During the war, when Germany occupied my country, my grandfather was 3 years old boy. His mother was taking him by train to the countryside to her family as it was safer there. The train was boarded by some german soldiers. One of them, a young man, approached my grandfather with a smile and spent the whole time interacting with him. Holding him as they looked out of the window, making 'train sounds' as they didn't understand each other. He also shared some chocolate. One has to think how many of them were just average guys with wives, kids, and families back home. Longing to return to them.
"Sie waren alle Soldaten, aber nicht alle waren Nazis". "They all where Soldiers, but not all where Nazis". Take it or leave it. While many followed or where driven by the propaganda. I still think that not all in the Wehrmacht where bad. Rommel for exemple never really followed Hitler, he disliked the Nazi Party even.
I even heard that when the war and invasions began, many Wehrmarcht leaders complained to High Command about the actions of the Nazis, calling out war crimes and violence on civilians, also complaining that the Nazis basically just followed after the main army to just commit crimes and not really fighting along side them. Their complaints went unanwsered. Also Wehrmarcht leaders asked for the regular army to be kept away from the killing of civilians and not take part in genocide to keep their morale, clearly these guys didn't share Nazi ideology
The footage is from a german TV Miniseries "Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter" ("Our Mothers, our Fathers" the english Title is "Generation War") The Wehrmacht actually was "only" what we would call "the Army". The Luftwaffe (Air Force) and the Kriegsmarine (Navy) were seperate branches of the armed forces. The Waffen-SS was NOT a part of the Wehrmacht, it was a seperate branch with own structures, but sometimes W-SS Units were part of largen Formations including Wehrmacht Units
No you arent all accurate. Wehrmacht basically means defense force. Wehrmacht was compriced by Luftwaffe(airforce), Kriegsmarine(navy) and Heer(army). Later Waffen SS was instituted as the 4 branch with their own leadership and ranks.
Great reaction! It can really be seen as a sister song to Hearts of Iron. With this background the lines "Those who made it cross without a loss Have reason to reflect" or "Who can now look back with a sense of pride?" really raise the same question about how it must have been to be confronted with this after the war ended. By the way groundforces are called "Heer" (which translates to army). The combined german forces, army (Heer), airforce (Luftwaffe)and navy (Kriegsmarine) were called Wehrmacht.
@@ratrakksstar4420 You put all the germans in the same bag. Some soldiers dont have the oportunity to said i dont want to fight or they kill them and their families. Same i can said about the soviets when they attack Finland...
im haft russian and my grandfather he was 17 when he was pull into soviet army, but he became prisoner by the Wehrmacht after a year. A german officer was shouting some thing he didnt understand german, but he knew wasnt good. My grandfather said few german soldiers look hesitant by what the officer was demanding and my grandfather quickly realise him and other soviet soldiers were to be executed. But somehow by some miracle of those german soldiers talked the officer out of it. Instead they got question and sent to a work camp i hear its like the saying band of brothers veterans say "the germans are like us, just soldiers doing their duty" my grandfather he still remember their faces, two looked like the same age he was
really glad you enjoyed this banger mate,it ain't my favorite track from them for no reason haha,i might even dare say its their most complex song if we are talking about the message,the second world war was beyond tragedy,and this definitely includes the second time young german man got wiped out,with the first world war being less deadly but still massive. and what of these men? who believed or not believed in the idea of national socialism? what peace can they expect? i hope they did.
That time's mantra was "I didn't know". Not only soldiers but a lot of Polish civilians too because it was in Poland the big concentration camps was located. A lot of them did know but denied it. The denying is going to happen again. Not only to terrible things like what was happening during WWII but to other awful things as well and this is going to happen because so many don't know our history. We vote for idiots and we let greed lead us thru life. 🤓🇸🇪
also id definitely definitely recommend you check out the series of ''generation war'' whenever you got time free bro,the german variation of band of brothers is such an important and great series of what these young men went through.
The song talks about the soldiers, and what they do, then tries to ask the question "What about the men execuing orders?". This question is immediately overtaken by the powerfully delivered line "Panzers on a line", I think this is supposed to represent how omnipresent and overwhealming the Nazi propaganda was. The soldiers where not supposed to think about what they were doing, just form ranks and follow orders.... If you ever need a quick summary about each song, just look it up on Sabaton's site. You skipped over it when you googled.
No panzers were basically the hammer in the army while Infantry was the anvil and backbone. 1940 and onwards every division was comprised of some kind of tanks and warfare built around combined arms priciple were every division were supposed to be able to tackle any kind of opposition.
Victims of the time? Proud parts of larger goals? Crazy madmen on a leash? Or young men who lost their way? I think all of these expressions are correct for Wehrmacht...
About the knowledge of the Holocaust, for the Wehrmacht, it is a mixed bag, with many knowing about the Holocaust, many not knowing about the true extent of the Holocaust but knowing about the killings, and many who did not know anything about it. For the Waffen-SS, most likely knew about the Holocaust as any Waffen-SS soldiers who were wounded in battle were transferred to serve as temporary concentration camp guards. There is also the presence of actual SS concentration camp guards in the Waffen-SS. The 3rd SS division 'Totenkopf' for example was originally formed entirely from SS guards. Pretty much all Waffen-SS divisions had some SS guards / Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads of the SS) as officers, including 'clean' Waffen-SS divisions or divisions consisting of mostly non-Germans. A Waffen-SS soldier might not know of the camps if they were from divisions formed near the end of the war, but aside from that most probably knew. While many Waffen-SS officers tried to distance themselves from the SS post-war, in reality they are deeply intertwined.
Edit ghaa, i put Great reaction, on first line, but it somehow disappeared together wiyh the beginning of the next sentence, As we all know, /edit As we all know, sadly, this theme has repeated throughout history with different ideologies driving... sigh, even now we are seeing these things going on in several places and several ways, locking regions in economic debt, military action, propaganda, skewed elections...
@@najroe it's a tale as old as mankind itself. Human nature, it can be both beautiful and destructive. And as you said, the fact it's happening today in 2024 really speaks volumes on how well we take lessons from the past... Cheers!!
I belive he is talking about the average foot soldier, though that could go up the ranks a bit. Who all knew what was actually going on would be hard to know, where were they deployed? Where did they get to rest when taken off the front? What did they hear from home? What I take from the song is what are you going to do even if you do know? Your primary goal is to defend your brothers on the line. It would take alot to as a group so say f this and leave. And if you do what about your friends and family back home? Its a terrible catch 22. No matter whay you do right or wrong you are letting someone down. This in by no way or means is meant to support the overall "philosophy" of germany in ww2. I chose those words carefully to try and not get blocked or him demonetized. But im sure you know whay i meant.
The name of the german ground forces is Wehrmacht. Meaning if translated literally (defencepower) although (defenceforce) is more accurate. The name is ofcouce misleading on pourpose.
@@Clouded_ReactionsI just wanted to macke it clear because the Song is named Wehrmacht. Another thing: because you said the german officers cannot be included well thats short-sighted, their are many types and ranks of officers and thinking that all had full knowlege is sorry dumb. For example the rank you mentioned lieutennant ore in german Leutnant is a middle ranking rank so most would not know much about the greater plans of the military aside of what Was planned for their company ore batallion. Ranks that might know more would be majors, colonels and ofcource generals. Another very importend detail which you seem to forget is the fact that not so many regular army unit were orderd to carry out mass murders of civilians. Ofcource it happend for example in warsaw, and generally mainly eastern europe but still most of these atrocitys were commited by forces specially created for this pourpose. I ofcource talk about the SS and its military branche the Waffen-SS. I dont want to feed the steriotyp if the totally pure ore clean wehrmacht which has appeart in germany and other parts of the world after ww2 but still the ss commited most atrocitys because the high ranking leaders of the third reich knew that most soldiers would not carry out this mass murders.
@@DeathKorpmen999 me mentioning Lts and Generals were just an example of how not all officers with tanks knew about everything, same way that all officers didn't know anything. My point was how difficult it must've been to separate who knew from who didn't. Officers also talked, so even those that weren't privileged with the information were probably still informed in some informal way. I also stated that there were soldiers who had nothing to do with mass murdering on given orders, while others were. It's not black and white, there's a lot of gray area
During the war, when Germany occupied my country, my grandfather was 3 years old boy. His mother was taking him by train to the countryside to her family as it was safer there. The train was boarded by some german soldiers. One of them, a young man, approached my grandfather with a smile and spent the whole time interacting with him. Holding him as they looked out of the window, making 'train sounds' as they didn't understand each other. He also shared some chocolate. One has to think how many of them were just average guys with wives, kids, and families back home. Longing to return to them.
"Sie waren alle Soldaten, aber nicht alle waren Nazis".
"They all where Soldiers, but not all where Nazis".
Take it or leave it.
While many followed or where driven by the propaganda.
I still think that not all in the Wehrmacht where bad.
Rommel for exemple never really followed Hitler, he disliked the Nazi Party even.
I even heard that when the war and invasions began, many Wehrmarcht leaders complained to High Command about the actions of the Nazis, calling out war crimes and violence on civilians, also complaining that the Nazis basically just followed after the main army to just commit crimes and not really fighting along side them. Their complaints went unanwsered. Also Wehrmarcht leaders asked for the regular army to be kept away from the killing of civilians and not take part in genocide to keep their morale, clearly these guys didn't share Nazi ideology
The footage is from a german TV Miniseries "Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter" ("Our Mothers, our Fathers" the english Title is "Generation War") The Wehrmacht actually was "only" what we would call "the Army". The Luftwaffe (Air Force) and the Kriegsmarine (Navy) were seperate branches of the armed forces. The Waffen-SS was NOT a part of the Wehrmacht, it was a seperate branch with own structures, but sometimes W-SS Units were part of largen Formations including Wehrmacht Units
No you arent all accurate. Wehrmacht basically means defense force. Wehrmacht was compriced by Luftwaffe(airforce), Kriegsmarine(navy) and Heer(army). Later Waffen SS was instituted as the 4 branch with their own leadership and ranks.
Great reaction! It can really be seen as a sister song to Hearts of Iron. With this background the lines "Those who made it cross without a loss
Have reason to reflect" or "Who can now look back with a sense of pride?" really raise the same question about how it must have been to be confronted with this after the war ended.
By the way groundforces are called "Heer" (which translates to army). The combined german forces, army (Heer), airforce (Luftwaffe)and navy (Kriegsmarine) were called Wehrmacht.
Don't forget they have conscription so many soldiers don't want to fight for the Nazis only to defend the country and their families
Yeah. Defending them in Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and other places. Truly defenders of Germany.
@@ratrakksstar4420 You put all the germans in the same bag. Some soldiers dont have the oportunity to said i dont want to fight or they kill them and their families. Same i can said about the soviets when they attack Finland...
im haft russian and my grandfather he was 17 when he was pull into soviet army, but he became prisoner by the Wehrmacht after a year. A german officer was shouting some thing he didnt understand german, but he knew wasnt good. My grandfather said few german soldiers look hesitant by what the officer was demanding and my grandfather quickly realise him and other soviet soldiers were to be executed. But somehow by some miracle of those german soldiers talked the officer out of it. Instead they got question and sent to a work camp
i hear its like the saying band of brothers veterans say "the germans are like us, just soldiers doing their duty"
my grandfather he still remember their faces, two looked like the same age he was
You're very well versed on the most gruesome war in the history of mankind. It claimed 80 *Million* lives. Never forget.
Yea, some synth sprinkles and a bit of Latin makes a song even better 😁
and nice to watch you reacting to Sabaton! 👍 just add this to the other post:)
Nah, not a banjo, that's a synth sprinkled on top 😎🤘
really glad you enjoyed this banger mate,it ain't my favorite track from them for no reason haha,i might even dare say its their most complex song if we are talking about the message,the second world war was beyond tragedy,and this definitely includes the second time young german man got wiped out,with the first world war being less deadly but still massive. and what of these men? who believed or not believed in the idea of national socialism? what peace can they expect? i hope they did.
Covers....yes, especially the Doro cover!
Thank you for responding to my question!
the grunt soldiers = those who executed orders
That time's mantra was "I didn't know". Not only soldiers but a lot of Polish civilians too because it was in Poland the big concentration camps was located. A lot of them did know but denied it. The denying is going to happen again. Not only to terrible things like what was happening during WWII but to other awful things as well and this is going to happen because so many don't know our history. We vote for idiots and we let greed lead us thru life.
🤓🇸🇪
ex machina just means of the machine
also id definitely definitely recommend you check out the series of ''generation war'' whenever you got time free bro,the german variation of band of brothers is such an important and great series of what these young men went through.
The song talks about the soldiers, and what they do, then tries to ask the question "What about the men execuing orders?". This question is immediately overtaken by the powerfully delivered line "Panzers on a line", I think this is supposed to represent how omnipresent and overwhealming the Nazi propaganda was. The soldiers where not supposed to think about what they were doing, just form ranks and follow orders....
If you ever need a quick summary about each song, just look it up on Sabaton's site. You skipped over it when you googled.
No panzers were basically the hammer in the army while Infantry was the anvil and backbone. 1940 and onwards every division was comprised of some kind of tanks and warfare built around combined arms priciple were every division were supposed to be able to tackle any kind of opposition.
@@peo4989 I think you may want to read my comment again, yours make no sense.
Victims of the time? Proud parts of larger goals? Crazy madmen on a leash? Or young men who lost their way?
I think all of these expressions are correct for Wehrmacht...
About the knowledge of the Holocaust, for the Wehrmacht, it is a mixed bag, with many knowing about the Holocaust, many not knowing about the true extent of the Holocaust but knowing about the killings, and many who did not know anything about it. For the Waffen-SS, most likely knew about the Holocaust as any Waffen-SS soldiers who were wounded in battle were transferred to serve as temporary concentration camp guards. There is also the presence of actual SS concentration camp guards in the Waffen-SS. The 3rd SS division 'Totenkopf' for example was originally formed entirely from SS guards. Pretty much all Waffen-SS divisions had some SS guards / Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads of the SS) as officers, including 'clean' Waffen-SS divisions or divisions consisting of mostly non-Germans. A Waffen-SS soldier might not know of the camps if they were from divisions formed near the end of the war, but aside from that most probably knew. While many Waffen-SS officers tried to distance themselves from the SS post-war, in reality they are deeply intertwined.
Edit
ghaa, i put Great reaction, on first line, but it somehow disappeared together wiyh the beginning of the next sentence,
As we all know,
/edit
As we all know, sadly, this theme has repeated throughout history with different ideologies driving... sigh, even now we are seeing these things going on in several places and several ways, locking regions in economic debt, military action, propaganda, skewed elections...
@@najroe it's a tale as old as mankind itself. Human nature, it can be both beautiful and destructive. And as you said, the fact it's happening today in 2024 really speaks volumes on how well we take lessons from the past... Cheers!!
I belive he is talking about the average foot soldier, though that could go up the ranks a bit.
Who all knew what was actually going on would be hard to know, where were they deployed? Where did they get to rest when taken off the front? What did they hear from home?
What I take from the song is what are you going to do even if you do know? Your primary goal is to defend your brothers on the line. It would take alot to as a group so say f this and leave. And if you do what about your friends and family back home? Its a terrible catch 22. No matter whay you do right or wrong you are letting someone down.
This in by no way or means is meant to support the overall "philosophy" of germany in ww2.
I chose those words carefully to try and not get blocked or him demonetized. But im sure you know whay i meant.
The name of the german ground forces is Wehrmacht. Meaning if translated literally (defencepower) although (defenceforce) is more accurate. The name is ofcouce misleading on pourpose.
@@DeathKorpmen999 thanks for that but of info, I'm gonna react to the history later today xD cheers!
@@Clouded_ReactionsI just wanted to macke it clear because the Song is named Wehrmacht. Another thing: because you said the german officers cannot be included well thats short-sighted, their are many types and ranks of officers and thinking that all had full knowlege is sorry dumb. For example the rank you mentioned lieutennant ore in german Leutnant is a middle ranking rank so most would not know much about the greater plans of the military aside of what Was planned for their company ore batallion. Ranks that might know more would be majors, colonels and ofcource generals. Another very importend detail which you seem to forget is the fact that not so many regular army unit were orderd to carry out mass murders of civilians. Ofcource it happend for example in warsaw, and generally mainly eastern europe but still most of these atrocitys were commited by forces specially created for this pourpose. I ofcource talk about the SS and its military branche the Waffen-SS. I dont want to feed the steriotyp if the totally pure ore clean wehrmacht which has appeart in germany and other parts of the world after ww2 but still the ss commited most atrocitys because the high ranking leaders of the third reich knew that most soldiers would not carry out this mass murders.
@@DeathKorpmen999 me mentioning Lts and Generals were just an example of how not all officers with tanks knew about everything, same way that all officers didn't know anything. My point was how difficult it must've been to separate who knew from who didn't. Officers also talked, so even those that weren't privileged with the information were probably still informed in some informal way. I also stated that there were soldiers who had nothing to do with mass murdering on given orders, while others were. It's not black and white, there's a lot of gray area
@@Clouded_Reactions yes I agree
Allies were not better than the Axis