male wasnt a requirement in volkssturm
Of course He was😂 it amazes me how manys grandfathers where "Resistance fighters"...
@@vornamenachname1218 I dont care if you belive me or not..I know what the truth is.
@@vornamenachname1218in case you don't know: took a lot of people to fight in the second >>world
"Where things get a bit too graphic for our show"
Ah yes, classic Yugoslavia...
What happend on yugoslavia that it is too graphic for the video?
@@jairobaguio8319 Ustashe commited genocide that was so brutal that even nazis in germany were shocked. They were the only that had extermination camps made for children
Chetnik and pertizan terorist get their ass kicked
@@jairobaguio8319 Yugoslavian partisans did some absolute war crime on German PoWs and settlers.
(I absolutely agree the axis are the worse guys but unfortunately the Allies also have member factions doing some war crimes against civilians that maybe we should not just ignore, but instead maybe remember it and do better things next time
)
@@seijasukuna3978 based
After the fighting on Texel was over, the surviving Georgians were handed over to the Soviets. The majority were sent to the gulags along with their families, with those who survived only being released in the 1950s. However, in later years, Soviet attitudes toward the mutineers changed, and they eventually came to be recognized as “Heroes of the Soviet Union.”
The Japanese had holdout soldiers as well, but theirs lasted WAY longer! Most of these holdouts were either on the island of Guam or in the Philippines. The last confirmed holdout was Teruo Nakamura, who was found on Morotai in Indonesia. Teruo Nakamura was a member of the Amis, one of the indigenous groups of Taiwan. He was enlisted in a Takasago Volunteer Unit, which were units made up of Taiwanese indigenous peoples. The Japanese army actually declared him dead in 1944 after the Allies overran the island!
However, Nakamura's hut was accidentally discovered by a pilot in mid-1974. In November of that year, the Japanese Embassy in Jakarta requested assistance from the Indonesian government in organizing a search mission, which was conducted by the Indonesian Air Force. He was found and arrested by Indonesian soldiers on December 18. He was flown to Jakarta and hospitalized there. Because he was ethnically from Taiwan, Nakamura decided to be repatriated straight to Taiwan. He died there five years later from lung cancer at age 59.
To be honest, the germans would've probably had holdouts that lasted for just as long, if not even more.
god damn, imagine being found by a fighter jet or helicopter zooming above you, especially when the most advanced plane youve seen was probably some US fighter or a prototype jet
@@RandomOperativeRightWing Yeah I bet you dream about it huh
@@RandomOperativeRightWingNah nothing can beat the insane amounts of devotion and fanaticism of the average imperial Japanese soldier
@@CausticSpace tf?
To add to this the Nazis deliberately kept garrisons in Western European port cities in order to make sure the Allies couldn’t resupply themselves from the British mainland, even after they had been cut off. After D Day this policy was intended to stretch the supply lines and slow the Allies down in the process. It certainly worked in the short term so that the British, Canadian and American forces didn’t get to Berlin first, and that many resources couldn’t get to the frontlines so stalling many planned Allied offensives.
Tbf considering the cost totake those garrisons (mainly bombs) the ports wouldve been out anyway
Nazi is a term created by Konrad Heiden, a marxist jew, to ridicule National Socialists in Germany
In Crete, the resistance fighters there actually started attacking the British and the Brits re-armed the Germans.
Thanks!
The sheer ammount of troops in Norway its Unbelivable.
If only half of them were put in use of a very competent German general, probably the outcome of certain Battles or would take longer than they took,or even the Winner could have been other. In certain Battles. Like in Courland.
It’s because most of them were fleeing soldiers from eastern front especially from Finland
German ex-officer cozying up in bed on the 4th of September 1945.
“Now brain, be quiet, I want to get some sleep.”
*you left half a dozen men in the North Pole*
( ๐_๐)
Note: As for Yugoslavia, it wasn't the Germans that much, as it was mainly Ustaše (with technically the last battle in Europe during ww2 being in the town of Odžak in Bosnia, which was their stronghold) and some Slovene Home Guard units.
Ahhhh the Dambuster’s Theme. Sidequest is not just a scholar and gentleman, but a connoisseur of great music as well!
Love the channel! Keep up the amazing work.
My grandfather was part of the Kurlandarmee (in Latvia), they held out for a week after the surrender and he was a POW in the Soviet Union for the next four years.
Also Kaliningrad is cut out of the map in the video.
Also, describing the absolute bloodbath that the Courland Pocket was as a 'field day for the Soviets' is quite an overstatement... With Latvians on both sides.
Thank you for continuing these videos! Perhaps you can do a short about the time Napolean was attacked by rabbits.
Yes, that really happened.
sources?
I think this channel would do well to branch out and make some shorts
People asking for sources all the time are getting annoying. Just Google it you damp croissant
@@brandonquezada9523 it's almost like asking for sources has been an academic procedure for the past 2000+ years
It's Monty Python's killer bunny all over again
The background of Svalbard at 7:17 is spectacular! everything is ripe with detail from the bushes to the base.
Fortunate timing- I just binged some old episodes last night and was wondering when a new one would drop. Much obliged!
I was hoping you'd mention the weather station in Svalbard as it is quite a funny story (at least, as war stories go). The captain of the whaling ship was not a military man so didn't really know how to accept a surrender. And the Germans were just glad to be safe, with no hard feelings between the surrendering soldiers or the whalers. Some of the soldiers apparently met at the weather station in 2004. I understand the station is still just about standing even now, but in a pretty poor state and you can't go in it because of this.
You also can't go in it because it's under protection as a historical site, although there is no one around to stop you.
I guess it's the remote location that has saved Station Haudegen from sharing the fate of the other meteorological stations on Svalbard. The harsh climate and souvenir hunters removed most traces of them.
But Haudegen is on the north coast of Nordaustlandet, which has always been unpopulated despite being the ninth largest island in Europe (50% larger than Cyprus). It's far away from any populated areas, which probably is the main reason that it's still standing.
@@Crocophant572 I guess you'd have to be a very special kind of dedicated scumbag to know about this place, make the effort to go there and then deliberately damage it!
You missed the entirety of Denmark and the Frisian/Northwestern German coastline on the map of the surrender at 1:00
I think it's because the video starts right after Dönitz and the Flensburg Government signed the instrument of surrender - the areas you mentioned are what they held when they did, which is why they are usually shown as German holdouts. Whereas the other Nazi holdouts in this video surrendered hours, days, or months after Dönitz.
The Japanese Strongholds is where it gets interesting.
like that one guy who fought until the 1970s
@@fiyum333 imagine fighting locals for 30 years on some island in the Philippines to go back to civilization and discover all that technological development over those years, you probably never seen a TV in your life and now they're everywhere, you learn that the nation you fought landed men on the moon, and you see these strange cars in numbers far greater than in your day.
@@themenacingpenguin.7152 claimed to land*
@@polat4749 hope this is satire
@@themenacingpenguin.7152 It is not 😂 maybe americans can be stupid enough to believe whatever their goverment tells them tho..
2:32 A friend from my granpa worked in the U-boat bunkers as a "Funker" (radio operator) he didnt said much about his work there, but he could tell you everything that happend after they were captured. he said very much, but in short he said how brutal it was beeing captured.
It's nice to see a channel i completely forgot existed return from out of the blue, and still fiving us quality stuff.
Dear SideQuest,
I wanted to express my heartfelt gratitude for the wealth of knowledge you generously share on your UA-cam channel. Your dedication to educating and informing your audience has been instrumental in my personal growth and understanding of various topics.
The clarity and passion with which you present information make complex subjects accessible and engaging. Your commitment to fostering a learning community is truly commendable, and I am thankful for the impact your content has had on my curiosity and knowledge.
Thank you for being a beacon of enlightenment in the vast digital landscape.
Sincerely,
GulfDude
Rewatching this, the detail is immaculate, the pistol he had Hitler shoot himself with was actually a pistol Hitler owned. it was a golden engraved Walther PP. I'm really impressed at that small serial.
Return of the King! 👑
Woah! A new SideQuest video! i've missed you SideQuest
Hey dude, just want you to know that your videos are killer, but the quality doesn't have to be 110% every time. I notice each video you make has more effort put into it than the last, so I wanted to politely mention that your creative works do not have to be a runaway train of infinite perfection. Your first videos sill hold almost as well as your current ones. It's obvious you work hard on these, but don't work too hard!
Speak for yourself-I love that the quality of videos has been improving noticeably. I’ll take a creator perfecting their art over one who shovels content down the throats of their audience. Keep doing what you’re doing!
Instead of saying shits like this, thank him instead.
HURRRAYY!!!!
TODAY IS MY LUCKY DAY...
SIDE QUEST ROCKS!!!!
Keep up these great videos, it’s unfortunate how underrated and unappreciated this channel is but I love your work and hope you keep it up.
Glad y’all are back I just found this channel and was sad y’all had disappeared for a few months
Last battle of the ww2 was definitly in Odžak(Bosnia) where local Croatian population with few other remains of Ustashe soldiers decided to organise defense and mess up the Partisans.
Battle turned out to be total mess for the Partisans due to unexpected hardened defense and will to f**k up any partisan that advanced.
It messed them up that bad that all the focus of the JNA went to that small place,after 2-3 weeks,they brought air strike and won the battle with many losses.
There were very old newspapers that talked about the battle that put the shame on the own partisan army.
Last German Holdouts: The Entirety of Norway
What
4:26 He survived in East Germany? impressive
true, everyone in east germany died
@@benismannWell in more particular how he managed to survive as a Nazi Officer, after all I don't think the Soviets were really willing to keep em alive.
@@Justii218 A majority of officers/higher-ups were fine or hired. It was only low-ranking POWs or SS men who faced bad circumstances
you DID NOT just use the vine boom sound as an sfx for bombs exloding, i'm fucking dead
lmaooo
I thought you were going to talk about castle itter. A legendary battle. Nice to see a familiar face again though.
Thank goodness for the upload ive been missing my sidequest videos
Frisius did not spend the rest of his life in Saxony. He was born in Lower Saxony, grew up there and died there. Why the heck should he have moved to Eastern Germany?
Got recommended this channel just now, I cant believe that anyone enjoys the way he speaks
It's kind of funny how he flat out refuses to pronunciate the name of the other dutch island, due to most foreigners having difficulty with it.
And wrongly pronounced Texel haha
On one hand it's funny, on the other, he would probably have completely butchered it
I understand why you wouldn't want to pronounce the other Dutch island, but it was hilarious
1:59 🗿🗿
Ikr
Glad to see you post again!
At this point, i want to bring light to a very interesting detail at 6:42
The austrian flag depicted features the coat of arms, which sometimes is used instead of the normal flag, to avoid confusion with other flags, for example when hoisted like a banner, the austrian and the peruvian flag look practically indistinguishable, even for the citizens of those two countries, so austrians put their coat of arms on it for distinction.
Notice how the coat of arms features symbolism that the uninformed would see as signs of monarchism (crown), communism (hammer and sickle) and abolutionism (broken chains). However, this is no correct interpretation, as these objects merely symbolise the 3 estates (bourgeoisie, workers, farmers) at the time the coat of arms was designed (1919) and the broken chains symbolise the newly achieved freedom after WWII and got added 1945.
[Interestingly all 3 major political parties in austria challenged the current coat of arms, the social democrats wanted to remove the crown, the conservatives wanted the hammer & sickle removed, and the nationalist party, infamous for being founded by former national socialists, wanted to remove the chains. All 3 suggested adjustments got denied.]
We’ve been waiting for you!
2:05
"Bombing would cause too much colatteral damage."
*england sinks in its seat*
*America hides under a desk*
Germany stares at both as everything is burning and falling over
Gives one of those office-jim looks (can you beleive what i have to deal with)
I've been waiting for your next clip .. great stuff you offer .. thanks ..
0:55 What happened to Kaliningrad oblast on that map? Was there a huge specifically localized flood in 1945 I don't know about?
The last german forces surrendering in East Prussia on 9th of May, 1945.
Finally you are back!!!!
Very happy to see my home Island Schiermonnikoog mentioned in a ww2 vid.
Welcome back, glad to see a new video
TLDR: If you want to win wars, only hold places which are of strategic importance and have the means to survive a protracted siege for quite some time without outside help
lol ... in war you need to secure your flanks, some places will inevitably be "useless" which is the point. The enemy will try to attack where you are weak so actually being "used" means it was probably weak.
thanks, general
@@EirikXL yes, it doesn't help if you have 400000 more men on the eastern front if the allies can cut off your iron supply
The Germans fueled their economy by systemically looting countries and they were desperate for certain resources like iron in Sweden. USSR and USA meanwhile basically had all they resources they needed
If you want to win wars. Just hace more people. It's simple.
Side quest is back!! Love these videos
I love how they manoeuvreer their way around saying “Schiermonnikoog” (4:57)
They?
@@oellappen269 ?
@@wesselgreven6685 who do you mean?
@@oellappen269 The people who made this?
@@wesselgreven6685 ahh my bad
Glad you are back
Another side quest ahhh 😌
Just discovered your channel, i absolutely love the style!
Churchill when thousands of his soldiers and civilians aren’t dying in a bloody defense: 😡
Unconditionally the best historic channel on UA-cam now!
1:01 Why did you remove area around Königsberg from the map?
Ignorance by the author!
Smashing good post, SideQuest!!!
Fun fact:
The last battle of the war ended on the 23rd of may and the last German forces surrendered on September 2nd, in the most Northern island of Norway
Damm it's the day by day hoi4 guy
@@CelestialFwog
I'm pretty well versed in WW2
Finally another side quest video
No mention of the Minkees? Dr. Mark Felton has a video about these. People straight up forgot about the german soldiers stationed there until the last few days of may.
A case of " Hey hey we're the Minkies"?
Been a while since I’ve watched your videos man, well over a year I think. Good to see your stuff again!
Once again been a bit over a year haha
so apperantly my grandpa was one of these 400 thousand soldiers 5:12 .Like you said they were happy not having to fight. Also they didnt know about hitlers death prior to surrendering.
Finally! Another SideQuest video 🎉
The Czechoslovak soldiers (my grandfather among them) were fighting against groups of nazis in eastern Slovakia in the Tatra mountains as late as summer 1947. These were mostly Ukrainians, there were some Germans (mainly from Abwehr), they fought in uniforms of the SS and were under German command until the end of the war. Today we refer to them as "Banderites".
Would love to read more about this. Any reccomendations?
He is probably referring to Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which continued to operate around 11 years after the war, although in diminished capacity.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Insurgent_Army
UPA was responsible for an event which Polish scholars classify as genocide (as they should, it meets all the criteria), which entailed mass murder of ethnic Poles and other non-Ukrainians in the Eastern Galicia and Volhynia.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia_and_Eastern_Galicia
Thanks for mentioning that, I'm surprised the AI didn't delete that comment though. We're now supposed to believe they were always angels.
@@simonh6371 My answer about recommendations for sources was deleted, though. I do support Ukraine in their anti-russian war, but it is crazy that facts about the past (a recognised genocide) are almost impossible to mention because a western corporation decides so.
Found Russian propaganda: thinking Ukrainian Insurgent Army that fought against nazies as much as as against Soviets is somehow guilty for trying to exist is just tankies logic. I bet you are still glad that Czechoslovakia became a Soviet puppet for decades after the end of the war.
You are back! Glorious history awaits
I'm sure these videos take forever to create but I love to see you still creating content.
I was about to sleep but sidequest uploaded a video, so gonna watch it first.
dear god imagine being conscripted, being sent to Svalbard and then no new supplies for ages
For anyone wondering the music in the first bit is “Dambusters March” by Cotes!
Kaliningrad was missing on the map. I had to mention it. I am sorry for my OCD.
Otherwise great video.
This was a nicely informative video
Just love how he strategically chose to pronounce Texel in stead of Schiermonnikoog
Love this channel ☺
5:52 It's actually pretty sad that they weren't allowed to broadcast it back, because it would ruin the celebrations in the rest of Denmark. The Germans were told to surrender only to the Allies, not the Soviets, so the Soviets bombed the biggest towns of Rønne and Nexø until they capitulated.
huge skill issue on the ones who were telling them to surrender side tbh
Love your channel and your content! Keep on bro❤️
If anyone wonders what is the music playing in the background throughout the video, it's the The Dambusters March. Supposedly it's the London Philharmonic Orchestra version, as the other versions of the song, sound a bit faster.
ua-cam.com/video/baAqOQu7p7o/v-deo.html
Hopefully in the near future, SideQuest would be kind to leave credits to the music used or better yet leave a link to the music used. Major respects to the content they do, but at very least put credit where credit is due.
Great video side quest!
He’s back! I was afraid he quit making these lovely videos
It wasn't Dönitz who signed the german surrender. He just authorized it and have the final order. The official Surrender Letter was signed by Marshall Keitel, Admiral von Friedeburg and General Stumpff in Berlin in 08.05.1945
Just when I think I know everything about WW2 I watch great videos like this one and I learn so much more. I love your videos and I can’t wait for the next one.
Addition: In Germany proper the very northern part between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea north of the Kiel Kanal stayed under German control until May 8th.
When the German commander for the Northwestern front General Admiral von Friedeburg signed a capitulation of all troops under his command in the Netherlands, Northern Germany and Denmark to Field Marshal Montgomery‘s 21st Army Group on May 4, 1945, the British had just occupied Hamburg without a fight the day before.
After von Friedeburg’s capitulation they advanced until the Kiel Canal but did not cross until the end of the war four days later.
Germany north of the Kiel Canal stayed under control of the Reich’s government in the Baltic port of Flensburg under Admiral Dönitz who had not signed any capitulation himself, and local military commanders. Only after the official end of the war on May 8th the British advanced over the Kiel canal and occupied western and northern Schleswig-Holstein.
Why does your map cut out the landmasses of Kaliningrad and Sierra Leone
Thanks for another amazing video!
I was hoping to hear some about the werewolf guerrilla fighters!
From what I know that really only happened in February-April(before the surrender)